So, if you don't know what it is, Lao is the official language of the Asian country of Laos. Because it has tones, I figured I could make it like a Chinese voicebank. The only thing is, there are beginning sounds that would possibly need their own notes, such as "ph" like in "phai." How can I do that without making the voicebank full of strings?
Unless it's traditional music, linguistic tones are generally disregarded entirely when it comes to singing. (This is why Chinese music videos always include subtitles.) I'm not familiar with the language, but you'd probably be better off writing a reclist from scratch than trying to edit one for a different language, if you're making your own voicebank.
This section of the article lists out phonemes (sounds) and phonotactics (rules for arranging sounds). Using that, a basic reclist can be constructed, and then it can be further refined through your own knowledge, research, and testing.
The article mentions that it's phonetically similar to Thai- perhaps you could try to find UTAU work in that language and see if it's helpful.
I know someone who speaks Lao natively, but I lost any way to contact her. I do have a friend through which I can get in touch, but updates on the project would be very slow.
So, if you don't know what it is, Lao is the official language of the Asian country of Laos. Because it has tones, I figured I could make it like a Chinese voicebank. The only thing is, there are beginning sounds that would possibly need their own notes, such as "ph" like in "phai." How can I do that without making the voicebank full of strings?
One Lao CVVC reclist coming up. I wrote it in X-SAMPA, with notes on some specific pronunciations. If you remove the notes, the reclist is Oremo compatible. I didn't include vowel blends or glottal stops, since those are pretty tricky, espeically labialized glottal stops; I've never even SEEN those before, but I was eventually able to get the hang of pronouncing them. Regardless, they can be achieved through using rests in USTs so aren't really nessisary as core recordings.
Other than a few unusual sounds for English speakers, Lao is pretty basic phonetically. It doesn't really have any consonant clusters (unless you count the voiceless alveo-palatal affricate), and the vowels, labialized consonants, and diphthongs ending in schwas are fairly easy to get used to.
Now, I likely will never use this list since I haven't the foggiest idea about the cadence nor the grammar of the language, but it was fun to make. I'd be curious to see the results of anyone who tests it.
(Quoting that just crashed Firefox, so I won't quote it.)
Thank you!
I just need to find someone willing to voice them who also speaks the language decently.
I don't speak it great, but I can remember simple phrases like,"sabaidee ton laeng" meaning "good afternoon."
So, if you don't know what it is, Lao is the official language of the Asian country of Laos. Because it has tones, I figured I could make it like a Chinese voicebank. The only thing is, there are beginning sounds that would possibly need their own notes, such as "ph" like in "phai." How can I do that without making the voicebank full of strings?
It's the first ever Lao voicebank, so I strongly recommend you to contact a cultural association between your country and Laos. They could suggest someone!