Macnes! Tell me about them!

[KitWistful]

Hey, I've recently become aware that Macnes are a thing. I did some searching around, got very little infos, and since I'm a weird sort who would want to use them for weird things I figure making a topic is justified (and I'm hoping this is the right forum, haaaaahahaha).

- Is a commercial license for Macnes apart of their 980/1980 yen pricetag?
- Is it true that Nana Macne Petite has a more "womanly" voice than Nana Macne? (I can only find high-pitched covers OTZ)
- I have a windows computer, and I'll likely be using UTAU to "toll" (or whatever the term is). It seems I'm going to have to do a little work to get them going. Will I have to convert each file to .WAV individually, or is there a utility that will convert all of them for me? And are there any good pre-made otos out there or am I better off otoing myself? (If it's gonna be screwed up either way, I'd rather it be my fault XD)
- It seems that out of the ladies, Macne Coco Kuro and Macne Petite must have the lowest ranges. Are these or other lady Macnes comfortable in C3 range?
- How well do lady Macnes genderbend? I'd prefer a deeper voice, which, I know, is asking for a little much XD
- How well do the Macnes engrish? Do they have any extra syllables?
- How is their japanese pronunciation?

Right now I'm in love with Macne Coco Black, so I guess these questions are mostly pertaining to her...I'll gladly pick up others that are good in C3/C4 range as well, however (depending on how much of a pain in the ass it is to get it running on Windows UTAU).

Any info is appreciated! ^w^

 

[stormylullaby]

I can only answer some of your questions, considering I don't know much myself D:

Macnes use .AIFF files, which are accepted in UTAU, so you don't have to convert the samples to .WAVs. Sometimes UTAU might not recognize them for some reason, so you might have to convert them anyway, but you shouldn't have to.
I suggest doing the OTO yourself. Those who own them usually do it themselves & probably won't give you their OTOs, unless you ask nicely. Depending on which one you get, the OTOs shouldn't be too difficult cos they're pretty quality.
I think Coco Kuro is the best in the lower ranges. IMO, she also has the nicest voice out of the Macne ladies, & her range seems incredible, albeit with some work.
Nana genderbends pretty well, if I do say so myself, even though she kinda derps below C4, but I've just used the default resampler with her. Coco Kuro shouldn't be too difficult to genderbend since she's a lower range anyway, plus won't sound as derp.
They don't have any extra syllables D: or at least the banks I have don't. Nana is a basic Japanese CV bank with a lower octave shift. Also, I feel their Engrish is really hard to get out. Then again, if you buy Nana's 2S bank, it might be different, I dunno.
Their pronunciation is pretty good actually. Nana's got those 'r's that sound like 'l's, but if you're more interested in Coco Kuro, her pronunciation is good. Her 'r's are less like 'l's, but still there.

So uh, I concur with your love for Coco Kuro, & suggest you get her ^^. I should add that all the Macnes need some definite editing in UTAU to sound good. Granted, they sound better than they would in Garageband, but flags & different resamplers galore when using them.

 

[KitWistful]

I can only answer some of your questions, considering I don't know much myself D:

Macnes use .AIFF files, which are accepted in UTAU, so you don't have to convert the samples to .WAVs. Sometimes UTAU might not recognize them for some reason, so you might have to convert them anyway, but you shouldn't have to.
I suggest doing the OTO yourself. Those who own them usually do it themselves & probably won't give you their OTOs, unless you ask nicely. Depending on which one you get, the OTOs shouldn't be too difficult cos they're pretty quality.
I think Coco Kuro is the best in the lower ranges. IMO, she also has the nicest voice out of the Macne ladies, & her range seems incredible, albeit with some work.
Nana genderbends pretty well, if I do say so myself, even though she kinda derps below C4, but I've just used the default resampler with her. Coco Kuro shouldn't be too difficult to genderbend since she's a lower range anyway, plus won't sound as derp.
They don't have any extra syllables D: or at least the banks I have don't. Nana is a basic Japanese CV bank with a lower octave shift. Also, I feel their Engrish is really hard to get out. Then again, if you buy Nana's 2S bank, it might be different, I dunno.
Their pronunciation is pretty good actually. Nana's got those 'r's that sound like 'l's, but if you're more interested in Coco Kuro, her pronunciation is good. Her 'r's are less like 'l's, but still there.

So uh, I concur with your love for Coco Kuro, & suggest you get her ^^. I should add that all the Macnes need some definite editing in UTAU to sound good. Granted, they sound better than they would in Garageband, but flags & different resamplers galore when using them.

Ah! Thanks~~ I think I'll pick up Coco Kuro when I get paid and if I like working with her I might pick up Sasayaki...hmmmm.

It's good to know that UTAU takes .aiff. I hope it works for a PC...do you use a PC when you're working with Nana?

 

[shinami]

Actually, recently The creators of the Macnes have realized that they're more commonly used as UTAUs. I don't know if they're released in .WAV format, but I know that from Sasayaki on they are available as UTAU voicebanks. though i also hear their otos are terrible

If you're looking for a male Macne, there's Pap Papa needs more love.

I really don't think Petite is womanly - she's supposed to be more childish. Though I suppose plenty of g factor could achieve it.

 

[KitWistful]

Actually, recently The creators of the Macnes have realized that they're more commonly used as UTAUs. I don't know if they're released in .WAV format, but I know that from Sasayaki on they are available as UTAU voicebanks. though i also hear their otos are terrible

If you're looking for a male Macne, there's Pap Papa needs more love.

I really don't think Petite is womanly - she's supposed to be more childish. Though I suppose plenty of g factor could achieve it.

The "womanly" thing is stated on her UTAU entry. I couldn't find any songs that represented her as such, so I think it must have been a lie, ahaha.

Most people would tend to think that Petit Nana Macne would have the rather high, chibi voice that is rarely seen other than the more womanly voice, however it is the opposite, as Nana Macne Petit has the more womanly voice.

I didn't see Papa up for sale. I haven't heard his voice before, his design scared me off a little XD I might have to suck it up though, if I see him for sale again. I've needed a mature male voicebank...

I've never oto'd myself, but I have an idea of how it works...Maybe, if my Macne comes with an terrible oto, I'll just adjust it on the fly...there's sure to be a few guides around here, too >_>

 

[stormylullaby]

Ah! Thanks~~ I think I'll pick up Coco Kuro when I get paid and if I like working with her I might pick up Sasayaki...hmmmm.

It's good to know that UTAU takes .aiff. I hope it works for a PC...do you use a PC when you're working with Nana?

Hurr durr, late reply, but yeah, I use Nana on a PC. She works pretty decently, & I don't have any trouble with her, but my friend tried to use her on a PC once & she wouldn't work for some reason. It could've been UTAU itself, but I dunno.

 

[Asteriski]

Never worked with the Macnes, but if you get Coco Kuro, please post stuff with her. Her voice is fabulous and we need more of it.

 

[KitWistful]

Never worked with the Macnes, but if you get Coco Kuro, please post stuff with her. Her voice is fabulous and we need more of it.

Can do! Hahahaha

Well I'll try anyways I barely ever finish anything

[quote author=KitWistful link=topic=1380.msg10160#msg10160 date=1334176787]

Ah! Thanks~~ I think I'll pick up Coco Kuro when I get paid and if I like working with her I might pick up Sasayaki...hmmmm.

It's good to know that UTAU takes .aiff. I hope it works for a PC...do you use a PC when you're working with Nana?

Hurr durr, late reply, but yeah, I use Nana on a PC. She works pretty decently, & I don't have any trouble with her, but my friend tried to use her on a PC once & she wouldn't work for some reason. It could've been UTAU itself, but I dunno.
[/quote]

I looked into it a little more, and it looks like windows (maybe it's certain versions?) has trouble processing file extensions with more than 3 characters. However, the files can be renamed to .aif and will work perfectly fine...I don't know if UTAU will still take them that way? I guess if it has the functionality for .aiff it'd have the power to .aif as well, especially considering that it's a windows program.

 

[Dojan]

At the risk of bumping a thread, not all resamplers can handle .aiff files, so you may need to convert them to wave format anyway. The only resampler I managed to process Nana Macne 2S' samples was resampler.exe, and I don't particularly like that resampler.
You can however use Audacity to batch convert from aiff to wav files, it doesn't take more than a minute or so to process all the files, then obviously you'll have to replace all the occurences of aiff in the oto.ini file with wav, and it'll work fine.
One drawback is that you'll either have to rename the frequency-maps from .aiff to .wav, or remap the entire bank (which may take a while considering that the bank has roughly 300 5~ second samples).

 

[KitWistful]

At the risk of bumping a thread, not all resamplers can handle .aiff files, so you may need to convert them to wave format anyway. The only resampler I managed to process Nana Macne 2S' samples was resampler.exe, and I don't particularly like that resampler.
You can however use Audacity to batch convert from aiff to wav files, it doesn't take more than a minute or so to process all the files, then obviously you'll have to replace all the occurences of aiff in the oto.ini file with wav, and it'll work fine.
One drawback is that you'll either have to rename the frequency-maps from .aiff to .wav, or remap the entire bank (which may take a while considering that the bank has roughly 300 5~ second samples).

Ah! That's good to know. I'll stay vigilant for any utilities that will convert automatically, even if it's unlikely. Hey, even if there isn't, a bit of elbow grease never hurt anyone, I guess ^^ (Might as well explore UTAU's insides a bit. Those echoing catacombs~~)

 

[Dojan]

As I said, Audacity can convert the aiff files to wave files automatically (batch processing; performing one or more tasks on multiple files simultaneously), it'll just take a minute or two.
As for batch renaming a quick google search resulted in this. You can replace .aiff with .wav in the oto file using word-pad.

 

[Zelfie Windwalker]

Not sure if I should post this here, but I didn't want to make another thread :/

Basically, from the covers and samples I've heard using Nana 2S, she doesn't seem as...mature as original Nana. Or maybe it's just the songs I've heard using her.

Does anyone have Nana 2S that can tell me if this is true or not?

 

[Dojan]

Nana 2S doesn't sound particularly mature. She's not on par with say Mew or Iroha.
Her low notes aren't as squeaky as Miku however.
Nana 2S comes in three octaves (with roughly 300 samples each about 5 seconds long).

 

[Zelfie Windwalker]

Thanks for the reply, but that wasn't what I was asking. Sorry if I made it confusing.

I'm asking for a comparison between Nana 2S and original Nana in terms of how mature they sound.

 

[stormylullaby]

Thanks for the reply, but that wasn't what I was asking. Sorry if I made it confusing.

I'm asking for a comparison between Nana 2S and original Nana in terms of how mature they sound.

From what I've heard, Nana 2S sounds less mature than original Nana, however Nana 2S does have the lower octave shift that makes her a bit more mature. Personally, I like original Nana's mature sound :x

 

[MystSaphyr]

Both of the 2S's are breathier and cutesier than their original counterparts, so I'd reeeeally consider them more of an append than anything. Though, on the flipside, they do sound slightly more realistic: Original Nana's samples were so short, pronounced slightly strangely, and had only one pitch, giving Nana a very characteristic "throatiness" to her voice. 2S Nana lost that completely.

I have both and I love using both, though I've yet to post anything with Nana 2S yet.