Native English VBs or Other Language VBs?

[Zoku]

So I am curious as to what people think. If you were going to make a cover, song, etc, and it was going to be in English, which do you think would sound better: a native English voicebank or a foreign language voicebank that has extra recordings to accomodate other languages (like MAIKA)?

I was discussing this with another user, and they argued that many non English Vocaloids (like MAIKA) would sound better at English sounds than VCCV English UTAU. I said that I would think native English UTAU from native speakers would be better.

I was curious to what others think (as they said that many others agree with them), and why they would think that. You can be free to use examples and don't need to restrict the discussion to UTAU.. But it should be mainly UTAU.

 

[Kiyoteru]

If I was simply choosing a voice for no particular reason other than needing to have a vocalist, then I would certainly opt for a native english voicebank.
However, if I wanted to use a particular voicebank for a certain reason, and it wasn't english-native, then I would have no qualms working with it.

 

[Paradoxelle]

I think MAIKA has more flexibility than Cz's VCCV English list, and I like her voice more than *most* banks that happen to be VCCV but a native bank is ideal: however, in terms of 'sounding better' this comes to taste and the voice types available natively and non-natively... like Cyva is native but I prefer GUMI's voice, or Iroha's voice to hers, even though she has the correct phonemes.

MAIKA had 4(r) before this new wave of V4 American English t-flapping Vocaloid's hit us; she had e and @ and thus had [e @] basically the equivalent of using [a I] instead of [aI] when compared to DDR's [e@] zero phoneme. She had R/rr[r] for Spanish of course, reviving the ability for a Vocaloid to sing a trilled r in English. You can get pretty close to not pure {, but at least { that sounds like some English's bank samples with [E @], and [e] is a great alt for /[I0] , [eI], or [E] to create a different expression though phonemes. She has [a] which is a much clearer and more accurate alt to a phoneme never used in Vocaloid, [A]...She also has [Q] and [O] which means if you need it, she doesn't have to be father-bother or caught-cot merged. She can be rhotic or non rhotic... Whereas a pure VCCV English UTAU voiced by a native, will not have this flexibilty. There is no [e] phoneme, to give variance to [E] or , [Q] and [O] are limited, and if it's voiced exactly as Cz lays out the pronunciation, it'll default to rhotic, no trilled r, though {-tensing and t-flaps are present,(props for those. )

Additionally MAIKA is recorded by a professional, the recording lists are made by professionals who natively speak a language that shares a root ancestor with a huge percentage of English Vocabulary and live in an area of the world where monolingualism seems rare, versus mostly amateurs recording in their bedroom or their closet with some or almost no singing training, maybe a nice USB mic, maybe a low-end pro mic, or maybe no mic at all! It's hardly fair to compare the two. But *if* a native bank has the proper equipment and a trained vocalist with a likable voice, even if it's VCCV, and not encoded in X-SAMPA(doesn't really have much to do with the sound, but it makes me sad), then yeah, sure I believe it can sound better than a non-native bank with extended phonemes, or at the very least, just as good.

 

[luiysia]

in addition to paradoxelle's very detailed explanation of the advantages of maika over english utau -
maika has a spanish accent, which is common in real life. people have probably heard it before, and even if they don't understand her, it wouldn't sound super strange.
whereas native english vocautau just have a really.... unique accent that doesn't exist anywhere at all. no one speaks or sings like that in real life, and it's really jarring and difficult to understand for people who aren't used it. maika has some elements of this accent too, but people probably would notice the spanish accent first.
plus maika is a great quality vocaloid with a beautiful voice <3

 

[Zoku]

A cause for the weird accent most native vbs have is probably people speaking their samples in somewhat exaggrated ways instead of singing their samples in a natural way

 

[partial]

Native English vbs are what I prefer in both Vocaloid and UTAU.

The only exception is Len, who I am extremely biased towards.

 

[luiysia]

A cause for the weird accent most native vbs have is probably people speaking their samples in somewhat exaggrated ways instead of singing their samples in a natural way

that is true, but it also applies to just the tuning not being that good, or the voice not being able to change to fit the song. ruby has pretty natural samples and can sound great with some songs, but if her pronunciation is just left to the default settings, or if you use her for a song that doesn't really fit at all, it will sound bizarre.

 

[Milk]

I can go for either, tbh I'm more interested in tone than how big of an accent an UTAU has :P