New Digital Diva - SELENA

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Defender of Defoko
I think this is a good way to makd the Festival Engine ore popular
 

수연 <Suyeon>

Your friendly neighborhood koreaboo trash
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
The artistic presentation is looking better (though I'm going by the new silhouette), but the site still needs a lot of work.

- Selena's page - upon clicking on it - leads to nowhere (I'm looking at a blank white page) and doesn't even have a link back to the home page

- The Home page is now baffling in that it is bereft of any information whatsoever but for that single news blurb.
You still need a FAQ page answering the following questions:
1. What is Festival and why should we (the audience) invest in a voice made for it? What makes it a better synth than the higher profile competition (UTAU, Vocaloid, Voiceroid, Cevio, NiaoNiao, Synsy, etc.)?
2. Who develops for Festival?
3. Why did Selena's team join in this project and why do they feel that she'll be worth the audience use of her (will she be easy to use for people who've never used this software before? will she be of high quality and recorded in a studio environment or at the very least on an xlr with an interface?)
4. Will the profits for this project go toward Festival development? Have they themselves endorsed this product and are aware of its existence?
5. Provide notable examples of the engine's use for both speech and singing.

Transparency is key in projects like these, especially since the group has not developed any hype beyond this thread or by way of heavy promotion. No one knows who this group is, so you need to come off as professional as possible. Don't expose the site until all usability bugs has been dealt with and all questions in said FAQ has been answered. If you don't want this project to fail, I hope this advice will be of some use.
 
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Info-Chan

SELENA Developer
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Defender of Defoko
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The artistic presentation is looking better (though I'm going by the new silhouette), but the site still needs a lot of work.

- Selena's page - upon clicking on it - leads to nowhere (I'm looking at a blank white page) and doesn't even have a link back to the home page

- The Home page is now baffling in that it is bereft of any information whatsoever but for that single news blurb.
You still need a FAQ page answering the following questions:
1. What is Festival and why should we (the audience) invest in a voice made for it? What makes it a better synth than the higher profile competition (UTAU, Vocaloid, Voiceroid, Cevio, NiaoNiao, Synsy, etc.)?
2. Who develops for Festival?
3. Why did Selena's team join in this project and why do they feel that she'll be worth the audience use of her (will she be easy to use for people who've never used this software before? will she be of high quality and recorded in a studio environment or at the very least on an xlr with an interface?)
4. Will the profits for this project go toward Festival development? Have they themselves endorsed this product and are aware of its existence?
5. Provide notable examples of the engine's use for both speech and singing.

Transparency is key in projects like these, especially since the group has not developed any hype beyond this thread or by way of heavy promotion. No one knows who this group is, so you need to come off as professional as possible. Don't expose the site until all usability bugs has been dealt with and all questions in said FAQ has been answered. If you don't want this project to fail, I hope this advice will be of some use.
That's a weird error, the site works just fine for the team. We added about who made Festival on the SELENA page and answered some of those questions, but apparently there's that error, so we'll work on it.
[DOUBLEPOST=1441888587,1441887214][/DOUBLEPOST]We got it added. The error should be fixed as well.
 
P

partial

Guest
... Regarding your FAQ...
1. What is Festival and why is it better than UTAU? Festival is a text to speech synthesizer that is also able to sing with the plugin Flinger. It was made by the University of Edinburgh and gets updates normally. It is better than UTAU because it is able to speek speak AND sing which proves useful seeing as how many YouTube videos use text to speech software.
Minor spelling correction. I also think you should mention why it's also something people should consider over Vocaloid, CeVIO, ect. Not just UTAU. You have to attract your audience.

3. Will it be easy to work with SELENA? Yes, it is a normal experience and is not truly difficult.
Perhaps it would be better to word this in a more inviting way, like...
"Working with SELENA provides a unique and intuitive user experience. Tutorials will be created and released at the same time as SELENA." idk, something more... professional.

4. Will the profits for this project go toward Festival development? Sadly, no. It will go to future divas instead.
Don't you think it's a bit rude to not give some money to the people who created the synth that makes your so-called "diva" possible? Especially because Festival isn't popular.

I don't mean to be harsh, I'm just viewing things from a consumer's standpoint.
 
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bodytemp

Guest
Okay, so I have some more pointers and problems that you will face,
First off, I have done some research into festival. Festival is for non commercialised use and is, as such, a research project. This means you will run into legalities if you choose to move forward with this. Besides also not offering to donate monies to the actual cause is wrong on so many levels. If you were to obtain a license to do this they would look for compensation for it. Honestly it leaves a bad taste in ones mouth. Festival is still early beta days, it is not of high enough standard and quality wise is worse then common freeware synthesisers.
The way you have described things on the website can appear arrogant to most people, this means a lot of people will not look twice at this project. Attitude goes a long way if you are trying to make something commercially viable.
Honestly I would recommend sticking to UTAU its still commercially viable. It would be less legalities and less of a chance to be sued if you choose to sell it. Honestly, I would not look at selling something unless it was proper home studio quality or above.
Look again, I’m not here to make enemies more to warn you of your outcomes coming from a business sort of field when it comes to synth production and products.
 

수연 <Suyeon>

Your friendly neighborhood koreaboo trash
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
1. What is Festival and why is it better than UTAU? Festival is a text to speech synthesizer that is also able to sing with the plugin Flinger. It was made by the University of Edinburgh and gets updates normally. It is better than UTAU because it is able to speek speak AND sing which proves useful seeing as how many YouTube videos use text to speech software.

I'm just going to copy-paste this from google, because it's clear to me that no one on this team knows the definition of a unique selling point.

A unique selling proposition (USP, also seen as unique selling point) is a factor that differentiates a product from its competitors, such as the lowest cost, the highest quality or the first-ever product of its kind. A USP could be thought of as “what you have that competitors don't.”

The only selling points you present - and the only selling points that I see, having done research - is that it's text to speech, singthesis, free, and you're capable of creating your own voice. None of these features are in any way unique, nor are they winning selling points above your competition.

- All vocasynths are capable of singing. Some do it with higher output quality than others due to the engines they run and the quality of the raw voice samples. The current winner of the HQ race is Vocaloid for proprietary and UTAU is the winner for freeware/shareware.
- UTAU has a plugin that can emulate speech called Hanasu. The right voice made with a proper XLR mic and interface and well done configuration can be comparable to V3 or at the very least late V2 quality.
- AHS has a synthesizer called Voiceroid that can be used in conjunction with their Vocaloids Yuzuki Yukari and Tohoku Zunko for speech.
- Cevio's Sasara and ONE support both speech and singing and the other voices available for the synth can do one or the other.
- Chip-speech can support both speech and singing, though the output may not be to everyone's personal tastes due to being produced on vintage technology.

All this really leaves you with is engine quality, and as it stands, the speech engine isn't above Cevio, as far as quality is concerned and the results for singing isn't going to be much higher than say, NiaoNiao or 2009 era UTAU as it's a beta software. It's quite arrogant to state that this software that no one has heard of and who's results show to be lackluster is "better" than an established entity such as UTAU - a software that in the span of 7 years has managed to compete with and compliment the development of the Vocaloid engine.

Will it be easy to work with SELENA? Yes, it is a normal experience and is not truly difficult.

This misses and answers the question at the same time. You say it will be a "normal experience," but you don't answer whether the program itself will be an easy transition from UTAU or Vocaloid - your main competition. Both softwares have their similarities as well as glaring differences that can make transition between one or the other a case of "Damn You Muscle Memory!" but they both essentially function in a similar fashion (esp. in the case of UTAU-Synth) that should be familiar when switching between the two.

Will the profits for this project go toward Festival development? Sadly, no. It will go to future divas instead.

I'm sorry, but considering the fact that this is a software that's trying to get off the ground and is funded by a collegiate organization, I find it reprehensible that your team is willing to profit from their hard work and not give anything back so that the engine you chose to use can see further future development. The lack of development is usually the killer of any software, especially when it's in beta stages. By not supporting it, you're saying that you don't care if it dies and ceases to exist.

Digital_S is a team of UTAU members who wanted to make a voice for the community.

If you want to make something for the community, that's great. All power to you, but you'd be better off providing it with a HQ commercial UTAU voicebank in which the proceeds will go towards purchasing shareware UTAU - helping in it's development. Like @bodytemp mentioned, UTAU is commercially viable and doesn't have licensing that prevents use for commercial purposes.
 
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Info-Chan

SELENA Developer
Tutor
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
Okay, so I have some more pointers and problems that you will face,
First off, I have done some research into festival. Festival is for non commercialised use and is, as such, a research project. This means you will run into legalities if you choose to move forward with this. Besides also not offering to donate monies to the actual cause is wrong on so many levels. If you were to obtain a license to do this they would look for compensation for it. Honestly it leaves a bad taste in ones mouth. Festival is still early beta days, it is not of high enough standard and quality wise is worse then common freeware synthesisers.
The way you have described things on the website can appear arrogant to most people, this means a lot of people will not look twice at this project. Attitude goes a long way if you are trying to make something commercially viable.
Honestly I would recommend sticking to UTAU its still commercially viable. It would be less legalities and less of a chance to be sued if you choose to sell it. Honestly, I would not look at selling something unless it was proper home studio quality or above.
Look again, I’m not here to make enemies more to warn you of your outcomes coming from a business sort of field when it comes to synth production and products.
Yes, Festival itself is for non-commercial use. This does not apply to voicebanks created with the engine. We own full ownership of those files. The reason we aren't giving a compensation or paying their research team is because we do not have the info to do so. They do not list a paypal on their site or any other means of paying them. If they reply to our email about wanting to pay them any time soon we would gladly pay them. The spelling mistakes are simple mistakes. They will be fixed. EDIT: Also those sources might have been old since Festival was first made in 2001. Their updated site says unrestricted commercial use and non-commercial use. (Also, we are making tutorials.)
 
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bio

VocalSynth Enthusiast
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Defender of Defoko
That makes me more excited for SELENA, to be honest I don't care how long it takes for her to be completed just as long as has a great voice, she will do fine

The festival engine is pretty neat! She will attract more people to the festival engine and hopefully make it more popular
 
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dyne 智優

Shoutbox Lurker™
Defender of Defoko
Festival? I thought it's only a TTS program Owo
One Q tho, can we act out the voices instead of using our natural voice? For the contest, I mean despite the fact that there's a 0% chance I'll be ever trying out.
 

Info-Chan

SELENA Developer
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Festival? I thought it's only a TTS program Owo
One Q tho, can we act out the voices instead of using our natural voice? For the contest, I mean despite the fact that there's a 0% chance I'll be ever trying out.
You can do voice acting if you would like. If it truly feels like it's the only way. No editing in programs though.
 

samth1815

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Ok it's already been said but I'd like to throw in my two cents here-

For one, since Festival is for non-commercial use, you can't sell anything made with it. For instance, say someone has it in their UTAU TOU that their voicebank cannot be used for commercial purposes. You can argue that you own the song or w/e that you're using it for and therefore can sell it , but the TOU still prohibits it. Sorta the case you're facing here with Festival

Also, the fact that you won't be giving at least a tiny bit of compensation to the Festival developers for letting you use their software commercially (assuming they do) is just rude tbh

EDIT: Also might I add that, looking around on Festival's site, nowhere does it mention that it's actually possible to create your own voice with their software.
 
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partial

Guest
Ok it's already been said but I'd like to throw in my two cents here-

For one, since Festival is for non-commercial use, you can't sell anything made with it. For instance, say someone has it in their UTAU TOU that their voicebank cannot be used for commercial purposes. You can argue that you own the song or w/e that you're using it for and therefore can sell it , but the TOU still prohibits it. Sorta the case you're facing here with Festival

Also, the fact that you won't be giving at least a tiny bit of compensation to the Festival developers for letting you use their software commercially (assuming they do) is just rude tbh

Literally couldn't agree more with this.
 

samth1815

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Honestly just getting a major sense of ALYS déjà vu here, because assuming you can't create SELENA on Festival, you're gonna have to bump her down to UTAU almost certainly. Like how ALYS started as a VOCALOID, but then got bumped to CeVIO, and now shes just an UTAU. While the UTAU product will still be good, it isn't what was originally teased and, as such, is not what the community was waiting for/expecting.

To sum it all up, I just feel like this project didn't get properly planned out before your announcement, seeing as all of these holes and gaps are all over the place.
 
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Xepheris

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Ok it's already been said but I'd like to throw in my two cents here-
Also, the fact that you won't be giving at least a tiny bit of compensation to the Festival developers for letting you use their software commercially (assuming they do) is just rude tbh

Ehhh she did say that they would if their email about compensating them gets a response, so at the current time they won't/can't?
 
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samth1815

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Ehhh she did say that they would if their email about compensating them gets a response, so at the current time they won't/can't?

That may be the case, but if, say, one of the Festival developers looks on their site and doesn't sit here and read through this whole thread, the only answer they would see to the question "Will you be compensating the developers?" is a pretty solid "nope"
 

Info-Chan

SELENA Developer
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Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
You are able to make voices in Festival. Also, yes we emailed them, but do not have a response with a payment address. We are not able to pay them without one and would go full ahead and compensate them if they reply with one.
http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/
Front page - "Festival is free software. Festival and the speech tools are distributed under an X11-type licence allowing unrestricted commercial and non-commercial use alike." Selling SELENA is not illegal since she is not the engine itself. We are not selling the engine. Only the files of her bank.
 

Xepheris

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
That may be the case, but if, say, one of the Festival developers looks on their site and doesn't sit here and read through this whole thread, the only answer they would see to the question "Will you be compensating the developers?" is a pretty solid "nope"

That's true. I feel like this project could possibly go somewhere if the add someone on they team that has experience with things like this and knows how to act professional. Someone to set things in line, like the legalities, filling in these holes, fixing the website up, etc.

I also feel that Pepper has pure intentions with this, but just accidently went about it the wrong way due to her inexperience.

Hopefully you get a response, Pepper. ^u^
 
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