Aline link said:
Aaaaahhhh... It's hard to explain, my mind tends to be really random in the voicebank criteria...
But I'll try to separate it in categories.
- Melodic Empathy: if the voice clicks with me, I'm downloading it. That's how it works. And you know, as much as I prefer male whispery/soft voices, I'm not going to download every shooshy male out there because some won't even match my tastes. Sometimes, I'll prefer to download a screamo female just because her voice clicked more with me.
- Voice Uniqueness: I'm not going to download 30 voicebanks that sound like that sorta airy and kind of bored-sounding mezzo-soprano/tenor voice with a funny accent. You guys know which voicetypes I'm talking about. BTW, put more emotion in those recordings, dammit.
- Usefulness: All voicebanks are useful to some extent, but sometimes, there's something only few voicebanks can do for me. Like Tsurigane Sou being Kaito in a Vocappoid UTAU chorus, for example. Or maybe Ackie Kahn as the percussion in a MIDI chorus. My mind works in the most strange ways when it comes to choosing which voicebanks will be the more useful to me.
- Voicebank Quality: It independs of recording technique, in all honesty (which means that if I like it, I'll use it, be it CV, VCV, CVVC or whatever else you want to record). All I ask for is that you guys don't cut the consonants off (leave a small space before the recording and I'll love you forever) nor record it in a webcam mic; also, training your accent a bit will help me liking it more, because I personally don't like english Rs in Japanese banks. If the voice is slightly muffled or a bit staticy, I can EQ it out in the mix without any major worries, but there are limits to what EQs and compressors can do. I don't worry about the oto.ini that much because I almost always edit it to my own personal taste (as long as the consonants aren't cut off, as I said before).
- User Karma: If we aren't getting along too well, chances are I'm probably not going to use your voicebank, even if its voice clicks with me a whole lot. I'd prefer to do it than to get someone nagging to me about how they didn't want me to taint their precious voicebank with my evilness. Or to get too upset with myself while using their stuff.
- Pleasant Design: In fact, this is the least important factor of all of those. There are UTAUs with AMAZING designs out there, but I'd prefer to draw them than to use them because their voices just don't click with me/are too generic/aren't too useful for what I want to do. I'm pretty sure some people might think the same about my voicebank and I don't care too much. I'm thankful enough that they liked her design enough to draw her.
I think that's it? Or am I forgetting something?
I liked your review a lot! I completly agree.
Even If I'm a beginner,I have an opinion too, and those are the criterials I follow:
- Good art/Good design: I 'm writing this one firts, cause actually, its the first thing we notice in a video. If a UTAU has a good design and the video has a good art cover, then it will catch me up, and I'll check out the voice. So, yeah, unless I'm hearing it on Soundcloud or on another uploader that doesn't supports video/images, the design will catch my mind first.
Personallity is not important for me, and I like UTAUs with little backstory and things like that, so I can make them sing what I want them to sing, accoridng to a voice type. If a UTAU has a soft voice that I like, but the personallity shows a confindent and cheerful character, I will not have the same pleasure to make it sing what I want.
- Like Aline and Kit said before,
Interesting Voice Type: For me, even if it has a good design, I know what I want, and If I didn't find what I want, I will not download it. For me, I have two "ideal voices": Clear, and strong, with LOTS of emotion in singing; and soft, whispering, calm vocals. Yes, they are opposite, but anyway xD
I agree with Kit, cause sometimes, when I see a awesome deisgn, I'll overlookl lots of qualities that the VB doesn't have.
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Emotion: In both soft voices and strong voices, a UTAU needs emotion in the recordings, just like Aline said. This is crucial. I know that for soft voices this might be hard to find, and I agree, so, anyways, this criterial works more for strong voicebanks. If I like a strong voicebank but, when singing, the voice is too normal and plain, and I have to work A LOT with pitchbends to make it sound good, well, I will not like it. I'm not asking to be so dramatical and things when recording, but god, if you are having PLEASURE in recording a UTAU, a thing that you like, than, express yourself!!!
- Quality: I can't evaluate this myself, cause I have no otoing experience, but form what I heard and from what I like, a good oto., and recoridngs coming from a good mic are crucial too. A clear voice with good pronunciation pleases me, also.