VOCALOID4 LUMi

MillyAqualine

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
So today was released an announcement about a new VOCALOID4 voicebank, LUMi !

Lumi-VOCALOID-01-660x330.jpg


So far the only known data about this voicebank are the company behind her, Akatsuki Virtual Artist, her design above, as well as her voicer, Sayaka Ohara, a popular voice actress who voiced several characters, including Sailor Neptune in Sailor moon Crystal !

A trial of her voicebank will be launched on 3rd of June


More informations can be found (and will likely pop up soon) on AVA's official website : https://ava01.com/

As well as on Sayaka's Twitter, where announcement was first made : https://twitter.com/readingradio
 

luiysia

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
this is kind of a pretty design - I'm interested! she seems like she would have a refreshing voice.
although lbr how unique could another young female vocal really be LOL
 

Buck

Ruko's Ruffians
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
And another one she does have a nice design. Also, another character with (sort of) random name capitalization.
 

Melomad

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
I'm kind of unsure ...
The vocaloid 4 engine is starting to be old, I'm afraid she'll be released when a new engine will be annouced.

@luiysia Otomachi Una's Spice append gave her quite a unique voice though. Maybe we'll have a big surprise.

Maybe it's a really low female like Sachiko.
 
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RenzoA

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Woah cool~! I hope she'll have a unique voice (basically not too high pitched xD)
And cool, A vocaloid named after a Filipino Food xD
 
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Nohkara

Pronouns: He/him
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
Her design is quite pretty (it little bit reminded me Kotonoha Aoi lol), I like her hair the most - for now.

When I saw her name I was like "oh, cool!" Because in Finnish lumi means snow, something beautiful *cough cough* CUL/Rana/Arsloid
 
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MillyAqualine

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
(yeah since there's not any character song for the crystal version of the anime ... Unless I4ve missed it )

I'd like to hear a Neptune-flavoured voice ~ It'd be cool but I agree Beatrice mode sounds cool and unique enough
 
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the-neo-romantic

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
I'm definitely anticipating her release! I hope she is going to sound cool and mature, according to her blue theme.
(Also, her hair reminds me of a Pretty Cure character)
 

TJ Studio

Teto's Territory
Good news
One of the AVA guys said us producers are allowed to use the LUMi trial for our free original songs. No permission required
However, we need their permission to put original LUMi our song up for sale
 

VocAddict

The Voice Within Us
Defender of Defoko
Since UF deleted a week of posts... The translation of the first interview is here for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

Demos have been released.

Lumière by ELECTROCUTICA
http://nana-music.co.../02a609e2/?s=tw

迷い子ロマンチスト by koyori
http://nana-music.co.../02a6099c/?s=tw

Luminitium by AVTechNO!
http://nana-music.co.../02a60960/?s=tw

good night by 白濱賢吾 and Uzzy
http://nana-music.co.../02a6092a/?s=tw

夜明けの詩 by 吉澤 馨 / ぶんた
http://nana-music.co.../02a60a1a/?s=tw

To be honest, I'm not that impressed but I love all the same right now lol.

EDIT

According to their new news article here, it seems that AVA is hosting a Song Competition, and also a debut concert will be hosted for her around mid-September. This link seems to be showing the songs that are featuring LUMi I believe and further information.

The competition (1st LUMi DTM Creator Competition (LUMi CON)) is starting on June 5th.
LUMi's debut concert will be held in mid-September and will be shown in cinemas in Shinjuku.
 
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VocAddict

The Voice Within Us
Defender of Defoko
The next interview is out! Well, interviews! The interview with Ohara Sayaka can be seen here and the interview with the sound engineer, Mr. Shobo Baba can be seen here. Here's a rough (might be messy) translation of them. They're kind of lengthy so I spoiled them.

When asked why she wanted to record a Vocaloid, she said it was the best challenge so she wanted to do it. She talked about how LUMi is basically her child born from her voice, and it is growing to realms unknown, something she said that she has not experience in other works she has done before.

She talked about the image and character that she had to portray through her voice. Being reminded not to force it but make is sound as natural as possible.

"Beautiful jellyfish drifting in the sea, like mysterious Japanese ancient shrine maiden..." was the first image that she had in mind, but now that she has finished recorded, the visual she has now is "a widely loved character that combines retro and modern colour because it also contained neutral images, Japanese beauty, and cuteness."

As she listened to the full version of the bank, she could see the image even more clearly. She did say something along the lines that she didn't feel herself in LUMi's voice, but then she felt really happy since this is LUMi's voice and character and not just a bank that sounds like her.

LUMi is originally a jellyfish, so she says being "colourless and transparent" is a great strength. She talks about how the versatility of the voice, and how the user would be able to "dye" the voice to any colour they want to.

She also talks about her experience during the recording. Recording Vocaloids was just about singing meaningless words on four musical scales. She compared her normal recording for songs and dubbing to the Vocaloid recording experience, that unlike being able to attach intonation, vulnerability, and expression where it seems fit (using her vocal cords sparingly), for Vocaloids, she had to keep a constant quality throughout. She also realised for the first time the severity of using the same part of her vocal cords for a continuous period of time.

At first, she was worried about how much words will be needed to create a Vocaloid (she was thinking around tens of thousands), but the words needed were surprisingly small, and quite flexible. She was surprised at the natural singing voice of LUMi that was created out of it, the fact it had a reasonable balance between mechanical and human.

She talked about her continuous motivation to continue recording through her second and third recordings, that she didn't want to drop the quality of the samples and since she learnt a few things from the first session, she could put it to good use and better use her vocal cords. She didn't like how it felt when she had to stop recording since her vocal cords were reaching its limit during her second recording. But during her third recordings, she said she'll give it her 200% to get her revenge.

One of her dreams is to see LUMi singing at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics Games since she thinks it would appeal to the entire world and not just Japan. She also hopes that she would one day be able to come and voice dramas and animations.

Shobo Baba is the song engineer for LUMi. He's been around since Vocaloid was called "Daisy Project" so he's the oldest member of the development team.

When he first heard of LUMi's concept, he images such as "Transparency" "Mysterious" "Ocean" "Jellyfish". Those keywords are still unchanged. His job is to make LUMi's voice so the image is important, but the words that LUMi sings may be like Suprematism (A technique of art expression through abstracts, such as a simple combination of geometric patterns and figures. It started from Russia in the 1910s).

He spoke about how new challenges arise whenever a new Vocaloid is made since to there's more know-how of producing the bank. Currently, he believes that is quite possible for a human voice to be realised. The same is true for the LUMi library, aiming at singing more vividly. He thinks that you can fully enjoy its charm with solid striking, but since it incorporates elements that increase the brilliance further in the driven tuning, even from the viewer's side, it sounds richer as you use it he thinks that you can feel the depths of deepness. In this way, he believes that LUMi can be a musical instrument that changes according to the creator.

He talked about how keeping good voices in the image as long as possible while keeping good conditions for a long time places a heavy burden on the voice actor, so even professionals. After recording the necessary phonemes, optional phonemes were recorded to increase the quality of the bank.

During the optional recordings however, Ms. Ohara collapsed due to a throat condition. She regretted that she couldn't continue to the end. Fortunately, they got the opportunity to record again and get their revenge of disappointed feelings. Since Ms. Ohara wanted to record at 200%, Ava described the third record as unusual.

In the library production, it was not unusual for issues to arise about tone and other qualities of the voice. He said on the recording side of things, it progressed smoothly as saying "there aren't much recordings." Ohara's skill as a voice actor excelled here, though he did understand the demand it took from her. As he looks back, he says that they were just admiring unparalleled professionalism.

Before he started to work on Vocaloid, he was doing music production for TV commercials and programs, but the dream at the time was to make soundtracks for Hollywood movies. He wanted to fulfill that dream with LUMi.

To him, LUMi's voice sounds both organic and inorganic. It feels so due to the two aspects of human life and something not human living together. So he thinks it fits perfectly to those that depicted a human drama (like a romantic movie), but also like a science fiction that drew from the future.

Due to LUMi have both necessary phonemes (diphones) and optional phonemes (triphones), LUMi would be able to synthesise all the pronunciations in Japanese (Triphones of other libraries are often used more frequently). Since this is a feature only of LUMi's library (?), it is likely the range of expression on the creator's side will increase.

He wishes that LUMi will exceeds expectations of people. Nowadays, there are times where people say "Is this Vocaloid?!" or "Almost human!" and it is very encouraging the to development team. He thinks that loved musical instruments are instruments that should be used. He wonders if his attachment will increase by using her everyday, since he get absorbed quickly, a good song is born and breaks...

He hopes to see such a future.

I love these interviews. It gives us a lot of insight into the work that's going into LUMi.
 
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MillyAqualine

Ritsu's Renegades
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Thread starter
I love her voice, though it's a bit different from what I4ve expected (while still fitting her ethereal and frail yet so much present theme )
 
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Tomato Hentai

dont call me a veggie
Defender of Defoko
I love her voice, though it's a bit different from what I4ve expected (while still fitting her ethereal and frail yet so much present theme )
I think she sounds a bit more expressive than other Japanese VOCALOIDs in some of the demo songs. I'm hoping it's not just good tuning.
 
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Chianachini

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
She does sound both natural and paranormal--a mix that I can't quite distinguish. "Transparent" describes it pretty well. I like that, since I think that's what AVA's going for.

Both Ohara and Baba sound like they want LUMi to be used in brand new ways at like at the Olympics and in movies. I can't yet say if she is or isn't that versatile. There wasn't a lot of variety in those demos.
 
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MillyAqualine

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
Plus there's this kind of solemnity in her voice and it def fits well her water, death and school girl themes at once ~ *u*
 

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