Tips for First Time UST Makers?

Kazumimi

Kazumimi

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
I've been working on making my first UST using the frequency tracer plugin, and I was curious if you all had any advice for first time UST makers like myself.

I'm more than familiar with the actual tuning process in UTAU, but could definitely use advice in the actual creation of the UST, especially since there's no sheet music nor midi available for the song I'm working on (to my knowledge, anyway). Admittedly, I'm quite horrid at finding the key of a song as well as figuring out the correct tempo, so those are definitely my biggest weaknesses. (I know freq tracer inputs the notes for you, but isn't always 100% accurate, so I'd most likely need to do a lot correcting of the note placement and length.)

If it helps at all, the song I'm doing is Glare by Livetune.

Thank you!
 
Kiyoteru

Kiyoteru

UtaForum power user
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
For finding the tempo, I recommend listening to the song while tapping along on this website: https://www.all8.com/tools/bpm.htm
For finding the key, there are some tools that do it automatically, but ultimately it's up to your perception. It's easier to tell the key once you've got quite a few notes of the melody, and it helps more if you can try to identify the bassline or the chords.

Freqtracer is handy if you need to get an exact trace of some source audio, which very handy if you're trying to replicate speech, where there isn't an exact musical rhythm. But if you're working with singing vocals or other musically-timed vocals (like rapping or screaming), you'll get much cleaner note lengths by tracing the melody in a DAW. I've discussed the method in this thread: https://utaforum.net/threads/looking-for-english-vccv-ust-to-be-made.20386/#post-140616
 
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Kazumimi

Kazumimi

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
Thank you! I'll definitely try those things!

Also, since you mentioned there are some tools that detect the key automatically, do you know of any good ones? I'd like to try one out, but couldn't find any when I googled it.

Speaking of tracing the melody in a DAW, are there any that are overall better to use for MIDI-ing process than others? Or all they all relatively the same?

Thanks again!
 
Kiyoteru

Kiyoteru

UtaForum power user
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Defender of Defoko
I don't use a key detector, so I don't have any recommendations on which would be better. You might want to try googling "music key detector" instead of "key finder". These are most often used by DJs in order to find which songs would blend together best when played end to end, when they don't have time to personally check the key of hundreds of songs.

As for DAW, you can use pretty much any, and I would highly encourage you to try out multiple free or demo DAWs to find which one works best for your workflow. I personally use FL studio, which has many advantages and disadvantages. The right DAW is the one that fits you.
 
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Kazumimi

Kazumimi

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
Thanks so much!
(Also I really appreciate the tip about using "music key detector" as opposed to "music key finder". That ended up getting much more useful results!)
 
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