Macne Discussion Thread

Only have sasayaki-san (free, lol) , but I loooove the macnes. A lot. :D I'm making a cover of Sweet Float Flats with Sasa, but the UST is all messed up, so I don't know if I'll ever finish it. U_U Are they easy to buy if you live in the west?

....unf.

I really don't see why people love them so much. :\
I've heard UTAU by people on this forum who are much better. And free.

Sorry if I sound butt-hurt. I just don't see how they're excellent enough to actually pay money for.

I'm with saki.
Don't you have to use garageband pitch flattener or something on their recording? And oto them too?
I'd much rather get a free, pre oto'd bank, since there are thousands, and there are banks like ritsu and arco and such that do have very nice quality, especially compared to the macloids
I mean i'm considering getting sasayaki's free bank because she can sound clear, and man does she look cute, but i rather avoid the macne banks...

I, too, don't understand why people buy those banks...
As some said already, there are better and free UTAUs out there.

However, they DO have nice voices. I just don't think I will ever buy one.

it's like asking, why do people pay for Windows 100% banks. Its because the banks are voice by famous voiceactors or singers.
Because of this, you have to shell out a little cash (gotta cover recording costs too)
Do you have to buy them? No. However, as far as voices go, they are pretty cheap.
Plus you get tons of art that comes with the banks and you get your ~own~ bank without having to worry about personality things or the people that recorded the bank. there's no baggage with the bank, which i know is an actual concern on the JP side.

I can see why some people would think that way about the macnes, I myself thought the same way. To each their own I guess.

But damn are they ever fun to draw. That hair. ;_;

SakisCookie link said:

....unf.

I really don't see why people love them so much. :\
I've heard UTAU by people on this forum who are much better. And free.

Sorry if I sound butt-hurt. I just don't see how they're excellent enough to actually pay money for.

Click to expand...

Saki I love you but I could apply your logic to so many of those free banks it's not even funny. Why does ANYONE love ANY voicebank...it's just personal preference. Why do people love Ritsu so much? What's so special about Teto or in Snow's example who cares about Arco? It's ALL personal preference. Just like you guys don't care for them, there are people who do. True story. And I'm afraid it's that kind of attitude that made your review of them kinda...not...good.

Not saying you HAVE to love them but at least make an attempt to understand why there are people who do. Taking out the money factor it's like asking why do people keep using Ritsu Kire?

That being said the Macne's are, like Misha said, recorded by famous voice actors and they have nice quality and voices imho. I enjoy using them. From personal experience on buying the Macnes(I have four), I like the way their folders are organized, I like their art, and I don't have to deal with users bitching at me for using their UTAU wrong or drawing their UTAU incorrectly or anything like that. It's like I have Iris and then four other babies at my disposal that I don't have to worry "Oh gosh...I hope Haruna likes this cover...what if I use Nana/Puchi/Sasa with the wrong flags;; What if Haruna laughs at me?!?!"

Now, as far as using them in regular PC UTAU(because you do not have to use them in garageband or UTAU-Synth okay? Geez...)...I don't think I've ever had a problem with them. Yeah, there are free banks, but come on...free =/= perfect oto, perfect voice, and perfect voice type that I'm looking for xD And again I can oto the Macne's without the original user yelling at me. And I already OTO Iris everytime I make her a new bank. OTO-ing the Macne's is not going to soil my UTAU experience if anything it'll improve my OTO-ing skills.

So, I'm not saying the Macne's are perfect but I have a lot of liberty with them that I feel I don't have with other UTAUs excluding my own. And they aren't that expensive in my opinion.

I won't be buying a Vocaloid anytime soon or...ever probably. But I enjoy my hobby of UTAU and making synthesized voices sing and felt the Macne's would be a nice way of treating myself...kinda like a new sketchbook for drawing. Just cause I can snag a piece of paper from someone else doesn't mean I'm not going to eventually want to go out and buy my own~

I have Macne Nana, Puchi(Petit), Sasayaki, and Nana 2S and I'd say it's a tie between Sasa and Nana 2S, when I get Puchi 2S I'm sure it'll be a threeway tie love fest. xD So far I've done the following covers:

Cyber Thunder Cider
Hurting for a Very Hurtful Pain
Limiter
a Wonder of Aisya
Cremation Melody(although now Misha has me paranoid about it don't go to that one unless you want the UST okay seriously)

None of my Macne's...are...in...wav...format...seriously xD But I think they still sound fine. I enjoy their tri-pitchness~ There are a lot of nice Macne covers on youtube you just have to be willing to sift through the bad ones to find them and not just assume that because some people don't know how to use them they automatically are mediocre.

Iris, i don't think your spoiler is going to help much since Saki made that review o u o;;

I love the Macnes, I was wanting one for christmas (Petit)

I have Sasayaki-san's demo and I may re-OTO her a do a cover because her voice is so cute omg.

I feel Macnes are money well spent, good quality and good voices as well.

IrisFlower link said:

[quote author=SakisCookie link=topic=3193.msg23220#msg23220 date=1345665703]
....unf.

I really don't see why people love them so much. :\
I've heard UTAU by people on this forum who are much better. And free.

Sorry if I sound butt-hurt. I just don't see how they're excellent enough to actually pay money for.

Click to expand...

Saki I love you but I could apply your logic to so many of those free banks it's not even funny. Why does ANYONE love ANY voicebank...it's just personal preference. Why do people love Ritsu so much? What's so special about Teto or in Snow's example who cares about Arco? It's ALL personal preference. Just like you guys don't care for them, there are people who do. True story. And I'm afraid it's that kind of attitude that made your review of them kinda...not...good.

[/quote]

I know she made it...and I think she also already knows there are people who feel the same way as me about the Macne review. Not because we're die hard fans or anything "Like OMG y u no like Macnes you evil evil witch!"
But because a lot of the covers she used were pretty old and she said ALL off the Macnes. How can you say all of them when you a)Haven't used all of them and b) Are using old covers to be the base of your argument? That's like me saying Ritsu Kire is a way too difficult bank to use and has problems with his oto and voice samples...even though I've never once picked up his voice bank I just figure as such cause there are covers where he isn't executed well;;
See what I'm saying? I'm not trying to be mean, I just think the Macnes deserve a better more fair review with more recent covers and stuff. It's okay to feel the same way after you've examined those covers and maybe chatted with people who have used them(or maybe use Sasa's free version) but it's hard for me to take it seriously right now, I'm sorry;; OTL

I have Sayaki-free, and I love her I've made this cover with her
【Macne Sasayaki-san】Our Let-it-be【MACloid test】

I love macloids and they have good queality and art, but I will never pay for a CV bank XD

Angel link said:

I love the Macnes, I was wanting one for christmas (Petit)

I have Sasayaki-san's demo and I may re-OTO her a do a cover because her voice is so cute omg.

I feel Macnes are money well spent, good quality and good voices as well.

Click to expand...

There's a wonderful person who fixed up the OTO and put a download link in the "free version of sasayaki" thread, so you're saved the work.

Does anyone like how the macnes sound in GarageBand? I think I like it a bit better than in UTAU, honestly. Haha. If only they sounded less... icky?

Good UTAU cover with Nana (despite being <VERY> slightly off-timed near the end, I'm really really OCD with that):
Mac音ナナ║Macne Nana — Dolls + Mp3

Kit Wistful link said:

Iris, you have covers?? <3<3<3 I'll have to check them out 8O The only reason I'd recommend changing to WAV is to be able to change resamplers...but resampler and fresamp suit them fine enough that it isn't nessecary XD

Click to expand...

They're all on my youtube :3 But ya know with the purchase of Nana 2S I have realized, even though I was incredibly skeptical at first, that Nana is actually the one with the higher, squeaky voice and Puchi is the more mature voice;; I honestly didn't know that until I bought Nana 2S and heard her voice(because they don't come together like they did before) and I compared her with this:

【Mac音プチ2S 】Candy Candy【UTAUカバー】

And it sounds exactly like that xD But it's Nana not Puchi. I bring this up because a lot of people, including myself, assume that Nana is the more mature voice buuut since I don't have Puchi(yet) I can confirm that Nana is the more childish voice(her Title Calls also have her using a more happy squeaky voice). Just something I learned in case anyone had any doubts;; When I bought them together I honestly thought it was the other way around haha cause they weren't really set up the way they are now. Feel free to laugh at me :D

As for using them in Garageband I haven't explored too many covers but after the one you've posted Ant I definitely will now~ That cover is really nice though I like it.

oops, I wasn't very clear when I typed that, my bad. That was an UTAU cover, GarageBand sounds a bit different. >w<

Garageband (sorry, this was the best I could find ATM):
Mac音プチ║Macne Petit — Popipo Remix + Mp3

There's a certain endearing twang added when used in GarageBand as opposed to UTAU, despite the "badly OTO'd UTAU" feel.

I like them. c: TBH, I own Coco Kuro, Nana 2S and Sasayaki-san so far.~
My opinion on that whole "selling VBs and stuff" is... nobody makes you spend money on voicebanks, you have to decide whether you want buy them or not. And you're comparing voicebanks which were originally made for Mac users with UTAUs. They didn't have something to do with UTAU until somebody tried to make them sing in UTAU. Also, the special aspect about them is that they were made for GarageBand which was like an alternative to Vocaloid. UTAU-Synth didn't exist at that time, too. So they were the only option as a singing program or plugin on a Mac. So why aren't they allowed to sell it then?

I've read that Macne Papa gets an update, but I'm not too sure of that. The official Macne Twitter account tweeted something like this, but the tweet seems to be deleted... It said something like "Papa gets an update like Nana, Coco and blabla..!", but I translated that with Google Translator so there is a high chance of it being wrong. xD I'd love an update for Papa though. Although he's meant to sound so old and weird because he's an old Mac, I hope they'll make him sound less... strange? ...Scratchy?

Anyways, I also really love how they sound in GarageBand. They sound really unique in GarageBand/Reason, and more natural in UTAU I think. Sometimes they get too squeaky though... but that "badly oto-ed UTAU" thing is just normal. Try using GarageBand with them yourself. It's really hard and it takes much work to make them sound really nice. Their consonants are very long and also not very easy to cut off. And it's like making a UST from scratch. You import the samples, have to pitch them correctly, adjust the length, et cetera. I've recently got a Mac and I tried them out in GarageBand, it takes some effort to make them sound good. =w=

Sorry if I sounded a little harsh here, I didn't mean to. XD

Oh and for the conversion to .wav. I just batch convert the whole folder in Audacity. It takes about 5 minutes and I don't have to do anything. ~

Also, have some videos as nice examples. ouo (Warning, MANY MANY videos. =u= *cough*)
They don't sound like crap if used correctly.

If they DO update Papa, that's the one I would buy. I haven't bought one yet but I am just no interested in most of their voices. ono;; But Papa... I love his voice even if it is strange. I love the uniqueness.

Jeeeez Iris. Y u gotta make me feel like a dummy? XP No, I don't mean that towards you. More towards me. I am a dummy.

Well, I know next to nothing about Macnes. I can't tell an old cover from a new one or whatever. I just picked rather randomly. And I can't exactly get a feel for them if I can't get my hands on one, you know?

That said, I wasn't purposely using bad covers to aide my argument. Again, I just picked randomly because most of the videos I watched...sounded pretty similar. :\ Also, I'm not saying free = better. Just that if the thing with the price tag isn't my favorite, I'm not gonna pay for it.

And that's just MY opinion. I LIKE the Macnes, yes. They're pretty and nice, yes. But I don't think they're as good as others think they are. I just don't.

I certainly see where you're coming from with the freedom that comes with them, because lord knows some people in this fandom go batshit when you misuse their voices. Heck, I drew fanart for one girl, and she yelled at me for making her hairbow the wrong color. Oops, I guess? I didn't notice. Calm down.


So...okay, to sum up, I like Macnes, but not as much as others do, and I usually broadcast my feelings/opinions before taking time to smooth them out and make them sound not close-minded. It's a personal fault of mine, and I know it. v.v
If anyone thinks that I insulted them in any way, I wasn't trying to. I'm just saying I'd rather use Saki or Reicheru or...lots of others. Even if I haven't actually used them yet because shut up I'm lazy. TTnTT


If any of that STILL sounded jerky, let me know. UIHIANK You have no idea how hard I try not to sound rude, yet somehow do it anyway. I'm too self-conscious, man. I just don't want anyone thinking I'm a Macne hater or something. DX