Hello, it's Natsu. Say, have you ever wanted to voice a new UTAU, but your natural voice is the "only voice you can do"? Well, fear not, as I am here to give you a few tips on voice acting or making your voice softer/more powerful.
That's all! Voice acting may not come naturally or easily, but eventually you'll get the hang of it!
This is Natsu, signing off.
(this will be updated, criticism is welcome.)
Generally, softer/falsetto voices tend to be more breathy, whereas powerful voices don't. For example, A demonstration is here. (this has power and soft in it). So when you're trying to sing more powerful, control your falsetto and other breathiness. For softer banks, try to make your voice raspier.
Pitch is SUPER important in MANY more ways than just one. It can make or break the voice you're trying to do. For example, when I was recording Shinne Utako, I recorded on F4. That way, the voice would sound cute, like I wanted, but I'd also be comfortable while singing. Don't sing higher or lower than your range allows, and try to think about the voice you want to do. If it's a more grown-up or deep voice, do a lower pitch. If it's a midrange voice, do a more middle-of-the-road pitch, like C4. If you're making a higher-pitched/cuter voice, do a high pitch, such as F4 (like Utako). I want to reiterate something here; DO NOT GO ABOVE OR BELOW YOUR RANGE. YOU COULD DAMAGE YOUR VOICE.
This step builds upon the last two, so read those if you haven't. Vocal Color builds upon Breathiness, and Hardness/Tension builds upon pitch and breathiness. Vocal Color is voicing, like-you ever seen Teto's voicebanks? They have many vocal colors, such as Smooth, Shout, Normal, Whisper, Weak, Edge, and Growl. Each voice color is made to sound different. I have no idea why exactly Smooth (which sounds drunk) was made, but whatever. So, we should actually talk about hardness first. Hardness, or tension, is how tense your voice is. Do a shout, or a growl right now. How does it feel? Do your vocal cords and throat tense up? Now relax and say something in a relaxed way, letting words become more melted (slurred). Do your vocal cords and throat release that tension? That's hardness. (at least i think). Vocal color can rely on hardness. If you want to do a soft voice, relax a little, and sing in a softer tone. If you want to do whisper, pick up the hardness (tension) a bit and the same with breathiness, but more. To shout, bring a lot of tension (hardness) to your voice, and sing loudly. Do not loosen vowels, as that may make the あ sound like an X-SAMPA {, which sounds kinda messy. For a vocal fry (edge) bank, try to listen to recordings of vocal fry and mimic them. Tension should be low, and refrain from glottal stops, since vocal fry is loose glottal closure. Growl is a bit hard. You have to make sure your voice is not breathy, but max out your tension and bring a bit of a more gravelly feeling/tone to your voice (that was a bad explanation.) another way you can do it is this. Make a throat clearing noise, which usually is unvoiced due to it having no tune. Bring that noise into a voiced sound, adding tune. Congrats! Growl might not come easy, but it's worth it if you want to give your UTAU a sharp edge. Voice color comes in handy with voice acting.
That's all! Voice acting may not come naturally or easily, but eventually you'll get the hang of it!
This is Natsu, signing off.
(this will be updated, criticism is welcome.)
