Tips for a noob?

[MarioMaster100]

I'm not a noob to music programs (I use mostly tracker music programs and lmms), but I am a noob to utau. I've watched a couple basic videos for utau. So I thought I'd make a song in both English and Japanese (those songs where it's English and then they sing the Japanese part after or vice-versa). I got a good pile of featured voicebanks from the utau wiki. So far I think the only one I have that does both English and Japanese is Neko Kanochi. I'm not sure how to make her sing English though. So how would I make her sing English and what site(s) should I go to if I want to translate English lyrics into Japanese. Can you add more than one lyric in the same space at a time, like say on a music program you can have a C4 and C5 note play at the same time? I was thinking whenever I was done with a song on utau if I wanted to add some effects to the singing I'd add it with lmms.

 

[Kiyoteru]

The old UTAU Wikia has been mostly abandoned, and the few who still work on it are usually the ones who haven't found the new UTAU Wiki. There are plenty of other voicebanks you could use, usually UTAUs that have English banks will also have a Japanese version. They'll be as separate voicebanks though, so you'll need to use separate USTs to render different parts of the song.

If you want to make UTAU sing English, often the banks you'll find will be made for Chezzie-style English CVVC. I don't have the effort to fully explain myself right now but I can say that it's phonetics based notation. If you were to type in a word, it wouldn't be able to sing that word the way Vocaloid would.

Also, harmonies. In Windows UTAU, you cannot have multiple notes at the same time. In UTAU-Synth (the mac version) you can have some sort of multitrack, but it's a bit finicky to figure out. The best choice is to make separate USTs, and put the renders together when mixing. This will also allow you to mix the harmonies separately from the main vocal.

I'm sure I didn't answer all of your questions, but I hope I was helpful~ ((And by the way, I love your icon. Perfectly timed with my renaissance.))

 

[shinami]

"Finicky to figure out" more like impossible (I played with that, and yeah, that's not happening). But that's also a thing in Vocaloid, and all vocal synthesis programs really. When the program has to calculate the tone, pitch, and such of a single note, it probably would have trouble doing that for two notes in the same area which could throw that off, so the programs (except for silly UTAU-Synth, I really don't understand why this is an opinon because it doesn't really work) don't let you to avoid that.

I hope you're using PC UTAU, nearly all tutorials on the web are for UTAU PC and it's the much more stable and well rounded program with a lot more options available for it.

But yeah, the UTAU Wiki is freaking ancient and there are loads of good voicebanks out there that are not featured on it. Take a gander through the UTAU Discussion board, there are a few threads about featuring voicebanks, and you could even find Youtubers who make good UTAU videos and look at who they use. And that's only the English-speaking Overseas side of things! There's loads of great banks out there.

If you're wanting to release the UST (the track you make in UTAU) for this song though, I recommend using a standardized English like CV VC - Kanochi Neko, Kikyuune Aiko (her old bank), and a few others CAN sing English, but it's a personally made list that almost no other banks would have - in short, no one could use the UST.

 

[IrisFlower]

For English UTAUs you can check this out: http://utau.wikidot.com/system:page-tags/tag/english

That's the new wiki and what I'm providing is a list of UTAUs that can sing in english like Neko or have CV VC English banks out like Halt or Iris. A lot, if not all, of those banks have Japanese banks available too so it shouldn't be too bad getting them to sing in both Japanese and English.

 

[MarioMaster100]

The old UTAU Wikia has been mostly abandoned, and the few who still work on it are usually the ones who haven't found the new UTAU Wiki. There are plenty of other voicebanks you could use, usually UTAUs that have English banks will also have a Japanese version. They'll be as separate voicebanks though, so you'll need to use separate USTs to render different parts of the song.

If you want to make UTAU sing English, often the banks you'll find will be made for Chezzie-style English CVVC. I don't have the effort to fully explain myself right now but I can say that it's phonetics based notation. If you were to type in a word, it wouldn't be able to sing that word the way Vocaloid would.

Also, harmonies. In Windows UTAU, you cannot have multiple notes at the same time. In UTAU-Synth (the mac version) you can have some sort of multitrack, but it's a bit finicky to figure out. The best choice is to make separate USTs, and put the renders together when mixing. This will also allow you to mix the harmonies separately from the main vocal.

I'm sure I didn't answer all of your questions, but I hope I was helpful~ ((And by the way, I love your icon. Perfectly timed with my renaissance.))

That's what I figured with the with the harmonies, just thought I'd ask in case. I'm using the windows version of utau in a windows virtual machine (I run a debian based system and it seems less problematic to run utau in a virtual machine instead of wine, where I've gotten more errors) :D Thanks, that icon is an Eevee with Lucario features that someone made for me some years ago Ok so if I wanted to do English and Japanese it'll have to be 2 USTs mixed together in audacity or lmms, one in the English and one in the Japanese.
Thanks for the link to the new wiki IrisFlower
So that just leaves what sites do you guys recommend for translating English lyrics into Japanese?

 

[stormylullaby]

Aah...for translations, you're better off asking for translations from people. For languages as different as Japanese (from English at least), translators are notorious for giving poor (but sometimes hilarious) translations.

So I recommend you find someone to translate for you, unless you know enough Japanese to edit things fed into a translator.

 

[MarioMaster100]

Aah...for translations, you're better off asking for translations from people. For languages as different as Japanese (from English at least), translators are notorious for giving poor (but sometimes hilarious) translations.

So I recommend you find someone to translate for you, unless you know enough Japanese to edit things fed into a translator.

Well then I might only be using the English end of voicebanks...

 

[MarioMaster100]

shinami so I should use the Act 3 from http://utau.wikidot.com/utau:neko-kanochi ?

 

[MarioMaster100]

Looks like that one works for me but some sounds are a bit off the k by itself sounds kind of robotic and off key compared to the other sounds.

 

[stormylullaby]

That English bank is obsolete (as it says on the wiki). You should try newer CV VC English banks, if you can get a hang of the vowel system.

Also please don't post more than once in a row, use the edit button to edit your previous post.

 

[MarioMaster100]

Ok stormylullaby and that's the latest English one there is for her...

 

[stormylullaby]

IrisFlower did post a link to the tag of all the UTAUs with English VBs...you don't HAVE to use Neko.

 

[MarioMaster100]

Ok I'll check others out.