What makes a .ust bad?

[Austria]

I've heard a lot of people complain that a said ust was horrible and bad.
What makes a .ust bad?
Is it the timing issues?
Lack of pitchbends?

What do you think? .v.

 

[Ant]

For me, it's timing issues. If its timed wrong, it's nearly impossible to fix (or just easier to recreate from scratch, if that's the case). Another thing is when it's off key. I'd rather not have to manually adjust all the notes' pitches just to get it to sound right. Lack of pitchbends isn't a dealbreaker because I wind up adding / editing them anyway, sometimes.

 

[shinami]

-USTs in a million parts
-Very complicated Mode 1 only USTs (There's a converter to Mode 2, but it can be very yucky still)
-Incorrect Tempo/Key/Timing
-Really slow auto-vibrato god I hate that

And while a lack of pitchbends isn't necessarily bad if everything else is perfect (Masao USTs, for example), it certainly makes things better and amazing if they're there.

 

[BlusaoCinza]

Oh shinami said everything... I remember when download some USTs from youtube and they come in a lot of parts aah ;3;

You have a lot of work just for fitting an UTAU to a ust... and if you have a loads of parts it just get boring and harder... ;a; Timing wrong isn't really bad if the problem is in the silence, otherwise... xD

Keep in mind that people are looking for 'plug-n-play' stuff, so it's advisable  automate it the most you can.

 

[PurinPuff]

Deal-breakers for me are:

- Wrong melody.
- Wrong timing.
--

As far as everything else goes, I usually won't use a .ust if it doesn't include harmonies, but in some cases I will. Too many parts is discouraging, but it doesn't 100% stop me from using it.

 

[SakisCookie]

Oh shinami said everything... I remember when download some USTs from youtube and they come in a lot of parts aah ;3;

You have a lot of work just for fitting an UTAU to a ust... and if you have a loads of parts it just get boring and harder... ;a; Timing wrong isn't really bad if the problem is in the silence, otherwise... xD

Keep in mind that people are looking for 'plug-n-play' stuff, so it's advisable  automate it the most you can.

Yeah, but plug-n-play is the worst thing you can do. If you don't work to fit your voice to the ust, it's sort of just lazy.

 

[TheSnowSongstress]

I gotta say usts in a billion part WITHOUT A JUST REASON
like i can understand some songs like alice in musicland, where it's a bunch of songs in one, but things like yurahonya's usts get bothersome

 

[Yue Nagareboshi]

-USTs in a million parts
-Very complicated Mode 1 only USTs (There's a converter to Mode 2, but it can be very yucky still)
-Incorrect Tempo/Key/Timing
-Really slow auto-vibrato god I hate that

And while a lack of pitchbends isn't necessarily bad if everything else is perfect (Masao USTs, for example), it certainly makes things better and amazing if they're there.

I will disagree on this matter.

UST with "million" of part are sometimes needed. I have seen a lot of people complain how certain ust have 5 parts and say "It's a lot of work". Me, as part of the UTAU era where YuraHonya was one of the users that developed the most popular usts back then, I can say that "many parts" ust is not a factor.

For example. Kaoling songs NEED to be made in a big ammount of parts because the songs requires it.

UST's with a lot of parts is not a good criteria to call it "bad". When people complain about it, it gives me the honest impression they are lazy and they dont want to do rendering many times.

You have a lot of work just for fitting an UTAU to a ust... and if you have a loads of parts it just get boring and harder... ;a; Timing wrong isn't really bad if the problem is in the silence, otherwise... xD

Keep in mind that people are looking for 'plug-n-play' stuff, so it's advisable  automate it the most you can.

Fitting an UTAULOID oto into a ust takes less than 2 minutes.

The practice of "plug-n-play" is a really bad habit in the UTAU/VOCALOID community from my POV. Expecting to download the ust, put your UTAULOID in it, press play and render is just wrong. No one have the same oto settings (aside the VCV 300,100 or 250,83 on continuous sound).

If the ust is correct and your cover is sounding wrong, do not blame the ust-makers. It may be you not doing the correct adjustements or not even checking if the otos are correctly done.

Plug-n-Play users = Bad UTAU users.

___

Now, my criteria to say a ust is bad are the next ones:
- WRONG TEMPO - as it has already discussed.
- WRONG PITCH  - notes or as a whole.
- WRONG LYRICS - having sources as miku-wiki, nikokara, or even producer's blogs and still have errors on the ust is not an excuse.
- WRONG HARMONIES.
- VIBRATO IN ALL THE NOTES - that's not how a voice works.

I have to say that the lack of pitchbending work should not be considered a point to call a bad UST. Having a basic pitchbending must be enough, yet people may differ with me. Personally I don't like the fact of listening to 30 covers sounding the same.

 

[IrisFlower]

I...am on the same boat as Yue actually ;; I don't like the idea of handing someone a nice pitchbended ust because I feel it encourages plug and play. I like to give pitchbends that if left out the song wouldn't be the same otherwise but I leave everything else up to the user. A ust maker should not be obliged to make life easy for everyone else nor should they have to work their butts off just so other users can load a voice, render, and then bam lovely cover.

But that's me...I'm still learning and that's how I do it/see things.

 

[shinami]

[quote author=shinami link=topic=4165.msg29757#msg29757 date=1353420820]
-USTs in a million parts
-Very complicated Mode 1 only USTs (There's a converter to Mode 2, but it can be very yucky still)
-Incorrect Tempo/Key/Timing
-Really slow auto-vibrato god I hate that

And while a lack of pitchbends isn't necessarily bad if everything else is perfect (Masao USTs, for example), it certainly makes things better and amazing if they're there.

I will disagree on this matter.

UST with "million" of part are sometimes needed. I have seen a lot of people complain how certain ust have 5 parts and say "It's a lot of work". Me, as part of the UTAU era where YuraHonya was one of the users that developed the most popular usts back then, I can say that "many parts" ust is not a factor.

For example. Kaoling songs NEED to be made in a big ammount of parts because the songs requires it.

UST's with a lot of parts is not a good criteria to call it "bad". When people complain about it, it gives me the honest impression they are lazy and they dont want to do rendering many times.[/quote]

I have made USTs with many parts before, and I have used USTs with many parts before. I am perfectly fine with it when it is an entire, concrete part per UST, and if the song just has a lot of things to it, like Kaoling music as mentioned, all the power to the maker to have seperate USTs for effective timing and harmonizing.

However, there are ridiculous cases. A Choose Me UST from a long time ago had around 20-30 parts with maybe 20 notes in each. That's just a waste of time to have to adjust, edit, and render each. And I've heard of a Bad End Night UST that allegedly had 50 or so parts; I've never seen it, but it was someone I trust who said it so I believe it. Even though the song has multiple singers, it's simple melody and harmony for each so that is clearly not necessary.

And even with Yurahonya, some just have too many; Miyakowasure, for example, is beautiful, but the number of parts makes me unwilling to use the UST. Most other Yurahonya USTs are better in terms of parts.

So, I'm in no way dissing multi-part USTs, but just when people make more problems for themselves and users by making a million parts. Editing, rendering, and mixing most of all (the placing of those random segments) is no longer worth it.


Meep, sorry for the ramble, I just wanted to make sure I didn't come off as a "lazy complainer".


I agree that pitchbends aren't necessary; in my personal experience though, even when given a gorgeous UST people can make bad covers. It still requires skill to use them, well, skillfully. So I happily give out heavy pitchbends and happily download heavy pitchbends.

 

[Yue Nagareboshi]

I...am on the same boat as Yue actually ;; I don't like the idea of handing someone a nice pitchbended ust because I feel it encourages plug and play. I like to give pitchbends that if left out the song wouldn't be the same otherwise but I leave everything else up to the user. A ust maker should not be obliged to make life easy for everyone else nor should they have to work their butts off just so other users can load a voice, render, and then bam lovely cover.

But that's me...I'm still learning and that's how I do it/see things.

I understand your feels Iris.

I am from the POV that is like... keep the best tuning to yourself, but give a basic tuning in the ust so it can sound decent.

but I also think in the concept of delayed-ust-release thing; at least a week or two after you post you video. The reason is to keep the views into your video, and then after certain period of time give the ust. It wouldn't be fair if you made a good ust featuring your or an utauloid you like, and then someone to come and render-play it with Teto or Ritsu and get all the attention. People who post right away after the release of the ust are always a bit disrespectful to my eyes (yet I am gettin a bit off-topic, sorry).

I just suggest this to people sometimes, because I feel like ust-maker hard work should be paid with comments/likes/Mylists and not people just draining other people job.

 

[BlusaoCinza]

Fitting an UTAULOID oto into a ust takes less than 2 minutes.

The practice of \"plug-n-play\" is a really bad habit in the UTAU/VOCALOID community from my POV. Expecting to download the ust, put your UTAULOID in it, press play and render is just wrong. No one have the same oto settings (aside the VCV 300,100 or 250,83 on continuous sound).

If the ust is correct and your cover is sounding wrong, do not blame the ust-makers. It may be you not doing the correct adjustements or not even checking if the otos are correctly done.

Plug-n-Play users = Bad UTAU users.

Well, I think everyone has a different concept of what is a bad ust in the utau fandom. What could be bad for me could be good for you.  So some preferences are really personal while others are by common sense bad (like wrong tempo, wrong lyrics... xD).

 

[na4a4a]

-USTs in a million parts
-Very complicated Mode 1 only USTs (There's a converter to Mode 2, but it can be very yucky still)
-Incorrect Tempo/Key/Timing
-Really slow auto-vibrato god I hate that

And while a lack of pitchbends isn't necessarily bad if everything else is perfect (Masao USTs, for example), it certainly makes things better and amazing if they're there.

so-true... but if the ust is off-key you can easily move all the notes at once to the correct key.

 

[UtauYork]

Some things that I consider to make a ust 'bad' are basically already said. Wrong tempo, off key, wrong notes.

Also, when it's on mode 1. I can fix it, but it is just a tad tedious. It doesn't necessarily mean 'bad' to me, though.

Concerning pitchbends, I don't mind if it's pretty bland. It gives me the chance to edit it myself without messing anything up, and while I might make things worse with my pitchbends, it sort of makes me feel like a better user when I try to honestly make the covers I upload more unique.

With a UST being in multiple parts, I don't mind that either. If it exceeds 50 parts then, yeah, maybe you should make that a little less and fix it up. Although, the person who released the UST in the first place most likely worked hard on it, despite that, so I wouldn't actually complain.

However, if everything else is okay, and on time, then rendering multiple parts should be easy. To me, multiple parts gives me an opportunity to use, possibly, different appends of an UTAU to fit to the song. Also, if I wanted to make a chorus, then I could just fit an UTAU to each part and bam. Even more, it's easier when it comes to mixing. I could split up a whole UST easily, but multiple parts just saves a whole mess from going on.

 

[Asuka]

One of the worst things that has happened to me (which are probably a lot less of a problem for others) is when it directly comes from a midi, and lyrics are added in. No envelopes, no pitchbends (which isn't really necessary, but it does make my UTAU sound better-- often), no edits; just adding in the lyrics.

 

[Dojan]

I prefer it when USTs are as clean as possible. Preferably without vibrato and pitchbends.
Incorrect timing and incorrect lyrics drive me nuts though.

 

[SugarSweetVenom]

I have a bad ear for usts but I can hear obvious problems. I'm not to intelligent with usts, but for me a bad ust would be a ust that needs to be corrected too many times before you use it. Like there is a read me telling you how to fix what's wrong with the usts in a list.

 

[Twilight Tulip]

On the subject of multi-part usts;

Having multiple parts doesn't make it bad; obviously there would need to be seperate sections for harmonies, different parts of a multi-singer song, etc. Very long usts can get a bit tiresome and difficult to edit (going through and finding the particular part you're looking to fix can be a troublesome, such as a World's End Umbrella ust I've been working with), but even so, I wouldn't want the ust broken into more than a few parts, 2 or 3. If you've got anywhere near double-digits for just the main melody of a song, that likely means you have the same thing for harmonies, and any other extras there may be. That is honestly just unnecessary and annoying; I don't think it makes the user lazy, I think there is just a point where it becomes ridiculous. Like I said, though, breaking it up into just a few parts isn't a problem, it's when it gets excessive that it simply starts to become not worth it.

 

[selcouthic]

oh boy
-timing
-off key
-pretty much everything else everyone else said

Multiple USTs are something I'm okay with, as long as I know where to put them.

 

[Masa]

- UST in a billion parts, like almost everyone else here said. I can understand if it was necessary for the song (like Kaoling's music), but some songs are SO. SIMPLE. that it's just unnecessary to make an UST in 245840 parts! I hate it because it doesn't give you the "big image" of the song, and it's hard to get the timing right when mixing.
- Crazy, exaggerated pitchbends and vibratos. This is the reason I prefer to do the tuning myself. Really, I'd rather have no pitchbends than crazy pitchbends.
- Off time and off key. Off key is not too bad and is easy to fix, but the tempo and timing are completely wrong, I would just delete the UST and make one myself.