Recording tips

Here are some tips that might help on recording an UTAUloid. Please notive that those tips are gathered through usage; so, any problem with them must be addressed immediately.

Check your pronouncing.
Accent is inevitable, but if you pronounce "ka" as "kay", or "chi" as "shi", well, it's just plain wrong.

Make sure the microphone and recording program you use record clear samples.
It's not a nice thing when you record all those samples, and they ended up uber-muffled or with random noises, right? *Hypocrite*

Avoid "blowing".
Some microphones might have noise suppression filters, but air can still get caught in some notes. Try to not sing too near or too directly.

Avoid unwanted vibratos.
All UTAU samples might be straight and clean. You don't need to record vibratos when the program already programs them for you.

Try to keep a constant on your notes.
Not only keeping your notes straight (that is, without shifts in a phoneme), but keeping all phonemes with similar notes help.

Always sing when you can.
Unless you can't hold a note, or your UTAUloid is product of voice acting, try to sing when recording the samples, specially if you want your UTAUloid to be similar to you.

Try to keep the samples with a constant volume.
I'm such a hypocrite, but yeah. Also, try to check your mike's volume; if it's too high, it won't give nice results.

Avoid shouting.
Same reason as above; it worked with Kenta, it might have worked with Tree, but it doesn't mean it'll work with you.

Check initial results in UTAU before going on.
Or else, you'll be like me and hate your VB's result with all your guts... orz Record some samples (like vowels, n, k set, I dunno, not too much) and test how they'll sound in UTAU. If you don't like it, well... Remake it until you like it. *Nods, hyper hypocrite*

Avoid doing VCV without having practice with CV.
Believe in me, it's better. VCV is far too complicated and long to get right in the first recording.

And yes, I called microphone "mike". It's amusing this way XD

Also buy a decent microphone. Any USB karaoke microphone for any of the video game consoles out there works wonders and are very cheap alone (8-$20). Buy a microphone stand with that along with a pop filter.

You won't regret it.

Actually, I don't sing Anaka's samples. I speak them in a half whisper.
... I do hold out the notes and make them straight, but I wouldn't count me muttering notes as singing.

Blankets work wonders! You'd be shocked what a big difference putting a blanket over your head can have!

Almost every microphone type can be used for UTAU When utilized properly.
If you use OREMO and a laptop mic, your UTAU will be extremely muffled and distorted. That is not nice.
However, using the same microphone in program like Audacity, may allow you to make the sounds vaguely clear.

That being said, if you have a low quality mic and want a clear voice, you'll need to raise your voice and use noise removal.
If you have a decent mic and want a soft voice, you just need to work in an environment with just a bit of white noise (Like, an air conditioner, an overheating laptop...)
If you have an amazing mic and want a human sounding voice, I have found that using a blanket and a soft voice does wonders = w=

A hard voice is more VOCALOID sounding, though!
If you have a decent microphone, you can just raise your voice slightly but DO NOT let it clip.
Hard voices are nearly impossible to achieve in OREMO due to recording quality. REAPER and Garageband are suggested. However, Audacity can be used.
With a decent mic, your voice SHOULD drown out the backing static, and you should be left with a clear, strong voice.

... Sad thing is, I'm pretty sure I can find you an example of Anaka using all those recording methods if I just shift through my videos on youtube.

Yume's "strong" append (which hasn't demo'd yet |D), was recorded like this:
USB mic that I got from who knows where, but is pretty good quality.
Holding the mic at the side of my face so I didn't breath into it and make it pop.
OREMO.
Speaking as loudly as possible without clipping.
To further prevent popping, putting a tissue over the microphone. (This works wonders. WONDERS I TELL YOU.)

Yume_Strong is by far the best sounding one of the lot, and lacking all the annoying pops that original Yume has and I can't fix because of the fact that my voice got kind of deeper now. .u.

.... I sorta shouted into my mic xD

Zeny wrote:Also buy a decent microphone. Any USB karaoke microphone for any of the video game consoles out there works wonders and are very cheap alone (8-$20). Buy a microphone stand with that along with a pop filter.

You won't regret it.

becareful though because feli uses a video game console mic and she hates it she doesn't really have the money to afford anything better =(

lol I used my headphones as a mic to record Trem's new vb. They were ipod headphones, and I used the 'voice memo' application that comes as a default app with the ipod touch. You can do the same with desktop computers (and probably laptops too), if you really can't afford to get a decent mic. The headphones even blocked out background noise; my sister was watching stuff on youtube across the room on her laptop, and the headphones picked up none of it.

And yeah, blocking out background noise with a blanket or something is very useful. I've used a box before, lol--literally, I stuck my netbook and head in it and sang into my laptop mic. But this time around I was just singing out in the open.

I think another thing that's important is that you need to be ready to make multiple tries at it. Steel yourself for recording an entire voicebank a few times over, and then try your best the first time. It's a much nicer feeling in the end than getting attached to a voice bank before it's even in UTAU and then getting annoyed/angry when it doesn't sound how you wanted it to. Being able to let it go and just try again does wonders for the psyche.

Trempush wrote:... I think another thing that's important is that you need to be ready to make multiple tries at it. Steel yourself for recording an entire voicebank a few times over, and then try your best the first time. It's a much nicer feeling in the end than getting attached to a voice bank before it's even in UTAU and then getting annoyed/angry when it doesn't sound how you wanted it to. Being able to let it go and just try again does wonders for the psyche.

Hence why Anaka has over 10 acts.
But I'm not going to lie.
I was such a n00b when I first made her (over a year ago XD; ) that I was like "LOL MY VOICE IS IN THIS COMPUTER AND IT'S SINGING LOL IT'S SO COOL."
And she was Ruko and Iku's love child, I swear.

It was until around my 4th attempt that I got anything vaguely decent, and the 6th version was one of the best. (The pronunciation somehow magically went from bad to clear from act 6 to her triphones? I don't have any idea how, since the only real practice I had was recording Anaka, but I've had several Japanese people tell me I pronounce my Japanese clearly.)

I'll be frank, having a high-quality desu mic doesn't help much. It just changes the quality of the recordings.
Sometimes background noise sneaks into the recordings, which, yes, having a blanket over your head WILL HELP for some reason. o_o

suthethird wrote:
I was such a n00b when I first made her (over a year ago XD; ) that I was like "LOL MY VOICE IS IN THIS COMPUTER AND IT'S SINGING LOL IT'S SO COOL."

lol, that's where I was in December. Can totally relate there.

LupinAKAFlashTH2 wrote:Sometimes background noise sneaks into the recordings, which, yes, having a blanket over your head WILL HELP for some reason. o_o

recording with a pantyhose worn on your head also works like a pop filter xD

*not gonna try it*

Nanashi_Zokune wrote:

Zeny wrote:Also buy a decent microphone. Any USB karaoke microphone for any of the video game consoles out there works wonders and are very cheap alone (8-$20). Buy a microphone stand with that along with a pop filter.

You won't regret it.

becareful though because feli uses a video game console mic and she hates it she doesn't really have the money to afford anything better =(

I suppose, but Rockband and American Idol mics should work.

Ahahahah I'm the only one uses such an expensive mic. OTZ ($200 SHURE brand);;;;

What I like about it thought, is that you can change the settings directly with the buttons on it. (It has an option to prevent clipping! ouo) By recording with the mic gain (recording volume)low, and by exporting with a good program, you can get crystal clear, static-free recordings. òuó9


...I'm sure there are just as good microphones that don't even cost half as much, lol... (I didn't buy my microphone btw, ...it was a gift from a friend. *u*/ )

Saying that recording with a good, expensive microphone is just as good as recording with a video game microphone is kind of like saying that you can pay for a hamburger at McDonald's with monopoly money just as well as you can with regular money.
If you don't use your microphone properly, then it obviously won't work at all.
However, if you use a good microphone properly (as Syo said), the result is fabulous.
Do you want to know the difference fabulous recordings make?
Just listen to LOKE's act one, then compare it to his act 2. Biiiiiig difference!!

I used a headphone mic for Kii's ACT1+2 and Fuyu's ACT1 on my laptop, and the rest were recorded on the desktop PC with the same mic. Skip forward a month or two to past Christmas '09 - I used a proper singing mic for Fuyu's ACT3.

With Fuyu there was a big jump in quality with her ACTs: ACT1 sounded fairly human enough, ACT2 sounded much more robotic which was a fairly long jump down in quality, and now ACT3 sounds much better, which is a really big jump in quality between 2+3. Big jump.