Singing Computers

Miriam's official boxart Miriam Voice donor: Miriam Stockley, a South-African-born british singer and composer Engine: V1 Company: Made by Yamaha, sold by Zero-G Release date: July 2004 Updates and/or additional voicebanks: Nope. Her voice donor has suggested an update, along with many fans, but Zero-G said no, as they’re pretty much out of the Vocaloid game by now. Language: English Voice type: She has a soft alto voice. If I had to describe it in one word I would say it was “silver,” really nice and polished, but metallic. Weaknesses: Her biggest weakness is being on V1, obviously. Strengths: She just has a very nice, soft voice. Nothing really unusual, but still pleasant. Examples: Never Gonna Give You Up , Fly Me To the Moon , Secret Space , I Think I've Won , Snowglobe City , Here , Video Killed the Radio Star Reception: She was released after LEON and LOLA on a slightly updated version of V1, but still failed financially. Kind of. At the time th...

(Note: Someone told me to space out my paragraphs a bit more, to make them more readable. How's this? Also, sorry for no update last week. I think I've got it under control now, but thanks for your patience.) Here is the YouTube page of a Vocaloid Producer I've gotten into: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHf9og9JlOD7YNYezW_tVew/featured He's much more active on his SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/oddeeoofficial His general style is a mix of 80's synthpop and whatever subgenre Porter Robinson does. Not only do I like that style a lot, another thing I like about him is his attitude towards Vocaloid- as a computer program, an art form, a collection of characters, a  phenomenon  in general. One of his videos is an "interview" with his characterization of the Vocaloid Avanna. Named MON1T0R, this fictional character that he made up was a computer program (presumably the Vocaloid program) that gained sentience through some kind of anomaly. Here was one...

(Note: It's been a while since I've done one of these, hasn't it?) Some official Ausgris art A reference Name:  Ausgris , pronounced Aw-gree, it's French. This is more of a "working title" for the project, so it may change. Voice donor: All that's been announced is that the voice donor is not a singer and sung-spoke the samples. Engine: V5? Probably? Company: Is being made by and will be sold by VocaTone Release date: IN THE FUTURE Updates and/or additional voicebanks: Nope Language: English Voice type: A low, youngish male-sounding voice with an American accent. They have a "quirky and upbeat voice, able to sing and speak at a low pitch." Weaknesses: ??? Strengths: ??? Maybe talkloids? Examples: Ausgris Beta Demo - be aware that this was released when only one pitch of recordings had been made, so that's why his low tones sound weird. Reception: Not popular yet, as they haven’t been released yet. They are used as a chara...

(Note: I homeschooled for middle school, and for writing class in eighth grade I took a very good writing class from someone local who hosted writing classes for homeschoolers at her house weekly. She was an incredibly  good teacher, and in some ways I owe this whole blog to her. To be honest, I was occasionally annoyed by how much of a stickler she was on avoiding "to be" verbs and not repeating words. Only one of those lessons have I eventually taken to heart, as you can see... But one of the things I liked about her was how freely she allowed us to interpret the prompts. As you can see from the title, I wrote an essay about Vocaloid. I'm posting it here, along with (my commentary in bold and parentheses, like this) because it's actually pretty good, at least for an eighth grader. Since their invention, people have manipulated computers and computer programs to accomplish incredible tasks, things once thought only accomplishable by a human. To name a few, co...

     (It’s time for another one, bois. Prepare yourselves. Also, this was the post that I bit more off of than I could chew. Can you tell? Anyway, let's just jump right in, since you already know what this is.)      Vocalsynth cover artists:       MioDioDaVinci - Turned me into a Kyo fan in the span of an hour when I listened to their covers. Also does a good job with the other ZOLA boys and VY2.       Lanuman - First, their tuning is really realistic. Second, I really like how they use a lot of Vocaloid “underdogs” really well. Third, their manly Piko gives me life.      Vocalsynth Producers:       kyaami/cillia - The absolute goddess of Vocaloid and other synth tuning in general. Show her covers to your friends and they'll think it's a human singing. She used to be in the cover artists section, but recently she released a Vo...

(Um hi, sorry for the late post, I was quite busy. Also, I bit off more than I could chew again. You'll see that post next week. That has happened multiple times, though, hasn't it? I have to figure out what to do about that. Hmm. In the meantime, enjoy this thing I wrote a while ago but never posted. I think I might just like some of Porter Robinson's music, what do you think? This one is less about the music of life and more about, well, music, specifically how it is changing and how it will change and whether that is good or bad or just... the same. Because music never really changes, deep down inside, past the surface.) I hadn’t listened to Fellow Feeling for months. I didn’t remember exactly how it went, but I remembered that the cello part was nice, but there was also an ugly part as well. But recently I reminded myself that all of Porter’s music is good, so I decided to listen again. I didn’t realize… I had goosebumps by the end. I did ...

So. I have mentioned AegisSan as one of the Vocaloid Producers I like. Well. This is a comment thread from about 6 months ago on their song Without You : Click on image for large size- Sorry :( Fast forward to six months later, to yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2izfT3axnI That collab happened and released! It was definitely  a learning experience- I had to find: -A microphone (My dad had one he had bought to record audiobooks with and never used) -Recording software (I eventually decided on Voice Recorder Pro, by Splend Apps) -A metronome system to keep me on the beat (Headphones that are 'broken' in exactly the right way) -A good space for recording (Basement) -A way to convert the files AegisSan sent me into sheet music (Midis and MuseScore) Then I got my two best friends into the project (one of them plays/played viola, the other plays cello) and had them record parts too, so scheduling was also a problem since at the time of writing they are un...

     You are a dreamy person.      Well, everyone is, really. Everyone has dreams, most of them unremarkable. Some they remember and dream again and again. People often explore their dreams, travelling far and wide, or maybe just making their home in a little niche. Sometimes they add new things to their dreams.      However, everyone seems to agree that, by far, the best thing to do with your dream is to share it with another person. Sure, they might not like it for one reason or another or no reason, but it is worth the risk to have someone dreaming the same dream, exploring and making with you.      If the dream is good enough, you share it with lots of people and make a community. Some of the best dreams are ones that have been built up by hundreds, or even thousands of people over years, or even decades.      One of your classmates at school shares a dream with you. She says it wasn’t her dream originally, t...

     I've been doing this thing for fun for a couple months now. I will take closeup photos of random textures, say, a wood floor, grass, some sort of fabric, etc, then I will edit them with my phone's default photo editing app. The results are things that work great as background images. I'll spam them here. Feel free to use any of them as a background image if you like, I don't really care. car seat a homemade southern buttermint kitchen counter floor carpet wall corner fabric floor view out the car window not actually fire hairbrush floor floor floor floor floor seat fabric windowsill viola case floor tablecloth refrigerator blanket couch seat cabinet   school floor school wall corner couch fabric school glass wall divider thingy school glass wall divider thingy brick wall      So... yeah. *...