Let's Singing Robots

I've been interested in voice synthesisers for a long time (vocaloid, UTAU, that kinda stuff) and have recently got into actually making music with them

I use a program called Alter/Ego which is free and has one free voicebank at the moment called Daisy:


here she is, holding her tiny hat


the program can work standalone by taking in midi input (which is how I use it) or as a plugin

here's a quick rundown of how it works:


you can type in text normally, like this, and the program will automatically break the words into sounds and syllables for you, which can then be played using midi input, like an instrument


or you can switch to X-SAMPA mode (like the IPA, but only using ASCII) and type in sounds and syllables individually
I like using this mode because I get a lot more control this way

there are a lot more settings that control the way the voice sounds but I wont go into those because there are Too Many


anyway here's some actual music I've made with this thing:


this is the first song I made with Alter/Ego, when I was just trying to figure out how to use it

it's a cover of that 13th century deer fart song


here's an example of a reason you'd want to use X-SAMPA mode: emulating an accent

Alter/Ego (or at least Daisy) defaults to a General American accent, and that's not what you want if you're trying to emulate Gordon Lightfoot, a known canadian

here's what Alter/Ego gives you if you just type in the lyrics normally so you can compare it to the X-SAMPA subtitles I put in the video



anyway I hope that was interesting. right now I'm working on a cover of please mister postman (the carpenters version) with the pronouns switched so it's more gay
I'll post updates on how that's going, probably

it's taking a while because I keep getting distracted

Thank you for bringing your gay robot to the forum

you're welcome

so here's what I'm up to with please mister postman so far
for some reason this time when I exported the vocals they slowly went out of sync over the course of the song, so I had to correct it manually
I have no idea why that happened

ilu misser postmen

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please mister postman

I adore this.

I was researching voice synthesizers a few weeks ago for a project and trying every one I could get my hands on, but I never got Alter/Ego to work properly. You made me want to try again. I love the way Daisy strains to sound human (especially the melisma on "a letter for me-e-e").

I am also a fan of the word construction "Gordon Lightfoot, a known canadian".

ilu misser postmen

please mister postman

I adore this.

I was researching voice synthesizers a few weeks ago for a project and trying every one I could get my hands on, but I never got Alter/Ego to work properly. You made me want to try again. I love the way Daisy strains to sound human (especially the melisma on "a letter for me-e-e").

I am also a fan of the word construction "Gordon Lightfoot, a known canadian".

thanks!

I do like using Alter/Ego, it's pretty intuitive to me. although I haven't used any other voice synthesiser software so I don't really have a point of reference

it introduced me to X-SAMPA, which is good for someone like me who likes linguistics but has a hard time parsing squiggly IPA symbols

Please finish it. Seriously. I promise you at least one person will hug and kiss it (it's me). Gay robots and Please Mr. Postman push several of my buttons. I will stop at every floor and inconvenience the passengers.

I participated

It's dead simple once I got it going. It was being a buttlord about actually installing the voice bank for some reason. Definitely a lot easier to use as a plugin than a standalone program.

Your lead vocal is way better than mine. Any chance of sharing your settings? Please? Or is it a preset?

I should probably learn X-SAMPA, but I'm so used to goofily typing out things phonetically in OS X or Software Automatic Mouth at this point that it's second nature.

I tweak the settings every time I work on this thing but they generally tend to hover around these numbers:







I'd like to be able to use Alter/Ego as a plugin because I'm fairly sure you'd be able to uh... animate/keyframe(?) the settings to get more variation in Daisy's voice but Sunvox doesn't let me use it like that

edit: also my favourite vegetable is eggplant

My patch is pretty similar. I guess it's a matter of context. There definitely seems to be a sweet spot for the formant knobs.

here's a quick one because I wanted to work on something else other than please mister postman

Cute!! Your singing robot gay ladies are like my children I love them all

I did a thing for my aforementioned project I am unlikely to finish

I tried looking for MIDIs of old Motown hits because I am too lazy to transcribe an entire song, but the cornucopia of free MIDI files from the mid-to-late 90's that we were all so quick to ridicule has been supplanted by a nauseating procession of pay sites. This is what Web 2.0 has wrought. I hope you're happy, America! There will never be another Real Ultimate Power ever again!!

e: I niced my thing to be nicer

I did a thing for my aforementioned project I am unlikely to finish

this is really fun to listen to

I usually just find sheet music or transcribe by ear (to the best of my ability), which is part of the reason I take so long to do one song
I have a hard copy of please mister postman sitting on my desk next to me, mocking me

Hey. Thanks.

Good things take time! I will wait patiently.

e: You can make Daisy beatbox with some effort, but it doesn't sound that great, unfortunately

aaaaaa I kept meaning to make my own UTAU voicebank, but this is really great so far

woo hey it's been... several months
here's another gordon lightfoot song (the instruments are temporary while I work on the voice)