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ThomasS Offline OP
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I just bought Synthesizer V artificial intelligence voices Solaria (female) and Kevin (male). Amazingly, they can "sing' a midi file if you just type in the words. I am thinking of using it for quick songwriting with BIAB.

Below is a link to my first three attempts to use it with BIAB over the past two days. The first two were disappointing in many ways, but on my third attempt I was able to get something I think is promising.

What's wrong with the first two?
I downloaded two BIAB .mgu files from the internet (All the Things You Are and All of Me) and left the chords the way they were, and ran the the melody track through Synthesizer V and bulk copied all the lyrics from the internet. A few places had to be tweaked, but I pretty much let it do it's own thing regarding phrasing and pronunciation. The whole process from start to finish took about 15 to 20 minutes per song.

Although the voices were clear and quite realistic, they just sounded wrong to me (what do you think?) because the timing of the melody was exactly quantized, and no singer would sing that precise on every beat. Also the expression and vibrato was too uniform, and needed some variation.

What's great about the third attempt?
So I tried a third song (Crazy) and this time I didn't use the melody midi track, but re-played it on my keyboard without any quantization, trying to be freely expressive. I then added the lyrics and spent more time changing the expression, slides and vibrato in various places. This took me about 2 hours (but I was learning the program, so it can be done faster with experience.) This one sounded a lot more human to me.

All three attempts can be heard here in sequence (just keep listening to hear all the tracks)

https://iradeo.com/station/169450

I wonder if anyone else has had success with using these kind of programs with BIAB, and any tips for making them realistic.

What do you think about using them for demos? Especially the method of the third track (which takes a lot more time, but worth it in my opinion.)





Last edited by ThomasS; 12/27/22 05:53 PM.
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Have a squiz at the User Showcase page. there're two or three people who use the synthvox very successfully there. DCuny, (very experienced), is one of them and B.D.Thomas is another.
Here's a link to dcuny's latest...
https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=741561#Post741561

Last edited by rayc; 12/28/22 02:02 PM.

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Impressive. Where the immersion breaks for me is when they don't take any time to breathe. I'd be keen to see behind the scenes how you put it together. The 3rd one sounds a little scratchy (maybe just clipping), I'd say the first was my favourite. That second song is begging for a duet. smile

Below is an example of someone adding in breaths

Last edited by Ryan_R; 12/28/22 03:31 AM.
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I don’t work with vocals but if I had to, this would be very helpful to me as a composer. I could work with Kevin. Do they have other choices of female vocalist?

EDIT: yes, Eleanor Forte, good only for Anime sounds

I did not hear distortion in the third song, and I did hear your efforts to humanize. Nice work.

Last edited by Matt Finley; 12/28/22 03:56 AM.

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Without knowing the source, I suggest that many people would never have picked that this is AI.

Very impressive, and in particular you've done an excellent job on 'Crazy'


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Thanks Ryan_R for the advice about adding breaths. You're absolutely right. So I checked the manual and it is super easy to include breaths (just add a "word" spelled "br" and it sings it like a natural breath). I tried this and it instantly makes the track sound more human. It also forces you to leave gaps where a singer would naturally breath, so that is great too. I've only had the program for 3 days, and already I seem to be able to make vocals better than most demos I've heard, including the one you posted. I think the program (Synthesizer V) has gotten better recently and there is a beta version which just came out that has a some new features. I'm still finding more things I can do to improve the performance, so my first three out-of-the-box tests are nowhere as good as what someone should be able to do with more experience.

Last edited by ThomasS; 12/28/22 11:06 AM.
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Great to hear. I listened to a few renditions last night and the most natural sounding one was a Lady Gaga song I think.

The website seemed a bit confusing with paid and free/lite versions of the software and the voice. Many of the stores don't have English translations by default. Which editions did you end up using?

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It’s been mentioned above but worth saying again … members on the User Showcase forum have posted songs using synth vocals since their advent. It has been fascinating over the last decade following their development. Some of the latest posts by dcuny, B.D. Thomas and jannesan are well worth the time to listen.

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Originally Posted By: ThomasS
Thanks Ryan_R for the advice about adding breaths...

A simple piece of advice: sing along with your song, and whenever YOU need to breath, so does your virtual singer.
And if there's no time to breathe, change the lyrics. No kidding...


Making bits and bytes sound good...

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I've been playing around with the program (Synthesizer V) for about a week now, and I just realized that you can instantly double a track with a different singer with just one click, to get a very realistic choral sound. Then you can slide the notes around on the doubles and get instant harmonies without having to type in the words again. Here's a small test I did this morning, using 4 different AI voices singing together:

https://iradeo.com/station/169468

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Originally Posted By: ThomasS
I've been playing around with the program (Synthesizer V) for about a week now, and I just realized that you can instantly double a track with a different singer with just one click, to get a very realistic choral sound. Then you can slide the notes around on the doubles and get instant harmonies without having to type in the words again. Here's a small test I did this morning, using 4 different AI voices singing together:

https://iradeo.com/station/169468


I think you’ve done well all round with all of these and have made tremendous progress in a short time. “Blue Bayou” is very good, even Asterian sounds real. Usually he sounds (at least to me) like a higher range singer slowed down.

Your tips are very useful. I see you’re on VI-Control, posters on the Synthesiser V thread are really knowledgeable and offer good tips too.








Last edited by Cyberic; 01/01/23 06:07 PM.

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Thanks for the advice about the VI-Control thread, Cyberic. I'm going to check it out now. I didn't know anything about this program until a week ago, but I'm amazed how well-thought-out the functions and interface are. Very intuitive and easy to learn. It's going to take some time for me to really make it sing. But still, it's a blast right out of the box...

Last edited by ThomasS; 01/01/23 06:12 PM.
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My goodness that's really getting very good.

At this moment I'm thinking back to the first voice synthesiser I used back in the early seventies. It was a 19" 1U rack unit and all it could do was say the digits zero through nine.

The first time we ran it, it had us in fits of laughter because we were in southern England and as we stepped though the digits, we were quite unprepared for it's distinct southern-states accent ... "fower, faave, ...".

We used them for two or three years until we started digitising our own voice prompts and messages.


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Singers A.I. they got me, so I already have Synthesizer V Studio Pro, beautiful, and I have singer A.I. who can do cleaner lowest notes than me, so I'm starting and learning to sing voice bass from Asterian :-D

Last edited by Gause Zdenek; 01/02/23 10:47 AM.

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Incredible. Very impressive, and if that's what's what you delivered after a week of ownership, well, there's great things in store.


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Nice work Thomas!

I'm definitely not a singer and this may be a good tool for me to investigate further. I've found a few decent YouTube videos here and there and may pursue this next time I create a new track.

P.S. - Thanks for the comments on this from all the other forum members too. Lots of good info here.




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I recently bought Synthesizer V with “Kevin”, and I am trying to learn how to use it. Can someone explain the “Instant Mode” to me ? I think (I may be wrong) that you can only edit individual notes when you are NOT in “Instant Mode”…. Is that right ? I feel that there must be more to it than that - any pointers would be much appreciated.

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Originally Posted By: Kelvin
Can someone explain the “Instant Mode” to me ? I think (I may be wrong) that you can only edit individual notes when you are NOT in “Instant Mode”…. Is that right ? I feel that there must be more to it than that - any pointers would be much appreciated.

Kelvin, I've only had the program for about a week, but I found I can edit notes in Instant Mode in 3 ways:

1) in the piano roll (next to the words "piano roll") highlight the pencil tool and the squiggly lines (first two) and you will see the pitch and vibrato information, and with your pencil draw whatever you want over the top of them.

2) open the parameters panel (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agSYwd_LQZU) and you have control on the bottom to change anything - select what you want to affect (next to the word "EDIT" and there are eight parameters you can control on a note-by-note basis. This is very powerful and enables you to vary the performance and tone in different places.

3) with the arrow tool (not pencil!) select the note (or notes) you want to change and hit the AI Retakes button (on the upper right below the mic icon) then change the expression amount (lower is often better) and hit retake and it will make a new take which should be different. Play it and see if you like it, or keep making new takes until you get one you like.

I've found that "instant mode" sounds a lot more natural because it adds realistic bends and slides approaching and ending the notes, based on artificial intelligence according to the program's understanding of musical phrasing. Without instant mode you could theoretically make everything yourself, but it would take hours and still be clumsy, so just fiddling with the Retakes and expression amount until you have a good take is a great start. Then you need the two methods above to tweak it more. Instant Mode is just a headstart to get you in the ballpark before manually editing, but sometimes it does an amazing job right out of the box.

There is a lot I don't know, particularly all the scripts you can get, which make things even easier, so I will get into that next, but the best two forums I have found are at:

https://vi-control.net/community/threads/synthesizer-v-vocaloid-haters-might-want-to-check-this.115973/

https://forum.synthesizerv.com/

Last edited by ThomasS; 01/03/23 11:49 AM.
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Thank you very much indeed for that reply Thomas - I will carry on experimenting, using your suggestions and links - I am also over on Vi Control - I wonder whether we need a new thread over there exclusively for “Tips and Tricks”, as the official documentation is not great , but I am not complaining about that, because I am really pleased with the software and I am astounded how cheap it is, for the results it can produce.

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