Friday, March 25, 2016

Vocaloid Quick Tip: Entering Multi Syllable Lyrics

Hey, everyone! Satoshi here with another quick Vocaloid tip!

This is something I recently discovered, and I'm embarrassed to say that I've been doing things the hard way for such a long time. It just goes to show you that you easily can get caught up doing the same routine methods simply because you're comfortable with it even though it's kind of a pain.

I'm talking about entering multi-syllable lyrics in Vocaloid. Let's take a word that I'm all too familiar with: humiliation. I'm sure you all know that you can't just enter in the whole word in one block--it won't work. You get something like this:

Entering in multi-syllable lyrics in one
block won't work. You'll just get the
default phoneme u:

In the past, I have manually broken up each syllable and entered them in separately. For instance, I might put in (along with the corresponding phoneme):

hu [h i: u:]

mil [m I l]

li [l i:]

a [eI]

tion [S U n]

But--a much easier way to do it is to create five separate blank lyrics and then enter in the whole word in the first box. Try it! Did you see what happened? Vocaloid automatically will separate the lyric into the appropriate syllables and enter them into the blank lyrics for you! Vocaloid has a pretty complete dictionary, but if the word isn't in the dictionary, this won't work. However, you can always add your own custom words to it so it will work the next time.

Enter in multi-syllable words by
creating blank lyrics for each syllable
first. Then enter in the entire word
in the first lyric.

Remember, it's always a good idea to review what the Vocaloid Editor entered. You may need to tweak and adjust the phoneme to your liking.

I hope this tip makes things easier for you! Keep on rocking!

Monday, March 21, 2016

Vocaloid Song: Megumi Writes "Makeinu!" Part 2

Now that Megumi has written a new song, she has tasked me to get everything prepped to record it.

What I like to do first is to prepare a chord chart for the song so that everyone can follow along. This is as simple as using any old word processing program to type in the lyrics and the chords. Once I do that, I'll print it out though and write in the measure numbers by hand.

I try to make it fit on one page, but
if it doesn't, no big deal
You can see that it can get pretty sloppy looking, but I've always done it this way and I'll probably always write in the measures with a pen.

I think it's a good idea to prepare a chord chart rather than just wing it from memory. And it certainly pays off if you go through the chord chart several times to make sure it's correct. I don't know how many times I've been lazy and not taken the time to proof it and ended up writing down the measure number wrong, or done something like count the measures incorrectly.

Here are the lyrics and chords:

Makeinu by Megumi Matsumae

Intro
A         B            x2

Verse 1

A             B
                    I don't wanna be your girlfriend
A             B
                    I don't wanna be your maid
A             B
                    My life has reached dead end
A             B
                    And you just wanna get laid

A             E
                    I'm more than just a womb
A             E
                    It might as well be a tomb
A             B
                   What's the point of education?
A             B
                   when you're tuned out by a nation
B   Bb  A

Chorus

C#m                 A                     E
Nihon, you have failed your daughters
Nihon, you have broken all your promises
Are you happy with what you've taught her?
You will pay with all your accomplices

C#m                 A    x3
                         I'd rather be
                         I'd rather be
                        
E                   A ~ B ~ A (slide into it)  x4

          Makeinu
          Makeinu
          Makeinu
 

Verse 2

A             B
                    I don't wanna make your dinner
A             B
                    I don't wanna clean your home
A             B
                    I won't be holding your slippers
A             B
                    and waiting here while you roam

A             E
                    My job should be more lofty
A             E
                    than bringing you your goddamn coffee
A             B
                   What's the point of education?
A             B
                   when you're tuned out by a nation
B   Bb  A

Chorus

Solo

Verse 3

A             B
                    I'll make a speech in the Diet
A             B
                    You can shower me with jeers
A             B
                    You can try to keep me quiet
A             B
                    I swear you'll be the one in tears

A             E
                    I'm more than just a womb
A             E
                    It might as well be a tomb
A             B
                   What's the point of education?
A             B
                   when you're tuned out by a nation
B   Bb  A
 

Chorus

The reason why it's so important to me to make sure there are no mistakes in the chord chart and that all the measures are numbered correctly is because I use that to lay down the drum part. So the actual recording is done in another program, not the Vocaloid 3 editor. I use a program called Sonar X1. I've been using Sonar (by Cakewalk) for a long time. I used to use this program called Digital Orchestrator Pro, which I really loved, but it was a 16 bit program, and when Microsoft moved on to Windows 95, they did not further develop it into a 32 bit program, so I knew it was basically dead. So I migrated to Cakewalk. They upgrade the program every year, but I don't think it's necessary to constantly buy a new version.

There are many multi-track recording software out there. You don't need to spend $300+ if you're just getting into it. Entry level programs are usually around $50 or less, which I think it pretty reasonable. Cakewalk has an entry level program called Music Creator if you want to go with Cakewalk but don't want to spend a lot of money on their Sonar line.

Whatever program you choose, I strongly recommend that you pick one that can display the time in measures/bars. Songs are structured that way, and it makes it so much easier to be able to go to, say, bar 32 where the chorus starts. There are some programs out there (geared more towards audio recording and not necessarily song recording) that keep track using mm:ss, which to me seems more useful if you were working on a soundtrack for a film or something. Just something to think about.

With my chord chart all done, I'm ready to build some scratch tracks in Sonar. I always start at measure 2. Why? I use measure one for the count off.

For this song, the tempo is 136 bpm. Remember, when it comes time to create the vocals in Vocaloid, you will need to set the tempo in the Vocaloid editor to match this!

To build the drum track, I like to use drum loops--specifically, Acidized drum loops. Acid loops contain extra information to make it easy to do things like change the tempo and repeat the loop. My go to drum loops are by Drums on Demand. When I create the drum track, I like the have a crash cymbal at the start of a new section (like the verse or chorus) and I like to have a drum fill at the end of every section. I will sometimes also do this if the chorus is really made up of multiple sections, like with a pre-chorus or post-chorus. Megumi likes to hear the changes so she knows when a section change is coming up!

Once the drum part is built, Megumi will record a scratch track for the guitar. For this, I pulled out the old Guitar Port to record the guitar. It is not necessary to make this perfect at this point. No audio processing is done at this point, either. I just want a rudimentary backing track to lay down vocals to. Further down the road, Megumi might want to change guitars if she wants a different sound.

Yasuko doesn't like to record her bass yet until after the vocals are done because she likes to play off of the vocals. Of course, Megumi, after hearing the bass, sometimes will want to change her guitar part or her vocals, and then Yasuko will want to re-record her bass, and then I have to put a stop to it, otherwise it never ends! See, that's the thing--the song you first come up with may be really, really different in the end. That's because what you add to it is based on what was added previously. So if you're recording a track to a certain drum and bass part, what you record is specific to what you are hearing. If the drum and bass part changes, I guarantee you, your track will change in response to that. That's what makes creating music so exciting I think. Because it's always fluid, always changing in response to a specific environment.

So, with a basic scratch track done for drums and backing guitars, I can now export the audio so I can import that into the Vocaloid 3 editor and have Megumi lay down her vocals, which I will leave for next time!

Until then, keep rocking!

Monday, March 7, 2016

Vocaloid Song: Megumi Writes "Makeinu!" Part 1

Megumi looked at the crumpled sheet of paper on her lap.

I don't wanna be your girlfriend
I don't wanna be your maid
My life is a dead end
And you just wanna get laid

They were lyrics that she had jotted down over a month ago while she was manning her mother's newsstand. It was something she thought about a lot. She was 24 now, and she didn't see much of a future for herself. Even her schoolmates who went on to college--did they really have a better future than her? Working a simple office job until they got married?

Megumi grabbed a pen and suspended it in her hand over the sheet of paper, half expecting some mystical force would take hold of her hand, and wondrous words would start flowing out as the pen moved about the paper, but there was--nothing. She tightened her grip on the recalcitrant pen.

"Idiot!" she said, snarling at the pen. Megumi tossed the sheet of paper and the pen onto her bed and grabbed her guitar. She didn't even have a melody to this yet--perhaps it would help break her writer's block if she worked on that?

She strapped on her guitar and picked up a guitar pick and started strumming an A chord. She closed her eyes and started to hum, trying to coalesce a melody out of those seemingly random notes coming out of her mouth. No, that's not it. She wanted it to be driving--bam! bam! bam! Like a relentless hammer, beating down on your hopes and dreams...

She started to alternate between the A and B chord. Yes...that was more like it.

I don't wanna be your girlfriend
I don't wanna be your maid
My life is a has reached a dead end
And you just wanna get laid
 No, it's more of an impact if you're moving along and then stopped rather than just be stopped! Megumi grabbed the pen and crossed out those offending words and replaced them. She then began writing furiously.

I'm more than just a womb
It might as well be a tomb
What's the point of education?
when you’re tuned out by a nation
Megumi smiled. She completed the first verse! But then she noticed something--she had changed the rhyme pattern from ABAB to AABB in the second part. She could fix that--but then she would have to rewrite the lyrics. No, she didn't want to change them. The lyrics said exactly what she wanted to say.

Thinking for minute, she decided to alter the chords for the second part--to set it off, showing that something different was coming. Yes, that would work. Megumi played around with some chords before settling with A / E for this part. Yes, that works nicely. The A / B chords provide some tension that resolves nicely going to the E chord. So, this is going to be in the key of E. Megumi liked the key of E as she felt it suited her voice very well.

It all started coming together for her now. She finished up a first draft of the lyrics and came up with a working melody in about an hour's time. Megumi grabbed her portable recorder. She wanted to make sure she recorded this, or else she would completely forget the song the next day.

She recorded a quick first take and played it back. Yes! That was what she was after. She quickly grabbed her phone and texted Yasuko and Satoshi.

Yasuko, Satoshi! Come over! Let's have a recording session!

Megumi's first draft of her song, Makeinu!

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Vocaloid Quick Tip: Stringing Vowel Sounds Together

In a previous tutorial, I talked about how to stretch a single lyric across several notes using pitch bend. The other option is to enter the lyric as separate notes. For instance, let's say I have:

I say

And I want to stretch the lyric say across several notes. I can enter the phonetics like this:

s eI

followed by a bunch of

eI (which is the "ay" sound).

Go ahead and enter that in and see what you get. Sounds horrible, doesn't it? Vocaloid is singing it back as separate notes. Obviously we don't want that. Nobody would sing it as Say ay ay ay ay. We want a smooth blending of the sounds, like Say-a-a-a-ay.

We can accomplish this by putting a hyphen in front of the phonetic, like this:

s eI, followed by - eI.

In the picture above, the first notes have been entered without altering the phonetic. Those notes are sung back as separate sounds. But in the second grouping, I've added that hyphen in front of the phonetic eI. This tells Vocaloid that this is connected to the previous phonetic sound.

You can listen to the difference.

Important: you can only string together the same vowel sounds. If you try doing it with two different vowel sounds, like in Day O, it won't work. Well, actually that's not true. It will change it, but it won't necessarily blend the two different vowel sounds across different notes the way you want it to. Best thing to do is to just try it and see if it works for you.

Anyway, I hope this tip helps! Keep rocking!