Hi everybody. To do something against the impending [url=http://users.cognitone.com/content/end-world-countdown]end of the world[/url], I composed a Christmas carol. I hope it helps. :-D
It is sung by Vocaloid Prima. A while ago we had here a [url=http://users.cognitone.com/content/synthesized-vocals]Synthesized Vocals thread[/url], which encouraged me to give Vocaloid a try and this is the first result. The lyrics are the poem "Colinde, colinde" of the Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu:
If somebody want to download the MP3, here is the link:
https://www.box.com/s/pv329ojon7sospxbmq47
I must say, it worked surprisingly well to learn Prima the Romanian language. Of course I had to enter the phonemes for every syllable manually (when using the English language only the words must be enterend and the phonemes are calculated automatically). But the result is quite understandable. Of course Prima sings with a slight accent, but that's not too bad in my opinion. This gives the impression as if an internationally renowned soprano was engaged in the production. ;) For comparison, here is a spoken version of the poem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYd_5FHK7Y
When composing with Synfire I worked with the VST version of Vocaloid. It was only singing 'la, la, la' then. When the composition was finished I imported the MIDI file of the vocals into the Vocaloid editor. There I entered the lyrics and tweaked the singing parameters (portamento, dynamics, and so on). When this was done the WAV file of the vocals were exported from the Vocaloid editor and imported into Cubase.The figures for the vocals were entered directly at Synfire's phrase editor. I used one container per sentence. I entered figures with one or two symbols per syllable and shaped the figures how I thought it makes sense. At this point, I had only a rough idea of how it would sound. After adding a harmonic progression (which is a really simple one, only cadences in C major) Synfire came up with a really nice tune.
I've prepared a video that shows some details of the arrangement. It also demonstrates how it sounds when Prima sings 'la, la, la':
Hi Juergen
Congratulations!!!! Beautiful song,clearly reflects the nostalgia of Christmas.
I love the mystery of the bass and the angelic voice of singer.
A song very elaborated and composed with exquisite sensitivity
By the way......Merry Christmas to all!!!! :yeah: :bravo: :hello:
That is nice done Juergen.
I like to hear her voice more in front and music more in background ..but that's personal ofcourse
You can experiment with this that her voice get more attention?
Merry Christmas to all
Yes, but it was necessary to place the vocals a bit in the background here and there so that the shortcomings of the pronunciation do not stand out too much. Vocaloid Prima is optimized for the English and the Japanese language. For other languages it sometimes lacks the appropriate phonemes. German language would also be problematic, there is no appropriate phoneme for the vowel "ü". Nevertheless, it is fascinating to produce vocals on the computer.