vocal synth time 
vocal synth time
welcome to my vocal synth shrine!! i'm so so excited to work on this actually LOL
this is going to include a mixture of things! UTAU is my primary thing really, but Vocaloid, Synthesizer V, other programs (maybe), their histories and voicebanks are also so going to be included. just expect me to be a little silly and rambly about voice synths, i just think they're quite fun!
maybe in the future, once this page is more realized, there will be a little 'table of contents'.
a vocal synthesizer, or a vocal synth, is "an electronic synthesizer that generates and combines basic elements of sound to produce simulated speech, used in computer systems, etc. " as said by collins dictionary. it's pretty straightforward, actually. you get your silly little computer, open up something like synth v or utau, and make your computer sing! text-to-speech and similar technology also fall under this category, however that's more well known as speech synthesizers more so than vocal synth. not entirely sure why this is, but i assume it's to seperate the more musical technology from the more practical kind. these programs are also known as singing synthesizers.
oh goodness me. there's a bit of history regarding this and it consists of very old technology and older computers. i don't think i can get into all of that, mainly because it's not my personal focus and i have noooo knowledge regarding these (and i'm not quite sure where to look), but i'll at least bring up one of the most important and very well known of these regarding voice synths as we know them.
it started in 1961. the IBM 7094 was the first computer to ever sing. specifically, this computer sang a little short cover of "Daisy Bell", and there's actually a video where it shortly explains who worked on this along with the audio of the IBM 7094 singing! "Daisy Bell" became The Song for singing computers, and this as a whole was a deeply important moment for the whole thing of computers singing / vocal synthesis. the IBM 7094 paved the way for the beginnings of programs like vocaloid and others that followed after.
following the singing IBM 7094, there was more explorations and attempts in making computers sing. “by the end of last century, the most successful and credible synthesis was the aria of the ‘Queen of the Night’ from mozart's opera ‘The Magic Flute’ made in 1984 by yves potard and xavier rodet using the CHANT synthesizer,” says jordi bonada, a senior researcher at the music technology group at pompeu fabra university in barcelona.[source used] around the time bonada joined pompeu fabra in 1997, and yamaha had contacted them about some ideas regarding voice synthesis. they formed "project elvis", which lasted two years. this never became a product due to it's size, so they had agreed to work on a new project. this is when hideki kenmochi came into the picture, also known as "the father of vocaloid." you can probably guess where this'll lead.
in march of 2002, they had created a prototype for vocaloid, which at the time had been codenamed "daisy", an obvious homage to the first song sang by a computer, "Daisy Bell." vocaloid wasn't their first name choice, originally wanting to go with "daisy" before coming across copyright issues. there was another name too, but that wasn't disclosed. "vocaloid" however ... that was avaliable. the first ever version of vocaloid (also known as "vocaloid 1" or "v1") released on january 15, 2004, and march 3, 2004 in japan, along with Leon and Lola, created by Zero-G. Miriam, Sweet Ann, Meiko, and Kaito release a while after. it wasn't until vocaloid 2 that vocaloid became popular.
it's 2007 now and vocaloid 2 had just been announced. hatsune miku, the most well known vocaloid, is unveiled in june and released in august 31st, august 31st now considered her birthday. this starts the "character vocal series", which consists of the later released kagamine rin & len and megurine luka.
how doesn't it connect to UTAU? UTAU released in march of 2008 and has it's origins in "Jinriki Bōkaroido," which is basically manual vocaloid, where people edit, extract phenomes and adjust the pitches of already existing vocal tracks to make them sound more vocaloid-esque. a speech synthesizer, AquesTalk, is sampled for UTAU's default bank who is known as Uta Utane, also known as Defoko. because of the popularity vocaloid 2 gained during the start of nico nico douga, a site similar to youtube where musicians shared their vocaloid works, UTAU was set to succeed. UTAU finally became popular when kasane teto was released on april 1st (april fools day), 2008, jokingly posed as a vocaloid. her first ever song released is "song of the eared robot", which was also the first ever UTAU song to reach the nico nico Hall of Fame. (a personal fav, honestly. and off topic- i love that the first ever songs done with vocaloid/UTAU reflected the idea of them being singing robots. it was honestly so so cute.) though that's not the only thing that launched it into popularity. with it's freely avaliable program and the user's ability to create their own voicebank if they so choose, people were easily drawn to the program. it was also seen as an alternative to vocaloid, which was a whole lot more pricy and more limited within it's voicebanks, something UTAU would further expand upon due to it's versatility and userbase.
i found out about vocaloid first before UTAU, finding out about vocaloid through fandom. i was in elementary school i believe, and i really loved the furry and undertale fandoms. i knew of the existance of vocaloid because of the music, but didn't start indulging in it until about sometime between 5th and 6th grade. the new friends i had just made were also into fandom, and that included anime, which vocaloid was often included in. i got so ecstatic over this, being able to talk about vocaloid with my friends. a really good friend of mine at the time even let me borrow her copy of the "Unofficial Hatsune Mix" manga!! (which i believe she has now gotten rid of... so mad she didn't give it to me...) it wasn't until i had found out about kasane teto that i had, by extension, found out about the existence of UTAU. the idea of being able to make my own vocaloid (actually an UTAUloid) sounded so so awesome!! august 2nd, 2017, i would post a video of my UTAUloid singing a cover of "Electric Angel", specifically the rin and len version, basically my version of "Daisy Bell" in terms of significancee, haha. after a couple of years, my friends would grow out of vocaloid while it'll end up sticking onto me. i still haven't been able to use vocaloid, but i'll end up playing around with UTAU and even make a new voicebank for myself. and because of it being free, i'll learn more about said program and how to use it, and be around for the eventual release of OpenUTAU, a newer version of UTAU made by fans. along with that, i'll also be around for the release of the highly anticipated Synthesizer V Editor, the original version of the now known Synthesizer V Studio. i still don't really have friends who indulge in vocaloid/UTAU/voice synth as a whole as much as i do, but it's still a fun thing to explore, learn, and use.
okay now go make a voicebank or something
