How to Create a Vocaloid

If you're on the internet, you definately know about Hatsune Miku. Period.
If you don't, than here's a description.
Hatsune Miku is a Vocaloid. A Vocaliod is a virtual singing program. Vocaloids can sing songs perfectly, and reach notes that most humans can't usually reach. There are many Vocaloids and UTAUloids (UTAU Vocaloid) on the internet. Some of the most popular Vocaloids are Hatsune Miku, Kaito, Kagamine Rin and Len.
One if the most popular Vocaloid songs is the Ievan Polka.

UTAU is a freeware version of Vocaloid that allows you to make your voice a singing voice. We will use this program to create your Vocaloid.

Table of Contents

Part 1. Necessary Programs

Part 2. Installation of Programs

Part 3. Recording

Part 4. Voicebank Settings

Part 5. Using a .ust File

Well, time to start this off.


Part 1. Necessary Programs
These are the programs you will need to create a vocaloid. (Windows Only.)
UTAU - click on v0.2.76 インストーラ
UTAU English Patch
Audacity
This website open and scrolled down to the Hiragana chart (not really a program...)

Part 2. Installation of Programs
Open the .exe for UTAU. You will see a bunch of Japanese. If you have done an installation of any program before, you can find out what to do.
Open the .exe for Audacity. Install. Self-explanatory.
To add English Patch: Extract res.zip to X:/Program Files/UTAU/res (X: being main HDD)
If the res folder is not there, create one. Put all the extracted files there.

*You will need to change the non-Unicode language to Japanese. To do so, go to Control Panel (Category View), then "Clock, Language, and Region", then "Region and Language". In the R&L window, go to the Administrative tab and click "Change system locale..." and select Japanese. Don't forget to click Apply and reboot. Don't worry, this won't change your computer completely to Japanese, only non-Unicode programs. If you don't do this, you won't be able to use Hiragana voicebanks and use Hiragana .ust's.

Part 3. Recording
Open Audacity, and open the link mentioned above for the Hiragana chart. Press the record button (red circle) and re-open the browser window. Say all the sounds in a monotone voice, trying to keep the same note. Record each character for ~2 seconds. Make sure to leave a small space between each character.*** Select part of your recordong and press play to listen to it. Adjust it so that the whole character is clear. When it is to your liking, click File>Export Selection and for the file type select "WAV (Microsoft) signed 16 bit PCM" from the drop-down menu. To keep them organized, put the filename as the Romaji name. Save them all in one folder When you are done, you should have about 110 sounds.

***Right here is where you can change the pitch. If you want the UTAUloid to be deeper or higher in pitch, select the whole soundtrack (Ctrl+A) and go to Effects>Change Pitch... and change the pitch to your liking.

Part 4. Voicebank Settings
a. Move the folder with all your sounds into X:/Program Files/UTAU/voice (X:, again, being main HDD)
If you haven't already, make up a name for your UTAUloid. Make it at least sound Japanese by putting together a few characters and making the last name first. I currently have 2 UTAUloids, Shoza Makasu and Ashu Kotone.
Make two text files in the folder that stores all your sounds: readme.txt and character.txt.
In readme.txt, put anything you want. It is just the info that comes up in the info box in the UTAU program.
Character.txt is what actually displays the name. here is the template:

You can leave image blank, but if you want, you can make a 100x100 pixel image and save it as a .bmp BitMap image. Put the image in the same folder as the sounds and text files.
b. Now open UTAU. Go to Project>Project Properties and choose your UTAUloid from the first drop-down menu. Then press Ctrl+G. Click each row and Copy+Paste the Japanese character for that file to the bar that says "Alias" and then click "Set". Do this for all the sounds.
Congratulations! You have just completed your first UTAU voicebank!

Part 5. Using a .ust File
A .ust file is an UTAU song file. You can use this with UTAU to make your UTAUloid sing the song embedded in the .ust file. Double-click the .ust file and select the UTAUloid you would like to sing. Press Ctrl+A and click the small Play button on the top. It may take a few minutes depending on how long the song is, because UTAU has to render each sound. A command prompt will pop up and will show a bunch of words and numbers. Don't close it, or else UTAU won't render the sounds and your UTAUloid won't sing.

To save your UTAUloid's song, click Play>Save last play and it will save your last rendered version of the song.

I hope you liked~ :3
This took me a few hours and research to make... I hope I win the contest!
Thanks for reading.

Edited by superkidmax, 04 August 2011 - 06:26 PM.

that's neat. I had never heard about vocaloids before.
thanks for sharing this with us

awesome! i've always wanted to know how to make one. Thank you very much

Awww yeah, this is what i have been looking for.... may sound stupid but I always wanted to pull this off, or at least try, since my voice isn't very awesome in singing much..

Dude, that's crazy.

Just a quick note to anyone who reads the tutorial and follows everything to the dot, the "Alias" bit of it is actually what you type to call the sample sound, so you don't NEED to put it as the Japanese character and you can change all the aliases to romaji to make it easier to add lyrics.

ooo...k.

So what's the difference between a Vocaloid and a UTAUloid? Is it a matter of whether they are official or not? And what does UTAU stand for?

A Vocaloid is official and created by a company. (ex: Hatsune Miku is owned by Crypton) A UTAUloid is a homemade vocaloid (ex: A famous UTAUloid, Kasane Teto, is fanmade)
s4mid4re clarified the meaning of UTAU down there.

EDIT: false info XP

Edited by superkidmax, 25 May 2011 - 01:49 AM.

Don't worry, my first UTAUloid came out terrible, but now I created one of my best so far. Experience helps~

You're welcome :3

how could i have missed this?

thanks

Utau (歌う in kanji or うたう in hiragana) stands for sing in Japanese. Uta (歌) means music or song; adding the u (う) onto the end makes it a verb form of music/song.

Edited by s4mid4re, 25 May 2011 - 01:43 AM.

thanks for clarifying that for me~ :3

youre welcome~
thanks for reading everyone~
also, please post you UTAUloid name~ I want to see your creativity~

Thanks - Really useful! I'd never heard of vocaloids before this.