Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-216.186.132.194-20151001032234/@comment-50.106.13.136-20151004024708

I don't know how useful this will be, with my limited experience, but here goes.

Always turn the brightness up if there's a problem with mumbling. There's no guarantee this will always work, but it resolves most of Oliver's mumbling problems and considering how drastic these are, I'm satisfied with that.

Do not abuse the clearness and breathiness parameters. Most of the extra rasp probably disappears while mixing, but it really, really bothers me when I can tell that it's been used liberally. That might just be my opinion. On the other hand, if something does end up sounding raspy and I can't remove that problem, I just turn up the breathiness for the entire thing a bit.

Pitchwise, I like to use portamento whenever I see fit. It really does make it seem like you put more effort into making it realistic than you actually did. Also, rather than using the pitch-draw mode (I still can't use it orz) I split the note into one or more smaller ones, and allocate the smaller one(s) to other notes to create just about the same effect. Am I explaining this badly? Yeah, I am. The point is, there are multiple ways to edit the pitch, and some might be easier than others depending on the person. ((also don't be ashamed if you only use the vibrato editor to edit vibratos rather than the pitch-draw thingy I personally suck at drawing vibratos))

If you ever have a problem with the length of a consonant, try editing the velocity parameter. I still can't remember which way makes it shorter and which way makes it longer; you'll have to find that out for yourself, I guess. If that doesn't work, split the note so the problematic consonant is partitioned in a small part, directly followed by the vowel. (Or right after; might depend on the situation.)

Phoneme editor is your best friend. Memorize the combo "Ctrl+R". It may vary depending on language (once again, limited experience), but for English at least it is a godsend. Learn the phonemes and possible alternatives if one of them is being a pain (actually this probably won't be that relevant for Japanese Vocaloids but ehhhh).

Download well-made VSQs whenever you find them, open them, and study how other people tune. It might be quite the discouraging practice if you aren't that great yet, but incorporating other people's tricks into your own work definitely isn't theft :). They also serve as visual, interactive aid, which is much better than anything I could type up here.

I think that's it...? Sorry about how disorganized this is, but it's the best that I could do. I have no idea how to mix, either, so good luck with that.