Phoneme List

The phonetic system forms the basis of speech play back in the Vocaloid software. Symbols used in the phoneme system are based on X-SAMPA.

Using the Phonetic System


Note: The following applies to the Vocaloid 2 system, while both programs work in a similar fashion, some things may not apply to Vocaloid or working differently to Vocaloid 2.

A note is that all the Vocaloids simply do not have the same phonemes, such as [br1]- [br5] the breathing phonemes. There are also some phonemes that found only in one language so not all of the Japanese and English Vocaloids will share the same phonemes. Also, while a Vocaloid's help guide will list the alphabets of the languages they may not include additional notes. If a user allows the program to auto-find phonemes, if it has a particular word it simply cannot identify, it will automatically write it as the phoneme u: by default. In addition, if the user enters a phoneme manually that the Vocaloid simply does not have in its voicebank, there will be no sound at all when the Vocaloid is played back.

To create and edit phonemes a user must right click on a note click and press "Note Properties". Using Japanese Vocaloids, a user must press Alt key and down arrow key at the same time on the kana-character entry screen. Here they can edit a phoneme and add additional effects. For instance, to roll the phoneme U: we would edit to read U: R, making sure there is a space between U: and R so the program knows they are different phoneme effects. When a user is entering a phoneme they must take care as capitalization of a letter may not have the same effect as a lower case letter (example: Z and z do not produce the same result).



A Vocaloids dictionary will attempt to match the correct phonemes with the word the user enters, although a note is that not all words are able to be found by the dictionary. To be able to write the word "bungle" if you do note know how to use the phoneme system, an easier way to find a few similar words and work from there, in this case "bangle" and "bung" can be used to enter manually the word "bungle". "Bung" gives us the phonemes bh V N and bangle bh { N g V l. Bungle will be formed from "bung"s bh V N with the addition of "bangle"s g V l, giving us bh V N g V l for "bungle".

A user can use the phoneme system to create languages from scratch, so long as it is within the Vocaloids capabilities. For this, a note is that due to the set up of the Japanese Vocaloids, they are more limiting for the use of the English language, since the phonology of the Japanese language including phonemes, accents, tones, intonations, moras and assimilations, is very different from that of the English language. As each consonant sound is always followed by inseparable vowels and consonants do not get in cluster in the Japanese language, generally each of them is pronounced weakly and not independently, except んn, sokuon and some transliterated phonemes for non-Japanese words. Because of this, some of Japanese Vocaloids’ consonant sounds slightly contain vowel sounds to be smooth and sound right in Japanese when they are connected to the following vowels. Also even if X-SAMPA, IPA, Latin Alphabet or the symbol transcriptions are the same, their actual pronunciations in Japanese and English are not always the same; for instance, symbol S is often pronounced /ʃ/ by English Vocaloids and /ɕ/ by Japanese ones, basically Japanese "a" is a low central vowel and is between the English "a" in "father" and the English "a" in "dad" , and "r" in Japanese is not as same as either "r" or "l" in English. (See "Japanese Phoneme System" below) In addition, the English language often put emphasis on certain letters of words (stress accent) while the Japanese language frequently use pitch accents. These differences between two languages frequently make Japanese Vocaloids retain a Japanese accent when there is no perfectly equivalent phonemes, even if users manage them to sing in the correct language. On the contrary, the same things can happen to English Vocaloids and they often have English accents when they sing in other languages.

Also, something else that should be considered with English Vocaloids is that their regional accent may have a small role in how the Vocaloid sounds overall while singing in English. This will not effect any of the Vocaloids overall performance or the handling of the Vocaloid engine and they will use identical Phonemes regardless. In fact the only effect this will have on the Vocaloid is simply a particular stress or emphasis on certain vowels and consonants that may not be seen in another English Vocaloid but may make an English Vocaloid sound not how a user expects it to sound. Examples of Vocaloids who may be effected by this include Sonika who has a British Accent, Sweet Ann who has an Australian and Big Al who has a Swedish; also included in this is Luka Megurine who will retain a Japanese accent. One noted example of a regional accent effecting a Vocaloids outcome is Big Al's pronounication of the vowel sounds; he can often be harder to make sing in Japanese because of it. In contrast, Japanese Vocaloids do not have as much of a regional accent effect between them in Japanese.

Liberally interpreted, English Vocaloids have a greater language capacity than their Japanese cousins for having more vowel and clearly separated consonant sounds and are therefore easier to make sing in other languages, although both will only be using the equivalent or quasi-equivalent phonemes according to the set up of the phonetic system of either language. However, interestingly sometimes phonemes which are not equivalent work better than equivalent ones in the target languages; for example, when Miriam sings in Japanese, v V sound closer to the actual pronunciation of w a as a Japanese particle は than w V. Regardless it is difficult for any Vocaloids to sing in the language they are not intended for, and it may take hours to do through a trial and error process. A user may have to make the dictionary for another language from scratch, this however also allows for a user to be creative, even going so far as to invent languages of their own if they desire. Essentially, the more time a user spends working to get familiar with the phoneme system, the more they can get out of the Vocaloid program. An additional note is so far Sonika is regarded as one of the most potential Vocaloids to "sing in any language" due to her unique set up and Luka will also work for having both English and Japanese voicebanks, according to which language of the program the user is working in. Users' technique often makes surprising results, however, it is greatly influenced by how much a Vocaloid's Phonetic System has phonologically in common with that of the target language without aids of other music/audio software.

English Phonetic System
The following is a list of phonemes needed to make the Vocaloid sing in English.

''Special note: This was the list provided by Big Al's help file, however there were some incorrect entries within the released list. Entering some of the words provided here as examples for the phoneme usage will not result in the expected phonemes that were used for the list. In addition, the list did not indicate which particular letters the phoneme applied to; the wikia has underlined the relevant letters for the benefit of readers. Of the Japanese Vocaloids, only Luka will be able to use this system properly. ''

Japanese Phonetic System
The followings are lists of phonemes needed to make the Vocaloid sing in Japanese.

List 1
Special note: this is based on Big Al's help file and some information is added to show English equivalent/quasi-equivalent phonemes for Japanese phonemes with sybols and compare their actual pronunciations. Even if the symbol transcriptions are the same, their actual pronunciations in each of the language are often different as each IPA shows. This guide is meant for users who is working to make an English/Japanese Vocaloid to sing in the opposite language. However, additional work will be needed to get closer to the target language's phoneme usage.

List 2
Special note: this Japanese phonetic list is taken from help file of Vocaloid2 developed by Crypton Future Media. Crypton Future Media’s Vocaloids, including Kaito and Meiko, have almost the same Japanese phonetic system. To use z, Z, h\, N and N' , a user need to edit the phonemes, not entering kana-characters. Rin/Len Kagamine Act 1 can pronounce h\ which their Act 2 cannot; comparison of consonant sounds ACT1, ACT2 Vocaloids of Internet Co. Ltd., such as Gackpoid or Megpoid, mostly share the same system as Crypton’s, but they do not have z and Z sounds. As is often the case with the Japanese language, they are replaced by dz and dZ.

Note Effects
The following is a list of phonemes that will alter the effect of a note in a certain way.

''Special note: Not all the Vocaloids will share these particular effects. Early Vocaloids, Sweet Ann, for instance, often do not have the breathing phonemes. Some vocaloids, such as Kaito and Meiko, have a breathing phoneme /*in/ instead. Sonika has much more capability within her Voicebanks, but lacks the 5 breathing phonemes. ''

Additional Help
Also note, both Zero-G and PowerFX also have tutorials of their own.


 * How To Make a Vocaloid Breathe Using VOCALOID: Explaination on how some of the Japanese Vocaloids sound when you use the breathing effects
 * Comparative Table of English and Japanese Phonetic System of Japanese and English Vocaloids, including notes on if the vocaloid has this phoneme. List also includes information on how to transform the quasi- equivalent phonemes in Japanese and English into the opposite language effectively.
 * Vocaphonetic: A Japanese community site for creating and distributing Japanese dictionary data for English Vocaloids to sing better in Japanese. The dictionary data for Vocaloid and Vocaloid2 are respectively available.