Forum:Quality Check

Hers another thing I often see Vocaloid users argue over; quality.

Firstly lets establish a few grounds rules of "quality".


 * 1) Any voicebank singing in its set language will sing at a higher quality then another Vocaloid singer that language using another language.
 * 2) In other words, Miku's Japanese Vocaloid 2 voicebank does not produce better results then Sonika's English voicebank.
 * 3) Ditto, Luka's Japanese voicebank does not produce better English results then her English one.
 * 4) The overall differences between Vocaloid quality is often very small at the best of times.
 * 5) It is subject to opinion of the user.
 * 6) It is based on a number of issues about the Voicebank and very rarely is pinned on one factor.

No matter what, these 4 simple rules play a part of what people will say is and isn't a low quality Vocaloid. Also, despite the sact ther are one or two GOOD English voicebanks by Japanese Vocaloids, I will note that there are ways to produce "English". However, these is not what this topic is about and can be discussed another time. But bottom lies is even at their best,Japanese Vocaloids don't sing better English naturally then any of the English Capable Vocaloids.

Next lets look at factors that play a role in the Vocaloids quality


 * Time frame; Vocaloids are prone to the subject of rushed releases, the most recent is SeeU with her English according to SBS. Rush jobs are caused by studios setting deadlines for releases they simply cannot hope to meet.  A perfect example of a famous case of rushing is the Kagamines, who not only had this once but twice.  Crypton Future Media seems to have learnt their lesson, judging by the length of time its taking for most of their recent projects.
 * Smoothess; In a nutshell, Vocaloids sing words, they have transistions from one word pronounication to the next. Choppy vocals are when samples don't smooth themselves out as they sing. Usually the soft range of vocals are the ones who best show signs of this although it is not said for all of the Vocaloids.
 * Clarity; Clarity is the ability to hear the samples and hear the distinction between vocal sounds. This is a issue that can effect any Vocaloid and is often resolved very easily with EQ during to the songs clean up process.  Very few soft vocals manage to do both this and smoothness.
 * Optium Ranges; Tempo and Range are often given by studios, though not all bother. This is the range and tempo the Vocaloid sings best at, outside of this they don't sing very well.  This is also a indication of what genres they are best for as most music style fit within a certain tempo and range, though this is not always true for all Vocaloids.
 * Language Capablities; Vocaloids with less diaphonetics then others within the same language have less quality. This is the reason why Vocaloid voicebanks like Leon and Kaito currently do not compete as much as Vocaloid 3 voicebanks in terms of quality.  Also, this is a contribution to Luka English being placed below other English Vocaloids for having a lot less English sounds.  ''And also, the reason why SeeU Korean is not considered a high quality English results.
 * Background noise; Gumi, Gakupo, Sonika, Prima, Tonio are some of the examples of Vocaloids with background noises. This need to be filtered out before publishing.''
 * Roboticness; partly tied in with smoothness, but not always because there are smooth and yet robotic vocals. Roboticness is caused by the Vocaloid engine having to improvise and demostrate its capablities to sound human.  Som Vocaloid do not sound as natural as others.  For instance, Tonio sounds very robotic.  SDme vocaloids have alot of engine improvisation going on.
 * Technology; the microphone used. Software involved. Any little piece of software or hardware used to create the voicebank can effect the results.  A faulty, old or cheap mic will often spoil even the best singing results.
 * Date of developement; Over time Vocaloid practices are improved and some Vocaloids released later in a engines lifespan often end up higher quality then earlier ones. Example; Hatsune Miku and VY1.
 * Engine version; Improvements to the engine will effect the quality of the results.  This Factors to the reason why Vocaloid vocals don't sound as humanesque as Voaloid 3.
 * Support; The original Hatsune Miku voicebank on its own does not produce as good as quality results as many Vocaloids that came after it. However, it is possible to use the updated vocals in conjuction with it to pick the best results from.  So this improves a quality of the Vocaloid just by using the additonal voicebanks for supporting the original.  Yukari also has many software supports greatly expaning her vocals, despite having just one Vocaloid voicebank. However, this is only a bonus register of quality and onyl accounts for overall quality if you do not view these voicebanks as seperate entities.  If Miku and the Appends are treated as seperate softwares to each other then this will not be a decisive factor in the quality.
 * Genre; one of the reasonxs for Leon being considered less fit for Soul music then Lola was his lack of timbre. So the Vocaloid's ability to fit with their genre is another subject. You may also expand on this to ask if the genre suits Vocaloid.  For example; the opera Vocaloids are considered too odd sounding for Vocaloid once effects are added to the vocal.

And finally, most important of all;


 * How the user uses the Vocaloid; their knowledge, the song they make them sing, their skills... Any one of these can effect the Vocaloid. This is why quality is often a opinion based established level.

This is not the complete list of things that can effect the Vocaloids voicebank, but it is the most majority that I can think of. Anyone, most users seem to purely base the quality on tuning... Yet... Anyone with good tuning skills can make a Vocaloid sound good. So this is a user based determination of quality, not a direct sign of quality and I must confess I ignore people when they say "Quality = easy to tune". If this was the case, Hatsune Miku would be at the highest order.

Also, while I mention Miku's quality just now, do realise that in her day, she was considered the highest quality Japanese Vocaloid of all. It was only tested when Gakupo came along, who sadly was much harder to work with and then finally broken in 2009 with the release of higher quality Vocaloids. So while it is true she is a low-quality Vocaloid, consider that even high quality Vocaloid will eventually be replaced with even better quality Vocaloids. In other words, the guidelines are subject to change at a moments notice with the release of any new Vocaloid (see Vy1v3).