Yen-Mi's UTAUs: Ami, Yumi, and BAI-F0 - An Investigation

Are these UTAUs really named Ami and Yumi? Who is Ichikawa Ami? Who is BAI-F0?

Yen-Mi's UTAUs, Ami, Yumi, and BAI-F0  - An Investigation

Note: I will openly admit that there's no actual reason I should be writing about these UTAUs. They are too new to be forgotten, to popular for Wiki Wednesday, and there's technically only two UTAU characters and not enough to justify calling this an "investigation". But, I have a family history of addiction and I'm dealing with some mental stuff right now. I have a shopping addiction, but no money. One of the ways I've helped with my addiction to shopping is to turn it around and get addicted over acquiring something free - UTAUs. I decided to randomly search UTAU音源 on BowlRoll and downloaded ones that kind of stuck out to me and I could somehow justify slipping in. This was TMI, but I really just wanted to tell everyone about the new BowlRoll thing I'll be playing around with.

Ok, now on to the article! 

The biggest mystery to me in starting this investigation was just who the heck is Yen-Mi? 

The website is written partially in English and partially in Japanese with the banner at the bottom announcing it is a Weebly website in Spanish. Her Twitter is mostly in English with a bit of Japanese mixed in. Though, she admits that she isn't fluent in Japanese as her bio states that she wants to learn it. When you visit her art tumblr, she states she is from the Canary Islands. (Quick aside her art is amazing and I love it.) The Canary Islands are a set of islands controlled by Spain. This conflicts with the fact that she states her UTAUs are recorded in Africa until you realize that Spanish rule be danged, those islands are really close to Africa and are sometimes considered African. (note: her dA, which I only found through BAI-F0's ReadMe, states she is from Western Sahara.)

So, all of that is to say that Yen-Mi is an amazing artist who lives in a Spanish controlled territory off of the coast of Africa. That's why her UTAUs were recorded in Africa but her outlook email has a Spanish domain. (Or not, I'm not sure what to do with the info from her dA.) 

I have a feeling literally no one cares, but it was a big, confusing mystery to me! Anyway, on to the UTAUs.

Who is Ichikawa Ami / 市川アミ?

Official Art Packaged with Bank

Ichikawa Ami is Yen-Mi's main UTAU. She is 13 years old and her canon nationality is Canarian. While Yumi is technically just a variation of Ami, I will focus on both as individual characters. 

Ami herself is branded as "AMI - BLUE". Her ReadMe doesn't match the contents of the bank itself, but the description on the website matches the contents. She is a a three pitch, hiragana encoded VCV. 

The OTO is a little strange - it has CVVC functionality and has aliases so that A3 can be triggered by using either A3 or 弱. The VCV for G4 has no suffix.

She is a very strong powerscale bank for only having three pitches.

She is very high quality, but you know me. I'm not the biggest fan of powerscales. Luckily for me, Yumi exists.

Who is Ichikawa Yumi / 市川ユミ?

Official Art Packaged with Bank

Ichikawa Yumi technically is Ichikawa Ami. (And now I have Puffy AmiYumi songs stuck in my head!) Because of that, all of the biographical information is the same. 

Yumi is only a two pitch VCV whisper bank. And, of course, I am super happy about it. 

Yumi's accent is really obvious, but I think that it is so super cute! When I can tell the accent is pretty strong, I think "awh! That's so cute" as opposed to thinking it an error.

Who is BAI-F0 / 倍-フォ?

Official Artwork packaged with bank by Hinatarose

BAI is an adorable goat baby at only two years old. BAI is androgynous and must be a vegetarian. BAI loves milk and cheese, but hates meat. This is a super cute detail: their name is a play on the Canarian word for "baby goat".

Unlike Ami and Yumi, who only have one bank each, BAI has four banks. I was not able to download the original CV as the link was taken down. However, I was able to get all three of the other banks. 

BAI-F0 is an old UTAU compared to Ami and Yumi. Their banks are from at least 2014! That was just after I left the fandom.

Of course, when I'm in a situation like this where there are multiple banks to look at, the first one I want to open up is the VCV. Despite being a one pitch VCV, I love BAI-F0's VCV. 

I might be crazy, but that's what I imagine an adorable androgynous human-goat hybrid to sound like.

Next, there are two CVVC banks. It will take some extra effort, but I'm going to turn to alias the OTOs so I can mash them together!

This is the Stern and Calm banks. The low notes are Stern, and the highs are Calm.

I prefer the tone of Calm, but it needs a lot of work with OTOs. You could auto-generate them usually, but Moresampler refuses to work with these filenames. The easiest way to mask the problems with Calm is to do what I did and alias them so that Stern takes up enough notes that you won't be spending too much time messing with OTOs.

When mixed together, I really like how the CVVC banks sounded, even if I only used them as CV.

Where can I download Ami, Yumi, and BAI-F0?

All of the links are on their distribution site! To get to the links, click "DLS" in the top bar. Click on the icon of the UTAU you want to download on the second page, and BAM! You can download the banks.

BAI-F0's most viewed video has over eighteen-thousand views. Usually I avoid writing about crazy popular UTAUs as I'm doing nothing to raise any kind of awareness. But, there was just something about Yen-Mi's art that hypnotized me from the moment I saw the icon for Ami. I had to at least see what it was like to use Ami and Yumi, so here we are. I'll try to get back to writing about unknown UTAUs and raising awareness ASAP!