トマトのヘタ / Tomaheta's UTAUs - An Investigation

Who is Ginne Tei? Where can I download Hinon Gomi? Who is 真琴カナタ?

トマトのヘタ / Tomaheta's UTAUs - An Investigation

All together, with some banks missing due to AXFC being wonky, these UTAUs come to over one and a half gigabytes unzipped. That being said, there are ten UTAUs in this collective. It's a lot easier to swallow the whole over one and a half gigabytes thing when there are ten different UTAUs!

I'm generally really loose with the word "collective". Three UTAUs by the same person? Call it a collective to justify using it for an Investigation piece. Unlike those cases, this one is an actual collective with three people working together. (Check the website for yourself if you wish!)

However, I have no idea who these people are. They all use what I assume were pseudonyms that couldn't be used to track them down on any other social media. The names on the profile of the blog translate as Tomato, Apple, and Udon. While taking care of the blog and website was apparently Tomato's job at first, responsibilities were eventually shifted to Udon. The blog has been abandoned since 2013. However, by using the BowlRoll links on the website, you are able to see that MIZUSAWA UDON has reuploaded all of the banks very recently. From the BowlRoll user page, you can find Udon's Twitter profile. 

Now, there are ten UTAUs and I'm estimating there are about fifty banks I need to sort through to write all of this. Let's jump straight in! This is going to be long, so I'm going to plop a "Read More" in right here.

Who is 真琴カナタ / Makoto Kanata?

Official Art Packaged with Bank

Makoto Kanata is a 2009 UTAU. I have no idea how I keep finding 2009 UTAUs I have never seen before, but here we are! 

I put her biography as given on the website into Google Translate, and I don't get it. It's one of those things where everything hinges on one word, and I have no idea what the word is. I looked on Jisho, I looked on Japanese Wikipedia, but I have no idea what a "ガンダヌ" is. I could read it myself to see if it makes any sense, but I'm not getting anywhere without knowing what that one word is. My assumption is that she is a human shaped mech? But what does that have to do with Gender? She weighs twelve tons, so I guess the mech theory is correct. 

In the 2013 version of her bank, her voice provider is listed as "ナータ". There is no information on who that is, but this version does have Udon's Twitter handle in the Read Me. 

Her bank from 2009 is pretty good. It's a two pitch CV bank.

Her VCV from 2012 is a different story. It's a lite VCV with three pitches. However, the three pitches sound like they come from different UTAUs at some points.
The bank is wonky when you try to use the "A" button with it. Using the prefix map was a struggle, so I put the arrows in using SuffixBroker. It's not a bad bank, it's just really wonky. 

Who is 燈音ミゴ / Hinon Migo?

I wanted to do these UTAUs in the order they appear on the website, but this UTAU has like fifteen banks. I'm coming back to Migo at the end.

Who is 華露ユナ / Katsuyu Yuna?

Official Art Packaged with Bank

If my understanding is correct, Yuna is a Gundam who loves teatime. 

Yuna is another 2009 UTAU with a 2013 update. Both bank are one pitch CV banks. Using Advanced Renamer and Find and Replace, I mashed up her two one pitch CV banks into one two pitch banks. It was a mistake. The harsh voice with a bit of noise is the 2009 bank, and the soft and clear voice is the new bank.

Who is 吟音テイ / Ginne Tei?

Official Art from Website

Ginne Tei has seven banks that I was able to download. As far as I remember, she was the only one with a 404'd bank. Of course, having seven other banks makes up for that!

I really love the design. I've said it before, I'm a sucker for red and black. This UTAU's voice provider was Tomato. I guess that makes sense with the color scheme!

That aside, all of Tei's banks are CV with the exception of her VCV bank. Her first bank was recorded all the way back in 2009. The second and third version of her original bank were also recorded in 2010. There's not too much difference between all three, so I'm only rendering off a sample from the final bank in that line. Prefix map isn't working, so I had to put each up and down note in with SuffixBroker.

Her next banks are her Appends. There is Middle, Shrill, and Iraira. Of course, using a combination of find and replace and renaming samples, I was able to combine the three into a three pitch CV bank.

My favorite of the three is probably Iraira, but it works best as a low pitch in conjunction with the other appends in my opinion.

Finally, we have Tei's VCV! I love VCV.


This time, I think I prefer the tripitch CV.

Who is 吟音コウ / Ginne Kou?

Official Art Packaged with Bank

Ginne Kou's voice provider is Tomato's brother! So not only is Kou Tei's brother, his voice provider is Tomato's brother. Those cute details make me really happy for some silly reason. What's super crazy to me is that Kou has a VCV! Getting a family member to record is tricky - getting them to record VCV would be straight up difficult. But here we are!

Kou's CV is two pitch and his VCV is only one pitch. Both are really nice and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. In the following clip, the CV bank plays and then the VCV bank plays. 

Who is 鎖骨@push.jp / Sakotsu at Push dot JP?

Official Art from Website

I'm lazy. I can read Japanese, but I'm still slapping these descriptions into Google Translate. This one just weirded me out. Her voice provider is named Bacon, and that's as far as I'm looking into her.

I love the design. It is really pretty! She's a pretty standard one pitch CV bank, but I have a feeling the design would be enough to get someone to use her.

Who is ぐおぐお / GuoGuo / GwoGwo?

Official Art Packaged with Bank

How many Canons are there? This bank was recorded by かのん, but I'm sure there's no relation to the one everyone thinks of at first.

I think there's an entire Tomato's Heta extended universe. The description makes it sound like Kanata and GwoGwo are two separate races embroiled in a race war. I guess? That said, I really like this voice! This bank is just a lite VCV as opposed to a full VCV. GuoGuo also has a full CV bank, as most lite VCV banks have. You can use either VCV or CV!

Who is バロリッシュワンワンアクアちゃん / Akua-Chan?

PUPPY!

PUPPY!

Who is 召亜音リズ / Meshiane Rizu?

Official Art Packaged with Bank

Rizu is really shy and makes masks out of vinyl. She's also Catholic and hides behind her brother all the time. If it weren't for the mask, I would be in love with this design. But the mask just really weirds me out.

She has a CV bank and a CVVC bank. Her CV is one pitch whereas her CVVC is two pitches. I absolutely love the tone of her CV.

I'm less of a fan of the CVVC.

Who is 召亜音グラッド / Meshiane Glad?

Official Art from Voicebank

Glad (Guraddo surely translates to Glad, right? 

Guraddo does exorcisms and does various religious things. He is Rizu's brother. He has a CV and a CVVC just like Rizu.

Now, who is 燈音ミゴ / Hinon Migo?

Official Art from Website

Hinon Migo's voice provider is actually Udon! That explains why she has so many banks. My understanding of her character is that she is meant to be a tomboy. Not quite androgynous, but not a girly girl either.

To speed things up, as she has so many banks, I rendered all of her CVVC banks and plopped them into the same WAV file. I did this partially because I don't really know what to do with CVVC. I just treat it like a CV and move on with my life for the most part.

My favorite is probably the やわらか version! Check out the description of the Clyp if you want to see all of the names of each segment played.

Speaking of CVVC, I say two things quite frequently: I don't do CVVC and I don't do English. I thought I'd challenge that and try out Migo's English bank. nope.

There were so many samples missing, I had to give up on making her say "dreams". Almost every time I moved on to a new word, I would have to type at least sample in about five times to find something that worked. That made it a nightmare. However, one quirk that didn't hurt too much but was strange was the fact that this was a CV style English bank. While there were VC endings, those were also recorded as if they were CV samples.

What really stinks is that I really like the voice and accent apart from the "r"s. If it was a full bank with all of the fixings, I think I would love to make this UTAU and English original song. (Something I really never say!)

The bank simply titled "燈音ミゴ" is a trip. It's a one pitch lite VCV paired with a secretly two pitch CV. Half of the CV samples have a "2" after them. The ones with "2" are deeper, so you can use this bank as a two pitch CV with some random VCV thrown in.

Her ver2 bank is a three pitch CV. Arrows in the file names means manually adding the suffixes (unless you want to whip out a spreadsheet). This is actually a good thing because it allows you to make choices that will improve the quality of the output. For example, the ん sounded really wonky in a specific part. Despite being one of the highest notes in the UST, I put the ↓ on it and it fixed it pretty well!


Next are her four CV appends. I will do for them what I did with the CVVC.
あだると, or Adult, append is a two pitch bank. The pitches are very disparate, but they can be used together in a way that just seems to fit. Her ぐらんま, or Grandma, append is a one pitch and is meant to sound like Granny Smith from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The ささやき, or whisper, append is a pretty typical soft append. I like those a lot, so I like this one too. The やわらか, or soft, append is also just one pitch. It's strange. It has the noise of a soft append, but the strength of a power append.

How can I download these UTAUs?

First, you need to go to the main page of the Tomaheta website. If you're on desktop and have your screen maximized, there is an option on the top of the page named "utau音源配布と紹介". Clicking there won't take you where you want to go half of the time. You need to hover over it and choose the UTAU you want to download. Clicking on the name will take you to the page with links to all of the banks for that UTAU.

If you do not see that option up there, you need to click the hamburger button. Next to "utau音源配布と紹介" there will be a plus button where you can click to expand the menu to include every UTAU's name. Click on the one and BAM! You're in business!

This collective has something for everyone. Whether you care more about design or voice, this collective won't let you down on either front.