Forgotten Friday #42 - 恋歌ラン / Renga Ran

I'm actually going to start testing something new with this blog post. As opposed to using Clyp, I'll try using Google Drive and relying on IFRAME. The reasoning is rather simple. On Clyp, I have ((322 * 60) / 15) more uploads of 15 second clips. (1,288, if you're like me and need a calculator.) However, on Google Drive, space is determined by the size of the file and not the length. If I lower the quality to 128kbps MP3, then one gigabyte of space (out of 15 free GB that I'm not even using) will get me about 3,333 uploads for the blog. Using Google Drive's preview feature will be more work, so don't be shocked if I give up! (Note, ((3,333 / 3) / 104) is ten years of this blog with an average of 3 clips per article, but if I have nothing better to put in my Drive, I could spend all of the data on this. That's over one hundred years! Without paying money, ((1,288 / 3) / 104) is four years on Clyp and that's it.)

Forgotten Friday #42 - 恋歌ラン / Renga Ran

This UTAU was a handful to get! The CV was easy, it was just on someone's getuploader dedicated to this UTAU. The VCV, though? Everyone linked to the voice provider's OneDrive... Which was deleted. Whoops.

But it was only due to the amazing UTAU Visual Archive that I was able to find the ACT 3 VCV!!!!

If you don't know me well, I love VCV. VCV is one of my favorite things. Now that I'm working more with English UTAUs, I thought I had fallen out of love with the whole VCV thing. But the second I saw the FRQs with seven mora VCV? Squee! I even checked the OTO to make sure it wasn't CVVC. It's VCV!! I'm in love!

Now, I say this before even listening to the bank. So, I may hate it. But finding a VCV that no one probably even knew existed makes me really happy!

Who is Ran Renga?

Official Icon Packaged with Bank

Yo! Do you remember those things right there? That icon? I'd go and make one, but I have no idea where that resource is. I do know it was made for Lipsync / Ripsync... But that one style that all the old UTAUs that were never really loved had... You know? Would I have to learn to draw to make it? Please leave a comment telling me!

Anyway, according to Google Translate, Ran is freewheeling and... I think he's good at track and field? Or he is really good at jumping. Who knows! Maybe I'm having trouble with my attention span, but I have no idea who made this UTAU or how to contact them. I'm not going to try, because there's a small part of me that thinks it's possible that they meant to delete the banks from the OneDrive. I'm not going out of my way to be told I'm disrespecting wishes!

How are the banks?

Renga Ran has two banks that I have been able to find, still online. He has a CV and (as I said earlier) a VCV bank. The CV bank is from mid-2009 whereas the Act 3 VCV is from early 2010. 

As usual, let's fire up the CV first. It has no OTO. I popped it into SetParam and clicked the auto-estimate CV button. The consonants are a bit eaten and there is no space before plosives, meaning I would need to go in with negative overlap... This isn't this bank at its best, is what I'm saying. 

It's not a bad voice - the only other UTAU I can think of with this exact voice type is late (aka only I have the banks and no one will know what I mean) Tomero Chii. It's very 2009, so let's listen then move on. 

Renga Ran CV

Now, let's open up what made me so happy! The VCV!

And then the happiness was replaced with confusion. What is going on here!?

The samples are so tiny!! They're minuscule! No one should try fitting seven mora into 1.7 seconds!! But, this guy, who I have no way of researching or tracking down, did. You all know how I feel about Moresampler OTOs, but I ... not with this one. I give up on this one. 

This is just one of those banks that you're either in the mood to pull a full Rev on or it just isn't in you. The voice is nice, but the short samples mean that it will almost always have a robotic tinge. There might have even been noise removal at some point. There were points when I would just think this bank was awesome, but there are also points like this one. And at this point, I'm just like, "But... why did you do it that way?" It was 2010, so it's not like anything was standardized yet! But... Why?

Renga Ran Act 3 VCV with Moresampler OTOs

Where can I download Renga Ran?

Okay, so, to get his CV go to his Nicopedia page and then go to the GetUploader link near the bottom of the article. To get his VCV, go to his UTAU Visual Archive page and choose Act 3. 

This UTAU has insane potential when put in the right hands, and I would love to see that happen! But for me personally, I'll pass on writing the cute write-up on the pros of this UTAU.