Forgotten Friday #43 - Gumbi500's Trem

So, fun fact about my accent. I actually can't hear the difference between "pen" and "pin" unless I really listen really hard. For that reason, I read this name as "Trim". What it really means is a shortening of "tremolo".... I think?

Forgotten Friday #43 - Gumbi500's Trem

I feel kind of bad, because I remember being friends with Trem's voice provider. But, I only knew her as Trem. I couldn't even remember her name. Well, I found out why! She's credited as Trempush Jones in the documentation of Trem's bank. She is Trem!

Now, this is going to be difficult. Trem is an English UTAU from before CVVC was common. Meaning? 単独音. There are a few VC samples spread around, and some CCV... But there's no OTO. It's a mess and any modern user would just turn around and cry if they were told to use this bank. And I almost did! But, Trem deserves respect for breaking ground before CZ. (Also, I like her voice.)

Because this will be such a mess, I am only going to use her most recent bank, found here. 

Who is Trem?

Official Icon Packaged With Bank

Trem doesn't have much information on her. The majority of the information on the Wikia was just about her clothes. Well, that and the fact that she had a Japanese OTO file on Trempush's blog! But... Now it is gone and the Internet Archive can't help me. (Also, it's so cute that instead of letting her lack of drawing skills get her down... She made Trem's design on a doll making website! I love it!)

Now, boy howdy, let's not mince words.

How is Trem's bank?

As I said earlier, I will only use Trem (EN) as it is the most recent bank. I'll start by opening the English test UST I've been using and then try to figure out her phonetic system. I decided, since I was going a la carte, I would just add entries in her OTO to match the phonetic system of the UST I was using. 

Then I realized that I could just... you know... Use the filenames. It really depends, though, on what I'm trying to get. This bank is really, really random with what she has. For some consonants, she has recordings that are only that consonant sound, labeled with double letters. I.e., the "l" sound is "ll". Plosives like "d" don't get this treatment. 

And boy howdy! It feels like most of this was recorded as it was needed, because I had such trouble tracking things down. Near the end, I gave up and OTO'd one of the "VC" samples ending in "d" to "d -" so that she could say "old". Sadly, Resampler through a hissy-fit because there wasn't enough silence after the "d". So, she's saying "ol'". 

But I love this voice!! I love the charm of being so old and quirky!! It's work. Really annoying work. Without literally splicing samples in REAPER, I can't see myself ever dedicating an entire cover to this bank. But listen to what she sounds like when you try!

Where can I download Trem?

As I wrote above, I got her bank from this release video. 

I can't truly imagine someone going through all of the work to use this UTAU to her full extent. However, she is a very big part of UTAU history, in my eyes, that almost no one remembers. I don't have any misconceptions that people will actually download her and use her... But I really hope they at least listen and like her voice.