Forgotten Friday #57 - 銀歌リュウセイ / Ginka Ryuusei

So, it feels like I took a month long hiatus, but it has only been a few days. Time is weird when you're manic. I was getting dangerously, dangerously high because I would take my meds around midnight and toss and turn until 4 AM. Once I finally fell asleep, I would wake up like clockwork around 11:30 AM. That's a normal and healthy amount of sleep for someone my age, but it wasn't enough. I was getting higher and higher and more and more disorganized. I actually started a crusade and thought it was a good idea. It probably wasn't and I realize that now. But I'm not constantly vibrating and laughing at nothing after staying up until 8 AM and sleeping twelve hours.

Forgotten Friday #57 - 銀歌リュウセイ / Ginka Ryuusei

Before I even rendered off a sample of this UTAU to see if I liked her, I sent her voice provider Tsubaki a DM on Twitter asking if she'd record my English list. Do I have a problem? Yes. Will I stop? No. No one ever actually records the list. I have one person I fully trust that will do it, but is ill. My friend Ere-ese-ere has already recorded three banks for it and I love them to death, so I am exaggerating a bit when I say no one. But not counting people I consider friends? Yeah, no one. 

But, no banks means that I won't feel pressure to release USTs, meaning I have less work on my plate! And that's good. UTAU is a really, really time consuming hobby if you let it be. So yeah, on to an actual article.

This UTAU actually was recorded by a legit singer who is still in the game! Her voice is very cute and nice and she responded saying that she is too busy and recording an UTAU would be difficult now. But she said it with so much kanji!! Like, she used "為". That's a level 35 kanji on Wanikani! It's kind of one "feel" when you write in Japanese and receive a response in English, but it's a different kind of "feel" when you write in kindergarten Japanese and receive a response in doctorate Japanese! But I'm grateful for the prompt response!

Anyway!

Who is Ryuusei Ginka?

Official Art Packaged with Bank

Ryuusei is seventeen years old, and I literally just don't understand her character description. I gave up staring at the Nicopedia article and jumped over to the Visual Archive that made more sense by just throwing out everything I didn't understand. (I really wanted to have it clarified if her original attire was classified as "Goth Punk" or not!)

Is "Flying Girl" a thing? Because taking it literally and taking what Google Translate said, that's what she is. Her birthday is listed as "月日". I stared at that for a bit to try and logic it out, but I gave up and put it into Jisho, thinking Google saying "month" had to be off. Naw, technically it's "time" according to Jisho. I should have known that by now, but I was just confused.

Does this mean the person who wrote this for Visual Archive was just as confused as me? Probably. I flipped back to Nicopedia for a second to find something else to say, and according to Google she dislikes secrets. But it was written as "内緒", and if the language doesn't fully escape me, I think it meant that she's bad at personal enlightenment instead? That's a level 38 word on Wanikani, and I'm still level 17! 

Anyway, on to something I can understand. Voicebanks!

How are Ginka Ryuusei's banks?

Ryuusei has two banks, a three pitch CV and a one pitch lite VCV. Now, I have a feeling that some people weren't here when lite VCV was a big thing. It comes in two flavors - really old and old. The original version only included things that would legitimately be improved by VCV. Things like "ma" and "ha". Plosives were excluded, if my memory serves, because there wasn't a huge difference between a properly OTO'd CV and a VCV bank when it came to those. I can only name one bank off the top of my head that used that old version, and that was Momone Momo. Before Shareware UTAU included the automatic button, using those banks was a nightmare because UST converters converted everything to VCV without checking if the samples existed.

The one that's just old and not plain ancient includes most VCV samples. Missing are all "non-essential" palatalized consonant CV coupling. "ni" and "shi" both exist in the VCV, for example, but "sha" and "kya" don't. All of those palatalized consonant CV couplings exist withing the CV portion of the bank, so nothing is "missing", and this took way less time for the voice provider. But it's still like, huh.

Let's start by looking at the three pitch CV bank. Back in the day, the prefix map worked with samples based on name alone, but now it works based on aliases alone. I had to edit the OTO slightly to get it to apply up arrows and down arrows accordingly. She didn't have a prefix map, so I needed to make one right quick. All that took way less time than manually adding arrows to the notes themselves.

I was so excited to just press play and be amazed by amazing quality and a cute and sweet voice, but she's badly OTO'd to the point that you can hear it. Not "I can hear it because I'm a perfectionist", but "you can tell something is wrong even if you don't know UTAU good". 

See! No consonant is allowed to play! I'm not just being picky!

Her consonants are sometimes cut super short to the point that "ki" sounds like "gi". This isn't an issue that OTOs can fix. Of course, I wasted nine minutes fixing the OTOs. This girl is a perfect little angel, and everyone deserves to hear her at her best. 

Now, before I play the sample, I want to explain something. You literally can't be mad about the OTOs, because this bank was recorded in July of 2009. You know what 2009 UTAUs sound like. This is a 2009 UTAU. Now, you understand how amazing this UTAU is.

Now, all that being said about her 2009 CV, how is her 2011 lite VCV?

Now, let's pretend that I'm someone who doesn't understand things like VCV, OTOs, and all of that.

This bank is perfect and I love everything about it. This UTAU is a perfect angel baby and I love it. 

Where can I download Ryuusei Ginka?

Both of the banks have their links posted on the Nicopedia article.

I love this UTAU so much. It sounds like it is impossible that it came from the 2009 era, but it did. I love it so much and I really hope she gets a lot more love from now on.