Wiki Wednesday #82 - 頭音タマキ / Kashirane Tamaki
You may have noticed that all of the recent articles had just one or two banks. Well... That changes right now. Why? Because I really need to be getting the UTAUs that take like three gigabytes of space zipped off of my computer.
I actually have to ignore half of this UTAU's banks because there are so many. I simply ignored the old banks, because they're outdated anyway. If the manager wanted us to use them, they'd be on the same page... right?
Who is Tamaki Kashirane?
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| Official Icon from Website |
Tamaki is another UTAU from the kasiranelibrary group. Her age is not stated, but she is an adult. I think she is kind, careless, and moody. But, I don't know really. The Google Translation was really, really strange so I just plugged the words into a dictionary.
So, for this group, I think they all work in a library. She is the director of it. I actually have no idea what's going on. But, she does love cooking and making sweets. Honestly, there are eight banks to cover. I think I should be good on pointing out her bio that I can't take the time to understand.
How are Kashirane Tamaki's banks?
There are eight. Not even kidding. There are around six I won't touch due to being segregated to the "old version" section. Because the selection was culled, I do believe that it would be lame if banks sounded similar. All of the banks, unzipped, take up 2.11 GB on the disk. That is so much. Too much. I'm guessing quite a few bits will feel redundant. Let's go down the list.
First is her lone CV bank. It is three pitches. The pitches, A3, C4, and F4 are honestly too close together. In general, a blending pitch to bridge the difference between the highs and lows are good, but it isn't fully put into practice the best here. It does feel a little choppy, and is completely useless unless you're using a very specific range. You can edit the prefix map to improve it, of course, but effort.
The next is a VCV named Lemon. Only, it uses an outdated kanji that like... Okay so, the kanji that make up the word lemon are 檸檬. Both mean lemon tree. The reading is completely made up to say "lemon". I believe the word for that is "gikun" because the meaning is the reading.
Again, we have the issue of improper pitch spacing. F4 only covers four notes in the prefix map, for example. I had to edit the prefix map to make sure that every pitch was covered in this test, which actually was a little bit challenging to figure out. Of course, I could just make it go higher at random to trigger the high pitch of A4, but naw. Then I might lose out on the one time F4 might play.
It's... a frustrating bank. The pitches are very jarring and have issues that break the bank entirely.
The next is "shine". It uses the kanji 暉. Why? Even more so than before, seeing that kanji at the size in this exist editor, it is just a black blob with a few splotches of white. The name "Akira" can have this kanji, so that's cool.
The bank is over 600 megabytes and wow. this is bad. This is very bad. Both C4 and C#4 have pitches to themselves. Without editing the prefix map, it will be basically impossible to have every pitch play because keys exist! When working with major modes, and tell me if I'm wrong, you only have an octave to play with. What is an octopus? Eight feet! There's literally no scale that includes all of those pitches together.
The voice sounds very beautiful, and the pitches do blend extremely well when used together. But... Like... The same thing could be achieved with half the disk space. Listening to the samples by themselves, it does seem like there were errors in what pitch was what strength... But, sound wise, this is the best so far, even if it is the most wasteful yet.
And finally there are kanji I can read. 花氷 means flowers surrounded by ice.
This bank, thankfully, only has three pitches. However, the pitches are A#3, C4, and F4. A#3 and C4 seem fully redundant, with F4 being sharp and clear. Using all three pitches forces you to make the voice low. It seems really nice, but F4 feels like it kind of just isn't at the same party and is a little jarring.
Next is 夏暁. It means Summer's dawn, I guess. Three pitches - C#4, D#4, and G#4. Why. It's a kire, going from normal to screaming. Just listening to the samples in Windows Media Player makes it seem like the bank will be entirely jarring.
The G#4 pitch is bad. It sounds like screaming and UTAU refuses to synthesize it well. I feel kind of bad intentionally excluding it, but... it was not good. It's an okay bank when you get rid of the screaming pitch that sounds just like the screaming pitch from a different bank.
The next one is Balsam. The kanji is 鳳仙花. Balsam is some kind of flower.
Thank the good lord, it is finally just a two pitch VCV bank. Only two pitches! I can't complain one lick because that's a good number of pitches!
This bank is the best bank. The voice matches the design and character and it sounds sweet and not one bit jarring.
The final VCV is paper balloon, with the kanji 紙風船.
It's... incorrectly recorded.
That's just to say that she does not hold one specific pitch. I don't hear any real issues, but it's still really strange. The bank sounds pretty good, and it's only one pitch! Yay!
And finally, we have the final bank. The lone CVVC named candy apple. The kanji is 林檎飴. There are three pitches Listening to the samples by themselves, I thought this would be a cute, whispery voice. Naw.
Where can I download Kashirane Tamaki?
You can download her from her download page.
Now... What lesson can we learn from Tamaki? Just because you can add pitches, there's a chance you shouldn't. Truthfully, anyone can just delete the bad pitches and use the good ones, so it won't "ruin" the bank, but it will ruin the usage for anyone who doesn't just delete giant parts of banks.
This would have been a lot less stressful if there had been more planning. However, this is UTAU. Do whatever you want, even if that means doing what Tamaki did.
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