Axfc is a jerk. Here's my post on how to get downloads from there to work.
Multi-pitch CVVC banks do not work properly with the shareware A for automatic button!! Any articles where I complain about CVVC banks being broken is my own fault for not figuring it out sooner!!
Who is Rei Nakine? Where can I download 鳩羽音グレオ? Isn't 琴乃ミマ adorable??
mitu-web / 屑屋みつ's UTAUs - An Investigation
After my last investigation, I needed a break from boys that sounded like girls. I was in luck, because the next collective on my to-do list is packed with women!
This collective is run by Kuzuya Mitu. This is an actual collective with multiple voice providers, one main designer, and one main artist. My understanding is that "U-to" provides all of the OTO files, but I also don't exactly know who that is.
Luckily for me, this is a collective with seven UTAUs. Only one has more than one bank (or so I thought), and I can't use one of her banks due to not speaking Korean. I only have nine banks to review (or so I thought), and I'm happy about that. Let's get to it!
How do you pronounce 福音℃? Is there really an UTAU named Canon? Who is Okane Yuga?
おかゆのおんど。/ Sprinkler Cat's UTAUs, An Investigation
Sometimes I look through the voicebanks I downloaded and ask myself, "Wait, what?"
I have no memory of ever listening to these banks, but they're in my downloads folder anyway. There are twenty banks in total. I guess that's good for me, as I have no preconceived notions of what these banks will be like!
I credited this collective as Sprinkler Cat's UTAUs because Sprinkler Cat is the Twitter handle of the person running the site. As I said before, I am going in blind. I'm not sure if Sprinkler Cat is the voice provider of all the banks, but I'll poke around in the ReadMe for each bank. (Also, this isn't exactly a collective if this is all Sprinkler Cat's personal work. Let's ignore that!) Let's get started!
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.
Are these UTAUs really named Ami and Yumi? Who is Ichikawa Ami? Who is BAI-F0?
Yen-Mi's UTAUs, Ami, Yumi, and BAI-F0 - An Investigation
Note: I will openly admit that there's no actual reason I should be writing about these UTAUs. They are too new to be forgotten, to popular for Wiki Wednesday, and there's technically only two UTAU characters and not enough to justify calling this an "investigation". But, I have a family history of addiction and I'm dealing with some mental stuff right now. I have a shopping addiction, but no money. One of the ways I've helped with my addiction to shopping is to turn it around and get addicted over acquiring something free - UTAUs. I decided to randomly search UTAU音源 on BowlRoll and downloaded ones that kind of stuck out to me and I could somehow justify slipping in. This was TMI, but I really just wanted to tell everyone about the new BowlRoll thing I'll be playing around with.
Ok, now on to the article!
The biggest mystery to me in starting this investigation was just who the heck is Yen-Mi?
The website is written partially in English and partially in Japanese with the banner at the bottom announcing it is a Weebly website in Spanish. Her Twitter is mostly in English with a bit of Japanese mixed in. Though, she admits that she isn't fluent in Japanese as her bio states that she wants to learn it. When you visit her art tumblr, she states she is from the Canary Islands. (Quick aside her art is amazing and I love it.) The Canary Islands are a set of islands controlled by Spain. This conflicts with the fact that she states her UTAUs are recorded in Africa until you realize that Spanish rule be danged, those islands are really close to Africa and are sometimes considered African. (note: her dA, which I only found through BAI-F0's ReadMe, states she is from Western Sahara.)
So, all of that is to say that Yen-Mi is an amazing artist who lives in a Spanish controlled territory off of the coast of Africa. That's why her UTAUs were recorded in Africa but her outlook email has a Spanish domain. (Or not, I'm not sure what to do with the info from her dA.)
I have a feeling literally no one cares, but it was a big, confusing mystery to me! Anyway, on to the UTAUs.
What is Fractured Hope Co.? How can I download Hannah's Regret? Who is Masha Moonspeak?
The UTAU Collective, Fractured Hope Co. - An Investigation
There are two main camps of UTAU users. For the first, UTAUs are a tiny part of ourselves that we work on and share with the world. For others, UTAUs are OCs. Neither side is right or wrong, it's just a difference in thought process.
A group that exemplifies the UTAUs are OCs concept is Fractured Hope Co. While being overseas UTAU users, Fractured Hope Co feels completely alien to the English speaking community. The active members of Fractured Hope Co are all from Belarus. However, I assume other users were from other former Soviet Bloc countries before Fractured Hope Co consolidated its membership. Their story is quite interesting and demonstrates how hurtful bullying can be.
I don't know anything about their past beyond what they wrote, but the bullying deeply impacted their drive in a good way. Their site is beautiful and responsive with detailed backstories and plenty of art.
I would love to go through and showcase all of their UTAUs, but . . .
There are over fifty UTAU demo videos on their YouTube channel. Some of those demos introduce more than one UTAU. For that reason, I'm going to watch every video, find those that snatch my wig, and then write about those banks.
The entire reason I began this investigation was Emmanuelle BluR.
Official Art from UTAU Wiki
Art by Sightseed
The design stuck out to me. However, as Emmanuelle is a former member of Fractured Hope Co, I'll leave it at the design snatched my wig. I will focus on the voice and not the design for the most part, but golly they are good at designs.
Who is Tsukimori Sasuke? How can I download Lamia Serpent? Who made 月森左佐?
QUROE's UTAUs - An Investigation
Let me start by saying that there was an UTAU library on my desktop that I didn't recognize. His name was 月森左佐. I had to look him up on the Japanese wikis to figure out the romanization, Tsukimori Sasuke. I remembered downloading it from a OneDrive, but I had no idea where it came from. The author was credited as "???". (Note, usually linking directly to a OneDrive is bad form, but this is the link that the author gives. There is no website.)
So it was up to me to just try and figure out what the heck was going on. Sasuke isn't a bad voicebank overall, but was a bit baffling for a bank from 2014. One pitch CV with vocal fry that fries most resamplers.
But where did he come from? The OneDrive was empty apart from that bank and two USTs. Well, I used the Imperial Parade UST's readme to track down the release video. And that's when my eyes got wide.
Kurou . . . QUROE?! For those not up to date on my crazy UTAU adventures, QUROE was someone who I made a deal with. You record, I OTO your bank. For me, it was one of the best deals I ever made.
QUROE has taken down Lamia's VCV, but I still have a copy on my 4shared.
How I Found Sasuke
In researching for my Forgotten Friday articles, I go through a list of every UTAU released by release order and see if 1) the links work and 2) if the bank is forgotten by Westerners. I came across 瞬音フウ and saw the bank was no longer distributed. For a lark, I went to the NicoNicoPedia page anyway. To my surprise, a OneDrive was linked. And that's where I found Sasuke.
If I had studied my kanji harder, I would have recognized 神榊憑神. That was QUROE's old username for everything, including her YouTube. In addition to that, it's also what she set her name to on her old blog. I navigated to the blog by Googling Matatane Fuu. There wasn't much useful stuff there as QUROE's main push of UTAU content happened after 2010, when her blog became defunct.
How many UTAUs are there?
According to the main page I use, 神榊憑神 released four UTAUs in 2009. Those UTAUs are not linked to her current UTAUs in any way except for Heta. 嘘歌ヘタ has both his Act 3 and Act 4 up for download.
Someone has taken down most of Heta's videos. When sorting by oldest, this video is the first.
However, that video lists Heta's voice provider as someone other than QUROE. The next video with Heta at top billing is from 2011, when Heta's Act 3 was released.
The author of Heta's Act 3 is listed as QUROE. Especially in the omake (extra) files, Heta sounds a lot like Lamia. So I believe it's the same person for the later acts. I just don't know if Heta was transferred or if Mr. Loop got his wires crossed.
Heta was the first. According to the UTAU visual archive there are 12 more.
Released in November of 2010, 戦場軍人（Senba Gunji） has more CV banks than I think anyone really knows what to do with until Ameya releases his update that makes using multiple folders easier. Scroll down to "音源配布所" to pick out the banks you want to try. He sounds pretty good!
Released in May of 2011, 戦場軍師 (Senba Gunshi)'s release video has been removed. However, the description of the video stayed up along with the link to download him.
Official art from the UTAU Visual Archive
Released in July of 2011, 戦場チェーンソー is weird, ok.
Official Art from UTAU Visual Archive
Why does a saw need two acts?? Download them here if you want to.
Also released in July of 2011 was the first female UTAU of Quroe's that is still online as far as I know. 戦場軍歌 or Senba Gunka was released with a VCV, but the link is dead. Only her CV banks remain. They can be downloaded on her NicoNicoPedia page. I absolutely love her design, and there's an MMD model for it.
Released in October of 2011, 也音トモ or Narine Tomo is another case of the video being pulled but the download link remaining up. Apparently, the voice provider for this bank was not QUROE and instead T也. I don't know who that is, but the readme gave QUROE's Twitter ID as QUROX. You can search it if you want to be really confused for a second before realizing changing your Twitter ID is pretty easy.
The voicebank itself is pretty good. It's a nice voice, but it's one pitch CV.
The main draw is definitely the design.
Official art packaged with bank
By QUROE
Also released in October of 2011 is 赤穂 or Akou. It was an instrument UTAU (accordion) and the link is dead.
Released in November of 2011 is Mikami. All of his download links are on his UTAU Visual Archive page. This was the last bank QUROE posted on her original YouTube channel.
His voice is very, very deep.
In May of 2012 there was a creepy headless UTAU and it creeped me out so I'm not writing about it. Here's the link. There's no gore or anything, it just creeps me out.
Released in August of 2012, 比良歌雅近 (Hiraga Masachika) is a grandpa.
Literally, his voice provider is QUROE's grandfather. It's a really nice bank for a "My family member doesn't really know what's going on but HERE WE GO!" bank. The download link is in the nicovideo I just plopped up there.
Downloading this bank brought to light a username that QUROE used at the time this bank was uploaded. "QUROWD L". Googling it pulled up this blog. However, luckily for me QUROE only configured those banks.
Another strange quirk is that she keeps making new email addresses and just adding a number to the end. She's up to three at this point.
oh and by the way, the voice provider has passed away. If that creeps you out, avoid this bank.
Released in November of 2013, there's a bank with a hate symbol in their name. The video is down, but the download link is still up. The bank I'm not talking about had a counterpart named 日ノ本譲 (Hinomoto Yuzuru). In the ReadMe, the author is listed as "黒野エージ" despite the video being uploaded by QUROE. Due to the upload site being a jerk, I can't download the one with a safe for work name. Moving on!
Released in September of 2015 is 穿刃グンジ or Senba Gunji . . . which is the same romanization as an earlier bank. He has a different voice provider and QUROE links to a bit of backstory on the video he was released on.
Official art from UTAU Visual Archive
As of this point, the site he was uploaded to is giving me trouble and I cannot download him to test him out or poke his readme file. However, he is over 60MB thanks to strong and soft versions of his samples. No samples of him singing exist at the time of writing as far as I know.
I wouldn't be shocked if there were more.
These UTAUs weren't all made by QUROE, but they were uploaded and distributed by her. When I approached her to make her VCV bank, I had no idea how much UTAU content she had made, nor how much she would go on to make. I honestly thought she left the fandom after making Mikami. I was wrong. I would love to find her and catch up with her, but I have no idea how to track her down. With the bulk of male UTAUs she has created, I'm not sure if she's the right word to use. Maybe he transitioned?
Either way, I was shocked at how many UTAUs there were connected to QUROE when I only thought there was one.
I usually try to think of a nice and hopeful way to sign off, but I'm just shocked.
