Overview of DTM Station Plus! 155 on Synthesizer V
Episode 155 of DTM Station Plus! was streamed live on July 14th, and during the show, hosts Ken Fujimoto and Akifumi Tada were joined by a special guest, Tomohide Ogata! The AHS president and CEO returned to the talk about and promote their upcoming Synthesizer V products, and even have them demonstrated live!
You can watch the show below, and read on for details about some of the topics that were discussed!
Upcoming Release
As announced during their June 26, 2020 livestream, AHS’s Synthesizer V products will be released on July 30th. Considering how they were in the VOCALOID camp until now, Fujimoto asked Ogata if anyone accused them of “going traitor.” With a chuckle, Ogata responded that it was quite the opposite: many fans reacted with support for the move, so much so that they actually exceeded their pre-order cap by quite a large margin, and are now a bit worried that they may not be able to ship out enough to meet all the pre-orders!
When asked who all these fans who already love and have pre-ordered Synthesizer V are, Ogata suspects that they could not only be VOCALOID producers who want to adopt the new software, but also fans of Kotonoha Akane & Aoi’s VOICEROID products. Since VOICEROIDs are not singing products, Fujimoto asked what the connection is. Ogata then explained the ＃歌ボ / “utabo” phenomenon that started about two years in which fans would use and manipulate VOICEROID banks to sing! It’s indeed as hard as it sounds, so now the that Kotonoha twins will have actual singing banks, the utabo fans who have been using their VOICEROID products for songs are probably very eager to snatch them up!
Why the Change?
As for what encouraged AHS to make the switch from VOCALOID to Synthesizer V, Ogata that explains that they were going along with their company philosophy of selling products that are fun and interesting. When he was introduced to Synthesizer V last year, Ogata had the pleasure of trying it out and found it to be really easy and intuitive to use, much more than VOCALOID, and thus started talks with its creator, Kanru Hua.
Furthermore, Ogata thinks it’s good to give users variety in their voice synth options. Each VOICEROID and singing bank has a single voice that they can speak or sing in, and having many options give users more freedom to find the right voice that suits them.
Different Purchase Options
While Tada was demonstrating Saki’s voice bank, Fujimoto recalled that Saki Lite comes free with purchase of Synthesizer V Kotonoha Akane & Aoi, as does Synthesizer V Studio Basic, and asked about the differences between them and their full, paid versions.
As Ogata then explains:
- Songs made with Saki Lite cannot be commercialized
- When uploading a song made with Saki Lite online to YouTube, Niconico, etc., it must be stated in its description that Saki Lite was used for it (such as “Synthesizer V Sakiライト版を使用”)
- Synthesizer V Studio Basic supports less simultaneous project tracks and rendering threads at a time than Studio Pro
- Auto-tuning with the hybrid A.I. engine is only available in Studio Pro (it can also be turned off if desired)
Web Synthesizer V Upgrade
Here’s a summary of the differences between Synthesizer V Studio Basic, Studio Pro, and even the browser-based Web Synthesizer V:
| Web Synthesizer V | Synthesizer V Studio Basic | Synthesizer V Studio Pro | |
| Price | Free | Free (packaged with other products) | ￥12,980 JPY |
| Operating System | Browser | Windows, Mac, Linux | Windows, Mac, Linux |
| Project limitations | 1 track, 300 notes | 3 tracks | No limitations |
| Simultaneous rendering thread | 2 cores | 2 cores | No limitations |
| Additional features | None | None | ・Automatic tuning ・Alternate pronunciation (note property) ・Breath separation ・Lua, Javascript |
However, Ogata then revealed that the on July 31st, the day after their Synthesizer V products go on sale, Web Synthesizer V will get an upgrade to include Saki Lite. He also mentioned that using her on Web Synthesizer V will feel much like using her on Studio Basic, so the UI and other features may be upgraded as well. We will soon see at the end of the month!
About Synthesizer V Koharu Rikka
Ogata re-confirmed on DTM Station Plus! that Synthesizer V Koharu Rikka is indeed in development. While her crowdfunding campaign was originally started to fund development of her VOICEROID product, it was so successful that they decided to extend it to fund her singing software as well. As to why AHS and TOKYO6 ENTERTAINMENT couldn’t announce that she would a Synthesizer V bank for the longest time, that’s because it was well before their June 26th announcement of their partnership with Dreamtonics! Once the partnership was announced, that was when Synthesizer V Koharu Rikka was finally confirmed.
As for how much she will cost, they have not finalized the price yet. If she ends up costing the same as Saki and Kotonoha Akane & Aoi, then the same discounts that they enjoy will likely apply to Rikka as well. If she ends up costing more, then additional payment may be needed when trading the coupon code from the Synthesizer V Pro Starter Pack for her voice bank.
Development Time
As for her and other software releases, Ogata cannot commit to saying it’ll be by the end of this year. It usually takes AHS about three months of development, voice recording, and arrangement until the base product is complete. But then more time would be needed depending on how many features they wish to add, such as how many internal groups they would like the product to include, additional features like falsetto, and more. In all, it typically takes them six months until a product is ready for the market, then more features could be added with updates.
In the case of the Synthesizer V Kotonoha Akane & Aoi, AHS was able to just barely have it ready in time for release on July 30th. Ogata attributes that to the influence of the Kotonoha twins’ popularity, and thanks to that, everyone at their company was able to work really hard to complete the product in a short amount of time! He also complimented the ease of creating a Synthesizer V bank, which he says is completely different from creating a VOCALOID bank, and how they produce vastly different sounds.
VSQX File Support
Tada then played a VSQX file for a track using Nekomura Iroha on VOCALOID4, and then imported it to Synthesizer V Studio to be sung by Saki. The engine was able to read every note and pitch from the VOCALOID4 VSQX file perfectly! Ogata confirmed that Synthesizer V Studio can read CeVIO and VOCALOID5 VSQX files as well (though not VSQ files).
Song Demonstration
To show how easy it is to make a song on Synthesizer V Studio, Tada plays a song that he created using Kotonoha Akane and Saki starting at 1:39:35 into the video! Fujimoto even asked him if he plans to upload the song online, even without a PV and only showing the UI. To their delight, Tada says he will!
There are times in the song where it sounds like Akane is actually talking instead of singing, and Tada explains how they were carefully tuned to fit with the song. He even mentions how parameters like vibrato can be timed to the desired millisecond of a given note, allowing for some really minute and precise tuning! In what will be music to the ears of utabo producers, Tada demonstrates how much easier it will be to make Akane and Aoi sing on Synthesizer V than on VOICEROID!
Akane’s “talking” parts went through a lot of trial and error with pitch-bend. This demonstrates another major selling feature of Synthesizer V: making it sound like the characters vocals are “talking.” Anyone who has tried making a talkloid video would know how difficult it is the get VOCALOIDs to sound like they are talking naturally. But Synthesizer V banks can be tuned to sound much more natural when users try to make them talk.
In fact, when recording Yui Sakakibara‘s voice for Synthesizer V Kotonoha Akane & Aoi, she was asked to make them sound similar to their VOICEROID counterparts. Thus, listeners may notice how similarly the Kotonoha twins sound in both VOICEROID and Synthesizer V. This is truly a wonderful service for their fans!
One feature that users may hope for, but will not be in Synthesizer V Studio will be the growl effect. The first generation Synthesizer V Editor had a similar function to growl, but it was removed for Studio, at least initially. A future update may bring it back, so Synthesizer V users those hoping to make their singers growl should stay tuned.
Synthesizer V Pro Starter Pack Prices
Finally, a new price option was revealed for the Synthesizer V Pro Starter Pack, which comes with a coupon code for a character voice bank (either Saki or Kotonoha Akane & Aoi, presently).
We know about the special half-price offer for registered AHS users of￥9,900 JPY (after tax) that will end on September 30th. But the livestream revealed that it will be replaced with a regular AHS user discount of ￥16,000 JPY (before tax) starting in October. This is only mildly cheaper than the product’s full price, so it would still pay for owners of AHS software products to take advantage of the early-bird offer before it ends on September 30th!
We hope you enjoyed this overview of the latest information session and demonstration of Synthesizer V Studio Pro and its voice banks from AHS! Look forward to their full release on July 30th!
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[…] You can watch the Synthesizer V special feature on DTM Station Plus! 155 below (which begins after about 1 hour into the show), and see here for our overview of the highlights! […]