If you're on the internet, you definately know about Hatsune Miku. Period.
If you don't, than here's a description.
Hatsune Miku is a Vocaloid. A Vocaliod is a virtual singing program. Vocaloids can sing songs perfectly, and reach notes that most humans can't usually reach. There are many Vocaloids and UTAUloids (UTAU Vocaloid) on the internet. Some of the most popular Vocaloids are Hatsune Miku, Kaito, Kagamine Rin and Len.
One if the most popular Vocaloid songs is the Ievan Polka.

UTAU is a freeware version of Vocaloid that allows you to make your voice a singing voice. We will use this program to create your Vocaloid.

Table of Contents
Part 1. Necessary Programs
Part 2. Installation of Programs
Part 3. Recording
Part 4. Voicebank Settings
Part 5. Using a .ust File

Well, time to start this off.


Part 1. Necessary Programs
These are the programs you will need to create a vocaloid. (Windows Only.)
UTAU - click on v0.2.76 ??????
UTAU English Patch
Audacity
This website open and scrolled down to the Hiragana chart (not really a program...)

Part 2. Installation of Programs
Open the .exe for UTAU. You will see a bunch of Japanese. If you have done an installation of any program before, you can find out what to do.
Open the .exe for Audacity. Install. Self-explanatory.
To add English Patch: Extract res.zip to X:/Program Files/UTAU/res (X: being main HDD)
If the res folder is not there, create one. Put all the extracted files there.

*You will need to change the non-Unicode language to Japanese. To do so, go to Control Panel (Category View), then "Clock, Language, and Region", then "Region and Language". In the R&L window, go to the Administrative tab and click "Change system locale..." and select Japanese. Don't forget to click Apply and reboot. Don't worry, this won't change your computer completely to Japanese, only non-Unicode programs. If you don't do this, you won't be able to use Hiragana voicebanks and use Hiragana .ust's.

Part 3. Recording
Open Audacity, and open the link mentioned above for the Hiragana chart. Press the record button (red circle) and re-open the browser window. Say all the sounds in a monotone voice, trying to keep the same note. Record each character for ~2 seconds. Make sure to leave a small space between each character.*** Select part of your recordong and press play to listen to it. Adjust it so that the whole character is clear. When it is to your liking, click File>Export Selection and for the file type select "WAV (Microsoft) signed 16 bit PCM" from the drop-down menu. To keep them organized, put the filename as the Romaji name. Save them all in one folder When you are done, you should have about 110 sounds.

***Right here is where you can change the pitch. If you want the UTAUloid to be deeper or higher in pitch, select the whole soundtrack (Ctrl+A) and go to Effects>Change Pitch... and change the pitch to your liking.

Part 4. Voicebank Settings
a. Move the folder with all your sounds into X:/Program Files/UTAU/voice (X:, again, being main HDD)
If you haven't already, make up a name for your UTAUloid. Make it at least sound Japanese by putting together a few characters and making the last name first. I currently have 2 UTAUloids, Shoza Makasu and Ashu Kotone.
Make two text files in the folder that stores all your sounds: readme.txt and character.txt.
In readme.txt, put anything you want. It is just the info that comes up in the info box in the UTAU program.
Character.txt is what actually displays the name. here is the template:

name=vocaloid name here
image=image.bmp

You can leave image blank, but if you want, you can make a 100x100 pixel image and save it as a .bmp BitMap image. Put the image in the same folder as the sounds and text files.
b. Now open UTAU. Go to Project>Project Properties and choose your UTAUloid from the first drop-down menu. Then press Ctrl+G. Click each row and Copy+Paste the Japanese character for that file to the bar that says "Alias" and then click "Set". Do this for all the sounds.
Congratulations! You have just completed your first UTAU voicebank!

Part 5. Using a .ust File
A .ust file is an UTAU song file. You can use this with UTAU to make your UTAUloid sing the song embedded in the .ust file. Double-click the .ust file and select the UTAUloid you would like to sing. Press Ctrl+A and click the small Play button on the top. It may take a few minutes depending on how long the song is, because UTAU has to render each sound. A command prompt will pop up and will show a bunch of words and numbers. Don't close it, or else UTAU won't render the sounds and your UTAUloid won't sing.

To save your UTAUloid's song, click Play>Save last play and it will save your last rendered version of the song.

I hope you liked~ :3
This took me a few hours and research to make... I hope I win the contest!
Thanks for reading.

 

[ferofax]

when recording the sounds, do you go on a standard left-to-right top-to-bottom order? meaning after "ko", continue on to "kya" instead of going to "sa" before doing the diagraphs? looking at the syllabogram chart (there's also a unicode chart at the bottom, but i guess you need to be able to read those so i don't think they count).

 

[thela_kid]

i might just be dense but....what's a vocaloid? i don't get it, you say lyrics and it auto tunes them like you were singing?

 

[ferofax]

...so i've made my male vocaloid, but...

there's no .UST files to play with. how do i even test this thing with nothing at all? not even links to common anime songs? :/


it's a good FAQ/tutorial, but incomplete... a tiny .ust file link just to test the voicebank would've been nice.

 

[superkidmax]

i might just be dense but....what's a vocaloid? i don't get it, you say lyrics and it auto tunes them like you were singing?

A Vocaloid is a program where you type in the lyrics and it renders a sample to the note you put it on. Like if you typed in "ka" and put it on C4, it would take the sample and render it to that note. NOT AutoTune.

QUOTE(ferofax @ Aug 4 2011, 08:09 AM) ...so i've made my male vocaloid, but...

there's no .UST files to play with. how do i even test this thing with nothing at all? not even links to common anime songs? :/


it's a good FAQ/tutorial, but incomplete... a tiny .ust file link just to test the voicebank would've been nice.

Good idea. You can find many .ust's. An anime song I know has a .ust is Hare Hare Yukai.

 

[mrlarck]

ummm i have a question..
on the recording step,should i say all the hiragana at once?or after i say a hiragana,i stop record,and record other?
a bit confused in this part..

 

[MasaKarasu]

yeah... I can do everything else, but this english patch.. seriously what kind of sorcery is this? I am completly unable to do anything with that rar file that holds the english patch. I have audacity, and the Utau program and on said Utau program all I see is a bunch of symbols, I have it set that whenever I download a rar file, my winrar opens it automatically and from there I can do whatever it is I was planning on doing with it. But all I get is nothing but text documents that are completely inhert to me. I cannnot do anything with them, there is no option to extract said winrar file and install the english patch. I have done language patches for various games of varying languages before, but this file is completely useless to me and without me being able to use it, I can't use any of the other stuff. Either I did something wrong, or the file was useless from the get go. but it would be helpful if someone shined some light on this for me, as I would love to create my Vocaloid.

 

[arturo]

oh?? this is just confusing...

 

[Alathia]

ooo...k.

So what's the difference between a Vocaloid and a UTAUloid? Is it a matter of whether they are official or not? And what does UTAU stand for?

http://reinaldo-share.blogspot.com/2013/07/vocaloid-3-voicebank-collection-full.html?m=1
Utau is a japanese word. It means sing. I think the writer of the article is slightly confused. While UTAU and Vocaloid are similar, they are not the same. UTAU is a free-for-all program. Anyone can use the program, use UTAUloids and even create their own UTAUloid in Audacity! Vocaloid is a very expensive program because it is top notch recording, etc. There is, however, a free version of Vocaloid which you may download as long as it is not used for commercial use. I personally prefer the Vocaloid program and Vocalistener is a great tool. But I prefer the sound of UTAUloids and the general mindset of giving everyone access to it. It's not necessarily that UTAU is unofficial, it's a different program. The link at the top of the message is to the free version of Vocaloid. And my appologies, as this response is rather long and off topic...hahaha

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

yeah... I can do everything else, but this english patch.. seriously what kind of sorcery is this? I am completly unable to do anything with that rar file that holds the english patch. I have audacity, and the Utau program and on said Utau program all I see is a bunch of symbols, I have it set that whenever I download a rar file, my winrar opens it automatically and from there I can do whatever it is I was planning on doing with it. But all I get is nothing but text documents that are completely inhert to me. I cannnot do anything with them, there is no option to extract said winrar file and install the english patch. I have done language patches for various games of varying languages before, but this file is completely useless to me and without me being able to use it, I can't use any of the other stuff. Either I did something wrong, or the file was useless from the get go. but it would be helpful if someone shined some light on this for me, as I would love to create my Vocaloid.

http://utau2008.xrea.jp/index.html
Download it from here. There should be no need for patching, it comes with an english version. Download v0.4.18e. The e indicates an english rather than japanese version. Have fun creating your UTAUloid!

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

...so i've made my male vocaloid, but...

there's no .UST files to play with. how do i even test this thing with nothing at all? not even links to common anime songs? :/


it's a good FAQ/tutorial, but incomplete... a tiny .ust file link just to test the voicebank would've been nice.

If for some reason you can not obtain a .ust, note that you can convert other files into .ust. For example, a .vsq can be uploaded to UTAU

 

[Deleted User]

-snip-
Utau is a japanese word. It means sing. I think the writer of the article is slightly confused. While UTAU and Vocaloid are similar, they are not the same. UTAU is a free-for-all program. Anyone can use the program, use UTAUloids and even create their own UTAUloid in Audacity! Vocaloid is a very expensive program because it is top notch recording, etc. There is, however, a free version of Vocaloid which you may download as long as it is not used for commercial use. I personally prefer the Vocaloid program and Vocalistener is a great tool. But I prefer the sound of UTAUloids and the general mindset of giving everyone access to it. It's not necessarily that UTAU is unofficial, it's a different program. The link at the top of the message is to the free version of Vocaloid. And my appologies, as this response is rather long and off topic...hahaha

VOCALOID voicebanks aren't recorded as well as they could be, ('specially SONiKA, she's recorded in two pitches and the pronunciation of one sample varies from one pitch to the other.) the reason why they're so expensive is because of the amount of money it costs to purchase a VOCALOID SDK, the amount of time and effort that's put into making a VOCALOID voicebank, and the amount of money it costs to purchase a license from Yamaha to get your voicebank sold. Also, that "free version" of VOCALOID is actually a cracked version, and on GBATemp, you're not allowed to post links to warez, etc. I'd suggest you take that link out of your post. Oh, and that's one of the worse sites to get VOCALOID4FE and whatnot because it's ridden with adf.ly and binbox links ;O;