Singer to play via keyboard - what's your take on it?

Community Hub šŸ—Ø Just Chatting
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Probably some of you have tried some newer AI tools in form of singers already?

I didnā€™t yet,ā€¦
but with checking what new features come with the update of the DAW I use (Cubase). thereā€™s now such a thing, reminding me of
ā€œPlogue Alter Egoā€? Alter/Ego
which I tried a few years ago.
A demo here: https://youtu.be/83JMEjKfSHc?si=0cQNY_mCUaMPefw4

So you play your keyboard, then you type some text to the notes and this way you let a text to speech engine sing.

The description for that new tool included in Cubase says:

Yamaha Omnivocal is a text-to-speech (TTS) singing synthesis technology, available in beta in Steinberg Cubase 15, that creates vocals from text and musical notes. It is a professional-grade tool for music production, not a general-purpose or simple TTS converter like some online services. The technology is designed for creating natural-sounding vocals within a digital audio workstation (DAW) environment, allowing users to generate singing voices with a simple interface.

No mention of AI, but I didnā€™t research deeply.
The thought of AI somehow invokes a negative feeling, but on the other hand, in this case, I am creating notes and lyrics myself and just someone lends me his/her vocal.
Still feels a bit strange, but when I just threw it on something I quickly created, I was baffled. :open_mouth:
Somehow expected this from the the good sounding demo, but playing a keyboard, quickly imagining whatever lyrics and then, have someone sing for you - and rather convincingly feels strange and I felt like it let my creativity increase quite a bit at that moment.

Hereā€™s that song- ā€œconstruction-siteā€ aloneā€¦

I will explain what strange things I did here for those who might be interested because these sounds are rather untypical for me:
  • I basically just wanted to test the recently added pattern drum editor which I used in some software maybe 20 years ago once or twice and found fun at the time.
    Donā€™t jugdge my electronic drums too hard, they were just a quick clicking some patterns together.
  • Then I added a virtual acoustic bass. I should use this more often, because it sounds quite good and I love a double bass. Oh - I was in experimental phase, so I tried some step-filter plugin and some distortion on it.
  • Of course - this is a guitar site and my main fun is the guitar - two tracks of guitars - my own playing (you hear some string squeeching somewhere), also some effects used (would have to look up what I did there)

today, opened the above (without even remebering what it was, because I accumulated quite some of ideas or tests which I never finish) just to try out this vocal feature:

I was also thinking about where to put this post.
Though it includes audio, I thought it rather belongs under discussion. than AVOYP. Itā€™s just a ā€œwhateverā€ included music file just to demo that vocal tool.
And then I didnā€™t put it into the ā€œAIā€ category because I felt that AI isnā€™t the main topic here, rather Text-to -Speech with probably help of some AI I guess.

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I would have placed it in the Gear and Tools Talk/Hardware,Software and Recording

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Just Chatting forum should be fine (which means it will probably get moved). The lines are getting blurry with the use of musical tools, AI included. Iā€™m talking Trio +, drum loops, etc. There will be more DAW integration moving forward as well.

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The title of your post, along with the content and discussion, suggests to me that a thread in the AI category would be the most appropriate place. AI has already become integrated with many platforms/programs and is rapidly becoming impossible to avoid.
It would also fit quite happily in tools/software, as Stitch suggests or, if it were a fully-fledged song, in AVOYP.
I canā€™t see it being ā€˜movedā€™, as the just chatting section functions as an ā€˜everything elseā€™ bin.

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Oh wellā€¦ maybe my quick demo above was too strange (instruments quickly put down).
Until now, you repliers only replied to whether to move the subject or not.

Or maybe I shouldnā€™t have mentioned AI at all, because I think that most of us - me included have some strange feeling in the guts about it - and Yamaha doesnā€™t say a lot about their engine and they donā€™t mention AI at all in the decription above or their user manual.

Hereā€™s a video with a short overview:
https://youtu.be/tidtwO1tM3I?si=vUY7VWiEOpuysdj4

So I recorded some more guitar and sung myselfā€¦ And suddenly playing the keyboard is more fun than before to me, knowing I could give it a voice and have that voice sing the lyrics I type in. I tā€™s a bit like having some other singer right here.
Me, I can only sing a male voice - and for sure I want to work at it, because I am aware of my limitations, but here, I can easily sing along with a female singer without having to ask and disturb someone else.

And this is strange: While using it, suddenly lyrics come more easily to me. Not GREAT lyrics, but at least some that are ok somehow :slight_smile:

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As said elsewhere already, I think it can be a useful tool for songwriting and developing and testing ideas. And if it helps you and makes, what is otherwise a bit more difficult, easier - all the better :slightly_smiling_face:

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