Iori Kanzaki’s Voice Articulation of VOCALOID／20th anniversary of VOCALOID（YAMAHA VOCALOID）

Iori Kanzaki Interview / 20th anniversary of VOCALOID

Iori Kanzaki’s profile and comment

【Profile】Debuted in 2014 as a Vocalo-P under the name “Kurokgaki”, and changed his name to Iori Kanzaki in 2015. His most know song is “Inochi Ni Kirawarete Iru”, and was known for being the main producer of Kamitsubaki Studio which does VTubers’ music including KAF. Went independent in 2023.

Congratulations on the 20th anniversary. Without VOCALOID I would be living in a completely different world. My life up to now has been a series of really wonderful things, and those were something I could not see without VOCALOID. I think it is the content that really influenced my life. Thank you very very much.

First posting of Iori Kanzaki was “one day” with Hatsune Miku V3 under the name “Kurogaki”

ーSince your first posting was 2014, 2024 means both your 10th anniversary and VOCALOID’s 20th anniversary.

Iori Kanzaki 　When I first know about VOCALOID, I was in the first year of junior high school in 2010. So it is actually shocking to me that VOCALOID has been around since I was a kid in 2004.

ーHow do you look back past 10 years with VOCALOID?

Iori Kanzaki 　VOCALOID culture is a kind of culture where anything can be allowed, so you can put out any kind of song or thought, and it is a bit like liven up culture-ish. I am grateful that I could make more and more friends through VOCALOID since 2014 when I started Vocalo-P. When I was a high school student, I don’t think there were that many people around me who liked VOCALOID but wanted to become Vocalo-Ps.

ーHow did you encounter VOCALOID in the first place?

Iori Kanzaki 　When I became school refusal when I was in the second grade of junior high school, I started playing the piano. At that time I started thinking vaguely that it would be cool to become something involved in music. At first, I thought songs in the Vocalo-scene were made by professional producers. But I found out that it was actually amateurs were making them, so I thought it would be easier for me to start doing it.

ーWhat kind of Vocalo-Ps’ songs did you listen at that time?

Iori Kanzaki 　I got hooked on “Rollin’ Girl” and “World’s End Dance Hall” by wowaka of Hitorie, and was shocked by a new genre of music that is nothing like pop songs I was really familiar with, in which “human don’t sing”. I was also impressed by the music of Hachi and ryo, who is famous for “Melt”.

ーYou posted “one day” as your first work under the name “Kurogaki”. Was it Hatsune Miku V3 you got first time?

Iori Kanzaki 　My real first one was UTAU, but I’ve really had a longing for VOCALOID, so I managed to save up the money and bought Hatsune Miku V3 when I was in high school. I used PRESONUS Studio One that came with it, and tried to make her speak something. I somehow managed her to seek my friend’s name and sent it to him, but I remember he called it was a junk mail. The editor was Piapro Studio at the time, but I was confused about how to use it, and I tried to tweak a few parameters, but it didn’t really work, so I adjusted just Gender Factor and rest are really flat programming. This was basically how my first work was done.

ーOn the other hands you mentioned you were already playing the Piano, so did your musical approach after using DAW and VOCALOID change at all?

Iori Kanzaki 　I was a member of the school band, and I wasn’t really good at telling other members my thought while I was playing keyboards. But I can do everything freely for DAW and Vocalo. It was really great since I could withdraw into my internal world as much as I like. I remember I wanted to go home asap while I was in the school.

ーDid you start having a vision of the future to be a musician by working with Hatsune Miku V3?

Iori Kanzaki 　I did when I bought it. Although when I left home when I was about 20 years old, I think I was desperate to make a living rather than thinking about music. Vocalo-P activities had become my holiday hobby.

ーThroughout 10 years of your works as a Vocalo-P, how do you describe the scene change of Vocalo-culture?

Iori Kanzaki 　If I remember correctly, there was a period when VOCALOIDs were not really listened to. It was right after I moved to Tokyo and just before I posted “Inochi Ni Kirawareteiru” so somewhere around 2015-2016. But after I released “Inochi Ni Kirawareteiru” Hachi and wowaka released songs for the first time in a while, and things gradually picked up, so I’m really grateful for that.

ーWhat do you think of current Vocalo scene?

Iori Kanzaki 　It is the golden age of VOCALOID now. There are many other singing voice synthesizers other than VOCALOID, but I think all of their root is VOCALOID. The number of software and characters has increased accordingly, and now you can produce music even on smartphones, and it has become much easier for young people to start their own activities as Vocalo-P. So I think today’s Vocalo scene is full of happiness.

Iori Kanzaki’s Voice Articulation of VOCALOID

Vocalo can express things that don’t determine listeners mind

ーTell us about voice banks you own.

Iori Kanzaki 　I have Hatsune Miku V3, Hatsune Miku NT, Hatsune Miku V4X, Kagamine Rin/Ren V4X, KAITO V3, MEIKO V3, and Megurine Ruka V4X. In addition I also have Synthesizer V’s Kasane Teto and Megpoid. For the editor I use Piapro Studio, VOCALOID6 that I have just bought, and Synthesizer V accordingly.

ーYou have been doing self cover recently, so how do you use actual human voice and VOCALOID properly?

Iori Kanzaki 　I like that you can create a song in which each of listeners can imagine their own lyrics. by using VOCALOID. I can make it either natural or mechanical, since it depends on Vocalo-P’s skill to make the VOCALOID emotional or not. When I sing by myself, if I get too affected by my emotions, I sometimes get strange nuances. If such strange nuances become obvious listeners’ thoughts might be determined too much, and Vocalo plays a good role in preventing that from happening. On the other hand, when I sing by myself, I like to be able to satisfy my desire for expression. It’s also fun that you can change sound just a microphone.

ーVoice Articulating really requires a lot of skills right?

Iori Kanzaki 　Well, I think that the best way to voice articulating is adjust it to a state where it can be heard to a certain degree. Today, even simple and flat programming can make it good enough for listening, so in that sense, the threshold has become much lower and I feel that much skill is no longer required.

ーBut isn’t it important to adjust it according to atmosphere of the song?

Iori Kanzaki 　I think I programmed rather simpler and flatter. Although I studied with YouTube videos, I wasn’t really good at it. So I didn’t really adjust software’s parameters. I was more like moving MIDI notes guy.

ーWhat do yo mean by “moving MIDI notes guy”？

Iori Kanzaki 　For example, if you use a very short MIDI note for a quarter note melody, it becomes a very quiet staccato. I often used that in songs like “Inochi Ni Kirawareteiru”. I also did layering octave upper and lower notes to create shaking. And if you put single super high and low notes at the beginning of the word, normal voice would sing with bend up effect. I like this sound since it goes well with rock music.

ーWhat about vibrato?

Iori Kanzaki 　I do it with notes and don’t use the parameter. For example, the part “Bunka Ni Natteiku”’s lyrics that says “Dare yorimo sainou arutte sannin kurai no fan ga ittetanda”, I put several notes to create vibrato. It’s handy and good for me to be able to see what edit I did.

ー“Bunka Ni Natteiku” also have rap part right?

Iori Kanzaki 　That rap part was especially time-consuming. The reason is that I got into the unique pronunciation by raising and dropping pitch, and I remember playing around with it a lot. You can tweak the parameters If you want natural changes, but if you want more radical changes, working out the resonance with the placement of MIDI notes is faster.

ーHow did you learn that kind of Tips?

Iori Kanzaki 　Now I am somewhat set in what I do in terms of voice articulation, but when I was high school student I really liked the Kannazki-P’s technique. I think I used his technique as a reference at that time, I wasn’t able to do it though. I also really liked the video of IA covered version of Jin’s “daze”, and I respected it a lot. I really digged in and through try and error, I found how to articulate voice for rock music.

“Inochi Ni Kirawareteiru” was the turning point of Voice Articulation

ーYour Hatsune Miku’s voice has thick resonating voice impression. Why is you intention?

Iori Kanzaki 　“Inochi Ni Kirawareteiru” was the first song I produced after I moved to Tokyo, and this song led me to use that voice sound. At the time, there were four of us living in a six tatami mat sized room with a bunk bed, and I was producing music all the time on that bed. I had a vague idea that I wanted to do something a little twisted. So I made Hatsune Miku’s voice lower and shortened MIDI notes to make the consonants stand out, and I was happy to hear people said “that’s unique and interesting”.

ーWhat about the vocal post processing?

Iori Kanzaki 　I only do basics stuff. I mix with comps and EQ, and often do doubling. Plugins I use are FabFilter Pro-Q3 EQ, Pro-C2 comp, Pro-R2 reverb, and iZotope Vocal Doubler. Using de-esser to cut annoying sound makes vocal sound be buried in the mix, so I try to bring out its presence by doubling. For the background vocals, I use Waves Center, a MS processing plugin, to completely remove the middle channel and use side channel to make it as wide as I can.

Review of VOCALID6 by Iori Kanzaki

【Check this out too!】
What is VOCALOID? From explanation of Vocalo culture to how to use VOCALOID. instructor : KagomeP

Let’s learn VOCALOID culture and how to use VOCALOID6 simply by a Vocalo-P Kagame P!

You can set voice character just be choosing presets. > STYLE PRESET

ーWhat did you think after using VOCALOID6 for the first time?

Iori Kanzaki 　It was rather scary because was too awesome… CPU load is light, and I think it’s kind to beginners to be able to choose from different voice presets from STYLE tab, which did not present when I was using Piapro Studio. So now Hatsune Miku is at V4version and made for other voice bank, and I’m jealous of new kids want to start VocaloP, because VOCALOID6 is the one they use first.

ーYou mentioned you are not really good at tweaking editor’s parameter to change voice character.

Iori Kanzaki 　Yeah, so I’ve been about 5 kinds of breath note to put breath, like BR1 to 5, but now it is extremely awesome that it can insert breath automatically. Now I don’t need to program them manually. When I tried it with “Inochi Ni Kirawareteiru” I found out that it is more effective to put it manually for short breath, but automatic breath insertion is much more efficient for regular breath. Even this single new function makes my work on VOCALOID6 would become much easier.

VOCALOID6 enables precise adjustment to each note.

ーThere are some tools prepared to manipulate pitch, vibrato, expression, and timing on the left side of the screen. I guess these are great for people like you who wants to do i t visually.

Iori Kanzaki 　Yeah everything will be reflected in the waveform. I was also tweaking the notes quite often to adjust the pitch, so if I wanted to make it sound a little more human-like, for example, I could create it by artificially creating pitch fluctuations. As I mentioned earlier, I was entering short notes one by one, but if you adjust something called overall drift with the pitch tool, it will change just one part. This is extremely useful that it is destroying what I have been doing so far!　I have been discovering a lot of things that I don’t have to do anymore.

ーHow about the tools other than pitch?

Iori Kanzaki 　Especially the vibrato and expression were amazing. When you hover the cursor over the notes, four black circles will appear, and they clearly indicate the depth and speed of the vibrato. I enjoyed being able to adjust it just by feeling. It’s also easy to understand that everything was immediately reflected in the waveform behind the note.

ーThere’s ROBOT VOICE staff on the right of the STYLE, and you can easily make T-Pain like effect.

Iori Kanzaki 　SOFT was my favorite. It is really useful that I can do this much pretty easily here. We don’t need to use external plugins anymore, and it really fulfill Vocalo-P’s demands.

Voice Changer function recreates vibrates pretty accurately.

ーYou can do something fun and interesting using Voice Changer function, especially for people like you doing self cover.

Iori Kanzaki 　This was also incredible. I often provide music so I thought it would be very useful when I had to change my scratch vocals to women voice. I tried changing my singing of “Jiyuu Ni Torawareru.” to HARUKA, I was surprised at how well the vibrato was reproduced. It also reproduced the husky-ish voice that is particular to real human. We have been pursuing a human like touch with our own ears, but I thought VOCALOID6 would be a useful software to analyze human singing and consider which elements to reflect in VOCALOID.

ーThere might be new idea of Voice Articulating coming up by trying something we have done in other editor on VOCALOID6.

Iori Kanzaki 　Original vocal of “Inochi Ni Kirawareteiru” was done by Hatsune Miku V3X edited in Piapro Studio. I tried the same MIDI data with VOCALOID6, and I made Hatsune Miku V4X and male voice AKITO that is com from VOCALOID6.

ーSince you have just started using VOCALOID6, are you willing to continue using it?

Iori Kanzaki 　Absolutely yes. I can use previous version of voice banks called V4X, so there will be less obstacles for those who has been using other editors. I actually moved to VOCALOID6 pretty smoothly. You can use it intuitively so my work will speed up even more.

ーAlthough it’s still V4X, they are planning to release Hatsune Miku V6 AI, aren’t they?

Iori Kanzaki 　Wow, really? I would absolutely buy it! Really looking for it and can’t wait to listen.

ーYou have been with VOCALOID for 10 years, and what do you think about technology development?

Iori Kanzaki 　It has become easier and easier as time goes by, so I can’t help enjoying using it. there is always a moment that it tickles my inner child. 10 years ago, the software was expensive and the tuning was difficult, so it’s amazing that the software guarantees a certain quality within a user’s skill even it’s the first time he/she use VOCALOID6. I think to be able to use one’s own voice sound in VOCALOID, such as the voice changer function, will further expand the scope of creativity. I am very excited about the future evolution of the scene.

ーFinally, could you give cheering massage to those who wants to be a Vocalo-P?

Iori Kanzaki 　Cherish the moment when you feel desire to do something, and just buy the VOCALOID6 at that moment. If you don’t do it immediately when you feel like doing it, your enthusiasm will disappear.

VOCALOID6 for Windows / macOS

■Bundled voice banks：16（VOCALOID6：AKITO、ALLEN、ASAHI、HARUKA、LUCAS、MICHELLE、SAKURA、SHION、ASAHI、TAKU、YUINA、NAOKI）（VOCALOID5：Amy、Chris、 Kaori、Ken）
※You can use VOCALOID3, VOCALOID4, VOCALOID5’s voice banks and project file（VSQX、VPR）
■Operating environment：Windows10, 11 （64bit）,macOS 13（Ventura）,14（Sonoma）,15（Sequoia）
■Specifications：https://www.vocaloid.com/en/vocaloid6/specs/