UTAU Tutorial: Oto.ini configuring (CV)

 (remember: you can click each image for a close-up in a new window)


OTHER GOOD SOURCES FOR OTO.INI HELP/TUTORIALS:
http://camilamelodia.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-to-make-otoini-basic-tutorial.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0wgzwo1d_Y

The oto.ini can be VERY confusing at first - especially if you're totally new to UTAU. The oto.ini is there to melt the notes together and add life to the UTAU, as well as some final editing for the .wavs.
There's lots of other great oto.ini tutorials out there, and I'll add links to those I found that I think could help after the tutorial :3


To open the UTAU oto.ini interface, do this:

In the menu window, click "tools" and "Voice Bank Settings...". This will open up this window:

As you can see, I've selected the sample "a" to work with. The selected sounds are marked with blue, the numbers you see on the screen all describe how the oto is built. To open the "working interface", click "Launch Editor". Done!

 

This is the UTAU oto.ini interface - you have the first window and the second one, the second window opens when you push the large button placed near the four smaller ones (it's the big one to the left, see?). The second window is where we edit the oto.ini - the first window is for information on the oto, duplicating files and adding hiragana/romaji aliases.

As you can see, there's a lot of stuff going on here that I'll try to explain.

BLUE - the blue part indicates the part we want to delete from the file, for example if you recorded "zu" but forgot to erase the empty space in the beginning/end of the recording. That's where the blue goes. It's very handy owo

PINK - this part makes sure that your samples won't go "nnnnaaa" instead of "naaa", the pink goes over to consonant and partly over the vowel.

RED LINE - overlap, how much of the note/sound shall overlap the previous one.
GREEN LINE - This part is "preutter", IE. when the sound will actually start. For example, I want my UTAU to say "sama". I add the "sa" and "na", and the pre-utter turns it into "sa..ma" with a short pause for me. It's very convenient for realistic sounds!
NOTE!! NEVER drag the red and green lines TOO FAR or they'll sound OFF and BAD, experiment before releasing a voicebank with a newly configured oto.ini!!


STEP BY STEP

Here's the opened sound we want to Oto. As you can see, there's nothing more than the sound file at the moment.

We drag the pink over the consonant + some of the vowel.

Then we add the overlap and preutter like this, a bit after the consonant but not too far into the vowel. Experimenting is the best way to work an oto.ini. The green should NEVER be too far into the sound or it will sound horrible, it's better if you leave the green somewhere in the beginning on the consonant.

Perfect! Now we add the blue line over the parts we don't want - like stuff we should've deleted in AudaCity but didn't for some reason, or just sounds we don't want.

Last but not least we drag the blue stuff over the very end of the sound. DONE!


 

Oto'd Voicebank vs. No Oto Voicebank:

 

The first pic is of an oto.ini voicebank singing "arigato", the second of a voicebank with no oto.ini. See the differences? :3

The Oto.ini makes it go "a..riGaa..too", and the no oto goes "arigato". The first one sound a lot more realistic and nice.

Every voicebank should have a working oto before it's released.