Tech

Creative Netizen Use Voice Synthesizer To Create A Renditon of The S’pore National Anthem

2019-07-10 , 10:00 am

The last time I really listened to the national anthem and have it register in my brain is probably some time in secondary school.

In JC, singing the national anthem became some kind of subconscious ritual. The soundwaves of the Marikitas hitting my eardrums slowly fades away from my consciousness every morning assembly.

Instead of thinking of how to form words, Majulah Singapuras came out of my mouth naturally without conscious effort. At that moment, my brain would instead be thinking about lunch. It’s like the sound of air conditioning: I can’t hear it unless I tell my brain to really hear it.

All I’m saying is, I’m bored. The national anthem is boring.

But to some people, it’s the boring part that makes it worth turning into something special.

Majulah Singapura Sang By Voice Synthesizer Hatsune Miku

YouTuber Wyz KC did exactly that by using Vocaloid, a voice synthesizer software, with the Hatsune Miku voice bank to sing our national anthem.

What that means is he used computer magic to make a cute anime girl sing the national anthem.

You can check out the full song on YouTube:

What is Vocaloid?

Just in case you think this is some weeaboo anime bullshit because of the anime graphics, let me just say that you are only half right.

Vocaloid is a speech-generating software that enables users to make singing voices, designed to be a replacement for singers.

It was created by a university student as a project before being funded by Yamaha as a commercial project.

Just by inputting lyrics and melody, changing pronunciations and adding effects, you can create songs like the national anthem you just heard.

THE ROBOTS ARE COMING FOR YOUR JOBS – Wait, that isn’t what I meant to write.

This isn’t meant to replace the singer profession but meant for people like me who can’t sing for shit or maybe a musician wanted backup vocals.

Or maybe you wanted to create original songs, but can only play the guitar? That’s what Vocaloid is for.

What about the anime girl

What kind of voices can the program actually make? As you can probably tell, creating voices out of thin air is pretty complicated. So they have to make the voices from voice samples to create voice banks.

Each voice bank is sold as a “singer in a box”, which is shown as a featured fictional character. Enter the cute anime girls.

These fictional characters got so popular that people started creating fan art, stories, original songs, animations in 2D and 3D, figurines, a full anime, festivals, real-life concerts…

Yeah. Concerts in the real world. Like this:

That, my friends, is the power of anime (or good marketing?).

A netizen has been creating Vocaloid videos since 2 years ago

Other than the national anthem, Wyz KC actually re-created other food before, being most known for Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures covers.

But he didn’t just do anime covers, like this cover of Despacito:

For those wanting to make National Anthem covers

If any of those inspired you to make your own cover of the National Anthem, you might want to take note of the laws regarding performing it.

The gist:

The dignity of the song must be maintained
Must be complete lyrics and tune
It must be official lyrics, no translations
Not incorporated into other compositions

Now, let’s sit back and enjoy this medley of Vocaloid covers.