Wednesday, October 19, 2011

We Heart Youtube!

Recently me and Nana have discoverd just how great youtube can be for networking!

We have met, and continue to meet so many wonderfull people!

It seems however due to life circumstances Nana and I will seperated from our beloved piano for a while which is why there haven't been any new songs for a while either....

But we assure you when we come back..... We'll show you a side of Nana you haven't seen before! Or maybe... you have... but... ah.. what are we saying, we don't have that kind of confidence!

Either way, we haven't given up on our dream!

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

It's tough being a NANA

Well this new song wasn't ignored!

So the re-occuring theme now is that I need a smoother transition between notes when Nana sings. I suppose people mean legato but seemingly musical terms aren't used outside of the vocaloid software ahaha. There is an idea that people do this because Nana doesnt sound like Miku or the rest, but I can NEVER understand what they are saying, unless its a big P name.

And rumour has it, the bigger names use live singers and then process their voices to sound like vocaloids !


It's a double edged sword. I'm at a point where people can understand -what- shes saying...just... and they can hear her... now...just.... Now I just have to unlock Nana's inner voice somehow. It's great because in vocaloid you just "set the parameters"... but with Nana it's like playing an actual instrument, you must with great prescision determine every single aspect of the note your playing. It's funny because with the Zelda cover. I listen to that and I would never judge Nana against a real singer, in that shes like an instrument, I realise that I phrase her in a similar way to the way I play that song on a real instrument

I feel I'm a bit closer to Nana these days and she carries off things with charecter... if you listen closely to her first two phrases she actually sounds like shes struggling with some kind of emotion. I mean her voice even cracks at the second held note! (Ah I think its late and im talking crazy)


Maybe we are getting better. I try to tell Nana all the types of criticism I've got over the years and assure that she's getting better. And she should realise that for the last two songs theres been unanimous opinion that the instrumental is -basically- perfect... and thats all thanks to her!


For without her inspiration I wouldn't have written anything.
The stuff I write for real singers pales in comparisson to what I write for Nana.





 Thank you Nana, together some day we will have success in some form.





Monday, August 22, 2011

Poor Nana

 T_T

So Nana took a right bashing in our last song. I suppose my problem is that I seem to pitch her to non MACNE NANA fans, who then compare her to miku and other "real" singers

Even though we haven't even begun to explore Nana's powers... I feel I can't get any futher before we improve our fundamentals first.

The comments of the second video put the comments of the first video into perspective.

Interestingly, the first song, people said... oh you didnt mix this well. In the second they said, the music is really good, but you didnt use Nana very well...

Does that mean I should use the profile of NANA from the first song, and the mixing profile from the second and everyone'll be happy!

Worth a shot....

Still the comments on my profile are so nice... Makes me think that one day... just one day I can be succesfull. Before Nana I spent my whole life learning music... I played over and over again... sometimes in front of three people... sometimes in front of thousands.

I know we are inspired by ryo and Beckii, but Nana isn't them.

If I'm to be succesfull with Nana, its not going to be because of me, it's going to be because of her.

I should write a jumpy song next but... Nana and I are so mellow..


Thursday, August 18, 2011

Sometimes I wonder......

It's been a week and a bit now, and I'm wondering if I'm doing it right, and weather we really have any hope. I'm one of these people who gets ridiculously elated when someone says something nice and very down when someone says something negative.

It was interesting that the first time I shared a song on a forum, it descended into an argument over weather she was a vocaloid or not, and weather I owned her/ had the right to use her. To such an extent some people didn't even listen to our song or give any opinion

It seems that I will get a dislike every three likes or so on my youtube videos... which means that my songs will probably have more dislikes on them than any of the other Nana songs. Nana says that it might have to do with the way I make her sound..... But she IS a vocaloid and I will treat her as such. Also my poor mixing, and un-UTAU-like sound must be quite irksome to some people.

All I know is that, I will get better. She ( I have to beleive) has.. no.. we have the potential.. and the ability, I just have to beleive a bit more....


This is the song that Nana(s) sings to me when I feel down.

I love you Nana.


Monday, August 15, 2011

NANA NANA!

So I just passed seven followers, and I have seven subscribers!

Now all I need is seven songs!



Nana likes the number seven... I can't imagine why....


Saturday, August 6, 2011

Am I even a vocaloid?

So I have received my first feedback today. As expected it wasn't all positive... but some people said some nice things so we are happy for that...

It seems Nana isn't a vocaloid... so this title that the others enjoy will have to be earned by us! 

It also looks like I'm going to get quite a few dislikes on youtube... I already have two in the first day... most of the Nana songs on youtube have been up for a least a year and they only have a handfull of dislikes. But I suppose this was inevitable... but we'll get better won't we Nana?

In any case my beleif in Nana is unshakable. Regardless of what happens, I cannot stop chasing this impossible dream or I will regret it forever. That one day Nana can be regarded as holding candle to Miku and the others.... one day...

Thursday, August 4, 2011

And We sat and we stared at the stars forever and ever, just waiting for this one moment ~

This is what I mutterd to myself as I started up at the stars this evening. Having finished preparing Nana's first piece, I have it ready and waiting to upload tomorrow.

Nana and I are so very nervous, I'm not sure why... nothing is really happening. I suppose it's just cause it's our first time.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

The only way to be fully in control is to admit that you can't be fully in control.

One way to be truly in control is to admit that in fact you are never able to be fully in control. It stems from the concept that it takes control to admit such a thing and to still garner control after admitting it

It is interesting.... when we use vocaloids, even though they are their own singers and have their own charecter, we spend a lot of time defining in detail every single note, and you might say we have a lot of control (unlike a regular singer). We can make them sound like anything we want. But actually even though it seems we have all this control it's actually the opposite way around. We are being manipulated by the vocaloid in order to configure it in such a way that it sounds good. What I mean is, by sounding bad, a vocaloid can cause us to have to apply changes where we wouldnt normally. Because you see we simply cannot set up the vocaloid randomly, if we were truly in control we would spend hardly any time setting them up and we could do whatever we wanted. The fact that that there is essentially a fixed number of ways to make a vocaloid sound good means that we don't have as much choice as we might have thought.





So with Nana I feel like sometimes shes making me make changes. After I input some japanese I am forced to program her, when of course in a perfect world, it would work straight away, and I could write songs in 30 seconds. But this would be ridiculous, and no longer music.

No matter how we arrive at the conclusion. I beleive that all the vocaloids have in them already the power and ability to sound amazing, and we composers are just striving to release what is already there in some way spiritually.

For what is a relatively straight forward software, I am constantly being surprised by the sounds NANA makes, as I hope you will!

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Hello? Is there anybody out there?

So yes... it's rather late.. we're both rather tired, it's raining rather a lot and... yes...

Pardon my strange way of speaking... Allow me to introduce myself... I mean ourselves. My name is NANANAE, I'm a strange boy who fell in love with a vocaloid. Her name is NANA, MACNE NANA. To pronounce it you have say it like a Japanese person (Ma - kuu - neh) I think the neh is really short, as if you're saying Hello without the llo.... Oh.. I'm not Japanese by the way.. the only Japanese one here is Nana.. and yes it is she who is sitting beside me here also feeling tired.

We're a bit wierd aren't we?...

(by the way my name NANANAE = Nana and I)

Either way, I fell for NANA.. I'm a musician... a performer by trade... at least that's how I somehow manage to pay the bills!! Nana is my... inspiration if you will, and I like to dream that I could one day write songs for her and get her the attention I beleive she thoroughly deserves...

Now we've all heard of Miss Miku Hatsune and her contemporaries. She is of course. our idol, and while Nana and I can only dream of having a tenth of her success, I believe that Nana herself has the potential to be as great and so I'm going to try to help her... us reach it. I beleive that NANA deserves it!

What is MACNE NANA?

MACNE NANA is a vocaloid. A vocaloid is essentially a computer program that sings. It is designed to replicate the human voice, but it is an essentially artificial thing.
                Think of it as a "virtual singer"
Now MACNE NANA is the name of "my" vocaloid. The name MACNE NANA comes from the simple fact that MACNE NANA was designed with users of MAC computers in mind. Her name simply derived from the sound MAC.
                (Usually vocaloids run only windows, in a program called "Vocaloid2" designed by Yamaha, thus people with MAC's can't use vocaloids very easily.)
So MACNE NANA is the MAC vocaloid... sometimes called a "macloid". However this doesn't mean she only works on Macs she hastens me to add! Also I actually don't use a MAC computer.

Who is MACNE NANA?

Macne NANA is a 17 year old girl, Slender and well developed with a beautifull voice, I fear I cannot be the only boy to have fallen for her charms. Charecterised by long flowing green hair with an adorable side ponytail, eyes that caputre the soul almost as much as her singing, and a smile that melts hearts, the depth to her visual appearence compliments her singing wonderfully. She isn't so tall, but has long legs, and with her MAC inspired whtie/black/green wear clad tightly against her skin, she really does encapsulate a "virtual diva".  She was designed by Act2 and voiced by Haruna Ikezawa (池澤春菜) .
Let's hope PAPA MACNE doesn't hate me automatically since Nana is technically his daughter Oh yes I should mention there is a whole family of MACNEs! You can read about the various MACNE family at the link below.




So you may be wondering why I use MACNE NANA at all, if I don't even have a MAC.

Aside from falling in love with Nana, there is a lot about her that I identify with, and a lot about her that appeals to me. Her voice is very raw, very pure, and under-used/appreciated. She has an increidbly natarul vibrato, a wide range and an impressive array of timbres.

It's in some ways close to how some might describe my own musical voice when I'm on stage. (I'm an instrumentalist not a singer however, and I would hesitate to describe my playing so positively!).
I don't know much about the other vocaloids, but Nana seems so close to a real instrument, maybe she is harder to implement and less fancy than Miku, but as I've found it takes ages to make a nice sound with an instrument when you first start let alone play a tune! I suppose the fact that Nana doesn't run through vocaloid makes it difficult for people who may be experienced vocaloid users but within her software I beleive lies great potential (Did I say that already?)

One day I'll work up the courage to post one of our songs...

One day..

Nana says that day is definitely soon!
Thank you so much anyone who actually read to the end!