Buying the plugin
I've committed to buying the EmVoice Lucy plugin, after playing with the trial / demo version for a while. I though it is a great addition to the studio and will help with the creativity part of things. I often struggle to get the intended melody of a new composition across the to artists just by playing it on an instrument, so this looks like it will definitely add value in that process. I think the cost is quite high for the software, however I am a Software Engineer myself, and I can imagine the amount of work that EmVoice had to put into the development for this.
Setting up the software
That was simple, since if you try the demo version it is already installed. The only difference is that the demo has only 7 notes that can be used, while the paid version enabled the full vocal range
The experience using the software
Lucy has a UK accent. I found it impressive that the lyrics are mostly sang with acceptable pronunciation, and gets sung to the pitch you enter. After every change it on the fly, connects to the Cloud to render the output. To me the most important missing part, is expression. That is expected though, so Lucy sounds pretty much the same everywhere. It is after all just a program, and everything is artificial (easy to forget).
My studio DAW is Propellerhead Reason Studio, and I first created the music for the track - setting somewhat of a classical theme. I then created the melody line with piano, pulled that into the plugin, and created lyrics for it. But only then the real work begun to make Lucy come alive. It took a lot of effort and time, and I had to pitch change a lot of the start and end of words (for how I imagine a real person might perform it), make some parts louder of softer, including non music/melody parts (for example a little crack in the throat), and played around quite somewhat with EQ, compression and effects.
It was hard work, but it paid of - this track now belongs to the EmVoice, since after I showed it off to them they bought it from me. The track has already been played hundreds of times on SounCloud. This time it for me it took a robot to get noticed, but never the less - I'm quite proud!
The track is just a short demo, as it is what it is and just too much work to make a full length song like this. What would be the point anyway?
But Lucy and Jay is now a permanent part of my studio tools. Listen to it here and let me know your thoughts: Coming For Me
