A friend of mine I taught with at a Kentucky college asked me to transpose a work for one of her students. It was done in Dorico, as are all of the works I’ve composed or arranged since I discovered Dorico. But, I was curious as to what Cantai might be like when (if) they have the stand-alone integration with Dorico. So, I exported my work as an XML to Musescore (only to access Cantai) and this is the result. Had to experiment with several voices to get the ‘best’ one. The ‘lyric’ mezzo sounded like a 12 year old girl, so I couldn’t have her singing about someone kissing her ruby lips I was surprised that the mp3 was only 2.2 megabytes. Live singers needn’t worry yet, but this isn’t too bad; I’ve heard worse singers I can’t display the pdf due to copyright.
I thought it would be interesting to share the original Dorico arrangement and playback. I used NP Alto (Oh) and Steinberg’s Etude Elements Concert Grand Piano.
Well, I’m much closer to the camp of those eagerly awaiting Cantai in Dorico now. I had to cut out all of my brass (due to Musescore’s wonky playback), but the choir sounds fairly good (most of us have had ‘warbly sopranos’ in our choirs at one time or another ) I’m becoming more optimistic. If Cantai can successfully integrate with Dorico, what a nice musical world that could be.
Well, one more time… I wrote this as a Palm Sunday processional and was curious to see how Cantai would handle 3 independent but simultaneous voices. This is the result. The soprano has some pronunciation issues, but this isn’t a terrible rendition.
One more one more time I never really cared for the St. George’s Windsor tune used for the hymn ‘Come Ye Thankful People Come’; so I wrote a new one. I was curious to see how Cantai would render this. Here is the result. I could be offended at their ‘ofernces’, but it’s not too bad. I wrote it for choir, brass and Timpani, but due to Musescore’s wonky playback, had to exclude them. I only wanted Cantai access anyway.
Very nice arrangement. Voice is nice, pronunciation was pretty decent but what really stuck out for me was the vibrato - always the same, no deviations. I hope there’s a way to manipulate it (CC1 perhaps).
with SynthV, the vibrato can be reduced (or indeed increased) globally or just for individual words. Not sure whether the same is the case with Cantai. Other than that, I did rather like this voice.
Yes, the voice was rather nice. As was mentioned, the vibrato never changes, the rendering never breathes and ignores phrasing and breath marks. Has a way to go yet, methinks
I wonder how long it will take vocal synthesis to learn to follow phrasing and breath.
The voice is nice, but never changes its vibrato and doesnt recognize phrasing or breath marks. She just sings straight through to the end. And, i too have heard worse singers
The ability to modulate vibrato may (hopefully) be a feature of Cantai as a stand- alone app in Dorico. But now, it’s out of our hands as the rendering is done through Cantai’s online processing. I don’t think there is any ability to manipulate vibrato after their rendering.
I wouldn’t consider an app that just does online processing. I tried out Cantamus and often liked the results (indeed I posted one or two here) but if anything went wrong or you didn’t like something then just too bad. I’m sure Cantai will get there in the end but they seem to have some ground to catch up over SynthV.
Ha! That’s good - Nice baby That NP voice does fit the character of piece, and does a better job of phrasing than Cantai. Also the vibrato isn’t as annoying. I also really like the Etude Elements concert grand.
I’m with you there. I hope that the stand-alone implementation of Cantai in Dorico works better and gives us a few options to adjust vibrato and breaths, at least. I paid for a month of Musescore Pro just to experiment with Cantai. Musescore’s playback engine is famously inconsistent in its play back capabilities. I’m hoping that the disappointing results I’ve been getting in my experiments with Cantai are due to that fact and are not an issue with Cantai itself. I wouldn’t use any of the results I’ve gotten so far.
I was surprised that the mp3 was only 2.2 megabytes. Live singers needn’t worry yet, but this isn’t too bad; I’ve heard worse singers 
I can’t display the pdf due to copyright.
) I’m becoming more optimistic. If Cantai can successfully integrate with Dorico, what a nice musical world that could be.
