EXTRAS AND AMENDMENTS - Here’s the pinned comment where I plan on sticking anything else I want to add but didn’t include or corrections to any flawed or outdated information. - Another important facet of volume dynamics to keep in mind in both your vsynth editor and DAW is that virtual singers sing at about the same volume throughout the entire file if you don’t change it yourself (DYN Parameter in VOCALOID, Intensity/Envelopes in UTAU and Loudness in SynthV), don’t be afraid to have different vocal phrases at different volume levels to imitate the feel of a singer controlling the volume of their voice in the recording booth (eg. Softer fades and releases at the end of phrases if you feel a line ends too suddenly). - Limiters are a GODSEND of an audio effect for dampening down those loud, harsh spikes in your vocals, they should be bundled with most DAWs. - Some DAWs like Studio One have a small chance of automatically setting your vocal tracks to Monaural, even if the file is Stereo. During the mixing process, make extra sure that your vocal import is playing in Stereo for a smoother output.

"don't install fukase onto your computer because by doing so you will have fukase on your computer"

" teto is strictly an UTAU " well that aged like milk

"V-synths can be your very first experience working with music" Words I didn't realize I needed to hear...

Utau started as an April fools joke but then it slowly became one of the most dominant synths in the game It's funny

I have to tell you--as human singers, in American English we're actually supposed to drop some consonants, like s's and any ch sounds, so you're learning real musical theory without the expense of a teacher 😁

I am now going rewire my brain to actually make my covers not sound like hot shit. God, I've been doing UTAU for so long using bare minimum, I forgot that I should actually try. Downside of having a music term for a name: still think ppl are talking about me. Also, I SEE MY BABY 👀👀

I LEARNED MORE ABOUT MAKING VOCALOID MUSIC FROM THIS THAN I HAVE FROM THE ENTIRE REST OF THE INTERNET. THANK YOU DO MUCH

My favourite niche KZfaqr?? Making an hour long video on one of my favourite niche subjects?? And it’s and hour and a half long???? Edit: seriously. Your video on how to get into vocaloid is what inspired me to try and use SynthV in the first place. Your work means a lot to me.

for anyone just finding this video: synth v now has the ability to let any AI voicebank sing in any language, thereby giving us technically 4 male voicebanks capable of English (an xiao, mo chen, kevin and ryo as of writing this, with muxin also being planned for an AI in the future). which means it is now simply objectively superior to vocaloid (/hj).

39:10 If you're having this problem, try selecting all of the affected notes (or just all the notes in the file), right click and select Property, and set the Modulation to 0; this usually fixes UTAU sounding all out of tune when you don't want it to!

For anyone wondering about reaper, it's an amzing and simple program to use! I use it for my own music outside of vocaloid and it works really well and is pretty simple to grasp!

watching you talk about all the files and folder systems you have for keeping your projects organized, and I just have all my files....floating around my hard drive like some kind of animal

My experiences with various DAWs: Note: when I say "PCM audio" i refer to sample based audio clips, in other words things like vocals and other instrumental loops you drag in from WAV, MP3, OGG, etc. files. FL Studio FL Studio (previously known as Fruity Loops) got its beginnings as software for just making drum beats and as such has a lot of cruft from its early days in the interface. The initial learning curve if you just want to make instrumental music starts out smooth, but once you get in to stuff like sidechaining, etc. you may end up hitting a brick wall for a while. The PCM audio capabilities of FLStudio are limited and quite clunky, which can make synchronizing audio to your BPM a headache at times. Upside is that you get lifetime free upgrades to the DAW so you'll keep your version of the DAW as new versions come out. You have to buy every plugin which comes as demo versions with FL individually or as the (quite expensive) producer bundle. Plugins are bridged in FL Studio which means plugin crashes are less likely to take FL Studio down with it. Cubase A DAW by Steinberg/Yamaha, the creators of the VST plugin format. Very stable DAW but hard to learn and master. Its PCM audio capabilities is also hit and miss like FLStudio but I found it to overall be a stable experience if you can blunt the steep learning curve. Cubase is very light on actual bundled plugins and as such I can't recommend it if you don't have the money to spend on VST plugins. You also have to pay for upgrades to new versions of Cubase. Ableton Live Ableton Live is TBH one of the nicer DAWs on the market, though it is very keyboard shortcut intensive. But once you get a hang of it the experience ends up being quite nice. It's infinite track effect rack layed out linearly makes for a very nice visual experience of your audio as you are adding effects, EQing, etc. Its PCM audio capabilities are pretty spot on, having multiple audio stretch modes, some taking in to account formants (good for vocals!) while doing the audio stretching faster than FL and Cubase. It also has warping capabilities for audio to allow you to in-post manipulate audio even further. If you are buying VST plugins for Ableton Live make sure to download the version for the bit architecture of the Ableton Live version you installed. (either 32 or 64 bit). Otherwise you will need extra software to bridge that bit depth gap. Bitwig Studio My DAW of choice, basically Ableton Live but on steroids. Has more bundled plugins, a synth/effect builder system and has the same nice PCM capabilities that Ableton Live has. If you are an Ableton Live user the UI will also be very familiar. Bitwig Studio has the advantage over Ableton Live that plugins are bridged by default and the audio engine is seperate from the project, meaning that if a plugin/effect/instrument misbehaves you're less likely to lose work to a crash. You have to pay for every major update to Bitwig Studio, but there's discounted upgrade packages where you can get upgraded to the newest versions for a year at half the price. Cockos REAPER Pretty nice DAW, has the WinRAR style basically-inifinite free trial period with a nag screen after 60 days. It is quite barebones with what you initially get, but is also quite cheap to buy the full version of. You may want to go get some free vsts for this one, luckily there's plenty of options available on that front to cover your needs. PCM audio capabilities are decent. UI can be a bit obtuse at times but I found I could get the hang of it pretty easily. Ardour Ardour is an open source and free (if you compile it from source) DAW, it was made for PCM based audio editing first and foremost, which can be seen with how much of a nightmare it is to work with MIDI in it. I honestly only can recommend it if you don't have any money to spend and don't like the other alternatives. My mixing advice 1. Don't overdo reverb, many artists end up *overdoing* reverb ending up with a very muddy sounding mix, in many cases you can avoid having reverb. Unless your vocalist is in a church or a long concrete hallway I recommend having either no reverb or a reverb with a VERY short release. 2. One rule with EQing is that you should try to avoid making frequencies louder and more use it to sculpt frequencies by cutting away unless you're trying to obtain a specific effect. 3. Dynamics plugins allows giving your vocals a more dynamic feeling in your virtual scene.

I don’t know if you’ve heard this yet or not but I’ll just say it here for those who haven’t heard yet. Tsurumaki Maki, a Voiceroid by AH-Software, is getting a SynthesizerV Studio, SynthV AI, and CeVIO AI voicebank in 2 languages, Japanese and English, meaning we finally have another english VB, though there’s not confirmation (that I know of) there being a Lite version, 👉👈

18:32 straight!!! up!!! i swear to god i started improving so much faster when i started making my own vsqxs than when i was using pre-made vsqs. i mean some of it was also me graduating high school and having more time on my hands, but still lol i feel like i wouldn't be where i am now if i didn't start making my own vsqxs.

A mixing technique one can use when it comes to reverb to give a even more realistic performance is: Use a convolution reverb first. A convolution reverb is a type of reverb that can take a audio file called an impulse response (IR). This file is a recording of an actual room but more importantly the echo of that room. By putting this on a send track in a D.A.W you give the vocal a sense that it was recorded in an actual physical real world room. Then you can put the vocal through a regular reverb to make it blend with the instrumental. If you don't have a DAW and you are working with an audio editor like audacity, duplicate your audio file on another track then soak that duplicate with reverb at 100% wet. By doing this you have control over the reverb amount by moving the volume fader on that second track instead of baking in the reverb into your main vox track and having to go undo if you don't like it or need to change it at a later date. This technique of using a convolution reverb first is used for orchestral mock ups in Hollywood for film scores with virtual orchestra plugins..

18:16 ok this has nothing to do with the video but- those jiggle physics are wild i honestly didnt even think Project Diva had jiggle physics like that. Sure, there was something, but holy crap Meiko get a better bra

idk why but I love just listening to these kinds of videos, I know my computer would rather die than download anything more than a png but I've always wanted to get into the cover making community.. my friend has utua and I'm so jealous

a comment on plug and play Sometimes you wanna hear a cover by another voicebank that suits the song more. very informative, thank you. All you said about learning a new skill applies to multiple mediums, and I love how upfront and easy to follow this was.

Regarding the "back and forth" workflow of exporting vocals to preview in your DAW, this is certainly true, but one way to streamline that process is to use SynthV *within* your DAW. Not sure if this can be done with the free version, but SynthV can be dropped right into your main project as a VSTi and assigned a track like any other instrument! Piapro also can do this, and I think Vocaloid 5 as well (but not older versions of Vocaloid).

THANK YOUUUUU! I've been listening to vsynths forever, but I only just got started actually using them bc I found out I could try SynthV for free (I never could get UTAU to work... rip). I'm a trained vocalist so pitch bending and vibrato and stuff make sense to me, but I'm flying blind with everything else. I cannot tell you how much more prepared to keep learning I feel now that I've watched this- like I kept seeing people talk about importing midi but i couldn't figure out how it worked bc I'm a baby. I'm going to use one of your midi files for a cover and then try making my own, and reference this often while I'm getting on my feet, thanks for putting out such a comprehensive overview

"kasane teto is strictly utau" renoidplayer: *_thats what you think_*

I've flirted with VSynth software in the past and this video has convinced me it's not something want to do HOWEVER it has given me a massive respect for you and VSynth users for the work that goes into it! Seeing 500 covers of Ghost Rule with the same basing did make the scene look lazy to me but boy did I not realise how deep this goes! Great video! -Luka [Josh]

I came for the learning, stayed for your delightful love-hate relationship with Utau (and also for the learning)

It's taken about a year, but more english is finally on the way for Synth V.

I'd personally be really interested in an UTAU tutorial, I think your work UTAU is really impressive so if you ever decide to show your process perhaps I'm sure I'll learn a lot especially considering how absolutely incomprehensible it is for me as of now.

Daaaang this is so helpful, I've been looking for something like this for a while and man just my luck for it to come from one of my favorite youtubers!! This video was very informative and entertaining. Thank you and amazing work!!!

Just found this, his is more indept than most what i find, thank you much you just earned a sub king

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I'VE WANTED SOMETHING LIKE THIS

This video was very good and informative. Thank you very much. Just one note that I have: MIDI files are fully capable of storing tempo maps (BPM + time signatures) and markers. Any proper DAW should have the ability to export MIDI files with these embedded. You can also export a multi-track MIDI file containing all of your programmed data and not have to export one MIDI file for each vocal part. I only have experience with VOCALOID5 so I do not know if this works properly in other software.

This is really useful! And just before I started tuning the second part of my first cover too! Had to go back and use your advice on the first vocalist (yes i'm doing a duet. yes, im an idiot), but know it sounds better, so it was definetly worth it!

Omg thank you so much for your video !! You gave really nice and useful tips and you made the video very fun and entertaining, just the type of video I needed to see 😁

Ok, i found your channel, like, yesterday? And I'm enjoying your content so much holy shit. I've been teaching myself drums for a bit over a year, guitar for a few months, and bass for a few days lol. I have 0 experience with music theory and composition. Also 0 experience with vocal synth software (until yesterday of course, when i downloaded synthesizer v and made a rap about piss, as one does.) This all feels like the natural next step in my creative journey, and you've made it so easy for someone like me to understand where to start. I don't know if this is going to go anywhere, but it's great experience and I'm super thankful that you've put this stuff out. Thank you!!!

"teto is strictly utau" Oh how the times change

I know this video is 1:30 hours long and I’m 1 minute in but I got to say, slowmotion was stuck in my head right as you played the Forte cover and that caught me off guard much more than I’d like to admit

ah I just found you because I was trying to learn how to tune in Vsynth I haven't watched the whole thing yet but what I can say Is I really like your voice and am subscribing

Really good job on this-- i really liked the chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10 --big helping me understanding how to get the most out of SynthV

I've been thinking of getting SynthV so I watched this video. We both have something in common. We're both too stubborn to watch tutorials lol. Edit: It's funny that I can actually understand what you're saying. I know nothing about using VSynths, except that Mitchie M has some wizardry in tuning.

your vids are awesome my guy! found you through the deemo video!

Thank you for the video. Really appreciate someone talking about this for newcomers. I didn't know about Synth V and started out with Utau for MacOs which was tbh the worst idea ever for someone who barely knows how to log onto their computer without having to look it up

omggggg i missed u so muchhh 💞💞💞

As someone who started using Vocal Synths back in 2013 with V1 Leon I wish this was available back in the day. Even now that I am slowly starting to get back into things this is a massive refresher for everything that I had forgotten.

This is a Masterclass!!! Great job. and thanks!

I just jumped head-first into making my first cover, thinking I could probably feel it out blindly (very silly, I know) but quickly became confused. This video was like a Godsend for helping me understand what the process of a cover actually looks like. Thank you so much!

i have most of the synth programs in this video and ngl synthv studio is my favorite. all the others feel old and harder to use and synth v studio feels clean and easy to use.

Oh cool, this video is pretty useful and I wish it had existed and I had seen it when I tried getting into vocal synths half a decade or so ago, especially the part that's like "we always talk about tuning, and that's important, but there's other stuff besides tuning, too." I still have not figured out how mixing works (I feel a bit called out when you mention "oh hey it's not enough to just slap the vocals over the instrumentals and call it a day"), and I think part of that is that I have a hard time even hearing how different mixing sounds. I keep telling myself I'll get around to figuring all this out eventually, but apparently it hasn't been eventually yet. (But this video certainly helps - you at least present all the important terms here and make them Googleable for further resources on this, which is more than I had a few years ago when I heard the term "mixing" for the first time.)

thank you! this is so helpful! been wanting to dive more into utau and other vocal synths!!! i make music in ableton and adding vocals synths for vocals mighht just be the ticket! really appreciate ur work

This video will finally satisfy my vocal synth cravings I am so glad

thank you so much for this!!! im 14 and have no experience in music or vocal synths whatsoever but ive always wanted to try since i was little so i recently downloaded synth v basic, its difficult finding good tutorials online but this helped

thank you very much for this tutorial. It took me a while to get through this video since i have a rather unorthodox approach to learning but this video helped explain a lot when it comes to tuning a vocal which is important for not only making covers but also making originals too. I hope to eventually get started on making originals so this helped a lot! Recap on what's been learned here - chart your melody vocals and harmony vocals on a midi track with a piano/synth sound - input the lyrics - adjust the consonants -adjust the pitch bending -use Oremo program to help monitor your own singing's pitch bends -add some vibrato appropriately to give the singing its emotion and color -apply any extra parameters you see fit -mix your vocals LAST! mix all of your instruments/instrumental first before you mix the vocals Mixing tips and tricks I've learned firstly, you always want to be VERY, VERY gentle with the compression when it comes to vocals. there's a trick I've learned when it comes to mixing vocals called Stacking Compression Technique. basically, you add two compressors to the vocal with the following settings 10ms attack 3:1 ratio 80ms release 3db gain -25 threshold you can also use a vocal preset on a compressor and be just fine. now after you've made the first compressor, copy and paste that same compressor on top of the vocals the vocals are way too dynamic so they must always have compression no matter what. remember: the more dynamic a sound is, the more likely you'll need to use compression for. EQ settings to try low pass at 100 hz or 95hz reduce the 328 hz frequency by -3db high frequency shelf boost - increase the 7.50 khz frequency up by +3db

I'm a third of the way through, and watched the old one first, and what im hearing is yes my nearly 20 years of experience with music (solo vocals, choir, violin, and a few music theory classes) are _helpful_ my complete and total inexperience with editing software slashed my achilles tendons before ever getting off the starting block 😭

Yeah! Sound... And stuff... Yay!

Thanks a lot for this amazing tutorial. I was especially interested in the Synthesizer V stuff. I'm using Ableton Live as a DAW, but having a synthetic vocal singer is amazing to try out some ideas quickly.

This video is really helpful. Thank you very much! I just discovered UTAU and SynthV (and never used Vocaloid). I donloaded the SynthV free version with some lite voice banks and I'm composing a song with those voices (will ask the permission of some UTAUloid creators to compose as well). I'll use all the tips provided here and in the Yuunarii video series and release the song for free together with a document (probably with video as well) on how I approached to each part of the song composition and voice tuning. I hope I can be useful for this community as well ^^

Thanks for breaking all this info down!! Great vid!

I've been an amateur music producer for about 10 years with some interest in VSynths but didn't know there were free options. Thanks for the tutorial!

The boy is back!

thank you for making this, super information for beginners such as myself!

EXCELLENT CONTENT ONCE AGAIN OP

thanks so much for this. I just got into this and your tutorial was very helpful.

Incoming long post that I tried so hard to make concise. I actually waited a few days to comment but here goes: I LOVED the video! You would not believe how excited I was about it. I actually did multiple watches just so I can further break it down for myself so that I'm able to approach it with what I currently have in my arsenal. I actually tried to fumble my way through V-Synth before but I just had a hard time, so this video really is just refreshing for me to really plan out. As an American, the "fetching" part actually forced me to say it out loud cause that was the most mid 2000's way of pronouncing it in my book LOL. But I'm sure it makes more sense in phoneme application. Tho, I have NO ragrets buying the love of my life KAITO V1 considering how old he is but I feel like the video is general enough to be applicable to the older software. All the more reason to experiment and really see what the program has to offer and working with what's there. Another tidbit: something interesting you ought to know is that MIDI is the file type used for VOCALOID1. V2 onwards began the VSQ/x file type so VSQs will not be able to open in V1 unless you convert them to MIDI. And 100% the help index overview in the VOCALOID software (probably V-Synth in general) is actually one of the most underrated and helpful things to read and I can guarantee half of us don't read it and just decide to wing it in the software by interacting with the interface itself. I actually printed the V1's help index due to how concise the information is and how easy it is to digest when I needed an overview. Considering how old V1 is, there's possibly much less info overload than current iterations. One last thing: I love to mess around with pre-set voice parameters for a singer (at the cost of ear damage due to comparing extremes for settings with headphones no matter how low the volume is). While mostly for my preferences in how I want my singer to sound like, having a general idea on what your voice bank sounds like on extreme ends of the spectrum with descriptions like "raspy," "underwater," "bitch has braces," "green alien," or "NEVER USE" can really help in deciding how you want change the voice stylistically. While there are recommended ranges, it's honestly better to play around and experiment with the parameter settings because each voice bank has their own untapped potential in being able to sing to genres that may not even be catered to them (Nashimoto-we's music will always be an example I will beat to death for this because of how he used Miku's vb for his gritty sounding songs compared to the usual jpop we hear with her) ~NeoH

I'm pretty late to this and I don’t know if someone has said this yet, but another strategy for putting in notes if you don't have a good ear (like me) is to look up a piano cover or tutorial. They'll give you the notes, you just have to figure out the timing. This is nice especially if you are wanting to cover a song that doesnt have a VST file.

Really appreciate the tutorial, helps a bunch

tysm for this!!! I'm trying to make a cover with eleanor & Maki rn because of this!!!

I mean, you look beautiful as usual, and I think your partner would agree on that one. Just chill. You did great! I will issue an exception to what you say at 38:09, Logic Pro X does store tempo data into its MIDI files that can be detected by peer Pro studios v4x/NT and Vocaloid 5. However, you will still need to line the imported midi file perfectly with backing track in order for it to work right.

I want to start using vocaloid, I would love to practice with covers and stuff like that, I know I shouldn't buy something like Len Kagamine as a starter but I love his voice bank. Sounds great and I would love to eventually start actually making my own music

Such a madlad man...... teaching 3 vsynth at once...

Thank you so much for this! I've been watching you ever since I got into SynthV and you've helped me a lot with using Eleanor's Forte, theres something about her voice that has so much potential, and you have definitely showed that and used her in the best way she can be used. Do you ever think you'll use the SynthV voicebank Genbu or maybe Yamine Renri?

Joez: Get a DAW Me, pulling Audacity out of my Hard Drive: You mean like a real one or?-

I’m deciding whether to get vocaloid6 or SynthV so THANK YOU (I saw your vocaloid one when I got rin and Len v4x several years ago)

There's this new vocal synth called Niao Niao and it's wonderful. There is plenty of vocals that I probably haven't checked out yet!

he's back

Cakewalk by Bandlab is a great free DAW.

IT'S HERE!!!!!

OK thank you so much mr joezcafe bc i watched this and speedran a cover 👍👍👍

Why am I always late about discovering Vocaloid stuff, I feel like I went through a time warp and have to catch up everything (releases, new covers) I've missed for 10 years

I know this video is a year old but learning about SynthV AI has gotten me so hype. Voicebanks that use AI to become trilingual?? That’s bonkers, I stan SynthV lol

I watched this whole video and made this account. I have tried to make 2 Vocaloid covers and honestly i am kinda proud.

id also recommend studying. by this i mean downloaded public tuned project files from well known tuners to see what pitch bends they use and how they work so you can later apply that to your own covers and originals. like Cillia's for example.

It's funny how most of the early pronunciation stuff you talked about, and the issues the editors and voices have are also issues standard text to speech engines, and speech synthesizers have as well. So for programs where the speech is very important, and is going to be used a lot, like screenreaders for blind computer users for instance, tthe programs come with a pronunciation dictionary where you can edit the way a word is pronounced by writing down a new word in it's place, but sometimes it can be really tricky to get the results you want without knowing proper phonetics, and then if the voice itself wasn't recorded correctly, or has specific issues with pronunciation, then you are just screwed in some cases and it will never come out quite right. Then you've got certain issues like clicking and artifacts that can be more or less prominent depending on several factors such as the synthesis engine the voice is being used in, and the technology behind it, and the quality of the recorded samples of the voice if that was the way the voice was made. These issues can be really irritating when you have no choice but to use these voices every time you need to use an electronic device, like a computer or tablet. I'll give an example of a voice that is irritating to use. I have a roku smart tv, and the voices they use on there are some free open source voices that were created with the help of AI, but there is not enough data to make them good quality, so they are muffled and hard to understand, but there isn't anything else to choose. So if you are blind and have a Roku device, you are just stuck with that voice for all eternity!

This is gold :0

Studio One ftw! awesome vid thanks for sharing. Also...idk why you didn't get the VST's, I had to download all mine but it was through Studio One.

that's impessive. thanx a lot. learned much useful unpredicteble

Deep vocal is my new favorite synth

impulsively bought miku nt with absolutely no experience so here i am. help me.

I'm really sorry if someone else has commented on this, but for anyone new reading this and wanting to use even more free SynthV voicebanks, the following voices are also available for free use (Lite versions): English: Tsurumaki Maki English Standard Lite Tsurumaki Maki English AI Lite Japanese: Tsurumaki Maki Standard Lite Tsurumaki Maki AI Lite Koharu Rikka Standard Koharu Rikka AI Kotonoha Aoi Akane (Standard) Saki AI (the video only briefly mentioned Saki, but both her Standard and AI voicebanks have lite versions) Yamine Renri (an imported UTAU - is even multipitch) All of them can be downloaded from AHS-software's website and are completely free.

man I wish I saw this video before I bought Vocaloid 5! SynthV, at least for my preference, is much more user friendly.

I’m asking questions while watching the video so these questions might already be answered in the video How do you make an original song using utau? How do you make a melody or an instrumental to go with the lyrics?

I love you

ok so like band lab is a free stripped-down cakewalk so for like small lil projects u can use band lab but if ur making original music and u want some extra stuff u can use cakewalk it's an amazing free daw

1:00:56 VOICE OF AN ANGEL

You can take your same advice and apply it to a free trial /demo of a vocaloid voicebank & piapro studio :)

Yay thank you!! I wanna make covers with eleanor so fvck yeah 😍

Great Video. But i'm a little confused, Can I use a vocal bank (Eleanor Lite for example) with Synthv basic in a commercial original release? And with all the tweakability and procesing (Eq, compression, reverb, plugins etc) going on in the mix how could anyone ever know what exactly its being used?

Thank you my fellow Café brother I really wanna use Eleanor

For rapping/very fast tempo songs, would you recommend SynthV or CeVIO? Since vocaloid tuning with fast tempos sometimes just breaks the vocals :”(

HEY, I WROTE THAT ULTRA-LITE ARPASING LIST

I was thinking about buying Gumi for Vocaloid as opposed to SynthV, and goodness gracious am I happy i got her SynthV bundle instead. SynthV Gumi can speak a whole 5 languages for LESS than the price of one Gumi Vocaloid bank. Plus, SynthV is WAY easier to use than Piapro Studio (which I'd have to use for Vocaloid Gumi) I've been having a lot of fun with her with my covers since buying her 👍

I honestly don't know where to go for this, but y'know, it'd be kinda nice to have a tutorial on how to install and use aquestalk and its derivatives versions lol. Am I the only one who feels that way?