Giga-P cover: Hibikase
Vocal Design
Voice banks & V5 style presets utilized in this project:
Melody- Kaito V3 Soft append at -25, variation on Deep Shimmer
Harmonies- Kaito V3 Whisper & Straight appends at -25, Warm Emotion & custom, Calm Wind for vocalizations near end
Beginning consonants are heavily accented using vocal fry, accent2, and accent3. Crescendo and descrescendo are used fairly consistently to accentuate and punctuate phrases, along with various levels of vibration. Growl is added to certain phrases in the lower melody line.
Reflections
Most of the V3 versions of Hibikase I've heard with Kaito utilize his Straight append, but I’m not particularly fond of them. The mood inevitably feels somewhat off. The soft, halting breathiness of the chorus' first stanza is missing. The pleading quality of the song's lyrics is missing. Sure, the musical arrangement demands some amount of power from the vocals, but it's a song about being overwhelmed by sensations, about craving and surrender. The music rises and falls. You can't just power through it. It's a delicate balancing act, and Giga does it so well in the original it’s one of my favorite songs with Miku.
Kaito’s voice handles vocal fry so beautifully.
I spent a lot of time trying to decide which append to use for each instance of ‘hibikase’. All but one use Whisper.
Fandom.com gives this a ‘questionable content’ warning, which I find amusing considering how innocuous it is when compared to scores of other Vocaloid songs.
