At times, you will want to be able to modify the pronunciation of words sung, into a tuning you desire or prefer. At other times, you will encounter so called homographs. Homographs are words that are written the same, but have a different pronunciation. For example:

– record (vinyl) vs. record (to record)
– tear (when crying) vs. tear (to tear)
– live (e.g. live band) vs. live (to live)

These are only a few examples, but you will encounter more words like these. It is yet impossible for VOCALOID technology to distinguish between these words, since they are inputted just the same way and therefore this decision can only be done through human intelligence.

This short column will show you how you can tune Miku’s voice and pronunciation into the style you desire or prefer.

How to change Miku’s pronunciation

There are two fields when inputting lyrics in Piapro Studio (see image below).
The upper one is where you can just type in the lyrics you want Miku to sing. The lower part is the equivalent to your lyrics in phonetic VOCALOID symbols.

When you wish to change a pronunciation of a word, you click into the phonetic symbol field and change the according phonetic symbol. It will change then to a red color, indicating that you made a change.

List of VOCALOID Phonetic Symbols

The list on the next page contains the VOCALOID phonetic symbols, with which you can modify each pronunciation by just replacing the original phonetic symbol. The VOCALOID phonetic symbol (on the left-hand side) is equivalent to the parts in bold of the sample words (middle), and to the phonetic symbols that are often used in dictionaries (right-hand side).
Be .careful!

Through the original connectivity of vowels with consonants, there might sometimes occur the case that pronunciations are distorted when you change them. This technique needs some practicing time, but when mastered it is a very powerful tool.