The last of BTW. . . for now~

So, I didn't accomplish all that much today. I talked with Aly and Rae, and also Izumi and Risa. And did some singing / recording for kicks and giggles. And they all sang for me too. It was fun! I'm glad to say that this is the last of the BTW for now. It'll be back to regular misc tomorrow. I've got a few things I need to catch up on, including a request. Then some lists to update, before I blog blog blog~

For this entry I didn't get reviews from two people, but it's due to the time difference, so it can't be helped. On top of that, with all the singing and talking tonight I was too distracted to do any real writing myself; sorry y'all. I will try extra hard tomorrow! Anyways, Kappa was super sweet and did some reviews for me the other day! And also, for the solo version of Back Track I accidentally mixed in a duet, lol. So Hikki reviewed it for me, and I had to wait until now to post it~ *note; these are unedited for the most part.*




Suzuki Airi : Breecuppycake
Tsugunaga Momoko : Miyazuchan
Natsuyaki Miyabi : Nytefaerie

OUR SONGS by iDiSCO! (from HoshiDubs) / Review by Kappa / Yaaay, I love this song, and I'm glad to see that HoshiDubs releases their stuff so often. I just watched Onna ni Sachi Are a few days ago and now there's two more for me to keep up with. Right on!

All three of these girls have such nice, strong voices! Like last times, we're having some mic issues that are making it hard to listen, but it's not as severe as in Onna ni, so already we're off to a good start.

I really love Bree's tone, and she makes a good Airi. Fae has a really unique cuteness to her voice that made me happy to hear. Miyazu doesn't really fit Momoko, but find that I really lov eher lines in this a lot! She's got a slightly deeper voice that's actually much easier on the ears than Momo's, in my opinion. All of the girls did a great job here on their solos, even though there were a lot of them and they all go by pretty quick. There were some pitchy moments here and there, but overall it was handled super well.

On the mixing side, this is already an improvement from Onna ni, although there are a couple things I'd like to hear different. First off, if you're using a vocal rip to get your harmonies, you have to be doubly diligent with making sure everything is in time. The group parts sounded kind of messy in places, and that harmony rip behind them wasn't helping them out at all. The volumes between voices are okay (except Fae seems to be a bit quieter in places), but the voices as a whole are too loud, as well as the harmonies. I'd also add reverb, because it stops those vocals from sticking out from the instrumental so much, which might have helped in this case.

Good luck on your next singles, and keep releasing efficently, guys! Your group is off to a great start.


*Yaruki! It's Easy by Creme! Project Winter 2010 ~Aisukuriimu to Keeki~ Concert (from cremeproject) // I've never heard this song, so I'm really unfamiliar with it, but it's got such an upbeat melody! Memoiree sounded great as Reina and really did a good job of sounding energetic despite being sick. The group parts in this really sound full and nice, and I adore the 'yay!'s and 'fu fu!'s. A lot of the times in concert dubs, singers don't make those as energetic as they should be, but these were believable! I would have liked to hear a mix that wasn't just a center-channel-extracted audio rip from the concert, as the quality came out kind of iffy, but I enjoyed this anyway.

*Edo no Temari Uta II by S-uta (from HoshiDubs) // I super enjoyed this dub! Without getting to intensely into it, I was totally in love with all of the solos and I think this is one of the best dubs I've seen of this song. It's very difficult to get it right, but this one came together super nicely. The only changes I would have made to it are not reverbing each of the tracks so heavily so the group parts don't sound so far away, improving the mic qualities inbetween singers, and deleting the melody echos in the vocal rip that I hear behind some of the solos. But overall, this is really nice and one to check out!

*Kotatsu no Uta ~jyuken story~ by AlyMandAngeru (from KisetsuProject) // Yay! This song is one of my favorites and I'm glad to see people are dubbing it, because it's waaay too ignored out there in the dubbing world. I love Aly's voice, she's got such a sexy tone that works super well for this song! I would have liked more word precision out of Manda as Eri, but she sounds adorable here nonetheless. Finally, Angeru makes a nice Yossie, although with a little more emotion I think she would have really killed it! This was a good listen, and the girls pulled off a difficult song well. Definitely worth a listen!




Magnet by Amaechau [Juwibean & Hinamoriforever] / Review by Hikki / Yippee! More vocaloid, baby! This is the well known forbidden love duet sung by Miku and Luka, covered by Juri (Juwibean) and Yoru (Hinamoriforever), respectively. The picture on the video was done by Yoru. It's soo sexyyyyy. Mmm, I love me some forbidden rabu.

Anyway! Juri starts off the songs, and boy, does she sound great! I've only heard Juri via Skype, and I've only heard her sing a bit through our fail skype karaokes and through Hana Project, but her voice never fails to amaze me. I love love LOVE her vibrato to death. Then it's Yoru's turn, and I can't really tell but I think she has a really strong and mature tone, but her pitching sounded a bit iffy to me, but that may just be me. Then it's the chorus, and the harmonies are 50/50 for me. Some parts sound AMAZING, and some parts were a bit off, but nonetheless, it still sounded great. And it's the same with the high notes too, some were hit wonderfully, and some others were strained. But those notes are hard to hit, so congrats you two for pulling them off!

Then Yoru starts off the second verse, and she sounds really fantastic in the beginning, but her pitching wavered a bit near the end, but it was still pretty. The duet part at 2:00 is my favourite part. The high note was hit wonderfully and the harmonies sounded great! I love the long note at 2:24 as well. Then it's Juri's solo before the chorus starts again, and she sounds so elegant and beautiful. Overall, I found this dub really enjoyable. The mixing was done really well too, the harmonies did not overpower the melody, which is a big plus because most of the Magnet dubs I watch, I hear the harmonies A LOT.

Back Track; Solo Version [Part 2]

Writers~

Izumi [faraBANG] / Hikki [DisturbedStrawberry]
Belly [Rasubelly] / Kappa [xmikipinkux]
Ayu [ChiiAyu] / Aya [MiriuOniaya]

[Reviewed by Izumi] Aaah, here I am again! / Aruiteru by Kassia [industrialxstrength] / Before listening, I was really excited. I've worked with industrialxstrength quite a bit as of late since she's one of the members of IKPs newest generation, and I really love her voice. I also really love this song. Not many people like it because of the repetitiveness, but I think its a very uplifting song, and I feel happy when I listen to it! So lets get started! :3

I had a feeling that this would be a very strong dub because of my previous experience with Kassia, and she certainly did not disappoint! I love hearing dubbers with deeper, more mature voices. Its a great contrast to the higher-voiced original singers! In particular, I really love her vibrato here, it makes her sound incredibly mature. I especially loved her "negatte at 2:40. I could be a little biased because I love Kassia's voice, but I'm happy to hear her singing this song!

As far as specific lines go, I love all of her "na na na" bits at 1:29, 2:50 and 4:24. My favorite part of this dub HAD to be the bit right after the musical interlude, the "sha la la" bits at 3:28. The whole dub has a great amount of emotion that you can easily hear when you listen to it, but I think it REALLY showed right there.

The mixing here is pretty good to me! I REALLY love her echoes here! That was one of the first things I noticed when I heard this was that she took the time to echo all of those lines (especially the "aruiteru"s at the ends of the choruses)! The echoes give the dub depth. On the same vein, I'm not sure if she hand-recorded the harmonies or if she ripped them from the original, but they sound really good with her voice!

With some dubs I've seen, you can tell that the harmonies were ripped from the original, but I had to listen a little bit. And I'm STILL not sure if these are ripped or not! You blend really well with them either way! So good job for keeping me guessing, Kassia! The only thing I could say about the mixing here is that it seems like the vocals could be turned up a little bit. It seems like the instrumental overpowers her voice at times, but it doesn't distract me because I can still hear her strong vocals!

I really had a great time listening to this! She has such a strong voice that I truly enjoyed listening to. I'm really honored that her and I get to work together, and I hope we can do more together in the future! I'm happy that I chose this dub, and (if you read this) I hope my insight means something to you! Thank you for letting me hear!




World is Mine by Chii [Chiidoki] / Review by Hikki / Whoo! World is Mine, the first vocaloid song I ever listened to. So I'm excited to review this! Anyway, I have heard Chii's voice before and it's probably the cutest thing you'll ever hear on a planet. Right below a puppy's whimper. Ahaaa, I'll stop making lame jokes like this, and get right on to the review.

First thing anyone will notice is the amount of static, which is really unfortunate, because Chii has such an adorable voice, and the static tends to take away from her vocal ability. Anyway, you can hear her strain her voice at the long notes ("Kokoro ete.."), but I've personally attempted to sing this song, so I give her props for not cracking her voice.

Oh my gosh! This dub is oozing with kawaii-ness. And you know when I say 'cute' in japanese, it's cute! At 1:16 there seems to be a bit of a timing or pronunciation fumble, but it wasn't that obvious. Speaking of timing, there seems to be little timing and pronunciation problems throughout the dub, but that's only if you're really picky. The scream at 1:40 is adorable though. I really need to find different words for 'cute'. Let me get my thesaurus.

The video for this song, by the way, is so....delicious...? (What the hell, my thesaurus stinks.) [Aya: lol, I use the dictionary-tool thing from my word processor for it's thesaurus] I just want to know what happens after the kiss. DARNIT. SHOW ME MORE. Okay, let's get back to the dub, the "Ah, Hey Baby" at 3:48 is super sexy. And then one last cho cho kawaii scream!




*NOTE: This dub has been removed by the user, enjoy the
review anyways, lol* (Thanks to Buggy letting me know)

Mr. Moonlight ~Ai no Big Band~ by Emily Lemons4Evryone / Review by Belly / This solo really made me regret that I've never listened to this song. Its so funky and peppy! And exactly that was her voice (Aya: exactly what Emily sounded like too). I really have no clue how the original sounds, but this one was totally fine with me. Her deep and mature voice suits this song just perfect. The only thing I would criticize is that she becomes silenter on some parts. So she could've controlled her volume a little bit more.

Aya: I agree with what Belly says *nodnod* Emily did a good job on putting the funky attitude into her singing, that's half of the fun of singing the song right there; getting to sing like Natsumi, Gomaki and Yossi sing it, lol. Funky. Her voice suits this song perfectly! She had a little strain on the opening higher solo, but the rest of the dub is really fun.




Weeeek by miyuki002 / Review by Kappa /YES YES YES I LOVE THIS SONG. I had to grab it up right away when I saw this was one of the solos Aya wanted us to review.

I love Miyuki's voice and she's got awesome emotion and personality in this dub, just like the song demands. It sounds like she had some trouble with the lowest notes and went pitchy on a couple before she raised the pitch on the second half of the lowest lines--I think she would have been better raising her pitch on the whole solo. But props for trying, and I do LOVE how she sounds when she brings the pitch up like at 2:02. My favorite part from here is 1:41-1:45--sooo cute, and that's such a hard solo to pull off because it's kind of half-spoken.

I would have loved to hear this with a real instrumental and without her voice being overlayed on the group parts, but nonetheless I super enjoyed this. Her harmonies were preeeettty. Right on. I am laskd;fjalsdf that someone did this song, you don't even know.




SHIROI KOKORO by Miya [Tokyostarx] / Reviewed by Ayu /This song gives me a sense of peace, and that’s why I think it needs a cute voice, with the ability of doing really high and long notes without sounding strained or forced. Miya’s voice is really sweet, she can go really high and sound peaceful at the same time; I am loving the way she mixes chest and head voice in some parts. She has good pitching overall, and I LOVE the audio-mix.

First "Yume ga" at 0:28 gives me chills. First high note at 0:39 is very powerful, but cute at the same time. 1:04-1:06 is very kawaii!! I love the way she sings that phrase, it is really high and it sounds very natural to me. The "dare ka no" parts (first one at 1:11) sound very catchy. Love the treatment of the voice mixing, sounds angel-heaven-like. My favorite part of the dub.

Again, from 2:26 to 2:28 she does that thing when she goes high, sounds so beautiful. And the final part, starting at 2:59, is very tranquil and precise with good pitching and a cute sound. I LOVED this a lot, it gives to me the desire to dub it myself XD *I would put it twice in my I-pod*




Suna no oshiro by MoA [moamelody] / Review by Aya / This is GORGEOUS! As I have mentioned before, I have a weakness for string instruments, including the cello. I've listened to Kanon Wakeshima before and that was one thing about her that I instantly loved. MoA sounds BRILLIANT on this song. First off, I have to admit that the cello parts in the beginning got me thinking positively right away. But even before that, I loaded the video already knowing that this was going to define spectacular. Because it's MoA.

I only stumbled across MoA's stuff a little bit ago, but she is CRAZY AMAZING. I love love love her covers to beautiful little bits. Her voice is stunning and she sings magnificently. Gosh, I can't even think up enough of the right words to describe everything. I've been listening to this dub repeatedly while working on this entry and I am so in love with it. The song is beyond beautiful, and MoA did such a fantastic job on it. I can't pick out what I liked the most, because I adore it all. And I certainly can't think of even one tiny thing I don't like about it. This is hauntingly beautiful.

"I love the gothic darkness of it and cello is probably my favorite instrument. It was super mega hard to sing the chorus, some very high notes, but I love to sing epic operaesque songs." I agree so much with her, and I give her kajillions of props for mastering the chorus. LOVE.

Back Track; Solo Version [Part 1]

HELLA YEAH! We've all been quite excited about this- 'we' being the Blabodu team! I've got some awesome people helping me out, and it's been going so well!! I was a little disorganized in the beginning, lol. But I've got a lot of things figured out and now I'm like, 24/7 excited about writing here on this blog, that has been made amazing by you readers!

Solos are the main feature today; I know it says weekend, but this is more Back Track Saturday; Solo Version. I'm going to start things off with a few entries that are a mix of reviews by different people. After that I might try and find more solos to feature today, idk. I was going off my subs list when planning this out, so keep in mind that we haven't worked on any super recent solos and with all that's been going on, not everyone will get covered. Please don't take it personally. And if you'd like us to check out your solo, please! - Send the info to me!

Writers~

Kappa [xmikipinkux] / Hikki [DisturbedStrawberry]
Belly [Rasubelly] / Ayu [ChiiAyu]
Aya [MiriuOniaya] / Izumi [faraBANG]

Yume Kara Samete by supahwicked / Review by Kappa / Aw, Lina sounds super pretty singing this! I maaay be biased, but it's really nice to hear people with deeper voices in the dubbing world. This song fits her voice very well and I like the softness of her high notes here. She might be a bit too soft here, especially in places like the bridge section, but she also sounds like she might be holding back because of her mic, which isn't exactly the best.

One thing that did bother me a bit about this is her rhythm fumbles. There were a lot of them... she didn't get the words wrong, but the way she sang them in the song was off. It might be okay in a solo, but in a groupdub taking liberties with the rhythm would be a big deal, because it gives mixers a hard time lining you up with other people. That's just something to think about for non-solo lines.

Besides that, there were some pitchy spots, but I still liked listening to this. On a second listen I caught some very pretty vibrato I had missed before and that made it even better. Nice job on this!




Otakebi Boy Wao! & Tomodachi... by Chii [LuvSasuke] / Review by Hikki / OKAY. I know I shouldn't deviate from the video that I'm supposed to review (Aya: pwsh, I don't mind), but Chii sang Just Be Friends for her 100 subs video, and it's just...amazing. You guys should check it out after watching this video.

First up is Otakebi Boy, and Chii starts off with ATTITUDE. YOU DO YOUR THANG GIRL. I really love the tone of her voice, it just has that 'UMPH'. Only one noticeable pronunciation stumble, but no big deal. Well, this is for "audition purposes only", so sadly, she did not sing the whole song. What a cliff hanger. I want to hear the rest.

Now, Tomodachi, she starts off with the same sassy attitude she had in Otakebi (which is not a bad thing), but her pitching just a biiiit off at the next stanza, because she started to speak-sing the lines, which is understandable because the tempo is a bit fast. Overall, she sounded really cute and although she wasn't spastically obviously energetic in the songs, there is an underlying energy (I'm so deep) within the song, and it's really calming and it brings a smile to my face!

Ah! Short review for the two short previews.




Hello everyone! I'm Belly (Rasubelly on YT). I'm very happy and thankful to be able to write at Ayas blog here ^_^ For my debut she let me choose two solo songs to write about. Now I'll start with the first one~

Destiny Love by Mueggie / I never really listened to this song because of this lullaby-like sounding melody, but I'm really glad that I listened to Mueggie's version. Her voice is very cute and her pronounciation is beyond exception; perfect. The only thing I would've liked to hear was some more power. I know it is hard to put much energy in a slow song but more power would've made this dub really perfect for me.

To mention something else, I really loved her mixing. I already loved the audio mixing at the beginning part, but when I heard her rap solo I was really positively surprised. It was stunning - her voice and mixing. I also loved the sweet sounding, quiet "Destiny Love"s at the end. To bring it back to the pronounciation, I loved that she spoke this lovely Disney Love of Reina. (Aya: At 0:40, Mueggie put 'Disney Love' as an annotation, Reina was center of the video at the time, lol)




Angelus by Ruby [LLawlitaxDD] / Review by Ayu / Certainly this is a mature song, with a Spanish feeling in the music and the dance, so it requires a voice with a strong sound and good presence in low and high notes. Phrasing is also very important, cause this kind of ‘’latin feel’’ songs have a lot of rhythmic stuff. Ruby DID a wonderful job, she shows us her mature voice, great pitching overall, she really gave the song a right latin feeling.

First verse is wonderful, reminded me of Shimatani in the very first phrase. First chorus is very good, in my personal opinion it could be a little more aggressive or energetic, but I enjoyed it the way it is. First "Angerasu" at 1:44 sounds lovely. Nice vibrato at the end of the phrase of 2:21-2:22. She uses this vibrato often, it sounds good. Since at 3:16 she puts more energy into it, the last chorus is much more attractive. I'm LOVING 3:34 TO 3:39.

For me 3:55 to 4:00 is the best moment of the dub, I can really feel it in the very last verse!
I LOVED it a lot because I think it’s not an easy song to do and she made it very interesting. *I would put it in my i-pod*




Maze by Mary (MaryG2091) / Review by Aya / Before I even loaded the video, I clicked the download link she provided because I just knew that this was going to be awesome. Mary is an extremely talented singer; I love her voice and her dubs are always crazy ear-pleasing. I totally agree with her that this "song is totally made for my voice." *stashes MP3 with other Mary & MoA downloads*

Ohmygosh, I don't even know where to begin. My mind is trying to babble like a fangirl, lol. I love every word out of Mary's mouth; she has such a strong, mature voice and she sings with great confindence, which always makes us listeners want to listen. Her energy and emotion levels are through the roof, and she delivers every line fantastically. I love a lot of her longer / higher notes in this. Like 3:09, she sounds spectacular! Mary rocked the chorus and pwned the verses; everything about this dub just screams EPIC.

The mixing sounds fine to my ears, but then again we all know what a genius I am on that, eh? Honestly, there are a few lines and/or notes where she's a little iffy. Not pitchy, but some lines don't sound quite as good as the others. It's barely even noticable. Just once in a while I'd hear a note or something that would niggle at my ears the slighest bit. But Mary says that she "had a blast recording this" and that's what matter most!

To Be Continued in Part 2 ~

Shuensha's latest [by Kappa]

Takahashi Ai: AzNxRawRx
Niigaki Risa: MomoxMochi
Kamei Eri: BanryuSaint
Michishige Sayumi: AnimefreakXDD
Tanaka Reina: Marianahime
Kusumi Koharu: NicNac4Eva
Mitsui Aika: Aznfiregirl
JunJun: Yuns217
LinLin: BreeCuppycake

Onna ni Sachi Are by Shuensha (from HoshiDubs) / Well, I have to admit that this is one of my least favorite MM singles. I think maybe I’ve just seen one too many dubs of it and that’s made me resent it a little… but nonetheless, I am taking a good long listen to this newest from Shuensha!

I am only familiar with the voices of less than half of the cast members, so this is a view from fresh ears you’re getting here. I’ve noticed that sometimes if I’ve heard someone a lot, I get numbed to their voice and my perception of how good (or not as good, even) they are goes haywire. So hopefully my ramblings here might actually be a bit useful :P

The mixing struck me as loud right off the bat, but I think that wasn’t helped by the fact that the mic quality is suffering here amongst singers. There’s a wide array of mics, from AzNxRawRx’s, which is maxed out throughout, to BreeCuppycake’s and NicNac4Eva’s, which are pretty badly muffled. Good mics (as well as mixers having the know-how to fix bad ones) are so crucial to dubs, that what I’d love to see from this group is a dub where everything’s a lot more even. I find that it makes the experience of listening to a dub a lot more enjoyable and easy to the listener when they don’t have to focus as much on drastic differences between the mics of singers.

I can hear though where this group has a lot of potential. Going through the girls one by one, AzNxRawRx certainly has a lot of energy, as was noted in the dropdown bar. She has a nice tone, but again the mic is killing it a bit for me. She seems like she’s maybe trying to have a bit more energy than she actually needs and is getting a bit yelly in her lines. This in turn is maxing out her mic, which makes her hard to listen to. I can hear where I’d probably like her a lot more, but the mic’s limiting her, so I’d suggest just a little more control. It’s a difficult thing to get that sound of dormant power, but she sounds like she’s almost there! Mic aside, I did like a lot of her solos in this.

I like MomoxMochi’s emotion here! She’s got some pitch stuff to work out, but her solo was nice to listen to nonetheless. BanryuSaint’s Eri solo at 3:16 was really one of my favorites! I’ve heard her in stuff before and she surprised me here, which is awesome. The same goes for Marianahime, whose solo in the first chorus came out of nowhere to surprise me—I loved it!

Aznfiregirl covered as Aika, and did a nice job for having done lines quickly and still making them sound nice. I would have liked a bit more energy on her second solo, if anything, but props for covering on short notice. Although she only had one small solo, Yuns127 sounded good in this too—she’s got a sweet voice and I would have loved to hear more of her. I wish we would have gotten to hear a solo out of AnimefreakXDD, but she sounds good in her duet lines from what I can hear. Sorry I can’t comment more on her!

I noticed in the info bar the critiques for NicNac4Eva, BreeCuppycake, and AzNxRawRx respectively. I already talked about the last, but for the other two my mixer’s heart says that I have to pipe in to disagree just a bit. I’ve had to work with tons and tons of muffled mics before, and so I’ve gotten pretty good at hearing what’s underneath the bad quality—and I hear a lot with NicNac4Eva and BreeCuppycake. I actually thought that Eva had the best emotion and feeling in her lines of all of the singers in the dub! It sounds like both of them had fine energy, but it’s hard to hear because the mics are holding them back.

Seriously, bad mics should be crushed and burned because it’s such a sin how many fabulous singers I’ve heard totally covered up by their mics. Without going into huge detail and making this long entry even longer than it already is, I’ll just quickly suggest that whoever is mixing them looks into the high pass filter to use on their lines. Seriously, it will change your life the first time you use it. Change your life.

Like I said, this is as long as can be and I don’t want to bore you any longer, so here’s my quick note on the mixing: definitely work on bringing the mic qualities closer together, whether that be through your members or your mixing program. I won’t go too heavily into other stuff because it seems like your program is malfunctioning a bit, but one thing you can change easily is the vocal rip I hear in the background.

Make sure you’re silencing out the echos from the melody lines after you’ve taken out the harmony. I heard it echoing in the background and it can be a bit distracting—obviously this is a talented cast, so we want to hear them as best as we can! :] I’m interested though to hear what you can do with a fully functional program to mix with, so I look forward to the next single!

Hanabi & Charms [by Kappa]

Rii [ AzNxRawRx ]
Bananacho [ amandaphobia08 ]
Sootie [ SootjeNL ]
Peachii [ animeobsessed40 ]

Resonant Blue by HanabiProjects / This is the first track off of Hanabi Project’s second single, titled Blue Moon. I’ll have to admit that it’s not one of my favorite songs to hear anymore, because Tsunku keeps trying to make it the new Love Machine and play it all the bloody time, but knowing some of these girls’ voices, I was interested to see what they do with it.

Despite that I know some of these girls, without color-coded lyrics I’m having a hard time telling who is who, so bear with me if I point out people by timemark instead of name. :P

I like the tone of the Reina—is that Rii? (*read some of the comments*) She totally sounds 20x better here than she did in the Onna ni Sachi Are by HoshiDubs that I reviewed just a couple days ago. The energy is much more appropriate, and although she’s still having some microphone issues, it’s much easier to listen to. Great emotion out of her here!

I’m guessing that Bananacho is the Ai here. She did a pretty good job overall and has pretty voice and emotion behind her lines. I noticed some pitching and pronunciation errors throughout, though, so be careful about falling flat and your tongue tripping you up. Singing almost half of the song solo can give you a lot to focus on, but I would have liked to hear juuust a little more accuracy out of her. Still, there were some lines in here that she sounded awesome on!

It’s hard to say too much about Peachii and Sootie, since they barely got any lines, but I think they sound good! Loved the ah ah ah’s! The only thing I would have wanted was a bit more energy out of them, and it’s a shame the Sayumi’s HELP ME!! at the end got left out. As a note to the mixer, I would have found someone to cover it if you couldn’t get the line from the file it was supposed to be in—it could have been done pretty quickly by anyone, including yourself.

On the mixing side, I would have liked to hear reverb on the lines to make them blend together a little more, and be careful about the volume between people on duet lines. Rii often overpowered Bananacho—while part of that is probably energy differences, sometimes you can help it out a bit by just lowering the volume of the more energetic singer. Overall, though, the mix was okay—just work on evening out volumes and making sure you’ve got everything in the mix before you export and post it!




Tsugunaga Momoko : Yuuki-chan
Suzuki Airi : Nina-chan
Natsuyaki Miyabi : Belly-chan

Goal by Ai~Su Cream (from ChARmSproject) / I ADORE this song, first off. It’s one of the best Buono songs ever, in my opinion.. and totally reminds me of Viva La Vida every time I hear it still. But anyway, I’m SO glad someone dubbed this!

On the vocals as a whole, I felt they had the perfect feeling and tone for the song, altough I would have liked to hear a bit more energy out of Nina and Yuuki. It sounds like they were trying a bit too hard to fit the song and held back just a little too much. I loved Belly’s energy, though! She had the perfect balance that made her shine out, but kept her sounding subdued enough to still fit the song.

My favorite part of this are the choruses. All three girls blend well together, and their high notes sound really soft and pretty! I might have wanted a little more out of them energy-wise, but even so they were pleasant to listen to.

The mixing is nice and together, except for a couple syllables here and there where one girl will stick out. The verse solos were all perfectly in time as well, so great job to the mixer who put those together. As people who know me know, I am absolutely neurotic about timing and I hear everything, so I totally respect anyone who can mix something and there’s nowhere I would move the syllables around.

One thing that did bother me a bit about the mixing is that the weird mic qualities paired with a low quality concert rip instrumental are keeping me from really believing the dub. I know from experience that you can’t use regular instrumentals with live Buono dubs because of their live band that plays at a different tempo, but I probably would have looked for a better quality rip and thrown on some filters to the channels to get your instrumental to come out a bit better. I’ve had to make instrumentals off of this concert before and I know for a fact that if you get the audio rip HD enough, the center channel will extract pretty well.

Anyway, I enjoyed this a lot! I find myself a bit jaded and cynical about Buono cover groups these days, but I’ve got some respect for this one now. Great job!

Kappa's BD [P2]

Mano Erina : Coco [ CocoNStorm ]

Lucky Aura by Coco (from cremeproject) / Oh god I am sorry, I hate Mano Erina with a burning passion. I admit that I started listening to this with that bais, but thankfully Coco turned me around quickly—this is so sweet! I have to thank her for making me like this song, because she actually sang it with the personality that I always find Mano lacks for me. She sounds adorable throughout and there’s really not much I can find to critique. This is a lovely dub and it sounds like she worked a lot on it.

Good job to Sayuri on mixing it as well. The vocals are at a good level with the music and that meshing I was talking about in an earlier dub happened here. I would have liked to hear a slightly better quality audio rip so that the wota are clearer and not as center-channel-extracted sounding, but it’s a small thing. I have to give it to you because your mixing has improved a lot since I first heard you!

Overall, a good dub that deserves a listen. Great job, girls!




Abe Natsumi, Ishikawa Rika & Yasuda Kei : Airen [ malajesterices ]
Yaguchi Mari & Niigaki Risa : Hanna [ HannaPulla ]
Iida Kaori : Kokoro [ LoliiKokoro ]
Ogawa Makoto & Ai Takahashi : Naoly [ oONaolyOo ]
Tsuji Nozomi : Valentine [ ValentineDoe ]
Yoshizawa Hitomi : Memoiree [ Memoiree ]
Konno Asami : Ameimii [ Ameimii ]
Kago Ai : Aiko [ ReinaLoverAi ]

Koko ni Iruzee! by Dawn Musume (from Kanashimi Legend) // Koko ni Iruzee… this song is made of, tarred and feathered in, and then drowned in a sea of energy. With a quick read of the info bar, I can tell that the leader realizes that this dub turned out a tad on the low energy side. However, this song is HARD to sound energetic enough in, so I’m more than willing to give a fair listen and overlook that aspect to the rest of what’s going on here.

The quality of voices here is really nice! Most of the cast has some power to them that’s really holding this together well. Some of the soloists that really stood out to me were Valentine, Ameimii, and Aiko. All of them sounded fabulous, although there were a lot of powerful solos in this with a lot of personality. Those three really shone through to me the most though, and struck me as the best at having the full package—the power, the personality, the pitch, and the pronunciation. They nailed it!

I noticed right off the bat that the instrumental seemed really low here, but not in a de-amplified way so much as that it seemed like the gain was turned down. Sometimes I turn down the gain on my instrumentals when I’m timing vocals and forget to turn them back up, so maybe that’s what happened? Anyway, the vocals sound almost like they’d be the right volume had the instrumental been turned up.

It also sounds like there’s a lot of reverb on this that would be helped to be hidden if the music were back at regular level. It’s very possible as well that turning up the instrumental would help the energy of this dub out, since a lot of the feeling of the song is just in the wild instrumentation that’s going on behind the voices!

I love the 'WOW WOW WOW' lines at the end—probably my favorite part of this dub. All of the group parts in here sounded pretty good, though, and this group blends very well, which can be very hard to achieve. I think this group sounds great together and totally has the potential to sound FABULOUS. I enjoyed listening to this!

Kappa's Blabodu Debut! (lol) [P1]

Hi everyone, Kappa here! I’m so excited that Aya’s decided to allow me to invade her cozy home here and throw around my self-obsessed opinions and pretend like anyone cares what I think. :D She’s so good to my ego… Anyway, she gave me a few dubs here to talk about for my first entry, so let’s get to them!


The first one up is a dub by SoraProjects. It seems to be a new group, since I haven’t heard of them before and they only have two dubs on their channel. It’s run by a girl named Destiny, and from the looks of it this is her channel that she’s putting together & hosting dubs on. The two dubs have different casts, so I’m going to assume that she’s (correct me if I’m wrong) not sticking with one cast of members, but asking different people as she chooses songs to participate in them~



Miyabi : Rasubelly
Airi : Fuonyuri
Momoko : rozentorndoll

MY BOY by SoraProjects / The dub on Aya’s sub list she gave me to look at is MY BOY. I absolutely love Buono and this song, so I’m excited to hear this! The first thing I noticed is that all three of the cast members have a good amount of power and energy in their voice, which is great to hear! Oftentimes you’ll find one or two singers that don’t quite match up with the others, but everyone here keeps up with one another, which is great.

Rozentorndoll’s voice is really adorable and has a uniqueness to it that surprised me. Although, I wish her mic were better so we could really hear her clearly. She did have her fair share of lyrical fumbles throughout this, which I can’t totally blame her for, because this song is so fast. Maybe though a little more practice at slower tempos to get the syllables down next time would help—practice with fast Japanese is totally the best way to build up the muscle memory for it. Fuonyuri also seemed to have a few minor problems in the verses that my ear caught.

Rasubelly has another unique voice. Actually, all of these girls sound really different from one another, which is awesome to hear. I think my favorite solos from her were her ‘MY BOY’ and her verse solo at 1:57. She’s got a great tone and feeling to her solos that with a bit of refinement and work could really be awesome.

Fuonyuri was my favorite here, I think. I noted before that she had a few of the iffy pronunciation moments, but I really think she did well here nonetheless. Her solo at 1:31 in the first chorus is my favorite that she did. Although I think she could have used a tiny bit more power and attitude, she handled Airi’s lines nicely and has a nice, clear voice that stood out for me.

On the mixing side of things, I would have liked to hear the vocals turned down. Often songs get mixed with the instrumental : vocal ratio being like 20 : 80 when in reality you can get much closer to even than that without the vocals being too quiet. When I’m mixing, I often play around until I find that perfect spot where the vocals just mesh with the music (this is how I judge how much reverb to use as well).

You have to develop an ear for it, but it gets easier in time. What I was happy to hear in this, though, is that despite that this song is a horror to time, the majority of the solos started and ended where they should. There’s room for some tweaking, but for sure I have heard way too many much more loosely timed MY BOY dubs, so good going on that.

I can’t say for sure anything about the future of this group, since it seems that the cast does change each song, but I think it could really be lovely if Destiny continues to find good singers and works out some of the kinks in her mixing. So I’ll be watching out for the next one!


Hey y'all, Aya here! I can't thank Kappa enough for helping me out. I was kind of in a down mood towards the end of last night, and she again offered to help me out. I jumped at the chance and when I got her file I was blown away by how awesome her reviews are!! The second part will be up soon~