Installing UTAU

What it says.

Now that we have changed our system locale to Japanese, we are ready to install UTAU!

Depending on your operating environment, there are two versions available:

• UTAU (Windows)

• UTAU-Synth (MacOS)

Please pick the version most appropriate for your operating system.

Installing UTAU for Windows

We'll be going into great detail on how to install UTAU for Windows.

Downloading UTAU

Before installing the program, we must go to the official website to download UTAU. Under the DOWNLOAD section as shown below, click on v0.4.18e インストーラ, which will download the installation file (.zip file, to be more exact) on your computer. Note that we will be installing the English version of UTAU, which also happens to be the latest version so far.

A snippet of the UTAU official downloads site

WARNING: Do NOT download UTAU from unofficial sources, as you may risk yourself getting a virus or a piece of malware on your computer.

Installing UTAU

Now that we have downloaded the installation file in our computer, unzip the file named utau0418e-inst.zip, and run the execution file. This will open up the installation process.

Something seems a bit off...

You may notice that despite downloading the installation file that has the English version of UTAU, the entire installation process is in Japanese. Worry not, as the installation process is rather simple! Once you're on this screen, click on the 「次へ(N)」 button to continue.

Select the directory

Now, you're greeted by this screen as shown above; it gives you options on where to install UTAU, with C:\Program Files (x86) as its default directory. But if we were to install UTAU in that directory, we will end up facing a slew of issues, such as being unable to render synthesized files and whatnot due to permission issues (Administrator rights).

To avoid this issue, pick any directory other than C:\Program Files (x86). You can do this by clicking on the 「参照(R)...」 button, which will allow you to pick where to install UTAU. Or you can you go to the File Explorer itself, copy the desired directory path and paste it into the white box. Whatever way works.

TIP: It is recommended that you install UTAU in your Documents folder for easier access.

Once you have chosen your desired directory, the next thing we want to address is this:

This is basically asking if you want to install UTAU for yourself or for all users. The first option, 「すべてのユーザー(E)」, is saying that you want install UTAU for every registered user in your computer to use, while the second option, 「このユーザーのみ(M)」, is saying that you want to install UTAU for yourself (in other words, the currently logged-in user). Once you have made your selection, click on the 「次へ(N)」 button to continue.

Here it comes...

Now you are greeted by this screen. Again, click on the 「次へ(N)」 button to continue, which begin the installation of UTAU. Wait patiently until you the screen turns out like this below:

And we have just completed installing UTAU on our computer! Pretty easy, yeah? Well, now that we're done, click on the 「閉じる(C)」 button to finish the installation process.

Booting up UTAU

So, where to we open up UTAU? Well, that's easy! When the installation process was complete, it set up a shortcut in our desktop, which looks like this:

Double-click on that icon, and wait for a few moment until this pops up:

Mine may look different from yours, but that's totally okay! This is the Voice set report, and it tells you what issues were discovered with the current voicebank you are using. To disable this pop-up, click on the Do not show check box, then click on the Close button. You will then be greeted by this screen:

The UI for UTAU (shareware version)

Again, mine may look different from yours in terms of the voicebank being used, the UI colors, and the extra buttons and gradients (prominent in the shareware version of UTAU), but that's okay. What you have now apart from mine is the UI with that ugly color scheme, no gradient present, and the default voicebank packaged with UTAU.

And there you have it. You finally installed UTAU on your computer!

Next, we will be talking about the UI of UTAU and how everything works - in the next tutorial!

We will also be talking about the shareware version of UTAU and how to get it, but it's not a necessary step. I'll be including it for those who are planning to get the shareware version, which will be listed under the ✅ Extra group. Until then!

Installing UTAU for MacOS

I won't be covering on installing UTAU-Synth for MacOS in great detail here, but luckily, there's a tutorial just for that! Please click here for more instructions.