The Interface

Getting familiar with the interface.

Now that you have installed UTAU, let's get into becoming familiar with the program!

The UI

Because the program has already been translated to English, some of the menus in the UI are very straightforward. But... well get to them anyway. Let's refer to this diagram:

I apologize for this HORRIBLY labeled diagram, but please bear with me HAHA

Now, let me explain what each thing does in detail according to the labeled numbers (save for the gradient*):

1. Project name: Simply states what UST you are using in the program (we will be covering that later on in this tutorial GitBook)

2. File menu:

   1. File(F) - brings up a ton of options, such as loading and saving project

   2. Edit(E) - brings up some options, such as undoing certain actions and moving note regions

   3. View(V) - brings up options such as zooming in or out

   4. Search(S) - brings up some options such as searching for the first or last note

   5. Project(P) - brings up options such as rendering and playing the project

   6. Play(L) - brings up options such as playing certain parts of the project

   7. Tools(T) - brings up options such as loading the voicebank's configuration or selecting plugins

   8. Help(H) - brings up options such as entering the registration key

3. Voicebank: Tells you what voicebank is loaded in UTAU

   1. Icon: the visual representation of the voicebank; clicking on it brings up its profile

   2. Name: the name of the voicebank; clicking on it gives you access to the project's properties

4. Note settings:

   1. Tempo - measured in BPM

   2. Quantize - optimizes notes in terms of length specified

   3. Length - length of the notes

   4. Lyric - input lyrics (in the form of phonemes)

5. Editing buttons:

   1. Cursor button - selects notes in the piano roll

   2. Pencil button - creates notes in the piano roll

   3. White-grey button - substitutes lyrics into the selected notes

   4. R+ button - creates a rest note

   5. Magnifying glass buttons - zooms in and out in the piano roll

   6. |← & →| buttons - goes to the beginning or end of the project

   7. ♪← & →♪ buttons - goes to the first or last notes of the project

   8. ▶ Play button

   9. ⏸ Pause button

   10. ■ Stop button

6. Rendering buttons:

   1. Mode2 button - changes pitchbends depending on mode

   2. Trace button - activates trace mode

   3. Render button - renders pitch curves

7. MIDI buttons:

   1. Square button - Records MIDI input from the plugged-in MIDI keyboard

   2. MIDI input button

   3. MIDI output button

   4. ??? (will update this later)

8. Envelope buttons:

   1. ACPT button - applies automatic parameter adjustments

   2. P2P3 button - sets crossfade envelopes by points P2 and P3

   3. P1P4 button - sets crossfade envelopes by points P1 and P4

   4. OPT button - optimizes crossfades

   5. RESET button - resets envelopes in the selected region

9. Piano roll: This is where the project and its notes are seen, including pitchbends

10. Bars: Indicates the length of the project

11. Viewing buttons:

    1. ! button* -

    2. A button* - allows for automatic VCV chaining

    3. w button* - toggles the wave envelopes to be shown

    4. P button -

    5. ~ button -

12. Length settings: Tells about the length of the project in seconds. The first box tells the length of the time according to the selected region, and the second box tells the length of the time according to the entire project

13. Zooming buttons: Allows you to zoom in and out of the project according to height and width

14. M button: Toggles the option to select and move a region of selected notes at once

NOTE: Any items marked with an asterisk (*) indicate that they are exclusive to the shareware version of UTAU.

This is basically an overview of the features UTAU has so far, even though it was a long list.

But, how do we put these, you ask? In terms of editing a project, these features will be very helpful to us in the long run. We don't have any downloaded projects yet, but we'll get to that soon! In the next section we'll be focusing on downloading some voicebanks in your voicebank arsenal.