So I've seen the fuss over Sonika now and can clarify its justified. Her pronounication is so quiet on things she shouldn't be quiet on at all!
I did find that on the lower octaves, she became horsey, however if you combin the horsey Sonika voice with Big Al's bass range (you have to play with the mixer) you do get a heavy metalish voice. It means playing around until Sonika's barely hearable, but it adds a lower of spit to any voice she sings with.
And its wierd that even though she sings Mezzo-Soprano, that every note is clear until this odd word is thrown out. SUDDDENLY she doesn't want to sing it at all. I found it easier to work in the ranges she is muffled in and enhance them to make them louder then to bother with her clear ranges at all. So Big Al, a vocaloid ideal for backing up another Vocaloid is currently being backed up by Sonika instead which was not quite what I was hoping to do.
I had a quick mess around and found to a degree its easier to write Sonika's lyrics using the Biohazard or rift generator (which uses Biohazard anyway), save the file as a midi file and open it in Vocaloid. Biohazard fluxes anyway, which is carried into a midi file when you save and for some reason makes Sonika's soft muffled voice a little more convincing that she is a real singer at least. Shame I have the demo, which means I have to be VERY careful with saving Biohazard files as it is. The rift generator is a way around that to a degree but you have no control over it practically. I'll properly try audiotune but my computer tends to hate it for some reason.
But theres one thing I CAN'T get rid of; this "pluck" sound at the end of her notes. Its almost as if her notes don't quite finish when their suppose to. Its wierd, because I've now heard a similair sound in Prima and Tonio, though the pitch is different and Tonio's is not so obivous. But Ann doesn't have it, PowerFX's voice seem to suffer from heavy viberation within their samples instead. WHICH IS LIVABLE WITH. Unlike a plucking sound you can't get rid of. I can definately say, Sonika fluxes the worst of the english capable Vocaloids and is definately worthy of a lot of attention and a lot of that "she is only for advanced users" note everyone says.
If you've got the time and effort, I say Zero-G's properly the one with the better Vocaloids, but if you REALLY don't want to mess around for a while getting rid of the oddities and rather have a Vocaloid that you won't have to spend hours doing that on, PowerFX are defiantely the better company. Which is wierd because Big Al's quality isn't so hot and Sonika should have ended up the better Vocaloid. Its wierd because Vocaloid one was a lot better and Leon, Lola and Miriam are much better overall. It begs to ask what the hell has gone wrong for Zero-G between generations.
As for Sonika, she is confined to back up duty until I get the hang of her and I can't afford another Vocaloid right now. I need to make something to sell so the focus will be on a few songs for selling. Sonika is therefore currently left with going "aaaaaah!". I did write a demo/mess around and put it up on youtube, but I abandoned the heavy metal song after that. It was just a test to see how things went. The proper songs begin soon as I write them.