Other Cryptonloid voicebank updates, collabs, & concert news (crypton_wat Twitter translations)

[sour_supreme]

okay so i saw that tweet about MEIKO earlier today, and i thought when he said model he meant her voicebank. what are these iXima-styled models? have we seen them before? all i can think of is the SEGA models used for miku expo and magical mirai.

also does this mean we're getting an iXima Teto model?? that'd be so cool!

 

[uncreepy]

what are these iXima-styled models? have we seen them before? all i can think of is the SEGA models used for miku expo and magical mirai.

also does this mean we're getting an iXima Teto model?? that'd be so cool!

We have seen A LOT of Miku's model so far for concert collabs (her design gets tweaked a little depending on the collab).

Regular V4X Miku:


Snow Miku:


Miku for Pinocchio-P:


Miku for STV Mirai Fes (Note: This is using her new Append voice and Piapro's upcoming VocaListener-esque plug-in, it was still kind of in a beta-version at the time) :


Miku for Tokto 150 Year Festival (Note: This is using new Append voice and Piapro's upcoming VocaListener-esque plug-in, it appeared to be out of beta at this time):


Rin and Len:


We already did get a Teto model last year. Here is Luka, Miku, and Teto for Miku Symphony:


The only model we haven't seen so far is Meiko and Kaito, I guess.

 

[xuu]

Woah, they actually look pretty good! Is the singing in the Tokyo 150 year festival Miku's new append too?

 

[uncreepy]

Woah, they actually look pretty good! Is the singing in the Tokyo 150 year festival Miku's new append too?

Yep! The Tokyo 150 Year Festival was using her updated voicebanks and the VocaListener-esque automatic tuning plugin. I wish we could've heard some samples from the other Cryptonloids, but they haven't been revealed (except for Luka at a Jazz event the rest of us didn't get to hear) this entire time (over a year)!

I'm not sure what I think of it, though, the way she says her "ahh" sound seems kind of odd to me...

This isn't a Wat tweet, but a user named Chika uploaded a video of a shop selling Luka anniversary stuff, she apparently makes an announcement hourly. You have to turn your volume up all the way to barely hear it, and I can only understand "...minna-sama, hontou ni arigatou gozaimasu" ("Thank you everyone so much"). Her voice almost sounds like Miku to me, could it be her new bank being used since it's being used talkloid style like many of Miku's collabs with her new voicebanks?!

 

[sour_supreme]

okay wow all this info is really cool!! and i did know about these models but i was not sure if these were the ones you were referring to or not. i like them, but they don't seem exactly iXima styled, but definitely reminiscent. and i'm pretty sure with the Miku V4X one i've seen her without a back to her top and i feel like that's really weird. :^/

in regards to the voices, they all sound really cool, but i feel like i need some clarification on what exactly they are. so they are referred to as "Append" voicebanks, but they are based off their original voice data (KAITO V1, Miku/Rin/Len/Luka V2, MEIKO V3 instead of V1), not their original Append voicebanks? And there are no additional Appends or languages?

i'm sorry if i'm repeating myself, i know you made that chart, i read everything on it but i think i may have forgotten some of the details. do we know why they are referred to Appends and not updates? they seem more like an update than anything else. also without the plugin, do they just sound like their original voicebanks??

 

[uncreepy]

in regards to the voices, they all sound really cool, but i feel like i need some clarification on what exactly they are. so they are referred to as "Append" voicebanks, but they are based off their original voice data (KAITO V1, Miku/Rin/Len/Luka V2, MEIKO V3 instead of V1), not their original Append voicebanks? And there are no additional Appends or languages?

do we know why they are referred to Appends and not updates? they seem more like an update than anything else. also without the plugin, do they just sound like their original voicebanks??

Why call them "Appends"?
I am calling them "Appends", because Wat calls them "high quality Appends" in his tweets. I don't know if they are going to be real Appends (ex: You have to buy both Kaito V3 and his new Append) or if they will change their mind and make the updated voices V5 voices after all (meaning you would only have to buy Kaito V5). Wat said the Appends were NOT V5, but he has changed his mind before about Cryptonloid voicebanks after having announced something, so be ready for surprises. Maybe think of them as "Append Appends", because they are using their original voices but tweaking them.

What are the Appends?
They are literally making the Appends by editing out the muffled-ness from their original V1 or V2 voicebanks, none of the voice providers have re-recorded. Wat says he wants voices that are very easy to understand what they're saying and "not necessarily human-sounding" (aka kind of robotic).

About the automatic tuning plugin:
The talking and singing clips I posted use the automatic tuning plugin (Wat calls it "voice coating", taking a human singing sample to tune your Vocaloid quicker and easier). It is like VocaListener for Vocaloid Editor 4 (you import a .wav of a human singing, it analyzes the Dynamics and Pitch and applies it to Vocaloid notes so that you save time with tuning), but is supposed to have more sensitive detection. (VocaListener was discontinued when V5 came out, but it looks like Wat and a guy named Goto from a technology-related school called AIST, which developed VocaListener, are working together.) I assume this tuning plugin will only work in their updated version of Piapro, because Vocaloid Editor 5 does not let you use plugins anymore. Piapro has a standalone version that was for Miku Chinese only, so I assume Piapro that comes with the Appends will be standalone and have this tuning plugin.

Long story short, the plugin only tunes for you, it doesn't change the voicebanks at all. If they hadn't used the plugin, someone would have had to hand-draw the tuning like producers normally do. The new Append voices sound slightly different from their original V1 or V2 version, because they have been edited to sound more clearer.

 

[GreenFantasy64]

The only model we haven't seen so far is Meiko and Kaito, I guess.

Where's our dear handsome manly-boy, Kaito, Wat? Where is he?

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His birthday is next month too, you know Wat....

of a shop selling Luka anniversary stuff, she apparently makes an announcement hourly. You have to turn your volume up all the way to barely hear it, and I can only understand "...minna-sama, hontou ni arigatou gozaimasu" ("Thank you everyone so much"). Her voice almost sounds like Miku to me, could it be her new bank being used since it's being used talkloid style like many of Miku's collabs with her new voicebanks?!

It's been a long time since I used her V4 trial, and I'm not the best of judge of Luka's voice (so take this as speculation on my part)...but could it be her "cute" append voice. She had a "cute" on her E.V.E.C. Unless someone made her voice a high octave with some GEN to it...


*Also for the "Appends" when Kaito and Meiko V3 came out, everyone noted how the differences were in their new voices compared to their V1 voicebanks. Everyone was okay (but some wanted a Power voicebank for Kaito, missing his rich voice from V1, etc.)
Miku V3 came out, it was a bit different tone to her V2 (not "Miku"), but no one was really mad about it.
Luka V4 came out, everyone hated the E.V.E.C and how her voice was different to her V2. That it wasn't Luka anymore. People were vocal about it.
Rin and Len V4 came out, everyone didn't like that they sounded similar to Act 2 (and Act 1? or that their Power voicebank wasn't exactly Act 1 Power) Which to me was a bit amusing of that of the twins.
Miku V4 came out (I don't know much of this era), but I guess people didn't like how her V4 was much different from her V2. Wat noted this a few times.*

*Learned from AtH, Sir Vancelot's videos*

So Wat (and perhaps Crypton too as they want their customers happy?) decided to go back to the V1 and V2 banks of their Vocaloids, clean them up, and adjust them as "appends."
I'm thinking that they would have the growl, XSY, and E.V.E.C (unless they decided to get rid of that which would be sad, or improve it much better) added to them. For Luka, she could have a few extra appends (perhaps the taken away ones of her V3 appends list). Since I was thinking about how the person commented how her voice sounded strong and emotional she sounded due to one person's comment of it (yet no video of the Jazz concert still boo). I tried reading the past posts here of it....yet either I'm tired or I'm not searching good enough since I can't find it...


Here's a picture of Miku and Luka from this site however: Kawasakijazz News Luka and Miku

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[Jikyu]

We have seen A LOT of Miku's model so far for concert collabs (her design gets tweaked a little depending on the collab).

Regular V4X Miku:


Snow Miku:


Miku for Pinocchio-P:


Miku for STV Mirai Fes (Note: This is using her new Append voice and Piapro's upcoming VocaListener-esque plug-in, it was still kind of in a beta-version at the time) :


Miku for Tokto 150 Year Festival (Note: This is using new Append voice and Piapro's upcoming VocaListener-esque plug-in, it appeared to be out of beta at this time):


Rin and Len:


We already did get a Teto model last year. Here is Luka, Miku, and Teto for Miku Symphony:


The only model we haven't seen so far is Meiko and Kaito, I guess.

I realized that the models Crypton Future Media are using are made by Tsumidango (つみだんご)
The Rin/Len V4x models are on niconico:
「つみ式鏡音レンV4X」 / つみ さんの作品 - ニコニ立体
「つみ式鏡音リンV4X」 / つみ さんの作品 - ニコニ立体

 

[uncreepy]

Wat replied to a few tweets today, so I thought I would translate them.

I'm just gonna paraphrase these.


A Taiwanese user said they really liked Miku and Teto performing together. Wat says that they are planning to have many more song collabs with other Vocaloids and UTAUs in the future, not just Miku Symphony.


A big Kaito x Meiko fan complained that Crypton is treating Teto better than Kaito and Meiko and wanted them to get more songs and better treatment. Wat said that for Meiko and Kaito's 10th anniversary they tried their best, but are reflecting on how they were only able to do so much at the time. He says that he is thinking about this in preparation for Meiko's 15th anniversary this year. However, the Kaito x Meiko fan said that there was obviously a difference in how they treat the character series Vocaloids vs Meiko/Kaito and that they would like them to treat them more equally.

 

[Chuchu]

Wat replied to a few tweets today, so I thought I would translate them.

I'm just gonna paraphrase these.


A Taiwanese user said they really liked Miku and Teto performing together. Wat says that they are planning to have many more song collabs with other Vocaloids and UTAUs in the future, not just Miku Symphony.


A big Kaito x Meiko fan complained that Crypton is treating Teto better than Kaito and Meiko and wanted them to get more songs and better treatment. Wat said that for Meiko and Kaito's 10th anniversary they tried their best, but are reflecting on how they were only able to do so much at the time. He says that he is thinking about this in preparation for Meiko's 15th anniversary this year. However, the Kaito x Meiko fan said that there was obviously a difference in how they treat the character series Vocaloids vs Meiko/Kaito and that they would like them to treat them more equally.

The fan is not wrong. Hopefully Crypton steps up this year! An 15th anniversary song for Meiko akin to Miku's, Rin's and Len's 10th anniversary would be nice.

 

[sour_supreme]

hey, so i don't know how long this image by iXima has been up on Luka's 10th anniversary website, but it is really cute, and features her V4X outfit with a cool coat thing over it. also the text reads "coming soon..." so i'm wondering if that means anything! is this her possible new design or box art or something??? or this could be for a totally different project?

 

[hamano]

hey, so i don't know how long this image by iXima has been up on Luka's 10th anniversary website, but it is really cute, and features her V4X outfit with a cool coat thing over it. also the text reads "coming soon..." so i'm wondering if that means anything! is this her possible new design or box art or something??? or this could be for a totally different project?

Behind Luka and the stars there's two rows of text "Megurine Luka" and "10th Anniversary". I think "Coming Soon" is just the last words of the phrase.
(Assuming that the image has been uploaded on the site earlier)

Luka looks beautiful in that picture! I love iXima's art.

 

[uncreepy]

It doesn't mean anything cryptic. That iXima picture was the 2nd to last in a month-long countdown on the official Hatsune Miku Twitter, with every day having a new picture posted. Every picture would say "あとx日" ("x days left").

Here are a couple examples of ones where you can see those words on the illustrations:

^ 3 days left



^ 2 days left

The one you found said "Coming soon..." because the next day was Luka's anniversary in Japan, with a drawing by KEI being the final one. I think it was just a matter of questionable English.

^ 1 day left ("Coming soon...")

It says "巡音ルカ10周年まであと1日♪ " ("One day left until Megurine Luka's 10th anniversary"), just like every drawing in the series (except with a different number).

Here's the final one:

It was posted at midnight in Japan.

 

[Wario94]

Since Today (in Japan's time) marks the 10th anniversary of Megurine Luka, I would like to ask: would any of you tell me if CFM told their fans about the new appends for their own Vocaloids?

 

[uncreepy]

They didn't say anything. Wat just made a generic tweet that was like "it's been 10 years for Luka, we'll continue to keep learning" kind of thing. Guess we're gonna have to wait til Snow Miku to see if they reveal anything. Feb 9th, here I come. :{

Edit: Oh yeah, I think at Snow Miku, we might hear about the 2 new Snow Miku Sega models for Future Tone. Maybe if we don't get the Appends, we'll at least get some new songs to play while waiting.

 

[uncreepy]

Some interesting replies Wat said to people!


Luka English was based on Sweet Ann + more languages in the future


1) Wat's tweet posted for Luka's 10th anniversary:
This tweet is hard for me to put in English properly, so I will paraphrase it. Wat basically says that Luka was supposed to be the first in the Character Voice series, but was released last because of what was included with her (basically, her English ability caused Crypton a lot of trouble).

2) rero:

I thought the struggle was from adjusting Rin & Len Kagamine... but maybe it was because [Luka's] English library was also included [in her first release].

3) Wat:

Thank you for your comment! The first English (Luka's English) was made while referencing Sweet Ann, which was very difficult.... We want to try to progress rapidly with multilingualization~

Note: Sweet Ann was released June 29, 2007. Luka was the 1st Cryptonloid to have both Japanese and English and was released January 30, 2009 as Character Voice 03.

I'm not sure if Luka or Miku or all Cryptonloids will get multiple language ability in the future (by the way, it seems like each new voicebank endeavor takes about 2 years). For Miku's 2018 European Miku Expo tour, she spoke in the language of the country she was visiting to introduce herself (ex: German, French), it seems most likely those languages would be supported first. So, something like Korean phonemes seems less likely in my humble opinion (she's only been to China, America, Malaysia, Germany, France, England so far).


Meiko & Kaito 3D models for the next Miku Symphony


1) This was the original tweet by Wat that I shared before, pasting it here again:

The Miku Symphony Osaka performance is over. For [what's] next, we have to hurry and adjust MEIKO-san's [3D] model...

2) Cesky:

Thank you for your hard work for Miku Symphony.
I am really happily thinking about what is in store with MEIKO-san. I am really looking forward to the 15 year anniversary.

She posesses a wonderful voice, but there are still not many famous songs using her. Please give her a more active spot, not just for her 15 year anniversary.

Wow, the Meiko fans are really rebelling against Wat lately.

3) Wat:

I am grateful to everyone; this Miku Symphony was a success, so for [the next Miku Symphony] regarding MEIKO & KAITO, we are planning to successfully reinforce them from a 3D-side and with an openning video using all of the Cryptonloids, for the 15th anniversary. Please continue to support us.

Wat is just planning on finally finishing Kaito and Meiko's 3D models so they can be used for a video for Miku Symphony. He's acting as if this will make up for Crypton's lack of bumping Kaito and Meiko, but they were going to finish their models regardless so this is just a pathetic excuse for an apology/peace offering to angry fans. He's acting like matching updated Cryptonloid 3D models is special treatment when it's what they should've had a long time ago as a basic publicity item.

In iXima's style, Luka and Meiko basically have the same body and eyes, so how hard is it to slap brown short hair on the Luka model?

 

[Kona]

In terms of multilingual, I personally vote next up is Miku Spanish. That seems most successful to me, since both times she’s performed in Mexico, her shows were sold out. Along woth that, she performed a Spanish version of Sharing The World along with speaking Spanish in the shows. I know she did that with Chinese peior to her Chinese VB too.
I had half expected her to perform in German/French during her Europe tour, but she disn’t...though that may just be the phonetic limitations making that difficult.

We’ve also seen the Kagamines perform in Chinese, so perhaps they’ll be getting a Chinese VB.

I’d be happy with any extra languages though, especially for Luka who I use most out of them. Though I would totally kill for Spanish/German VBs

 

[hamano]

I agree that Miku Spanish is the most likely new language/VB for Crypton. I think a German and French VBs for Miku could happen too, but I believe Spanish is likely to be first, simply because of Spanish having a bigger potential market.

Kagamines' Chinese voicebank could happen too, the Vocaloid scene is already big in China and expected to grow, it would make sense for Crypton to invest more in the Chinese market.

 

[Wario94]

Since today is February 9 (in Japan time), would someone tell me if Crypton finally told their fans about the new Appends for their own Vocaloids?

 

[uncreepy]

Since today is February 9 (in Japan time), would someone tell me if Crypton finally told their fans about the new Appends for their own Vocaloids?

There are actually going to be 4 Snow Miku concerts:


The first concert for FRIDAY isn't until:
1 pm~2pm JST (10 pm CST on the 8th)
and
6 pm~7pm JST (3 am CST on the 9th).
(It's only 7 am in Japan right now, so no concerts have actually started, and I am not going to stay up late to find out what happens.)

On SATURDAY in Japan, the concerts will be:
1 pm~2 pm JST (10 pm CST on the 9th)
and
5 pm~6 pm JST (2 am CST on the 10th).


If something actually does happen with the Appends, the Vocaloid side of Discord/Twitter/the VocaVerse front page is gonna explode with news and be impossible to miss. ^^;