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

[uncreepy]

Okay, I woke up and realized that maybe if old Vocaloid voicebanks themselves aren't compatible with the new Piapro (or at least unable to use some features of it such as tuning parameters), I think if you export a Vocaloid singing as a .wav (or something), that you could still edit it with some of the features.

Because in the Cherry Pie demo, it appeared that, for the human singing that got edited by VocalDrive and Cherry Pie, they seemed to be pre-recorded files (because each had their own oddly-specific-looking file name and I don't think when the demo came out that the real-time voice conversion part of it worked well enough).

So after thinking about it, I guess now think "If old Vocaloids aren't compatible with the new Piapro as vocal synths, you can at least edit a .wav of them (or something) in the new Piapro". What do you all think? I know we're hoping they will be able to actually function as vocal synths, but if you were able to edit them as .wavs, would you still be somewhat happy?

 

[mobius017]

@uncreepy: That sounds reasonable. I guess it depends on how impressed I am with Cherry's new capabilities as to whether or not I'd use it like that. Actually, I hadn't thought of trying that, so it's something new for me to think about.

 

[GreenFantasy64]

That is a very good thought you had, uncreepy!

 

[GreenFantasy64]

fumito fumizuki from Discord posted this of a website called VocaSphere that made a blog post of the big news that happened last month. Which I mean about on Wat surprised and shocked everyone of their project that they had been working on. How Miku and the others are going into a new engine made for them, but having a good tie with Yamaha still. New stuff that will come with the new editor, Miku Chinese is getting an updated version to her. What about the English banks, Wat, the English banks!
Blog post about the event
I read it. Sure there is some information that we know, but there is a few stuff that I haven't heard about. Plus....there is some pictures to it! There is one that shows all the Cryptonloids together in a slide. So nice and cool to see them together. Miku Chinese getting an update. It's still a nice surprise and great to know that Crypton doesn't abandon a bank if it doesn't work out. They improve it so users can still use them in their language. So maybe....hopefully we can see future updates to the others' English voicebanks that need updating for improvement.

It also made me realize that I haven't really seen any of them as models in the stage before.... Only their original designs, huh.

 

[peaches2217]

You know, for how nervous the announcement made me, reading through that blog post does put me more at ease. I'm still waaaaaaaay behind on what all's going on, but it seems like they've really got things figured out, so I'm excited to see what the future holds! (I've also been looping Seraphim on the Ring in my car for the past week - my best friend refuses to get in unless I agree to play something else - so seeing that one of their new features was used in said song was also really neat.)

 

[mobius017]

@GreenFantasy64: That's an awesome article! A really good summary of what we know so far, plus some additional info. The info about better pronunciation/next-gen E.V.E.C. makes me more excited than ever to see what the new software can do.

I noticed that Vocal Drive is listed as a feature of the new Piapro. So I guess Vocal Drive won't be a standalone VST, or at least won't be such exclusively?

Oh, wait, yeah, I guess the article spells that out a little better earlier:

Sasaki then moved on to the new voice effectors that Crypton has been developing for about two years. They plan to implement them in piapro studio for use with each of their virtual singers’ voice. These new effectors include VocalDrive and CherryPie, which were introduced earlier this year as a project by Crypton’s technology research lab, Labopton.

 

[Blue Of Mind]

As a native English speaker, I'm also curious as to how moving to Piapro permanently would affect the English Crypton banks in the future in terms of updates. I'd love to see even more fixes to Miku English, especially if the patches were regular, though Kaito, Rin, Len and Meiko English also need updating.

 

[peaches2217]

As a native English speaker, I'm also curious as to how moving to Piapro permanently would affect the English Crypton banks in the future in terms of updates. I'd love to see even more fixes to Miku English, especially if the patches were regular, though Kaito, Rin, Len and Meiko English also need updating.

I'm hoping that the increased creative freedom will inspire them to really overhaul everyone's English voicebanks. They're not bad right now, but I'd still love to see them have more range and clarity. (Honestly, I'd pay extra for that if I had to.)

 

[GreenFantasy64]

Okay, so I read this and wanted to post this here in case anyone else didn't read could (or for any guests that stumbled upon this in the future ), and since this is a profile post, it would get replaced by newer ones. Sorry @YOYo_MAMA and @uncreepy but I couldn't resist on this. I guess I just want to gather more knowledge about this and post them here for everyone to read them too.

Just heard recently that Crypton is developing their own software for their vocaloid rendering. On a business stand-point and for the Users, Is this a smart move by Crypton? How will this affect Yamaha since the vocaloid software is technically monopolized by that company? Yamaha may develop the software but it's Crypton that made it big.
I may be a vocaloid fan for years but I admit due to financial reasons (i'm too poor to buy the software) I don't fully
understand the whole marketing of vocaloids cause it's very much fan-driven.

I mean, 1st Place branched out to CEVIO. SythV also exist but it's not really as popular as the "big-shot" Yamaha.

By @YOYo_MAMA

@uncreepy reply is this:

Basically, Crypton doesn't need Yamaha. They own some of the most popular Vocaloids ever created, and have branched them out to be virtual singers (selling merch, concerts, games, experiences like Snow Miku, collabs with companies to sell products), not just software.

Vocaloid has been "dying" ever since the end of V4, with each release being less and less popular. When V5 came out, it caused problems for fans, because it's extremely expensive to get started. (You HAVE to buy Yamaha's starter vocals, which costs $225. You have to buy all 4 of them even if you hate them in order to get the V5 Editor itself (it's not sold separately). So let's say you want to buy Tianyi, it would cost $225 + $118 to get her. V5 is also hard to run on older computers.) Another point is that the latest Vocaloids that actually succeeded ALSO had talk voices (ex: Akari and the Meikas) due to VTubers and Let's Plays being more and more popular.

Crypton has always been conscious of peoples' wallets by providing them with an editor (Piapro) and even a DAW (Studio One). The upcoming Piapro will also have talkloid capabilities (Cherry Pie).

In the past, Crypton had problems with Yamaha's policies and the cost. They couldn't provide an update when the Kagamines came out, they had to make a completely new version (Act 2). With the new Piapro, they will be able to provide updates whenever needed. It's also rumored to cost $10,000 per voice bank, that's why Crypton had made EVEC to kind of cheat the system. If Crypton owns their own engine and can make their own rules, they can literally do whatever they want with the voice banks for Cryptonloids. They will probably even be able to make new Cryptonloids without it costing them tons of money. Yamaha doesn't listen to fan complaints and is set in their ways, but Crypton is more willing to please fans and willing to be innovative with technology.

Lastly, people who know people who work for Yamaha said the Vocaloid department got shrunk. So I feel like V5 was them squeezing the last chunk of money out of unsuspecting fans.

Edit: Also, you can't really compare Synth V and CeVIO to the level of popularity Crypton has. Synth V has only been out for 1 year and are a start-up company. CeVIO will probably gain more popularity when their deep learning engine update comes out. Crypton is aiming the new update at VTubers who want to use the Cherry Pie voice changer, so in addition to song producers, they will have YouTubers buying their product.

Now, for some random inputs from me that suddenly came to my mind after reading this....
CV04 could be real after this you guys. Wat still has him in his info/bio as "new male voice Vocaloid" there is a male kanji in it so male for sure since there are some people that think it would be a girl instead And with money saving from the switch to their Editor, he could easily come with an English voicebank or Chinese. I mean after all these years, the voice actor could have took some lessons to get a head start or be bilingual (if he is still around that is).
Random funny joke: Yohioloid becomes CV04 instead

 

[Twillby]

Random funny joke: Yohioloid becomes CV04 instead

Now I want Crypton to adopt all the PFX loids and turn them into Piaproloids ROFL brb starting a petition might as well add Piko to the list too

 

[GreenFantasy64]

Now I want Crypton to adopt all the PFX loids and turn them into Piaproloids ROFL brb starting a petition might as well add Piko to the list too

Haha, I'll sign it than if you do add in Piko.
Got to give that poor boy some good love and get him out of the V2 grave.

 

[Wario94]

Haha, I'll sign it than if you do add in Piko.
Got to give that poor boy some good love and get him out of the V2 grave.

Funny enough, about a week before the big revealed for the new Piapro Studio, Gobou-P was trying to guess for part of this hashtag known as #クリプトンの予想外かつ大きなお話を予想してみる or #TrytoPredictCrypton'sUnexpectedandBigStory:

After a long discussion between SONY and Crypton, we entrust the rights of Utatane Piko to Crypton and becomes a member of Crypton.

 

[Blue Of Mind]

CV04 could be real after this you guys. Wat still has him in his info/bio as "new male voice Vocaloid" there is a male kanji in it so male for sure since there are some people that think it would be a girl instead And with money saving from the switch to their Editor, he could easily come with an English voicebank or Chinese. I mean after all these years, the voice actor could have took some lessons to get a head start or be bilingual (if he is still around that is).

I'm still down for a new Crypton VB, even if at this point they would be on a different engine. It's been way too long since Luka was released (2009), and people have always been wondering where CV04 disappeared to (my guess was that Crypton was happy enough with Miku's success and the group dynamic of the others to bother making a new character at the time. But it's interesting that Wat still mentions CV04 in his bio, unless he's just forgot to remove it).

 

[uncreepy]

Wat's had the same bio for like... over 2 years at this point. I wish I knew for sure how old that description was. I don't even know if it's safe to say that his bio reflects the current goals of Crypton with the direction they're going in. Especially since it says his Twitter is meant to share info about work relating to VOCALOID when they're leaving the engine behind.

Honestly, I don't think Crypton cares about any group dynamics, they only care about Miku and only use their other Vocaloids enough to not anger fans. They keep getting a laughable amount of show time (like how Meiko and Kaito didn't get to sing at all at the Bilibili concert and only danced, or how Kaito got to be in one whole duet and Meiko got one song herself for Magical Mirai, wow, so generous).

If they DO make a new vocal, especially a female one, there is a chance she could become popular in the Rin-ish range due to being associated with Crypton. But maybe they would have them part of a different group, like how Meiko/Kaito aren't in the CV group, maybe their new vocals would get a new series name/marketing ploy? So that it would be easier to make a group of them, but not steal Miku's thunder (such as them being, I dunno, animal themed or something instead of futuristic rainbow robots).

Here is a chart I saw today by Fritz who showed popularity of each character and vocal synth currently (contains 4 images):

For people who can't read it (I rounded up the percentages cause lazy):
Niconico original song tag for vocal synths:
Pic 1 = Original songs using: Aqua/Miku/43%, Periwinkle/non-Miku Vocaloids/42%, Pink/UTAU/11%, Green/CeVIO/2%
Pic 2 = I dunno what this chart is for, not gonna translate it
Pic 3 = Sep 2018 - Sep 2019: Aqua/Miku/53%, Yellow/Rin/8%, Green/Gumi/6%, Orange/IA/5%, Blue/Una/4%, Pink/Luka/3%, Grey/flower/3%, Purple/Yukari/3%, White/VY1/1%, Light blue/KAITO/1%, Red/Meiko/1%, everyone else is under 1%.
Pic 4 = Most popular companies: Blue/Crypton/65%, Green/Internet Co./11%, Orange/1st Place/5%, Pink/AHS/5%, Grey/Yamaha/4%, Slate grey/Gynoid/3%

Note that this chart is biased to Niconico, which has had its popularity falling to Youtube, and due to it being Japanese, the VSingers appear extremely unpopular despite making tons more money than Miku brings in.

I guess overall, why would people who are aspiring producers NOT chose to buy Miku if there's more of a chance they could get their songs in a concert? If they like a Cryptonloid who is not as popular (ex: Meiko), there is a high chance their songwriting won't be "rewarded" with fame. And especially for "dead" Vocaloid companies like Lapis, you can't get a virtual concert bump from them. So I feel like Crypton's concerts/events have rigged the Vocaloid world to keep making her succeed.

(This turned in to talking about Wat's profile to unpopular Cryptonloids to Miku concert incentives for producers ruining the playing field for non-Miku-loids.)

 

[GreenFantasy64]

Honestly, I don't think Crypton cares about any group dynamics, they only care about Miku and only use their other Vocaloids enough to not anger fans. They keep getting a laughable amount of show time (like how Meiko and Kaito didn't get to sing at all at the Bilibili concert and only danced, or how Kaito got to be in one whole duet and Meiko got one song herself for Magical Mirai, wow, so generous).

Me sad now... Poor Kaito
I was so happy about Kaito finally getting a duet with Miku, but....

Wat's had the same bio for like... over 2 years at this point. I wish I knew for sure how old that description was. I don't even know if it's safe to say that his bio reflects the current goals of Crypton with the direction they're going in. Especially since it says his Twitter is meant to share info about work relating to VOCALOID when they're leaving the engine behind.

Must continue to clench onto hope....
I guess it will be a big deal if he finally decides to reword his bio....and gets rid of CV04 too in it.

 

[mobius017]

Wat's had the same bio for like... over 2 years at this point. I wish I knew for sure how old that description was. I don't even know if it's safe to say that his bio reflects the current goals of Crypton with the direction they're going in. Especially since it says his Twitter is meant to share info about work relating to VOCALOID when they're leaving the engine behind.

Honestly, I don't think Crypton cares about any group dynamics, they only care about Miku and only use their other Vocaloids enough to not anger fans. They keep getting a laughable amount of show time (like how Meiko and Kaito didn't get to sing at all at the Bilibili concert and only danced, or how Kaito got to be in one whole duet and Meiko got one song herself for Magical Mirai, wow, so generous).

If they DO make a new vocal, especially a female one, there is a chance she could become popular in the Rin-ish range due to being associated with Crypton. But maybe they would have them part of a different group, like how Meiko/Kaito aren't in the CV group, maybe their new vocals would get a new series name/marketing ploy? So that it would be easier to make a group of them, but not steal Miku's thunder (such as them being, I dunno, animal themed or something instead of futuristic rainbow robots).

Here is a chart I saw today by Fritz who showed popularity of each character and vocal synth currently (contains 4 images):

For people who can't read it (I rounded up the percentages cause lazy):
Niconico original song tag for vocal synths:
Pic 1 = Original songs using: Aqua/Miku/43%, Periwinkle/non-Miku Vocaloids/42%, Pink/UTAU/11%, Green/CeVIO/2%
Pic 2 = I dunno what this chart is for, not gonna translate it
Pic 3 = Sep 2018 - Sep 2019: Aqua/Miku/53%, Yellow/Rin/8%, Green/Gumi/6%, Orange/IA/5%, Blue/Una/4%, Pink/Luka/3%, Grey/flower/3%, Purple/Yukari/3%, White/VY1/1%, Light blue/KAITO/1%, Red/Meiko/1%, everyone else is under 1%.
Pic 4 = Most popular companies: Blue/Crypton/65%, Green/Internet Co./11%, Orange/1st Place/5%, Pink/AHS/5%, Grey/Yamaha/4%, Slate grey/Gynoid/3%

Note that this chart is biased to Niconico, which has had its popularity falling to Youtube, and due to it being Japanese, the VSingers appear extremely unpopular despite making tons more money than Miku brings in.

I guess overall, why would people who are aspiring producers NOT chose to buy Miku if there's more of a chance they could get their songs in a concert? If they like a Cryptonloid who is not as popular (ex: Meiko), there is a high chance their songwriting won't be "rewarded" with fame. And especially for "dead" Vocaloid companies like Lapis, you can't get a virtual concert bump from them. So I feel like Crypton's concerts/events have rigged the Vocaloid world to keep making her succeed.

(This turned in to talking about Wat's profile to unpopular Cryptonloids to Miku concert incentives for producers ruining the playing field for non-Miku-loids.)

I think that makes a lot of sense.

I don't think CFM is deliberately trying to slight their own Vocaloids for the sake of doing so (That wouldn't make business sense.), but Miku does have a lot of popularity, and that popularity carries inertia. When CFM is picking songs, I assume they cater to the large body of people who come to see Miku perform, but also try to put in songs for the other Vocaloids. And you're right about the incentive this inertia gives to aspiring producers to buy Miku, too; the landscape may not be rigged intentionally (At least for the CFM 'loids; regarding the Vocaloids of other companies, of course, that would naturally be the purpose of the marketing aspects of the concerts/etc.), but like the gravity of some planet, that inertia does skew the landscape.

Getting back to the concerts, do I think the setlist breakdown is entirely fair? No, not at all. Being a big Miku fan myself, I can't complain about seeing more Miku songs than less, but that perspective also lets me empathize with those who don't get to see their favorites perform anything like as much. I wish the split was something even approaching a bit more even. I guess I'd be inclined to try to do it by percentage or something, but with only about 20-25 songs to work with (if I remember the usual setlist length correctly), that might not work out better. So maybe it couldn't be statistically, mathematically fairer, but if each vocalist got at least 2-3 songs, that would be better. It's not like the others don't have enough good songs to fill in the slots. Maybe then, the music landscape would be a bit fairer for producers who want to use non-Miku Cryptonloids, too.

Me sad now... Poor Kaito
I was so happy about Kaito finally getting a duet with Miku, but....

Personally, I was happy to see the Miku/Kaito duet, too. Kaito can be difficult to tune, but when used well, he can sound really good. Plus, it's at least a different duet than one we've seen before--it's not "On the Rocks," a Rin/Len song, or "Ai Dee." Mirai has lots of good songs, but I love seeing them add new/different stuff. Maybe if they were a little bolder about doing that, it would also help with the above setlist skewing, too.

Sorry, this isn't a thread about setlist policy, so maybe this rambling has gotten a little off-topic....

 

[Exemplar]

(This is more or less of a response to mobius017's post above)

The relationship CFM had with Yamaha sounds kinda like the relationship Mars had with Hershey in their early days.

Mars in their early days had a close working relationship with Hershey who at the time held a near monopoly on the supply of chocolate in north america. Mars really had no choice of who they would get the chocolate from. Hershey was more than willing to sell chocolate to Mars because they did not see them as a threat at that time. Several successful candy bars over the course of a few years made Hershey reconsider their relationship after they realized that Mars had the money and resources to produce their own chocolate. It was a mild rivalry until they were at each other's throats competing for food supply contracts to supply allied forces on the european front in WW2.

Yamaha knew they were going to lose their grip on the singing synth market because they saw how deep learning was going open it up a lot on a technical level. They saw it first hand with what Kanru was working on in his internship and so did he. The company that's going to provide the best voices combined with excellent customer service along with providing company support to help promote creators (helping producers/artists get their works into concerts, adverts, games & merch) will be the ones to take the crown of top synth company and it's not looking like it's either going to be Yamaha going by how they wanted to nickel and dime everything Fukase or Zero G because all they were willing to do is let AkiGlancy do pretty much everything promotion wise (I think she's doing a good job but she needs a lot more help tbh) or even 1st Place who is selling a english synth that you can only buy if you can work though all of the japanese lmao.

 

[uncreepy]

I was bored and looking through old Ryo tweets and saw a Wantedly article link. It has a picture on it that is a bit familiar.



The Cherry Pie version is 0.8.1 (the version in the old demo video from March was version 0.8.0), so this Wantedly picture is the same one from this series of tweets by Eji:



(Same software version and you can even see the corner on the left of the "AUAudioFilePlayer" box.) I don't know if it's because Eji didn't take a picture of the whole image, or if Crypton just had a cropped version on their poster.

I noticed there is a node tree that links Cherry Pie to the Audio Mixer (which is cut off on the bottom of the screen shot) to Audio Output (on the far left).

I tried to look up about node setups (where you plug in one box to another so the software knows what order/task to put the chain in), but couldn't find any images/tutorials/articles. I think the node tree might be a developer thing, not something normal users get to use?

I wonder what is on top of the Cherry Pie node, it's cropped so you can't see it. I wonder if it's a node for the new Piapro?

Edit: I dunno what the colors mean, but the circles on the top (ex: by Audio Mixer) can be red, yellow, or green. (There are no green ones turned on in the screenshot.)

 

[Scarlet Illusion]

I'm really looking forward to Crypton releasing their new engine. It sounds promising so far, and I have faith that Crypton knows what they're doing here. I've been impressed with their vocals, I love using Piapro studio in its current state, and so I have no doubt that this new engine will be well-worth the buy.
I just hope it's not too different from the Vocaloid editor/current Piapro Studio since I'm so used to the current interface and parameters, lol.

 

[uncreepy]

This could be completely unrelated to the Appends, but for the upcoming Project Sekai game, people noticed that Meiko and Kaito's designs are a kind of combination of their V1 and V3 outfits. So, I compared each design and get the real tea. I wanted to post this, because maybe these designs will reflect their outfits for the next generation Piapro? (Because the Appends updated their old voice banks: Meiko/Kaito V3, Rin/Len/Luka/Miku V2. It would make sense to use parts from previous designs so people who like the outfits will be satisfied with the newest versions.)


The picture calls them "piapro characters", so maybe that's what they will be called from now on.












What do you think? Could this be a teaser in to what to expect on their new box art?

Edit: I don't mean to imply this will be their box art. I just mean the artist at Colorful Palette was maybe given their new character reference sheets before anyone else got to see it, and the box art for the Appends could be by iXima again.