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

mobius017

Aspiring ∞ Creator
Apr 8, 2018
1,982
Is it really a narrative when it's only me and one other person saying "I don't really see how this is an improvement"?

Admittedly, in my case it has more to do with the issue of branding. Like, I don't care when any other virtual vocal software moves from one engine to another because none of them are as tied to the name "Vocaloid" as the cryptonloids are, even Yamaha's first-party 'loids. There have been tons of songs produced by this community utilizing Miku-n-pals which directly reference Vocaloid BY NAME, not to mention official merch I have in my own possession, like art books, light novels, figurines and the like. None of the other 3rd party Vocaloids have that level of connection to the brand name, so switching engines has never been an issue. I didn't think anything of it when IA joined her sister ONE on Cevio because IA just isn't connected to Vocaloid as strongly in pop culture. But Miku is STILL getting referred to as a Vocaloid, even in songs which were apparently produced with this new Piapro, because that's just how closely these things are associated with each other. The person who produced the video for Seraphim on the Ring didn't hesitate to call it "Vocaloid wrestling federation" because why would they? They idea of Miku without Vocaloid is kinda crazy. Which is why there are people in the comment section of the Miku NT demo saying "well, I'm gonna keep calling her a Vocaloid, I don't care what any of you say".

With how much I'm typing, I'm sure I'm coming off really angry and butt-hurt, but I promise I'm not. I'm just baffled and unimpressed. I'm gonna keep buying merch and CDs so long as new songs are being made with these characters, but as someone who remembers being a part of this fandom BACK IN THE DAY when people didn't know the difference between fan characters and actual Vocaloids or even that Vocaloid was software, I'm not looking forward to all the misinformation about What is/isn't Miku/"a real Vocaloid" and as such, I'm probably going to be really cranky about people in the fandom not knowing their shit.
Ha ha, yeah, I can understand that. I'll sure I'll mess up and refer to her as a Vocaloid plenty of times; heck, until recently, I was content enough to refer to our group as "the Vocaloid fandom."

But then again, this switch has helped me to realize that that latter tendency wasn't really right. This hasn't been "the Vocaloid fandom" ever since any other engine became available. Just speaking for myself, I've been trying to refer to us more as "the vocal synth community" ever since the new Piapro/Miku's move was announced. In view of the collaborative and inclusive nature of vocal synth culture, I personally find something fitting and kind of poetic about that.

And, yeah, I just almost typed "Vocaloid culture" again :).
 
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uncreepy

👵Escaped from the retirement home
Apr 9, 2018
1,618
[Technical talk] For the functions that weren't in time for the previous demo, there are 3 types of parameters that can control things like the consonant length/speed of the beginning of pronunciation (T/N: "Velocity" equivalent). These are the basic "expression styles" and using them won't be complicated, things like making an organic song and modifying the intonation are planned.

This timing... I'm hesitating about the comments regarding Rin & Len, but... recently I have been in the studio with Asami Shimoda. There are various things related to Project Sekai. Next year all sorts of things will be made public!

※The last time we recorded a lot was 2014, time really goes by fast.
 

frankensalad

Passionate Fan
Feb 27, 2019
103
And no one complained when I posted these, they gave the posts thumbs up and liked what they heard/were excited (except for mainly me complaining about Cherry Pie), but all of a sudden when it gets the label NT people are flipping their lids.
Like I said, there aren't many negative comments showing up in this thread besides me and one other person, maybe two if I missed someone. If other people on other websites are complaining, I'm going to assume they probably weren't the same people giving your posts likes earlier in this thread. The only off-site complaints I've seen have been people responding directly to the NT video, so I'm gonna guess that video is the first they've knowingly heard from these new updates and about the potential (now confirmed) departure of Crypton from Vocaloid.

And I may be wrong, but I don't remember expressing any major excitement earlier in this thread. If I did, it was because I was still under the impression that the features being demonstrated were coming from the Vocaloid engine, similar to how Zora and Sachiko had features in the Vocaloid engine that were made specifically for them. I DO remember expressing that I thought it would be a bad marketing move for the updates to not be Vocaloids, even before the NT video dropped, so my tune hasn't changed at all.

All in all, I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade or tell them they aren't aloud to like the new direction Crypton is taking. Personally I hope this is just a phase, cuz I don't think any of the features demonstrated actually justify the engine switch for reasons I've already gone into, but I also know a lot of other people are out here like "yas queen kill vocaloid throw that bitch in the fuckin water" and, I mean, more power to you if that's what you want. I just don't think V5 is as bad as people say, nor do I think anything we've seen from New Piapro is any better/more impressive.
 

Pewe

Aspiring Fan
Dec 7, 2019
67
Teto talks at about 3:50 for those with tinfoil hats who think she might end up on new Piapro.
No joke but I feel like Teto low-key has a solid shot of having a voice bank made for the new Piapro (wasn’t the fact that Wat tried to port Teto on VOCALOID and realized she wasn’t the same one of the things that pushed the idea to separate the Cryptonloids from the VOCALOID engine?)
 

peaches2217

Give me Gackpoid AI or give me DEATH
Sep 11, 2019
1,930
26
Arklahoma
Another thing, you need:

1) Internet connection at all time

2) i5 core processor (means you need at least 4 cores, can't be a single or dual core)
cores.png

^ can check it by Ctrl + Alt + Delete > Performance tab > see red circle

3) 4 GB of ram (8 GB preferred)
ram.png

^ can check by going to the location circled in red and checking the part circled in orange

4) Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 (that rules out anybody still using like.. Windows 7 or XP or something)

5) A modern monitor (1280 x 768)
So I have all of these... except an i5 core processor. Mine is dual-core. How badly does that screw me over? Could I make up for it by installing more RAM? (I've got 8 GB by default.) I know nothing about computers... :yohioloid_lili:
 
Sep 21, 2019
1,401
No joke but I feel like Teto low-key has a solid shot of having a voice bank made for the new Piapro (wasn’t the fact that Wat tried to port Teto on VOCALOID and realized she wasn’t the same one of the things that pushed the idea to separate the Cryptonloids from the VOCALOID engine?)
That'd be pretty cool! Though, I think a while back (and take this with a grain of salt; I don't know where this came from) Twindrill had received an offer to make Teto a Vocaloid but Twindrill turned it down because they didn't want Teto to be only for paying audiences. Though, I could see it working out like this: Teto is made into Piapro-loid, but her UTAU banks remain up. (Think of it like it's free but buying the Piapro bank(s) is like donating to/supporting Team Twindrill.)

I think it'd be cool to see what she'd sound like on New Piapro!
 

xuu

long suffering synth fan
Apr 8, 2018
671
23
UK
I do think there's a good shot at Teto at least being tested on the NT Piapro. Since it's supposed to retain a voice's original qualities and that was a big issue when she was tested in VOCALOID, it would be cool if her voice could be preserved for it. After all, she's basically a fixed member of the Crypton cast at this point and it wouldn't be too outlandish for it to happen.
 

Overcast Immortal

Budding producer
Dec 4, 2018
67
USA
www.youtube.com
So I have all of these... except an i5 core processor. Mine is dual-core. How badly does that screw me over? Could I make up for it by installing more RAM? (I've got 8 GB by default.) I know nothing about computers... :yohioloid_lili:
Extra RAM won't make up for the CPU. Since your CPU is under the minimum requirements, it probably won't work at all, and if it does manage start up, it won't be pleasant, with plenty of freezing and crashing, and it generally won't do what it's supposed to do.
 

phantoCrystal

New Fan
Feb 13, 2019
16
Extra RAM won't make up for the CPU. Since your CPU is under the minimum requirements, it probably won't work at all, and if it does manage start up, it won't be pleasant, with plenty of freezing and crashing, and it generally won't do what it's supposed to do.
oh. oh f-
i have everything required here too, AND i have 4 cores.. but my pc is i3 and not i5. i mean, these might not be minimum requirements, rather they may be recommended? im sure itll run, it might just run pretty badly.... aaahh, i wanted to buy this, too.
 

Overcast Immortal

Budding producer
Dec 4, 2018
67
USA
www.youtube.com
oh. oh f-
i have everything required here too, AND i have 4 cores.. but my pc is i3 and not i5. i mean, these might not be minimum requirements, rather they may be recommended? im sure itll run, it might just run pretty badly.... aaahh, i wanted to buy this, too.

They are the minimum requirements like Uncreepy said. They are specified in English on the bottom of the page.
 

uncreepy

👵Escaped from the retirement home
Apr 9, 2018
1,618
Hi, everyone.

The reason you are expected to have a minimum number of cores (in the case of Miku NT, 4 cores) is because of how the software runs. Each core is dedicated to one task that are running at the same time. So, one core per task, all running at equal speeds.

When, for example, two tasks run on one core, the speed is reduced and causes bugs/wonkiness. You can run the software, but it's not at "acceptable" performance recommended by the developer. The main issue with not having enough cores is that the software will suffer from slowdowns. If you are in this situation, I do not recommend multi-tasking-- do not run other applications while running Miku NT if you are low on cores. It will make new Piapro run even slower if multiple apps are competing and sucking up speed from your cores.

Edit: Oh, I thought it would be useful to link to the minimum requirements for Studio One 4, which comes with Miku NT:
 
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uncreepy

👵Escaped from the retirement home
Apr 9, 2018
1,618
Don't worry, everyone starts with a small amount of computer hardware knowledge when they first dip their toes in to wanting to upgrade their PC. And I know a few other people were wondering about the specs/hardware, anyway, so you saved them the trouble of asking.
 

Pewe

Aspiring Fan
Dec 7, 2019
67
That'd be pretty cool! Though, I think a while back (and take this with a grain of salt; I don't know where this came from) Twindrill had received an offer to make Teto a Vocaloid but Twindrill turned it down because they didn't want Teto to be only for paying audiences. Though, I could see it working out like this: Teto is made into Piapro-loid, but her UTAU banks remain up. (Think of it like it's free but buying the Piapro bank(s) is like donating to/supporting Team Twindrill.)

I think it'd be cool to see what she'd sound like on New Piapro!
Welp, if that bit about Twindrill rejecting the VOCALOID offer is true, then Teto’s chances become very slim, because as far as I can tell, making a paid voicebank for a character would requiere the termination of the free one (kinda like Macne Nana or Makune Hachi/Ruby, although I’m not 100% sure about Nana).

A solution would be calling Teto’s Piapro voicebank a “PRO-version”, or making her a freebie with the base Piapro (like Defoko to UTAU) to kinda give people an incentive to buy the program even if they can’t afford a voicebank for the moment (ofc, it would be a lower quality voicebank, but smoother than UTAU Teto). One can only dream...
 

Rylitah

kiyoteru enthusiast
Staff member
Moderator
Apr 8, 2018
575
Welp, if that bit about Twindrill rejecting the VOCALOID offer is true, then Teto’s chances become very slim, because as far as I can tell, making a paid voicebank for a character would requiere the termination of the free one (kinda like Macne Nana or Makune Hachi/Ruby, although I’m not 100% sure about Nana).
That's only in Yamaha's contract, and it's different for everyone. See Lupin/nostraightanswer aka Dex's VP on this here:
If Crypton doesn't require that the free version be taken down, then it's possible Teto could become an official Piapro voicebank while also keeping her UTAU ones.
 

Pewe

Aspiring Fan
Dec 7, 2019
67
That's only in Yamaha's contract, and it's different for everyone. See Lupin/nostraightanswer aka Dex's VP on this here:
If Crypton doesn't require that the free version be taken down, then it's possible Teto could become an official Piapro voicebank while also keeping her UTAU ones.
ohhhhh that’s SWEET! Then Teto does really have a chance, if Crypton allows it (tbf, I think they would gain more with the implications of making her a pseudo “Cryptonloid” than with the actual voicebank sells anyway, so Pro Teto + Free Teto is looking possible)
 
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Blue Of Mind

The world that I do not know...
Apr 8, 2018
699
Welp, if that bit about Twindrill rejecting the VOCALOID offer is true, then Teto’s chances become very slim, because as far as I can tell, making a paid voicebank for a character would requiere the termination of the free one (kinda like Macne Nana or Makune Hachi/Ruby, although I’m not 100% sure about Nana).

A solution would be calling Teto’s Piapro voicebank a “PRO-version”, or making her a freebie with the base Piapro (like Defoko to UTAU) to kinda give people an incentive to buy the program even if they can’t afford a voicebank for the moment (ofc, it would be a lower quality voicebank, but smoother than UTAU Teto). One can only dream...
I like the the idea of making Teto a default VB for Piapro, like Defoko is for UTAU. In a roundabout way, she would still be a 'free' VB, but of much better quality compared to her UTAU VBs. Though you would always get purists who would want the UTAU VBs over a better sounding Piapro bank.
 

Lystrialle

Vocaloid producer (among other things).
To speak from the heart here, and as someone who's observed the development of Vocaloid for about a decade now, and knows a little about vocalsynth dev from the perspective of an UTAU dev and has talked to people with experience in this, I have to say that I cannot emphasize enough how much people take for granted how limited Crypton has historically been under Yamaha, and how much Crypton no longer being under them raises the ceiling of possibility just out of the sheer principle of not being subject to a level of bureaucratic hell.

Example: The concept of "VB updates" as we currently know it is actually a byproduct of Yamaha's honestly rather draconian control over how VBs are released. One of the first things Crypton did after the announcement was update Miku Chinese. That probably passed over non-Chinese users' heads like "oh, whatever", but that is actually a really big deal. Why is that a big deal? Because Yamaha doesn't let you patch Vocaloid libraries. That doesn't sound like that much normally, because we're used to seeing a VB get released in its final form on release day, and any problems it ships with are permanent...but in the grand scheme of things, that's...extremely abnormal. Hell, Yamaha will even patch its own engine, but they won't let its licensees submit patches like, well, literally every other software on the planet should have the right to do. Other engine licensors are generally not nearly as draconian about that, either (I regularly get Kontakt library updates pushed with no problem).

Under normal circumstances, when you have a software, it's not expected that it's going to ship bug-free! That goes for any kind of digital software, even video games. You can only test behind the scenes so much, and once it ships out to userland, the fact it's going to be scrutinized under thousands of users will inevitably reveal problems that weren't caught in dev. And under said normal circumstances, once the devs hear about it, they can work on fixing the problems and ship an update after the fact. And if halfway down the line, the devs come up with an idea for a great new feature that people would certainly like, they can add it and ship it as a free update to all of the users without having to put out a whole new market product. This is the same for NT; in addition to the prototype period, even if Miku NT ships in August 2020 not being the best product in the world, Crypton can continue to evaluate user feedback and continue to refine it further as per the users' needs, and if wat comes up with another idea on the fly, they can add that in too, and then maybe increment the version number and put it out as a completely new iteration when they feel the update is particularly significant. You know, like...any other software.

And we know Crypton has actually been limited in this fashion before. Proof: Rin and Len act2. To this day, act1 is the only of their Vocaloid releases Crypton refuses to continue selling -- they even keep the V1s, and the other V2s, but they've shown every indication of wanting to actually wipe out act1 from existence. Why? Because act2, being a very minor touchup to act1 and not a full rerecording, was obviously intended to be a postrelease patch in this manner. They've been wanting to do this since 2007. But Yamaha clearly did not let them release it as a patch, which resulted in Crypton having to physically mail a disc with act2 for a limited time to any existing act1 user, and then quietly discontinue act1 from sale. For another example, take the concept of E.V.E.C. -- like it or not, the fact of the matter is that it's an experimental feature Crypton clearly wanted to have included in all their products, yet weren't able to implement in Yamaha's editor, and thus it's limited only to Piapro Studio. And when wat suggested the concepts of Miku Clear (which, in retrospect, is pretty obviously the beginnings of the concepts that led to the development of NT), the first reaction anyone following had was "how on earth is he going to convince Yamaha to let him do that?!" And now they're finally updating Miku Chinese...the one that just so happens to be the only one on the standalone Piapro Studio editor.

Take another example: think about how "appends" or separate libraries being actual separate market releases has been a thing taken for granted, with XSY being so favored because it's the only thing that lets you have much crossover between them, only for it to get unceremoniously canned in V5. On a wider level, let's consider: language support. You do have fringe cases like MAIKA and SeeU having a few "extra phonemes" to bring them closer to English, but otherwise, such cases are generally very rare. Why? Because of Yamaha's enforcement -- you can't patch a VB to have extra phonemes if you feel maybe you want to add those in, and for the most part they enforce a very strict separation of "one VB per language". Let's say you wanted to add support for Romance languages to a Japanese Vocaloid; it should be an easy update, Japanese has the same five vowels anyway, so all you have to do is tack on a few extra consonants and you're good, right? Except that still sends you into Bureaucracy Hell; Yamaha won't let you patch the VB, so you have to actually push it as an entirely separate library, with all the licensing labor and fees that come with it, and because it'll be so similar to the original product, your sales might not be so high because your target audience is likely to go "well, I'll just stick with the original, why should I buy a whole new VB?"

(Meanwhile, when non-Japanese UTAU development was in its early stages in the late 2000s, one of the first things attempted was a concept of a VB that could approximate multiple languages at once. It didn't work out, largely due to limitations with UTAU and SHIFT-JIS encoding and enforcement of morae-style recording, but I still think it was a perfectly fine idea that could have been fantastic if conditions had been better.)

I can't necessarily claim that Crypton will necessarily take advantage of all of the possibilities affronted to them, and even if they do try, perhaps they won't succeed, and in the end nothing in this world is perfect -- more importantly, nothing in this world will please everyone. (I personally vastly prefer the new tone of NT to the Vocaloid engine's, as someone who has had multiple gripes with how said engine has a nasty tendency to just make everything horribly flat and difficult to work with. But I'm well aware that it's a turnoff to many people, and that it's probably impossible to create a sound that will be loved by everyone universally.) But as someone who's witnessed what very much looks to be Crypton clearly wanting to break out of their shell and wanting to do more experimental, interesting stuff and work more with the userbase, and being limited by what seems to be some very strict and horribly arbitrary limitations put on them for no reason other than Bureaucratic Hell, it's not hard to see why they would make this decision, and it's much easier to see how there might be potential benefits in the long run that aren't immediately obvious -- for both the devs and the actual users.

--

Some miscellaneous notes:
  • In regards to the Internet requirement, "always" is a pretty horribly abbreviated and bad translation of what they're referring to. An Internet connection requirement of some sort has been listed on pretty much every one of Crypton's Vocaloid releases since V3, so it's probably referring specifically to the activation process. That "always", on the Japanese page, actually says "常時接続", a Japanese technical term that roughly means "don't use dial-up, please". There's precedent for that kind of sentiment, too; Rin/Len V4X for Mac apparently really wants you to have a broadband Internet connection.
  • While Twindrill and Crypton are on good terms and an experiment to see Teto's performance on the new engine isn't out of the question, I think the bigger question of whether Crypton will want to take her in is, ironically, more related to bureaucracy. In the end, Twindrill most likely wants to retain full rights and responsibility for Teto, and Crypton most likely doesn't want to be saddled with the extra responsibility of taking care of her, along with both of them probably wanting to set clear boundaries that she's not actually a Piapro Character. So I feel it's unlikely she'll end up a full-on product on it, and even if they do, I expect they'll be taking significant measures to keep them separated in a branding sense. (As a fun point, though, in the Teto 10th Anniversary livestream where they discussed sending Teto's samples to Crypton, they confirmed it was just something they did For Science, but also said that it would be funny if she could somehow turn into some kind of Vocaloid/UTAU hybrid -- then she'd be a "real chimera".)
 
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peaches2217

Give me Gackpoid AI or give me DEATH
Sep 11, 2019
1,930
26
Arklahoma
Oh wow. I knew Yamaha seriously limits what Vocaloid distributors can do, but I never knew the extent of it. I didn't take into account the potential of actually getting patches for Crypton's upcoming vocals because, as you said, that has never been a thing with Vocaloid: what you get at launch is all you get until they're given a new release. All of that was very well-said!

EDIT: Ah, I'm just seeing your comment about the internet connection, and that's a relief! I thought it seemed very... un-Crypton-like to suddenly pull an Emvoice. I can handle needing internet for the activation or even just for the beta for Miku NT, though I certainly hope you're right!
 
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