Unpopular Opinions

[AmazingStrange39]

Not every vocal synth have to be realistic. Realism can be a flexible niche with different genre but it's not a full on requirement ALL upcoming synth must have. It sort of takes away the concept of synthesizer as an ELECTRONIC MUSIC INSTRUMENT that is MANMADE. You are making an instrument that can hit the range that an ordinary human cannot. It's like comparing an Impressionist painting to a work of Da Vinci. Claude Monet, pioneer of Impressionism was criticized and insulted since his work is not "Realistic" enough like Da Vinci, just a rough outline full of blotty colors and blurry details. It's very surreal art that does not quite fit the realistic world, but like an escape as you gaze to a painting of Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night. You can appreciate both Realism and Non-realism, both are not meant to replace each other unless that is what you think it will be, But that's just your opinion. Fans of both don't need to make a crusade or start a propaganda hate-movement simply to shove your self-justified opinions down other people's throats, especially those with very different cultural backgrounds, customs and social norms as you are, there is always context to why one trend is more popular than the other. Vocaloid manage to rise despite so, so many criticism and insults to the idea, especially the initial fear of being replaced but Crypton made it work somehow using the power of PR and alot of collabs.
Trends change once people will get tired of the same style over and over again. They will eventually would want something else. Art, fashion, Music architectural trends/movements is like a cycle. They Peak, then once it will be saturated, the masses will get bored and find another one, then Boom, a paradigm shift in the norm. Rinse and Repeat that in the last century.

YES. YES YES YES. This so much. And my favorite Vocaloid being Miku, I really appreciate her having character instead of being a total replacement human. Realistic VBs have their place if you want a human voice and can't hire a singer, but something about their realism kinda...bothers my soul? Like, "this isn't a human...we're doomed." Plus I kinda like having my own input? Like, tuning myself, phoneme editing and the like, using my own unique style?

I don't want to pile on synth v especially now but I've been feeling this for a while now. I don't know if this is just me but I've been wishing they would improve synth V's cross lingual support don't get me wrong but I appreciate and amazed it exists. But it's gotten to be such a mixed bag lately and feels like a complete after thought now. I bought multiple non English synth v banks because they kinda stopped releasing new English banks. I was wanting to use them in English cross lingual, but all of them are muffled or unclear compared to banks like Kevin, Solaria, and Anri. I got Mo Chen because I like his voice but his English keeps on getting worse each update. Also with Maki English getting vocal modes they completely change her accent and pronunciation. Adult gives her this weird lisp and breathy takes it away. With Weina's release they claim her to be bilingual in Chinese and English because they recorded samples in both. But I find Weina's English to more accented than say feng yi. I personally don't want to pay double the price for a bank that can "kinda" do English. I love synth v and I want it to improve to be the best.

YES! More English voicebanks please! I really hope Rosa gets an English bank once she releases instead of just relying on cross lingual. I much prefer a natural, sampled accent to...something being off. (Stardust handles XLS well from what I've seen though.)

 

[Tortoiseshel]

Cross-language synthesis is really cool and, in my opinion, should be a standard feature in more engines. But it also shouldn't be a replacement/substitute for native language capabilities. ("Native" as in, voicebanks intended for a specific language; not necessarily voiced by a native speaker)

 

[Blue Of Mind]

I don't think "vindicated" is the right word to describe this opinion at all (since it sounds super-fangirlish on my end), but after seeing the recent technical issues with SynthV, the odd business decisions related to CeVIO and the struggles of other engines such as Piapro NT, Maghni and EmVoice, I strangely feel a bit relieved (perhaps not the right word either) for staying loyal to Vocaloid.

While it's true there's been no new releases for a few years (minus that competition for a VP for a new V5 bank a while back) and little news about Vocaloid on Yamaha's end, at this point I'm just glad people are still using the software despite it being aimed more at professional musicians than previous versions. It's not the most cutting edge voice synth anymore, but I've noticed it still has a lot of brand loyalty and staying power in the vocal synth market despite the rise of rival synths. It probably helps that every V3 and V4 bank can be imported into V5, and V2s still work for a lot of people on their own. (But RIP V1s on modern OSs.)

 

[Leon]

In all fairness, aside from a few whackjobs, no one really meant that Vocaloid as a fandom was "dying", and we all knew people would continue to use it. Anyone that I ever saw saying it was only talking about it on a commercial scale -- as in, Yamaha probably isn't going to be updating it and/or no one's going to release any new banks on it. I am still eagerly awaiting that contest winner voicebank, as well as the Vsinger updates, but unless Yamaha hits us with an update, I'm skeptical that we'll see any other outside companies release a bank. Because at this point it's kind of behind the times in terms of features. Still a solid software with solid results, but many of the banks are meh quality (recording-wise). And I say this as someone who still adores Vocaloid. And I can also chip in that V1 still works fine for me on Win10!

That said, it's good that those who put SV up on a pedestal are finally seeing that it's not infallible. This is a thing people love to do, and then are always disappointed. Seems like DT will be taking more care with future updates (based on the recent AHS tweets), which is good! Even the "top dog" needs accountability. Which is also why I love that ACE is becoming a real competitor. I love SV, but I don't want there to only be one engine that anyone releases anything on. I don't love the sound of CeVIO, but I do hope for the best for Maghni AI, am still awaiting further Piapro NT releases, and wish Emvoice luck!

 

[Rylitah]

This isn't really the point of your post, but people absolutely meant the community was dying in the past when they said Vocaloid was dead/dying orz. Lots of people said things like that while pointing to less people being in the community in general or having grown out of it (because Vocaloid to a lot of people is just a middle school phase), to all the old/classic producers having moved on and there being no one left, etc. Referring to just Vocaloid the software as dying now is a relatively new angle that people are saying because... people are obsessed with saying it for whatever reason. But it was definitely aimed at the community as a whole before, and only stopped being so common because things like Project Sekai really killed that argument forever. (And I know because I spent a very long time arguing with those people about the community being alive and well long before that orz)

Actually, I came to talk about an unpopular opinion I felt like I had, but after spending like thirty minutes writing an essay about it I had the thought of "damn... why do I care what these random people think" and then I realized I don't, and then suddenly I just stopped caring about the topic altogether. So... I guess I won?!? lmao (it had to do with the "you must only like the objectively best and newest synth on the market" mentality a lot of Western community seems to have. in the end it doesn't matter because it's not like people get harassed for using older/different synths anyway, and if they do that is a whole other problem)

 

[Leon]

Huh. Guess I was lucky, because I genuinely never ran into that POV. People only ever pointed to slowing releases and things like Crypton pulling off to make their own engine. Sounds really annoying to deal with the other take on it honestly, so I'm sorry to all who saw it @.@

I'm glad you won that other mental argument though! Just letting other people's stupid opinions roll of you is a massive power move.

 

[lIlI]

It's true, around 2017 the discussion around vocal synthesis being 'dead' was quite popular, and it's interesting to look back on it with hindsight. It happened because new Vocaloids were struggling to gain popularity, and we were seeing an overall drop in the number of Vocaloid songs being uploaded to Nico Nico Douga. This article specifically is a good time capsule that sums up one perspective on the debate. For many fans, what they meant by 'dead' was that the scene they grew up with no longer existed; and in a sense, that was true. However, the idea that the downward trend would continue couldn't have been more wrong.

Producers did retire, but a new generation rose up with fresh ideas, and created amazing things. People who were once fans of the software became active developers, pushing the technology forward in new ways. It's true that this fandom is nothing like it used to be, and there's pathos in that. But change allowed the community to grow, giving us new favourite songs, voices, games, and concerts.

Vocal synthesis has proved itself to be an evergreen hobby, the usefulness of the concept and the creativity it empowers means it's continuously being reborn in new ways, evolving for each new era. But because we never stop enjoying what first bought us into the fandom, no part of it ever truly dies. From ACE to Avannaversary: I've always enjoyed those times when excitement for new releases, and the legacies of products decades old, are celebrated simultaneously.

 

[TheStarPalace]

Social media and the internet in general has become a trend generator where new stuff gets boosted and then drowned out very quickly. It's not surprising that a community of largely independent creators would get ignored. Songs also take longer than visual art to see and interact with, leading to lessened interactions in general on websites where you can get thousands of posts on your feed a day. There's massively popular video games and series that also get called "dead" as a joke, so I don't think it's really a thing to take too personally. I've seen "vocaloid is dead" arguments since around 2015, but in that time it was about Vocaloid culture dying out, not the software. Post 2018, the arguments are moreso about Vocaloid losing market share to Cevio and Synth v. There are reasons why almost every vocaloid post on Tumblr in the 2020s has been tagged with #nostalgia #2010s #my childhood and things like that. 2012 was one of the peak years for Vocaloid songs on NND.

I'm not angry with any of the people who make broad untrue claims about vocaloid, and encourage everyone here to not be mad and argue either. Rather, it's the marketing-driven culture of wanting to talk about the newest and most trendy thing right now that really used to stress me out. (Remember when V5 was announced on Twitter and the replies were full of people surprised vocaloid still existed and calling it dead? When...the announcement itself disproved that) I saw this a LOT with synthv when it was newer, and a very petty part of my mind is sort of glad that crowd is finally getting proof that Dreamtonics is not infallible. I still truly wish the best for Synth V.

 

[WyndReed]

So if vocaloid is dead then would that make all of us zombies?

 

[cafenurse]

So if vocaloid is dead then would that make all of us zombies?

 

[Ibis]

I know I'm an UTAU cultists, but I'm not a huge fan of Teto's voice. Most of the time she's used, she just kind of sounds annoying to me. I've noticed that a lot of other Utauloids, especially those early Vipperloid banks, will have this sort of metallic sound to it, which I actually really like. However, on Teto the metallic screech combined with the overly high, inauthentic vocals just doesn't work for me. I really wish the voice provider would have just left their voice as normal instead of pitching it up. I actually do think Teto sounds great at a lower range, so I'm thinking my only real problem with her is the pitched up voice. It's not even that I dislike really high voices, I actually really like Vocaloids like Lapis, I just don't think you should force it if it's not in your natural range to do so.

 

[AmazingStrange39]

Cross-language synthesis is really cool and, in my opinion, should be a standard feature in more engines. But it also shouldn't be a replacement/substitute for native language capabilities. ("Native" as in, voicebanks intended for a specific language; not necessarily voiced by a native speaker)

Yeah, that's what I mean. "Native", as you said, is more natural and just feels like they're actually speaking the language.

I know I'm an UTAU cultists, but I'm not a huge fan of Teto's voice. Most of the time she's used, she just kind of sounds annoying to me. I've noticed that a lot of other Utauloids, especially those early Vipperloid banks, will have this sort of metallic sound to it, which I actually really like. However, on Teto the metallic screech combined with the overly high, inauthentic vocals just doesn't work for me. I really wish the voice provider would have just left their voice as normal instead of pitching it up. I actually do think Teto sounds great at a lower range, so I'm thinking my only real problem with her is the pitched up voice. It's not even that I dislike really high voices, I actually really like Vocaloids like Lapis, I just don't think you should force it if it's not in your natural range to do so.

TBF Teto's English voicebank is noticeably deeper than her Japanese voicebank so there's that. But yeah, she is quite...bright and tinny in tone.

 

[AmazingStrange39]

I don't think "vindicated" is the right word to describe this opinion at all (since it sounds super-fangirlish on my end), but after seeing the recent technical issues with SynthV, the odd business decisions related to CeVIO and the struggles of other engines such as Piapro NT, Maghni and EmVoice, I strangely feel a bit relieved (perhaps not the right word either) for staying loyal to Vocaloid.

While it's true there's been no new releases for a few years (minus that competition for a VP for a new V5 bank a while back) and little news about Vocaloid on Yamaha's end, at this point I'm just glad people are still using the software despite it being aimed more at professional musicians than previous versions. It's not the most cutting edge voice synth anymore, but I've noticed it still has a lot of brand loyalty and staying power in the vocal synth market despite the rise of rival synths. It probably helps that every V3 and V4 bank can be imported into V5, and V2s still work for a lot of people on their own. (But RIP V1s on modern OSs.)

Yeah, and there's something about the way Vocaloid sounds that's just...special. Also, I've started souring to CeVIO myself, but there've been issues with SynthV? Do tell! (I do know there's a button in Basic that represents the Takes feature but pretty much does nothing but sit there and make you feel guilty for being poor...) And I don't even use V5 lol, my mainstay right now is Piapro V4X (which is the only V4 editor you can get firsthand right now I think).

This isn't really the point of your post, but people absolutely meant the community was dying in the past when they said Vocaloid was dead/dying orz. Lots of people said things like that while pointing to less people being in the community in general or having grown out of it (because Vocaloid to a lot of people is just a middle school phase), to all the old/classic producers having moved on and there being no one left, etc. Referring to just Vocaloid the software as dying now is a relatively new angle that people are saying because... people are obsessed with saying it for whatever reason. But it was definitely aimed at the community as a whole before, and only stopped being so common because things like Project Sekai really killed that argument forever. (And I know because I spent a very long time arguing with those people about the community being alive and well long before that orz)

Actually, I came to talk about an unpopular opinion I felt like I had, but after spending like thirty minutes writing an essay about it I had the thought of "damn... why do I care what these random people think" and then I realized I don't, and then suddenly I just stopped caring about the topic altogether. So... I guess I won?!? lmao (it had to do with the "you must only like the objectively best and newest synth on the market" mentality a lot of Western community seems to have. in the end it doesn't matter because it's not like people get harassed for using older/different synths anyway, and if they do that is a whole other problem)

YESS THAT MENTALITY. i hate that superiority complex so much. like let us use what you call old. some of us aren't even into new culture anyway (me).

Social media and the internet in general has become a trend generator where new stuff gets boosted and then drowned out very quickly. It's not surprising that a community of largely independent creators would get ignored. Songs also take longer than visual art to see and interact with, leading to lessened interactions in general on websites where you can get thousands of posts on your feed a day. There's massively popular video games and series that also get called "dead" as a joke, so I don't think it's really a thing to take too personally. I've seen "vocaloid is dead" arguments since around 2015, but in that time it was about Vocaloid culture dying out, not the software. Post 2018, the arguments are moreso about Vocaloid losing market share to Cevio and Synth v. There are reasons why almost every vocaloid post on Tumblr in the 2020s has been tagged with #nostalgia #2010s #my childhood and things like that. 2012 was one of the peak years for Vocaloid songs on NND.

I'm not angry with any of the people who make broad untrue claims about vocaloid, and encourage everyone here to not be mad and argue either. Rather, it's the marketing-driven culture of wanting to talk about the newest and most trendy thing right now that really used to stress me out. (Remember when V5 was announced on Twitter and the replies were full of people surprised vocaloid still existed and calling it dead? When...the announcement itself disproved that) I saw this a LOT with synthv when it was newer, and a very petty part of my mind is sort of glad that crowd is finally getting proof that Dreamtonics is not infallible. I still truly wish the best for Synth V.

Yeah, SynthV is cool but it's not the be-all-end-all vocal synth. I do think that while it's a cool synth, it's beginning to lack the charm of Vocaloid with the heavy focus of realism over character, with so many of the new releases being the professional "letterloid" vocals (on another note, apparently there's an obsession with releasing Chinese vocals lately. Be nice if they released another Japanese or...ok, SV companies, PLEASE release another English vocal, we are starved of them right now and haven't gotten a new once since Solaria (who's awesome but still), at the BEGINNING OF THE YEAR. XLS is cool and all but like...new English vocals would be nice).

On that note they REALLY nerfed the UI with SynthV Studio. It just looks...plain and boring compared to R1, in my opinion. I guess R1's UI is more outdated but it was also more interesting to look at.

 

[___]

I honestly don't wish for any of the CFM-loids to be on SynthV.

It is highly unlikely that's even gonna happen, because CFM parted with Yamaha cuz they wanted full control over the development process, and even if they were to change their minds ( doubt it ), SVS isn't the #1 choice in Japan, but even theoretically, I wouldn't want it to happen, not because I'm making arguments against the sound quality or anything, but because judging by, as an outsider, how the two companies operate, I believe it would be very unhealthy and messy partnership, I feel like wanting CFM and DT to collab is like asking for trouble rtyui

 

[Rylitah]

I think people who keep asking for Crypton to move to Synth V or to just make AI banks in general are... completely missing the point of why Crypton doesn't want to do that orz.

Crypton doesn't want their voices to be realistic. Sure, Kaito and Meiko aimed for professional use before they became solely Crypton's responsibility, but that's just not their goal anymore. Miku and co.'s charm comes from the fact that they don't sound human - Crypton isn't against people making them sound human or realistic (while I don't think Mitchie M's tuning makes them sound like either, he is very popular and Crypton's more than happy to commission and work with him), it's just not a product they want to make out of the box. And that goes for the actual quality rather than voicetype.

They've already dealt with a lot over the years on how Miku keeps sounding different. The people who use and enjoy Miku the most don't want her to sound any different. Crypton making AI vocals would make, honestly, a very tiny portion of her fans happy but most people would just be really put off.

(All this to say, I don't think people are bad or wrong for wanting AI Crypton vocals. I do, however, think that people saying that Crypton is slacking or making "wrong business decisions" by moving forward with NT really don't understand Miku's fanbase and undermining why Crypton made the decision they did. They aren't "falling behind" by not trying to make yet another realistic AI engine and competing with the other AI-focused companies. Maybe NT's sound isn't popular, and I'm sure not a fan of it myself, but I think what they're doing is a little refreshing in light of how every other active company just wants to do AI stuff these days.)

 

[___]

I definitely do hear those people who would like to have AI voices of the Cryptonloids so they could take advantage of the technology, but I have to disagree with the notion that I see around, that CFM isn't listening to their audience by not aiming for that type of sound, when it's actually very tiny niche portion of the community who is asking for it, as you mentioned.

It's honestly little hard to comprehend just how huge Miku actually is in the industry, it's like Miku is this massive planet and the rest are just orbiting around her, no matter what kind of shticks or trends are happening around her, even someone massively popular, riding on today's trends, like Kafu, doesn't reach Miku levels of popularity or impact, she remains relevant because people love Miku for Miku, it's very much a case of "don't fix what isn't broken" and to threaten it wouldn't be wise of CFM.

What I'm trying to say is: while many other companies have the vocal synth community/userbase to tend to, CFM has the Miku userbase to tend to pretty much.

Anyways I got way too poetic and rambly lol and that is to say, yeah I agree with u.

Though I will just specify that, I had more specifically SVS CFM vbs on mind, as I feel like CFM & DT specifically would make for really bad partners in business, and I'd expect a lot of communication problems between the two and that ( let's say ) CFM & Techno-Speech would more likely result in smoother partnership.

edit: lengthy way of saying that CFM & DT are my NOTP /j

 

[Infoholic]

CeVIO > SynthV as a program

SynthV might have the upperhand in terms of "engine noise", but the workflow, lag, and general lack of intuitiveness in SynthV's UI doesn't even compare to CeVIO's workflow. Miles more stable and enjoyable to use

 

[Leon]

I don't necessarily want/need the Cryptons on SV, but I do think AI could be a cool option, and I am bummed by the current slow progress on Piapro NT. Not that it's not making progress, but I was hoping/expecting to at least have a demo of some of the other Cryptons by now. I'm not terribly into the Sekai songs we've heard using their prototype NT banks, either. Most of them seem quite... thin. So even though I understand why Crypton made their move to NT and support them being independent, I'm a little disappointed with it and totally understand how people could hear some really nice sounding SVs and go "man i wish my favorite crypton were on this engine!"

 

[AmazingStrange39]

So I know this will be very unpopular, so sorry in advance, but I find all the popular western producers to be relatively overrated. I like Circus because he's a nice guy and I like some of his music, so I'm going to exclude him from this for the most part.

Crusher is so edgy it hurts. I would prefer if she did more songs like OBEY, because that was actually cool. (To be fair, I haven't checked on her in a long time, so she could've changed her genres or whatever) Alsoalso, can anyone tell me what on earth happened between her and Circus? Because I'm still sort of lost lol.

Ghost has the same issue as Crusher, but his/her songs just sound like noise. I can appreciate the fact that there is storylines in their songs, but can we please relax with everyone being insane...? It just... began to grate on my nerves.

Circus' music is exactly how he sells it: overly-emotional. His music is either one of two things: super edgy or super depressing. But I like his older stuff and his newest album, so it's not all bad for me.

CreeP is just... I don't even know what going on with that producer but they truly scare me. I choose not to listen to any of their music, but the topics they discuss are just so... why? does that need to be sung about?


KIRA (is he western?) just sounds like pop music, which is fine, but boring.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but these are the ones I see most often. I'm not saying anyone should stop listening to them or whatever, these are just my personal opinions (so please don't attack me because I've already been through that)

*Inhales* MJQ.

Does Filipino count as Western? He does make songs in English...

 

[AmazingStrange39]

I'm an American producer who has English Vocaloids that all have strong very-much-not-American accents xP

I dunno. Miku's Japanese accent, AVANNA's Irish accent and SONiKA's British accent are all very appealing to me. Of the American Vocaloids my first choices would probably be Dex and/or Ruby though. Maybe Cyber Diva/Songman...