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CeVIO CeVIO AI RIME

pico

robot enjoyer
Sep 10, 2020
528
There are some that have been ignoring that, (and I've only seen comments saying, "I'm just going to do what I want anyway" in english) but I think most are... I remember most of the controversy in the english-speaking realm being about the choice of voice type B, more than the later TOS clause. In my opinion, it's good and positive that KAMITSUBAKI listened to the vocalist and rallied with her concerns instead of just going, "sorry, this is our musical instrument product, your agency as a human being is no longer relevant here." I thought the TOS change was more of a victory for the young artist than a disappointing restriction or failure.

I started out as one of the people that was very bummed about the TOS restriction and choice of the B voice type, but my opinion changed after listening to a lot of compelling songs and I put some thought into how mainplace AI technology is becoming in our world. It is so important to "remember the human", because in so many cases, this sort of technology is being developed without ethics, or consequences, in mind, because at least in the United States, on the whole, computer scientists and engineers are not educated on the social scientists or ethics (speaking as an electrical engineering/robotics/ai student) relevant to their jobs, despite it possibly being the most important in the short term for them to have a firm grasp on these things. At this time, I do think singing AI technology is mostly inconsequential in the way we as a community interact with it, but it is still worth thinking about.

I think it's okay for vocalists to make the distinction between "I like VOCALOID and singing synths, but I don't want my voice to be 'cloned'", "I like VOCALOID and singing synths, and I'm okay with my voice being closely mirrored in technology", and "I'm playing a character, so it's fine". Part of growing alongside this frontier of technology is being welcoming to, and acknowledging, the numerous ways different people will react and respond to the same piece of technology.
 
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lIlI

Staff member
Moderator
Apr 6, 2018
843
The Lightning Strike
There are some that have been ignoring that, (and I've only seen comments saying, "I'm just going to do what I want anyway" in english) but I think most are... I remember most of the controversy in the english-speaking realm being about the choice of voice type B, more than the later TOS clause. In my opinion, it's good and positive that KAMITSUBAKI listened to the vocalist and rallied with her concerns instead of just going, "sorry, this is our musical instrument product, your agency as a human being is no longer relevant here." I thought the TOS change was more of a victory for the young artist than a disappointing restriction or failure.
I started out as one of the people that was very bummed about the TOS restriction and choice of the B voice type, but my opinion changed after listening to a lot of compelling songs and I put some thought into how mainplace AI technology is becoming in our world. It is so important to "remember the human", because in so many cases, this sort of technology is being developed without ethics, or consequences, in mind, because at least in the United States, on the whole, computer scientists and engineers are not educated on the social scientists or ethics (speaking as an electrical engineering/robotics/ai student) relevant to their jobs, despite it possibly being the most important in the short term for them to have a firm grasp on these things. At this time, I do think singing AI technology is mostly inconsequential in the way we as a community interact with it, but it is still worth thinking about.

I think it's okay for vocalists to make the distinction between "I like VOCALOID and singing synths, but I don't want my voice to be 'cloned'", "I like VOCALOID and singing synths, and I'm okay with my voice being closely mirrored in technology", and "I'm playing a character, so it's fine". Part of growing alongside this frontier of technology is being welcoming to, and acknowledging, the numerous ways different people will react and respond to the same piece of technology.
I think this is a really thoughtful and nuanced perspective on the topic. Although most of us would be very happy to voice a vocal synth; not everyone has the special passion and nostalgia for the technology that we do. Considering whether or not you want to give corporations and the public total power over your voice, especially at a young age, is very important. It's a personal choice with no wrong answer.

On the matter of Rime and Kafu's visual similarity, for me it boils down to their hair. :kyo_lili: Looking closely at their outfits, they really are quite different: but having hairstyles of the same length and colour makes them easy to mistake for each other. Remembering whether or not it's the same person in a different outfit requires memorising who has which hair piece, definitely a unique - but risky - character design decision.
 

Tortoiseshel

Aspiring Fan
Aug 23, 2021
54
On the matter of Rime and Kafu's visual similarity, for me it boils down to their hair. :kyo_lili: Looking closely at their outfits, they really are quite different: but having hairstyles of the same length and colour makes them easy to mistake for each other. Remembering whether or not it's the same person in a different outfit requires memorising who has which hair piece, definitely a unique - but risky - character design decision.
Yeah this is it for me. I've seen the original Kaf and Rim character designs and it's a lot easier to tell them apart thanks to their color schemes. But that's also the single most distinguishing feature between them, so when you take that away and give them nearly identical monochromatic palettes, even the inverted black and white parts or the red/yellow accents aren't enough to make them stand out in my opinion.

Anyway none of this is to say they're like, bad designs or anything. I was mostly just confused why we're getting such similar products like this. Plus I just like talking about character designs :]

The isotope girls are basically stage personas for singers signed to KAMITSUBAKI STUDIO. There are quite a few of them, but this quintet that is getting CeVIO banks is their most popular group of singers that they've sometimes teamed up as a single unit under the "Virtual Witch Project" name.

There is some lore associated with all of the characters, and there's even a small game produced featuring the VWP singers.

I think what is more interesting to VOCALOID fans is that KAMITSUBAKI signs vocaloid producers to produce the albums for their singers. Kenzaki Iori produced both of KAF's albums, and after their release, they invited loads and loads of vocaloid producers to cover every song from each album. Basically, for these characters, the target audience is the very people that are already interested in vocal synths, which might explain why KAFU's popularity was so explosive. It also helps that the singers themselves, KAF in particular, have done well for themselves and garnered pretty wide appeal as far as "virtual singers" go. I don't know much else about KAMITSUBAKI itself, but I did really enjoy the remix albums in particular.
This is very interesting though, thank you for the little run down! Them being kinda Vocaloid-adjacent in a way does make the CeVIO project make more sense to me now.

(...Honestly, me being such a big fan of Alice Cooper, I probably should be able to grasp the Performer-Character Dichotomy a bit better than this... :ring_ani_lili:)

Rime reminds me of Type A Kafu from the survey so honestly I’m A-OK with this “twin“ situation :teto_lili: I know it’s not impossible to get Kafu herself to sound like that (at least with outside editing), but as far as I can judge without access to either bank, it seems it’ll be a lot easier to get Rime to sound the way I’d want her to than Kafu, so her voice isn’t totally useless in my opinion.
I totally forgot about that whole Type A vs. Type B situation, that's actually a pretty good point.
 

AmazingStrange39

Miku-Avanna-Gumi enthusiast
May 23, 2019
288
The isotope girls are basically stage personas for singers signed to KAMITSUBAKI STUDIO. There are quite a few of them, but this quintet that is getting CeVIO banks is their most popular group of singers that they've sometimes teamed up as a single unit under the "Virtual Witch Project" name.

There is some lore associated with all of the characters, and there's even a small game produced featuring the VWP singers.

I think what is more interesting to VOCALOID fans is that KAMITSUBAKI signs vocaloid producers to produce the albums for their singers. Kenzaki Iori produced both of KAF's albums, and after their release, they invited loads and loads of vocaloid producers to cover every song from each album. Basically, for these characters, the target audience is the very people that are already interested in vocal synths, which might explain why KAFU's popularity was so explosive. It also helps that the singers themselves, KAF in particular, have done well for themselves and garnered pretty wide appeal as far as "virtual singers" go. I don't know much else about KAMITSUBAKI itself, but I did really enjoy the remix albums in particular.

I hear and echo everyone's complaints about RIME and KAFU sounding too similar to each other, but I'm not sure I think their visuals are as similar as many have said. Both singers' designs have always been echoes/parallels of each other, and I think the designer did a good job of keeping their visual motifs similar while differentiating the color schemes, silhouettes, and costumes of the characters.

COKO and HARU should stand out the same way SEKAI stands out relative to KAFU and RIME, because despite all of them collaborating as VWP, RIM and KAF were the only vocalists intended to have the same motif/parallels.

EDIT: Here are the designs side by side. Extremely low quality image, lol. But it is late. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I really do think many have been too harsh on these two designs in particular.
View attachment 6928
I like how KAFU and RIME share black and white, with inverted schemes, and they both have a contrasting color (red for RIME, yellow for KAFU). KAFU has a more chunky, extraterrestrial design while RIME's is more refined and incorperates those elements more like modern fashion. I really do think this is clever character design! I dunno!
I was gonna say "Kafu is rounder" but you got to that already, haha. Her hair is also rounder though.

Also, expression-wise RIME looks serious and determined and KAFU looks more...shy?

But the idea that they're sisters or something might be pretty funky
 
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AmazingStrange39

Miku-Avanna-Gumi enthusiast
May 23, 2019
288
External formant shifting is also against KAFU's TOS, so there's that peace of mind too. Which is good!
I thought you said "extreme" and I was like "YOU CAN'T TURN HER ALPHA ALL THE WAY UP?"

I only have Chis-A so I guess I wouldn't know. But I'm a bit relieved you said "external", because KAFU does sound cool with alpha up.
 
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aru ii

Your Neighborhood Tianyi Enthusiast!
Feb 12, 2021
1,010
VOCALOID4 Editor
I was gonna say "Kafu is rounder" but you got to that already, haha. Her hair is also rounder though.

Also, expression-wise RIME looks serious and determined and KAFU looks more...shy?

But the idea that they're sisters or something might be pretty funky
Kafu and Rime are like alteregos of Kaf and Rim. who are like... reflections of each other? SO i guess that Kafu and Rime are too reflections of each other
 

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