General Discussion Thread

[Granata]

Did they also announce her for Millefeuille?
Asking because I saw nothing but considering the timing, that the second song you sent is by the same person who made Luther's demo and that both parties would profit from it, it seems likely

 

[lIlI]

I'm not sure, but I know UtauFrance is organising both, and they're all together on their website

 

[morrysillusion]

idk if there is a general thread for the company but Eclipsed Sounds finished migrating their website, its a whole new look.

https://eclipsedsounds.com

mostly wanted to point out some of the gorgeous new artwork lol...

 

[lIlI]

In their blog they said their next batch of vocalists would be genre-focused - it would be swag if they did the art in styles that matched e.g. Vintage American illustration style for a country singer (like Leyendecker), an opera singer with a classic oil painted portrait, a robotic electronic voice with something neon and glitched out, a horrifying Geiger-esque black metal singer... But I'm most interested to see what genres they tackle!

 

[wrong_thyme]

In their blog they said their next batch of vocalists would be genre-focused - it would be swag if they did the art in styles that matched e.g. Vintage American illustration style for a country singer (like Leyendecker), an opera singer with a classic oil painted portrait, a robotic electronic voice with something neon and glitched out, a horrifying Geiger-esque black metal singer... But I'm most interested to see what genres they tackle!

omg don't give me such high hopes, now i'm gonna be disappointed when that doesn't happen exactly asfdgacdsbh

 

[MagicalMiku]

report about Miku charity project during Snow Miku 2024

First of all, we would like to express our deepest sympathies to everyone who was affected by the earthquake that occurred mainly in the Noto Peninsula.

Crypton Future Media Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Sapporo, Hokkaido, Representative Director: Hiroyuki Ito) will be working on the reconstruction project of the Noto Peninsula Earthquake of 2024. For the purpose of support, we have been developing the recovery support project "HATSUNE MIKU CHARITY PROJECT" (commonly known as Miku Charity Project).
*The project was originally scheduled to run until the end of February, but the period has been extended to March 20th (Wednesday).

We would like to inform you that we have donated 3,259,828 yen, which is a portion of the sales of our own services, and the donations (229,828 yen) we received from everyone for this project. We pray for the earliest possible recovery of the disaster-stricken areas, and would like to express our deepest gratitude to everyone who cooperated.

[“HATSUNE MIKU CHARITY PROJECT” activity report]

Total donation amount: 3,259,828 yen
Target period: January 11, 2024 (Thursday) to March 20, 2024 (Wednesday)

■Donated a portion of the sales of the following eligible services

-Snow Miku Sky Town ( including online store )
-KARENT , Vocaloid music label
- SONICWIRE, a download sales site for products related to “sound”
- “SNOW MIKU 2024” official product sales (event venue sales)

■Set up a donation box below and donated the entire amount

-Snow Miku Sky Town (New Chitose Airport Terminal Building 4F)
- “SNOW MIKU 2024” Wing Bay Otaru venue Domingo booth　*February 10th (Sat) and February 11th (Sunday/Holiday)

 

[lIlI]

Along with her Vocaloid and SynthV voicebanks, Gumi's getting a new A.I. Voice too! Hey, why not right? Now she just needs a CeVIO...

 

[lIlI]

Recently a Twitter user compiled a chart of the most used vocal synths over the last 3 months:


We don't have any equivalent data to compare this to, but it's interesting to look at it next to the Top 10 stats we had from this year's first Vocacolle!

See more

beautiful charts by me

VOCACOLLE WINTER 23/24

Last 3 Months

The biggest surprises here are Kaito and Meiko returning to a level of popularity they haven't seen in a very long time. My theory is that, if it's not due to a small group of dedicated fans posting a lot, their SP voicebanks combined with Project Sekai have increased their interest and accessibility.

Another big new entry is Miyamai Moca. I speculate that this is helped by her existing talk voicebank, and vocal modes capable of achieving two very popular singing styles - Ado-like power and idol-cuteness. Teto drastically increased the number of Japanese producers who own and know how to use SynthV, which will also open up a lot of buyers to her.

It's unclear to me whether Kafu has lost popularity, or if Teto has simply bought in a large number of new producers. Either way, Kafu's significantly less dominant now. One thing I find interesting is that Teto's songs mostly use her design, whereas Kafu's use OCs. Is the era of vocal synth mascot-focused PVs returning?

 

[InstallGentoo]

Might be just polling/observation method caused different results. I don't really know what these numbers mean? Songs from where? Where did Vocacolle get it's numbers? does it have numbers, I just see percentages.

 

[lIlI]

The stats pull from the number of new tracks tagged with each vocal synth on NicoNicoDouga, one from the period of Vocacolle in February, one from the last 3 months! You can see the numbers in the original tweet, and here.

 

[___]

Hi! Dusting off my account to clear some things up about this graph because I've seen it get spread around a lot and I feel like it's bit misunderstood.

This graph only tells us how many videos were posted to Nico over the span of 3 months, nothing more, nothing less. I don't recommend this graph as a reference to gauge a vsynth's popularity and impact.

The biggest pitfall of the method OP used is exclusively going off of video amount, not tallying in view count. This method is susceptible to spam warping the end results.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it a spam, but there's been an user on Nico, who's posted hundredths worth of covers of several vsynth characters, no exaggeration. They don't get a lot of engagement yet they add up in the graph and bump certain vsynths up in it. Notably Piko who was suspiciously high but also Kaito and Meiko too, probably explaining how they ended up so high. Regardless, it does not represent their influence and impact.

 

[lIlI]

While one singular statistic can never perfectly represent every factor behind a phenomenon, I think they still give a good indication of trends within producers - much better than we can achieve with anecdotal evidence. While people have gone overboard looking at minor differences lower down in the rankings and treating it as conclusive evidence of popularity, I think it would be an overcorrection to disregard the graph altogether: rather it should be treated as a piece of the puzzle! Ignoring small changes that can be influenced by fluke events, this graph accurately reflects several things we've observed in the past year: in particular Kafu giving way to Teto as the second-most trendy vocal synth.

I've been thinking more about trends in who Japanese producers like to use - is vFlower and Yuki's time in the limelight fading? While I'm certain they'll keep a dedicated group of fans, I haven't seen as many hits featuring them as of late.

Of course, while this is about usage, there is another type of popularity in vocal synths: non-musical fandom. In terms of fanart and character love, Miku felt like the only vocal synth big enough to be considered an icon outside of her existence as music software. But now, I think Teto can be given the same title. Looking at social media, people come to her for more than just catchy songs; she has developed into an idol in her own right. I think she and Miku make a good contrasting pair, so this is pretty cool.

 

[MagicalMiku]

hi hiiiii ^u^
sooo nice to hear you again after long time, that's so nice!!!
and yes you're totally correct about the graph and the usage stats that are about NicoNico. If one was about to make a deeper research about a Vsynth popularity, should take stats from not only NicoNico videos and artworks (in the last 12 months at least), but also Twitter posts, pixiv artworks, piapro arts and songs uploaded, topics on 2ch, official companies blog posts and goods released on shops and prize arcades ^-^
take care!!

 

[___]

While people have gone overboard looking at minor differences lower down in the rankings and treating it as conclusive evidence of popularity, I think it would be an overcorrection to disregard the graph altogether: rather it should be treated as a piece of the puzzle! Ignoring small changes that can be influenced by fluke events, this graph accurately reflects several things we've observed in the past year: in particular Kafu giving way to Teto as the second-most trendy vocal synth.

Just quickly glancing at Kaito for example, there's at least 200-something covers made by the aforementioned person that were posted in the span of this research, they alone contribute 20-30% of Kaito content posted in said span of time. This is disregarding other low engagement videos which would further more accurately reflect Kaito's ranking if said engagement was weighted in.

The shortcomings of this method are observable on a character that was ranked as high as 4th place which I don't think is insignificant.

hi hiiiii ^u^
sooo nice to hear you again after long time, that's so nice!!!
and yes you're totally correct about the graph and the usage stats that are about NicoNico. If one was about to make a deeper research about a Vsynth popularity, should take stats from not only NicoNico videos and artworks (in the last 12 months at least), but also Twitter posts, pixiv artworks, piapro arts and songs uploaded, topics on 2ch, official companies blog posts and goods released on shops and prize arcades ^-^
take care!!

you're a real one!

would be really neat to see such deeper research!

 

[InstallGentoo]

So I going to make some assumptions, I'm going to assume the output of Vocacolle chart is same rate as the one presented by dqe_d7, that would mean producers havn't actually increased output for Teto and cut NND videos featuring Miku by 20 percent. I don't know if this is bad or not for Miku. I havn't guaged the quality of the 5000 29% this quarterly vs. the 10,000 the previous years quarterly. I'm guessing it peaked because of Miku's 16th anniversary. I'm hoping next year isn't going to be 2500, then 1250 and so on, but if it is I hope stuff that does come out for her is fresh, new, and or polished. But I realized the Vocachart is incomplete in comparison to dqe and may have actually included more songs and vocal synths and it's not as dire a situation as I think.
NND was down for majority of the year wasn't it? wasn't that a factor that could have contributed to the results of the latest chart?

 

[Midori]

Recently a Twitter user compiled a chart of the most used vocal synths over the last 3 months:


We don't have any equivalent data to compare this to, but it's interesting to look at it next to the Top 10 stats we had from this year's first Vocacolle!

See more

beautiful charts by me

VOCACOLLE WINTER 23/24

Last 3 Months

The biggest surprises here are Kaito and Meiko returning to a level of popularity they haven't seen in a very long time. My theory is that, if it's not due to a small group of dedicated fans posting a lot, their SP voicebanks combined with Project Sekai have increased their interest and accessibility.

Another big new entry is Miyamai Moca. I speculate that this is helped by her existing talk voicebank, and vocal modes capable of achieving two very popular singing styles - Ado-like power and idol-cuteness. Teto drastically increased the number of Japanese producers who own and know how to use SynthV, which will also open up a lot of buyers to her.

It's unclear to me whether Kafu has lost popularity, or if Teto has simply bought in a large number of new producers. Either way, Kafu's significantly less dominant now. One thing I find interesting is that Teto's songs mostly use her design, whereas Kafu's use OCs. Is the era of vocal synth mascot-focused PVs returning?

Luka's higher than I thought she would be but I still feel like not enough producers are using her nowadays. The superpack didn't help her at all. Curse you Crypton!!

 

[Blue Of Mind]

Luka's higher than I thought she would be but I still feel like not enough producers are using her nowadays. The superpack didn't help her at all.

Considering how much her voice was botched in Superpack, I'm not surprised there hasn't been a strong uptick in Luka usage.

 

[Midori]

Considering how much her voice was botched in Superpack, I'm not surprised there hasn't been a strong uptick in Luka usage.

Exactly, which is why I'm mad at Crypton. Luka was successful because of her mature sounding voice but they turned her into a Miku clone. If producers want a cutesy voice in the superpack then they'll use Miku or Rin.

 

[InstallGentoo]

wait, why is luka 2%? I imagine her to be more popular? I think it's more of a marketing than a quality thing for Luka.

 

[MagicalMiku]

because that's only a chart of NicoNico uploads from mid-August to mid-November, that's it. As I wrote in the previous message, to check a character popularity NicoNico is not enough, you should check the number of Twitter posts, Pixiv artworks, Piapro songs/artworks, and goods releases. In fact, Luka got various goods in this period thanks to Magical Mirai and some SEGA figures and plushies. Also, during summer there was the NicoNico outage (for a couple of months), and while it's true there was the SuperPack release, I think most Luka producers are waiting for her anniversary to release new songs and albums (and when there will be a Luka V6/NT2, you can be sure there will be more and more songs)
for example:

[グッズ]初音ミクシリーズ　巡音ルカ　ふわぷち　どでかジャンボぬいぐるみ｜セガプラザ

[グッズ]初音ミクシリーズ　巡音ルカ　ふわぷち　どでかジャンボぬいぐるみ

segaplaza.jp

初音ミク　ふわぷち　Preciality　ミニぬいぐるみ“巡音ルカ”｜セガプラザ

セガオリジナル“Preciality（プレシャリティ）”のリボンをつけた“ふわぷち”デザインのミニぬいぐるみが登場！

segaplaza.jp

初音ミクシリーズ　ふわぷち　ぬいぐるみ“鏡音リン&鏡音レン&巡音ルカ”｜セガプラザ

「初音ミクシリーズ」から、持ち歩きやすいサイズのぬいぐるみが登場です！

segaplaza.jp

初音ミクシリーズ　Luminasta　“巡音ルカ”｜セガプラザ

「巡音ルカ」15周年を記念して、「藻」さん描き下ろしの可愛らしい「巡音ルカ」のフィギュアが登場です！ブーケをイメージした華やかな衣装にご注目ください！

segaplaza.jp

初音ミク Project DIVA Arcade Future Tone　スーパープレミアムフィギュア“巡音ルカ-アムール”｜セガプラザ

「一葉モカ」さんデザインで大人気「巡音ルカ」のモジュール「アムール」が再登場です！

segaplaza.jp

初音ミクシリーズ　ふわぷち　ぬいぐるみ“巡音ルカ15th Ver.”｜セガプラザ

巡音ルカ15周年を記念して、オリジナルのお祝い衣装を着た「巡音ルカ」「初音ミク」に加え「たこルカ」が登場です！

segaplaza.jp