I think it's just that the fandom has a bad image as being overly negative, so people are trying to be as optimitstic as possible? But I would advise caution as with any new engine release
Unpopular Opinions
- Thread starter TheStarPalace
- Start date
I think people want to support their friends, optimistically encourage development in the community, and root for things that are trying to bring to them what they want to see. There are plenty of folks out there, that love the announced and teased vocals, and therefore are excited about a project that promises to bring that to them.
Where communication breaks down I think has more to do with the condition of the internet as a social space. By hyping them up are you "blindly supporting them" or just being positive? By pointing out inadequacies and inconsistencies, are you productively contributing to the discussion or are you being a "hater"?
I agree with Blue that it is somewhat of a popular opinion here because many of us are old. Old in the sense of... internet exposure, of course. You see the same kinds of stories, the same kinds of people, and the same kinds of events play out over and over again over the years. But hopefully everyone can take a step back and appreciate both deserved positivity, and deserved questioning. (And hopefully abstain from wanton dunking-on and incredulous hype alike.)
Where communication breaks down I think has more to do with the condition of the internet as a social space. By hyping them up are you "blindly supporting them" or just being positive? By pointing out inadequacies and inconsistencies, are you productively contributing to the discussion or are you being a "hater"?
I agree with Blue that it is somewhat of a popular opinion here because many of us are old. Old in the sense of... internet exposure, of course. You see the same kinds of stories, the same kinds of people, and the same kinds of events play out over and over again over the years. But hopefully everyone can take a step back and appreciate both deserved positivity, and deserved questioning. (And hopefully abstain from wanton dunking-on and incredulous hype alike.)
Ah yeah, I'd looked around to get a feel for the vibe here and hadn't found that much mention, but I feel a little less insane knowing it's not
But yeah, on Twitter/bluesky I've only seen positivity about it, and it's been mind blowing as an oldhead returning to the fandom to see people are like that when it's been so long since they started.
(also man I wish I'd found this forum sooner, I begrudgingly got my first Twitter because I thought that's the only place I'd find the fandom now)
In my opinion it’s always been hard to get invested in or fangirl over synthV and sometimes CeVIO voicebanks. Mainly because their designs are too complicated and are forgettable. They have great voices but the overly complex design can be kind of intimidating(?) I don’t know any other way to put it.
I think KAFU kind of sucks. Her voice way too high pitched and can be ear shattering. Like in Cute Girlfriend, the song is good but KAFU’s voice gets so high I can’t listen to it without getting a headache. Her voice is softer and less piercing in Kyu Kurarin but there are still parts where her voice gets too high.
I think shipping vocal synths is weird. You’re shipping the mascots of two computer voices. That’s like shipping Mr.Peanut with the Michelin Man.
I think KAFU kind of sucks. Her voice way too high pitched and can be ear shattering. Like in Cute Girlfriend, the song is good but KAFU’s voice gets so high I can’t listen to it without getting a headache. Her voice is softer and less piercing in Kyu Kurarin but there are still parts where her voice gets too high.
I think shipping vocal synths is weird. You’re shipping the mascots of two computer voices. That’s like shipping Mr.Peanut with the Michelin Man.
re kafu being used super high range that it hurts-- in a related opinion, i absolutely hate in general when this happens with voices. its not uncommon and was/is a HUGE problem with v flower. it sucks bc i love her but theres so many producers who push her into a screechy high range, and i know that also puts people off on her voice! she is already a "harsh" sound, that it seriously just can sound so bad, especially when people leave her "untuned". and a song like "mesmerizer" is one in that category too for another voice(s), i like the song just fine and i did get used to how they used the high range (and i admittedly cant imagine it any other way, i tried a cover w low range but it did feel wrong lol) but oof is can be a bit grating at times!
I love western vocal synth music, but one of my pet peeves with it is the overuse imo of cliches and common phrases/idioms/whichamacallits in the lyrics, like
- "Misery loves company" (examples: Misery Loves Company, Burn So Bright)
- "Above and beyond" (examples: Above and Beyond, Stir Crazy)
- "You are what you eat" (example: Appetite of a People-Pleaser (I understand its usage here, but its placement feels to me like explaining the metaphor))
Japanese music uses idioms too. If you don't speak Japanese, you wouldn't notice though.
Interesting, I didn't know that (I don't speak Japanese to begin with, I just know some words and how to pronounce hiragana and katakana).
3 main things. (at least for synthV)
-The majority of the voices are very high quality, but not very memorable or distinguished from one another. The most popular voicebanks right now are the ones that have a lot of inherent character. I can open up a Teto, Adachi Rei, Kaai Yuki or Zundamon song and instantly know who that is. Meanwhile there's a lot of SV voices that would be hard to distinguish if you were listening to them blind.
Case in point:
Later in the video he plays the voices next to each other, and while there is a noticable difference between the voices themselves, if you asked me to tell you which voice belonged to who without looking, i couldnt tell you. Maybe this wouldnt be the case for someone who works with SV regularly, (which i dont) but what do you guys think?
-Not a lot of SynthV voices have designs, but i think the majority of synthV voices that do have pretty fine designs. I think the one's you're probably thinking of are the Eclipsed Sounds vocals, but even those designs can be simplified into less detailed versions for more simpler artstyles. Having a design is definitely better than not having one at all. I think the more pressing issue is that not every character gets utilized well, which ties into my last point:
-Even if you have a very good voice and character design, it doesnt mean much if the fandom doesnt use them. On both the EN and JP side of the fandoms, what REALLY makes or breaks whether or not your voicebank succeeds is whether or not it gets a really popular usage. For example, Kaai Yuki was a more obscure character with a cult following for years and it pretty much stayed that way until Lagtrain and Kyofuu All Back happened. Now she's everywhere. Having a really popular song that not only is a very good usage of the voicebank but also establishes a sort of "fanon canon intepretation" of their character is what really gets those fangirl gears turning more than anything else. This is probably THE most important factor in a voicebank's success.
So to summarize, you not only have to make a HQ vocal, but also one that is very memorable, have a good and memorable character design, AND you have to hope and pray the fandom doesn't sleep on your vocal. A very tall order indeed. I think the main thing to keep in mind if you're making a vocal is that youre not just selling a vocal to the fandom, you're selling a vocalist. You're not just selling the rights to use their voice, but selling the rights to work with a virtual character.
Oh, and also the fact that there's so many vocsynth platforms other than Vocaloid now also makes it harder to keep up with new releases. Gone are the days where you could just check Vocaloid Wiki to see when new voices were coming out. Having to check multiple platforms and the fact that they release stuff so fast now makes it much harder to get hype for new stuff.
Anyways sorry im done yapping now lol
Kevin is a very notable exception haha
He might just be a K (in canon) but his voice has tons of character and he's beloved by fans!
Great point. Kevin is a great example of this phenomenon. Kevin doesnt really have a design, and despite not having any super viral originals (that i know of), the fandom loves him. Why? Because his voice is very memorable, and he fits very well into a character archetype. That one person ( i forget their name sorry) making that stick figure design of him i believe was singlehandedly responsible for him being as popular as he was. Which ties into my point that having one really good usage can really determine how successful a vocal is, even if they dont have an official character design.
Yeah. Like, they're marketing Natalie like crazy but she doesn't feel as memorable or as borderline character-like
This does not only apply to Dreamtonics but they are a good example: We're at a point where we don't need that many characters anymore. But instead companies should promote their less selling products
How many alphabet soup characters do we have? How many are actually relevant outside of maybe one hit song? Only Saki, Ryo, Kevin, Yuma and Mai. There are voices like Weina, Sheena or Hayden where I see a lot of potential in if they would've gotten proper promotion and not just one random ass demo song posted
Especially in times where some old characters get updated you can observe how the fandom gives more attention to faces they are already familiar with. A prime recent example is how much ppl were happy that UNI got an update compared to how much attention Korean content normally gets. Gekiyaku and Kazehiki were by far the most popular voices in Beta studio because a large portion of the fandom were already familar with the characters. I've also seen a lot of positivity for the Kotonoha sisters V6 update
I'm not saying we don't need new characters at all. In fact there were characters who succeeded: The Tokyo6 girls, Kamitsubaki girls, Miyamai Moca or Chis-A. But what do they all have in common: proper promotion
So yeah less new characters but proper promotion for already existing ones would be better these days
How many alphabet soup characters do we have? How many are actually relevant outside of maybe one hit song? Only Saki, Ryo, Kevin, Yuma and Mai. There are voices like Weina, Sheena or Hayden where I see a lot of potential in if they would've gotten proper promotion and not just one random ass demo song posted
Especially in times where some old characters get updated you can observe how the fandom gives more attention to faces they are already familiar with. A prime recent example is how much ppl were happy that UNI got an update compared to how much attention Korean content normally gets. Gekiyaku and Kazehiki were by far the most popular voices in Beta studio because a large portion of the fandom were already familar with the characters. I've also seen a lot of positivity for the Kotonoha sisters V6 update
I'm not saying we don't need new characters at all. In fact there were characters who succeeded: The Tokyo6 girls, Kamitsubaki girls, Miyamai Moca or Chis-A. But what do they all have in common: proper promotion
So yeah less new characters but proper promotion for already existing ones would be better these days
I think there's something to be said for the value of continuing investment and promotion on vocals. Ideally, these companies want 'fanon' to take hold and for the character investment to subsist on itself. At the same time though, in a highly saturated market, demonstration of continued investment on the part of the developer can mean a lot for a product.
When KAFU came out, occasionally I would see the sentiment that her hype was manufactured because KAMITSUBAKI commissioned so many artists to produce promotional albums over the first few years, but I don't know-- I thought that was cool. Aside from being a demonstration of commitment to the vocal, rather than releasing her, capitalizing on the short-term hype and letting her die, they continually invested in the character's image and built up her ensemble.
I do think much of the market has sort of always had a mindset of "release a VB, capitalize short term, move onto the next", so I would also like to see a demonstration of more commitment on some released products, as they come out. Sometimes products don't land and I think it's OK to let them go, no point pouring money into a hole, but in general, I think this is a positive and good perspective to want the products to have more staying power.
However, I gotta say that I think looping the Dreamtonics VBs in with the rest of the group doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's very clear that Dreamtonics is not in the business of creating "characters". The metric for longevity on a "Dreamtonics vocal" is inherently going to be very different than a "character vocal". The professional market is not really so much in the business of releasing songs in the way the vocaloid scene does. They are not overwhelmingly using this tool by releasing "X song starring Kevin". Instead they are using it to produce demo tracks, create choruses, and experiment with vocals in the loop. Therefore, the persistent generation of additional vocals there makes sense because it allows the end-user to browse the library and quickly identify whatever vocal suits the intended style.
As vocaloid scene fans, we sometimes adopt these professional-market products and take them under our wing, but they're not "for" us, so using the same metric for them that we use for AHS products for instance I think is unlikely to lead to satisfying answers.
When KAFU came out, occasionally I would see the sentiment that her hype was manufactured because KAMITSUBAKI commissioned so many artists to produce promotional albums over the first few years, but I don't know-- I thought that was cool. Aside from being a demonstration of commitment to the vocal, rather than releasing her, capitalizing on the short-term hype and letting her die, they continually invested in the character's image and built up her ensemble.
I do think much of the market has sort of always had a mindset of "release a VB, capitalize short term, move onto the next", so I would also like to see a demonstration of more commitment on some released products, as they come out. Sometimes products don't land and I think it's OK to let them go, no point pouring money into a hole, but in general, I think this is a positive and good perspective to want the products to have more staying power.
However, I gotta say that I think looping the Dreamtonics VBs in with the rest of the group doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's very clear that Dreamtonics is not in the business of creating "characters". The metric for longevity on a "Dreamtonics vocal" is inherently going to be very different than a "character vocal". The professional market is not really so much in the business of releasing songs in the way the vocaloid scene does. They are not overwhelmingly using this tool by releasing "X song starring Kevin". Instead they are using it to produce demo tracks, create choruses, and experiment with vocals in the loop. Therefore, the persistent generation of additional vocals there makes sense because it allows the end-user to browse the library and quickly identify whatever vocal suits the intended style.
As vocaloid scene fans, we sometimes adopt these professional-market products and take them under our wing, but they're not "for" us, so using the same metric for them that we use for AHS products for instance I think is unlikely to lead to satisfying answers.
Techno-Speech makes little comics for their first-party VoiSona vbs and I think it's one reason that I love those characters so much (aside from just...really really really liking MYK-IV). They actually use their characters in ways that aren't "Here's the release. Now go use product".
It definitely makes them more memorable for me than the Dreamtonics vocals.
Yes, I loved those! I loved the Isotope comics too. It made me really happy that they hired minotake to do it, since they had been making very good general vocal synth art for a long time.
"Well known engine" "VoiSona"
I was with you until you said VoiSona. Maybe like...ONE voicebank is well known from it, and that's Chis-A.
I'd rather more people use the not-as-well known voicebanks on those engines, rather than the super well known voicebanks (though I completely understand why they do).
i thought voisona was up and coming and rising in popularity... i was going to say cevio originally when i posted this but i didn't know whether that was well known enough or not
but isn't flower and zundamon on the voisona engine, that's why i thought it was worth the mention at least at first...
It is up and coming, but compared to Vocaloid, UTAU, CeVIO and SV? Nah. It's still pretty niche. And like I said, Chis-A and maybe one or two other voicebanks (Selena, for example) have ever been popular enough to be known within the wider fandom.
Flower and Zundamon are there because they're on CeVIO, and VS has compatibility with CeVIO vbs.