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WyndReed
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  • Long covid sleep problems are so awful. I’m hoping once my doc gives me an alpha blocker that it’ll help since I won’t have as much norepinephrine in my system all day. Between the french fried nervous system and not being able to eat many foods anymore, I am so over long covid.
    I think my main issue with AI synths and some of the culture surrounding them is that, to me, when someone uses an AI synth it really becomes about the way the software/creators envisioned the voice/character, but with a non-AI synth it becomes more about how the user envisions the voice/character. Maybe it’s just some toxic Synth V fans, but it’s almost like AI is bringing us back to the early Vocaloid days, when there was less focus on the musicians and more on the characters. Just my two cents.
    • Like
    Reactions: Blue Of Mind
    pico
    pico
    (2/3) Here are some articles that made me feel positively about how AI synths and especially characters influence creativity in the vocaloid space.

    This interview (officially English translated by Yamaha!) with syudou talks about syudou's very sincere passion for Hatsune Miku, the character. I don't think anyone would claim syudou makes very character-focused songs, and I don't think anyone would argue that syudou's vocaloid music is "about Miku" or anything like that, but he still argues that he thinks what people should do is get very emotionally invested in character when they make Vocaloid music.

    In this interview with natalie.mu, PIEDPIPER, who created KAMITSUBAKI and is in charge of the Musical Isotope project (KAFU, SEKAI, etc) talks about some of these and related concerns, especially those shared by users of this forum, in quite great detail. This is a great read. KAFU was designed purposefully to not sound like a clone of a human voice provider, even though the developers felt that it was possible. Not all AI synths have this, but I think it says something that KAFU is the most popular AI synth and she was designed this way.

    But with regard to this particular topic, the second page contains interviews with producers.
    pico
    pico
    tsumiki (yay!!!) said that KAFU (as a synth) has an extremely high information content compared to traditional voice synths. He means that the synth is providing more information to the user (which you reference). He says that old synths are musical instruments that sound like voices, which is what he likes. He says that KAFU is like a "magical item" that conveys a singing voice with "blood" (a feeling of living, I feel like he's saying) no matter what. He says that after his album he wanted to make music that had a positive impact on people, and he felt like that characteristic of KAFU in combination with that vision was a part of his song 'phony's meteoric success.

    I feel like right now we're living in a time where these concepts and feelings of AI synths and traditional synths are coexisting and interacting in cool and positive ways. Duet songs between humans and vocaloids get popular. AI songs get popular. Traditional synth songs get popular. I think in the end, the AI synths will just be another tool in the toolkit for artists to convey their vision like what tsumiki did. (Yamaha seems to be aware of this with the way VOCALOID 6 is set up.) Phony is the most popular AI synth song ever, and it doesn't even feature KAFU in the thumbnail, despite conveying that sense of "character" in the voice. You know?

    I still prefer traditional synths myself, having grown up with the music created with them and really enjoying what is created with them, but I've seen AI synths bring so much liveliness and good music to our community, that I think there will be more to come. And I don't think it will necessarily come with the demotion of producers or loss of creativity.

    That's my hope at least :rime_lili:
    peaches2217
    peaches2217
    I think this has less to do with how AI synths are merging into the world of vocalsynths and more to do with characters themselves getting greater attention than the producers making music with them. Think Early Vocaloid Fandom, circ. 2007-2010; tons of people, as you said, would think of songs using Miku as being Miku's songs. That attitude hasn't been around in a great long while for the most part. Unhappy Refrain was a whole callout against that mindset, and from that point on it feels like we've been simultaneously embracing characters while also separating them from their producers, and elevating such producers by their own merits and how they shape the vocals.

    With the emergence of AI synths, especially SynthV, we're starting to see a backslide into those Early Vocaloid days. I think Solaria stans are particularly bad about it (no hate if you just earnestly enjoy her voice! I'm talking THOSE kinds of fans); rather than say "Oh wow, this producer made a cool song using Solaria! They're talented and Solaria's a good vocal for it and I like the way they manipulated her!", their focus is more heavily on "Solaria's singing this song! She sounds so good! She's a goddess!" She's not the only one to get this treatment of course, but it's something that's become a minor issue.

    The good news is, I don't think it's a prominent issue at all! Such attitudes are usually only found on VocaTwitter and similarly iffy fandom corners. As @Legally Pipp Petals made a status about earlier, voicesynths are seeing more and more success as instruments used to elevate producers and not the other way around, as we saw in the early days. You'll always have people ignoring the hard work surrounding a synth and salivating exclusively over the character, but the number of people who DON'T do that still outweighs them by a great margin.
    My mom and I got the omnicro
    booster last friday and are already starting to feel better from long covid! I’m not seeing as much improvement, but my issues that were made worse by covid in august are different.
    I wish you could upgrade to the V6 editor for free if you have V5 and just like get a discount on the vbs or something. Cause the interface changes make it easier to use than V5, but I don't care for the current V6 banks or exclusive features. :/
    • Like
    Reactions: MillyAqualine
    IO+
    IO+
    Fair point. Their business model is fairly similar to studio one, they charge money for new version, unless just regular update bug fix and minor improvement.
    I still use v4, but i don't spend my time a lot in editor anyway, so i don't bother upgrade it.

    It should be cheaper or offer some discount though in my opinion, because we have to buy a new voicebanks separately at full price.
    ___
    ___
    they are offering fairly big discount for owners of previous editors, upgrading is fairly easy.

    it's cheaper to upgrade to V6 than to purchase the SVS PRO + VB bundle on the DT store to put it in perspective
    While I like Gumi’s AI vb, it’s definitely not making me want to buy V6. Give me something like Synth V’s vocal modes based on her V4 banks and I’d be interested.
    Just realized that the JPY to USD exchange rate makes buying from Japan much cheaper than normal right now. (The current rate is 1 JPY = 0.00680866 USD) If you’re looking at purchasing a vocal synth rn you probably want to stay off of the EN Vocaloid store and US amazon/ebay.
    I’d really like Miku v4 for my birthday or hanukkah, but we’re so strapped for cash rn. I told my mom about wanting pokemon violet and atelier ryza 3, but I’m afraid to say anything about wanting Miku because I have some ‘loids already. I hate holidays. :/
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