I think having an avatar is vital to whether or not a synth will do well. Whenever a new voicebank comes out--no matter what engine it is--the first comments on it are about the design. It's what many people associate to the voice. Pretty much with any kind of synth plug-in, no matter what instrument it is, there's always a picture of the instrument to give the consumer an idea what it will sound like. With the human voice, it can go many different ways. With Miku, we see it's an anime girl's voice: cute, and sweet. Cute is basically the norm in the vocaloid fandom because that's what we've been used to since the early 2000's. It'd be kinda hard to market a look different from what we're all used to.
VocaVerse Network
peaches2217
I might be alone on this, but I think there’s nothing wrong with branching out and trying new things, synth avatar-wise... like, the English V1s and VY1/2 didn’t have avatars, yet they’re all pretty well-liked (I remember when VY1/2 first came out, actually; everyone was focused on how great their voices sounded, far more so than the fact that they didn’t have anime-style avatars.)
Speaking as someone who adores the characters attached to vocal synths, I’d still love to see more variety! I think it’d be cool to see the V1 Engloid-style boxes come back. They might reach a wider audience, AND those of us who like characters will make avatars for them, just like we’ve done for avatarless Vocaloids. I think it’d be worth a try!
(Also, I feel like the comment in the thread discussing V5’s failure is a bit of an oversimplification... V5’s critical downfall wasn’t brought about exclusively by the poor designs of its standards, but by a combination of that, the English standards being considered fairly low-quality and difficult to work with, the amped-up price, and, most of all, the beefed-up requirements it takes to run, compared to previous, more lightweight/accessible versions of the Vocaloid editor.)
Speaking as someone who adores the characters attached to vocal synths, I’d still love to see more variety! I think it’d be cool to see the V1 Engloid-style boxes come back. They might reach a wider audience, AND those of us who like characters will make avatars for them, just like we’ve done for avatarless Vocaloids. I think it’d be worth a try!
(Also, I feel like the comment in the thread discussing V5’s failure is a bit of an oversimplification... V5’s critical downfall wasn’t brought about exclusively by the poor designs of its standards, but by a combination of that, the English standards being considered fairly low-quality and difficult to work with, the amped-up price, and, most of all, the beefed-up requirements it takes to run, compared to previous, more lightweight/accessible versions of the Vocaloid editor.)
Krin
i agree with a lot of what @Blue Of Mind said. one thing that could be taken in to consideration about vocal synths' popularity in asian countries compared to everywhere else is, most voices were made for the japanese language specificly. and english is much harder to make, and still doesnt produce as good of results as japanese voices (or atleast take a TON more effort to sound as good). another thing i could think of is how most voices' designs are drawn in an anime style which is kinda the norm over in japan and other asian countries. i mean anime and anime-style is still popular over in the west but i wouldn't say it's exactly mainstream.
and about anime designs for vocal-synths being more popular than those who don't habe an anime style... this is where i fail to see an issue? i know i'm in the minority here when i say this but to me, designs never really mattered much. also, unlike the vast majority of the vocal synth community, i got into UTAU and Vocaloid without liking anime or being a stereotypical "weeb." (although admittedly, the friend who got me into vocal synths back in the day was already invested in anime & jpop hehehe). designs mean pretty much nothing to me. i bought daina a few months ago for v4 because i liked her voice and she seemed like a good engloid. i'm not too much into her design though, but she holds 2nd place under avanna as my favourite vocaloid. i do see how putting a face and character to a voice can be fun though.
sorry if this was an abnoxiously long reply, it was an interesting thread!!
and about anime designs for vocal-synths being more popular than those who don't habe an anime style... this is where i fail to see an issue? i know i'm in the minority here when i say this but to me, designs never really mattered much. also, unlike the vast majority of the vocal synth community, i got into UTAU and Vocaloid without liking anime or being a stereotypical "weeb." (although admittedly, the friend who got me into vocal synths back in the day was already invested in anime & jpop hehehe). designs mean pretty much nothing to me. i bought daina a few months ago for v4 because i liked her voice and she seemed like a good engloid. i'm not too much into her design though, but she holds 2nd place under avanna as my favourite vocaloid. i do see how putting a face and character to a voice can be fun though.
sorry if this was an abnoxiously long reply, it was an interesting thread!!
But I do wonder if having anime avatars representing synths is as important as it used to be. We've seen the rise of OC stories and PVs in the Vocaloid fandom, completely ditching the Vocaloid avatars. But then again, non-anime backed VBs still struggle to do well - even the standard V5 banks don't have much headway in the fandom from what I've seen, and it's partially because of the unappealing avatars for them. (I mean, people still use them and create fanart of them, but they're not exactly on the same level as the Cryptonloids, Gumi, IA, Flower, Una, etc.)