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Other Cryptonloid voicebank updates, collabs, & concert news (crypton_wat Twitter translations)

Pewe

Aspiring Fan
Dec 7, 2019
67
  • While Twindrill and Crypton are on good terms and an experiment to see Teto's performance on the new engine isn't out of the question, I think the bigger question of whether Crypton will want to take her in is, ironically, more related to bureaucracy. In the end, Twindrill most likely wants to retain full rights and responsibility for Teto, and Crypton most likely doesn't want to be saddled with the extra responsibility of taking care of her, along with both of them probably wanting to set clear boundaries that she's not actually a Piapro Character. So I feel it's unlikely she'll end up a full-on product on it, and even if they do, I expect they'll be taking significant measures to keep them separated in a branding sense. (As a fun point, though, in the Teto 10th Anniversary livestream where they discussed sending Teto's samples to Crypton, they confirmed it was just something they did For Science, but also said that it would be funny if she could somehow turn into some kind of Vocaloid/UTAU hybrid -- then she'd be a "real chimera".)
Wellp, I don’t think there would be too much problem when it comes to the actual voicebank (if they indeed decide to make it a paid one of course), since Crypton could act as YAMAHA and give Twindrill the pass needed to develop a Piapro voicebank while they get some of the gains (they could also lend some help in development in exchange of a higher commission).

I think the main problems would come with the inevitable increase of marketing and products she’ll get, unless Crypton doesn’t promote her at all. The only thing we know for sure is that, if Twindrill really intends to give Teto a more professional voicebank, Piapro is their best bet.
 

uncreepy

👵Escaped from the retirement home
Apr 9, 2018
1,618
@Lystrialle You put the argument for supporting Crypton breaking away from Yamaha in a very good, well-thought-out explanation. I feel like most arguments against Crypton seem weak in my humble opinion, such as "But I don't want Vocaloid to die!" or "I don't like how Miku sounds based on one untuned demo!" or "I want a new character!" There are just way too many ways that Crypton (and thus Crypton customers) got the short end of the stick because of Yamaha being stupid/selfish.

I wrote down a bunch of my own arguments to support Crypton, but didn't know when it was a good time to post it, so I think I'll do it now.

My number one argument is that Crypton has always tried to be innovative (even if they sometimes miss the mark). The new Piapro will be unlike anything currently on the market. It will have tuning/notes that Vocaloid/Synth V/UTAU users are familiar with, it will also include deep learning (which seems to be the upcoming standard for vocal synths like upcoming CeVIO and assistants like Amazon Alexa), and it will even include a vocoder (like Voidol). None of Crypton's competition has this many features for such a broad range of customers' demands.

New Piapro will resurrect VocaListener by AIST in the form of Cherry Pie for those who missed out on it.

Yamaha tapped out of the vocal synth market and isn't even going to let the average person even look at VOCALOID AI. Of course Crypton would want to keep selling voice banks on their own terms when the paywall for V5 is so stinking high and the software turned out underwhelming to fans. (They took away features fans liked, stripped the ported V5loids like VY1 and VY2 of their extra voicebanks, made super slow software with a high price tag.) Who would want to be associated with fan betrayal and a dead synth? Doesn't a brand new synth as a new chapter for everyone sound better?

I am SO sick of people acting like Crypton is responsible for Yamaha's business decisions by somehow making sure Vocaloid doesn't die. They are two businesses, not stinking husband and wife. I bet Crypton couldn't care less at this point what Yamaha does after having to work with them and their illogical ways for so long.

Crypton is actively hiring graduates of vocal synth/deep learning/music and science colleges. A lot of them have huge and innovative projects they've been working on, which they present at conventions along side actual businesses like Crypton and Yamaha. Why in the world would Crypton hire these students and then force them to waste their talent and knowledge by doing the same old thing? Complaining that they shouldn't create Miku NT is kind of twisted in my opinion. There are Japanese students on Twitter sharing their files relating to vocal synth and deep learning, figuring out how to make emotive and realistic singing/talking, this is what the current generation is working on, so let the industry grow and change!

Crypton and other vocal synth companies (like 1st Place and Techno-Speech) actually get money from the Japanese government and even their own towns because they know vocal synths/virtual idols are bringing in money to their community and Japan. Why wouldn't Crypton want to be innovative when it comes to promoting their characters and making changes to their software in order to pump out talking collabs for products faster while simultaneously making the workload easier for producers?

As a side note, I seriously doubt Teto will be on new Piapro. UTAU is going to get updated soon. I think if Crypton were to release a new character, we will have to wait until all the current Cryptonloids get their NTs released (and for those who somehow missed it, they ALL are getting updated, please be patient, Miku NT isn't even out yet!).
 

uncreepy

👵Escaped from the retirement home
Apr 9, 2018
1,618
I was busy this month, so I missed some info.

Tone quality/sound quality/timbre improvement... Tone quality improvement...


See this post for the video. Mitchie-M's song and the whole commercial was extraordinarily good. Every part of it sounded and looked amazing.


I don't think Wat's first tweet was related to the commercial (because Mitchie M was tuning it). It might have been them tweaking the engine sounds or working on the tuned demo that is supposed to come out this month. (Come on, only a week left... 👀)
 

sour_supreme

Aspiring Fan
See this post for the video. Mitchie-M's song and the whole commercial was extraordinarily good. Every part of it sounded and looked amazing.
so wait, was this video featuring both Miku and MEIKO's NT voicebanks? for Miku it must have been NT for the talking, but for the singing it still sounded like her VOCALOID voicebank; i think sort of the same situation with MEIKO, but i don't know for sure.
 
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uncreepy

👵Escaped from the retirement home
Apr 9, 2018
1,618
Because Wat literally wrote a vague sentence ("traces of Meiko NT"), we have no way of knowing which parts of the commercial he is referring to. The talking parts from both Miku and Meiko are definitely using their NT voices (because Cherry Pie has been used for every single talking clip from Crypton for the last year or so). As for which voice banks were used for the singing, that's something only Mitchie-M and Wat would know.
 

uncreepy

👵Escaped from the retirement home
Apr 9, 2018
1,618

Today is Luka's 11th anniversary. First of all, congratulations, Luka-san!

Currently, the new software and even new plans like Project Sekai, are in all kinds of decisive phases, but... if we pull through successfully, I think will be able to contribute to Luka as well from now on. We will persevere.
I don't wanna be a rump, but every time we've had a milestone lately, he ALWAYS mentions Project Sekai and the new software "and other projects". It seems kind of like a broken record "Thank you" announcement.

Also, Wat said back on December 26th that they were aiming to release a tuned demo in January. Part of me thinks they will be late. If they don't do it in January, I feel like Miku NT beta has a really good chance of being late for the March estimated release. If they actually make the deadlines, I will be so surprised. I don't know if they ever are on time. S: I feel they were being too optimistic and have too many setbacks.
 

Leon

AKA missy20201 (Elliot)
Apr 8, 2018
979
Oh, okay. Interesting. It's nice to hear her again, although she seems a bit pitchy at times? Probably nothing big to worry about -- weren't early uses of Miku's V3/4X also kinda meh? Anywho it's good to hear some news with her again!
 
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uncreepy

👵Escaped from the retirement home
Apr 9, 2018
1,618
The new "Aoku Kakero!" song is listed under demos for the Miku NT product page, so I guess this is the song we've been waiting a month for. But I think this is a really horrible example of showing off what the Miku NT voicebank as a product is capable of. The song is fine, I'm not talking about it being bad. What I mean is that this is a stinking commercial, it's got like 5 girls singing at once who have extremely similar-sounding voices, it's hard to focus on Miku's voice in order to judge if you want to buy it or not/the capabilities of the new software. I was expecting something more like the previous demo, except tuned so we could, y'know... COMPARE THE UNTUNED VERSIONS TO THE TUNED VERSIONS. They might as well say their commercials for stuff like the Magical Mirai DVD count as a demo if a commercial is fine. So dumb, I waited forever for this lame reveal? I think they're just crunched for time and adding anything they can to the product page at this point. : / Wake me up when they have some real news...
 

mobius017

Aspiring ∞ Creator
Apr 8, 2018
1,981
Mm, I feel like they probably gave this song sort of double duty. Like, the first demo was planned to be a demo, but this one was probably in the works anyway as part of their Pocari Sweat collaboration, so they planned to use it as a demo too.

Why they couldn't ask Mitchie M to do a song or something...who knows? It seems like CFM is kind of buds with him/her in terms of testing/letting Mitchie use the new software in advance. Not sure how much bandwidth it takes on the CFM side to work with Mitchie on a new demo song....

I agree--a solo song would have been better in terms of providing the opportunity to push Miku NT's limits and let people hear it better. As it is, she's paired up with pre-existing VBs, so except for the spots where she's singing by herself, she has to sort of go along with a song that makes the others sound good, too. I guess one way of looking at it is how well or not she's able to do that? In that vein, at least it should comfort people that NT is at least as good as Miku's old versions...which isn't the best way to entice people to upgrade, but does address a concern that I'm sure all her fans have as they consider Miku moving to a new engine.
 

Nezuh

Official Piko Husband
Apr 17, 2018
77
Argentina
www.youtube.com
Agree on the commercial aspect that @uncreepy said. I dont like it. Although Miku sounds really good and I'm relieved that it doesn't sound like the previous demo :'D

btw, do you think that is some kind of "Meiko NT" too? Or just Meiko V3 with snaping mode?
 
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uncreepy

👵Escaped from the retirement home
Apr 9, 2018
1,618
I believe they are only using Meiko NT from not on, she appears to be in alpha stages (further than the other Cryptonloids, except Miku who is more close to completion than Meiko). They've been using Meiko's NT voice for speaking parts lately (like Miku Symphony), so I would be surprised if they were using a mixture of her V3 and NT. Honestly, if Meiko isn't the next NT voice they sell, I would be very shocked because it would have come out of nowhere with no indication that was the plan based on how much they've been promoting both Meiko and Miku.
 

Leon

AKA missy20201 (Elliot)
Apr 8, 2018
979
Yeah, I expect Meiko and Kaito to be the next NT voices, if only because they're the only two Cryptonloids still on V3. That, and, the KaiMei sculptures have now proven that fans are ready and willing to spend on them, so it's a worthwhile investment to push out and put some real effort into. I was lowkey hoping for Kaito before Meiko, but actually Meiko first will be good as well! I'm glad she's been getting more love lately, if nothing else :)
 

mobius017

Aspiring ∞ Creator
Apr 8, 2018
1,981
Meiko was also released before Kaito, so that might incline them to update her first, too. If so, they'll also be following the trend they started with Meiko/Kaito's V3 updates, with Meiko being updated to V3 before Kaito was. (Nevermind that second bit orz.)
 
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Leon

AKA missy20201 (Elliot)
Apr 8, 2018
979
Meiko was also released before Kaito, so that might incline them to update her first, too. If so, they'll also be following the trend they started with Meiko/Kaito's V3 updates, with Meiko being updated to V3 before Kaito was.
V3 went Kaito, Miku, then Meiko
 
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mobius017

Aspiring ∞ Creator
Apr 8, 2018
1,981
V3 went Kaito, Miku, then Meiko
Did it? I wasn't sure myself; I just looked it up to see if that line of thought might be what they were following. Sorry if it ended up being wrong!

Meiko
MEIKO
November 5, 2004 :: V1
February 4, 2014 ::V3

Kaito
KAITO
February 17, 2006 :: V1
February 15, 2013 :: V3

Edit:
*reads own post*
Ah, yeah, you're right. This is why I should write the dates down when there's more than two.... :)
 
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Leon

AKA missy20201 (Elliot)
Apr 8, 2018
979
Did it? I wasn't sure myself; I just looked it up to see if that line of thought might be what they were following. Sorry if it ended up being wrong!

Meiko
MEIKO
November 5, 2004 :: V1
February 4, 2014 ::V3

Kaito
KAITO
February 17, 2006 :: V1
February 15, 2013 :: V3
Yup but no worries! I think Kaito's sudden skyrocket in popularity drove them to update him in 2013 and then Meiko in 2014? But now Meiko's rivals Kaito (I would think they're roughly even now) so I could definitely see Meiko NT happening first!
 
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Sep 21, 2019
1,401
Selfishly I want the Kagamines to get updated first, lol, but I think all signs point to Kaito and Meiko for the same reasons everyone else already pointed out. I think they deserve it most (besides Luka) since they haven't been updated since V3. I think the natural course of action would be for them to update Luka after Kaito/Meiko since a lot of people say she isn't user friendly due to her heavy reliance on EVEC. Though, depending on how much work it'd take them to overhaul Luka, if that's what they do, then she may be last to get updated. That's just me speculating while wearing a tinfoil hat, though, I don't have any solid leads on that, lol.
 

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