General Discussion Thread

[uncreepy]

It says that 3,600 people participated in a poll to say which Miku songs they wanted to hear, so the very best of that list will be playing for the TV show. I don't know how to translate the title properly, but it's basically about what you are addicted to at the moment. The show is aimed at young people and has hosts. The guest that will also perform is Takanori Nishikawa, he is the singer for T.M.Revolution and abingdon boys school.

There are some clips of the show on NHK's YouTube channel, here are some clips of the show to give an idea of what to expect:
(Note that there is an annoying blob mascot that sings, his name is Nusshii, so I expect he will sing Vocaloid songs or something sometimes. He is a blob because he is a swamp/pond fairy, which is a play on the slang of the same word that means you are hooked on something.)

Edit: You have to click play, then it has an "error" message that says to click the link to watch it on the actual YouTube website (can't watch it on VocaVerse).



Thanks, I hate it.

 

[mobius017]

I happened to find this article about concerts and the feeling of unity they inspire. It's pretty short, but really nice and well-written; something to feel good about.

 

[mobius017]

 

[hamano]

Reminder that Miku will appear on NHK's Numa ni hamatte kiitemita on July 6th on NHK E channel. The show will have a special "live show" with two songs chosen by people who took part in a poll earlier.

 

[Exemplar]

Oh, they totally knew which audience they're trying to appeal to with that gif

 

[peaches2217]

Ngl, I think it's adorable! She looks like she's having a good time. (Kinda reminds me of what I do at work when I'm bored and have nothing to do and no shelves to zone: I do stretches, starting with standing with my legs apart and moving my hips back and forth. Tomorrow when I do it, I can imagine I'm just as hot as Meiko!)

 

[mobius017]

Personally, I'm glad they gave Meiko some love for this product ad/exercise endorsement video. You don't often see her on her own.

 

[hamano]

Winter Comiket has been cancelled :( So no Comiket for 2020

 

[First Sound Future]

It looks like Zero-G is currently not making any new Vocaloids. Someone asked them about it on Vocaloid Wiki.

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...I wonder what happened to their Vocaloid that was supposed to be released in 2016... I guess it got shelved, which is a shame. A mature voice made for Rock music would've been awesome (it's a voice they were planning on making; "a mature rock vocal") I'm just hoping that they are not completely out of the Synth scene. They would benefit more from moving over to SynthV, I feel. SynthV needs more English voices anyway.

 

[lIlI]

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I hope they continue to make vocal synths in some form.

 

[xuu]

Zero-G had multiple projects that were scrapped when V5 was released. That's all I'll say. With any luck, as long as they can cooperate with Dreamtonics we might be able to see them enter the Synthesizer V market. I know that they have interest in it, at least.

 

[lIlI]

Zero-G had multiple projects that were scrapped when V5 was released. That's all I'll say. With any luck, as long as they can cooperate with Dreamtonics we might be able to see them enter the Synthesizer V market. I know that they have interest in it, at least.

Oo, what voicebanks were they making/where did you hear about them?

 

[xuu]

Oo, what voicebanks were they making/where did you hear about them?

Well I worked on one of them. It's not really my information to divulge, but one was bilingual (and someone you might already know) and the other was something that would have been pretty controversial. It's really sad that the contract couldn't be renewed since the voice I was helping with was actually ready for release, but that's on Yamaha. Just wanted to explain a bit as to why I'm not particularly... warm to Vocaloid development sometimes. I should probably also say that all the projects that they mentioned before ~2017 were scrapped too.

 

[Exemplar]

Let's not forget that Yamaha kinda forced AHS to make Sora a v5 and then they were cool with an updated mandarin bank for Miku that was released in v4 a few months ago.

The lesson of the story is that Yamaha stood up a lot of people with V5. Can't blame Zero G or Internet for being a bit cautious when it comes to signing contracts for new singing synth voices lately because of that.

 

[uncreepy]

Honestly, what company would want to make a new Vocaloid when 1/3 of the people say it's dead, 1/3 say Vocaloid 5 is crud/too expensive, and the other 1/3 don't want Vocaloid to die/want more voices. Pretty sure the person in charge of Zero-G's Twitter or something probably sees those types of comments.

 

[xuu]

Honestly, what company would want to make a new Vocaloid when 1/3 of the people say it's dead, 1/3 say Vocaloid 5 is crud/too expensive, and the other 1/3 don't want Vocaloid to die/want more voices. Pretty sure the person in charge of Zero-G's Twitter or something probably sees those types of comments.

I mean, we tried to. Contract negotiations went on for a long time after V5 was released, but ultimately it couldn't be renewed. There was still some hope this time last year, even. Yamaha didn't want it to happen and essentially priced everyone out or made it too difficult to get involved with V5 stuff. I also don't think it's particularly helpful in this situation to say that companies wouldn't want to make vocals because people say Vocaloid as a software is dead/dying because that's just shifting the blame for no new voices onto the userbase, and it's not truthful whatsoever. The primary reason people even say it's dead is because of the lack of new voices and meaningful updates. Nobody wants Vocaloid to die, but there's no use in avoiding an increasingly likely conclusion that it is in some ways.

 

[uncreepy]

Thank you for giving good insight on this, I appreciate it. It's sad that things turned out that way... Sounds like Yamaha killed some projects and really wanted V5 to be "the end" (thinking about how they downsized the Vocaloid department).

 

[inactive]

Sounds to me as though the Vocaloid division was wrestled away from the hands of the engineers and given straight to the accountants and lawyers.

 

[xuu]

As far as I know it was completely gutted on the Japanese side, shifted development elsewhere and moved towards EDM producers and the like, which has ended up with V5 being a glorified voice sample repository that can also produce vocals. It's really a shame. There is some good though - we're at a point after years of virtually no competition where there are synths like SynthV and CeVIO that can provide new vocals and innovations. I think the future might be good, seeing what's happened so far this year.

 

[Mika]

I knew I remembered Zero-G posting something like "Big news for you Vocaloid fans, announcement comming soon/next week/something like this" shortly before the V5 release but it never came. I guess that was the finished but never released vocal? What a shame.. Kinda mind boggling to me that Yamaha was so against it even tho so many people screamed for new english banks for so long? Almost as if they want Vocaloid to die themselves.

EDIT: found an old screenshot from 2018 hinting at something but we never got an announcement

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