VOCALOID Internet co rep: no plans to make V5 voicebanks
- Thread starter Exemplar
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I can't find the stupid tweet where someone asked if Gumi was getting updated to v5, but they said no. It was one of the Internet Co accounts.
I assume Gackt recording an English voicebank would be way too expensive or Internet Co has no interest in making another English voice. What if Gumi English v3 is the only English voice Internet Co is giving us ever?
I assume Gackt recording an English voicebank would be way too expensive or Internet Co has no interest in making another English voice. What if Gumi English v3 is the only English voice Internet Co is giving us ever?
I assumed it's because he's a very busy dude and english banks take a long ass time to record. Also, what is up with bank makers avoiding v5 like it's the plague?
I think I know the tweet you mean. It was this one, right?
Provided by @VocaMew in the Vocaloid 5 News thread (Thanks!).
No, someone tweeted at one of the Internet Co accounts on Twitter in English asking if Gumi English would get updated and they replied in English that it would not. I tried to find the evidence again, but can't remember what I for searched before. Everyone never listens to me when I tell them she's not getting updated anyway, though. >:{I think I know the tweet you mean. It was this one, right?
Provided by @VocaMew in the Vocaloid 5 News thread (Thanks!).
I think this horrendous lack of V5loids is because the companies are like "Whatever, V3 and V4 work in V5, we're not gonna make tons of banks/characters like we did before, we learned our lesson" or something? Maybe the difference between V4 and V5loids is so minute that they just plain don't care to upgrade their characters?
Or what if English Vocaloids aren't as popular as we had hoped (similar to Spanish and Korean), and all we'll ever get to look forward to are the 2 new Zero-Gloids for V5 (which I assume they'll make later this year hopefully)?
I went and found it for you!
I have this thought floating in my head that Internet Co also said they were not updating anyone to V5, but I’m unsure where I saw it, if I actually had at all. But the English front is pretty clearly shut down for them, seems Megpoid English V3 is all we’ll get from them at the moment.
Aw, don't say that... :). And I see that what I linked wasn't really from Twitter, either. :)
Could be. Move->Forward and I discussed this at length at one point. The impression I've gotten is that most of the improvements in V5 come from the editor, rather than being intrinsic to the V5 voicebanks themselves. That explains how V5 voice banks can be tricked into working in editors made for V4, and how easily things like Vocal Fry/etc. can be applied to voice banks as early as V3. The differences in the voice banks themselves may be relatively small. Of course, that's just a theory from guessing at the above things/things like why XSY works in the Vocaloid Editor for Cubase but not in the full V5 editor and such.
Oh, that's interesting!
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Internet has said they haven't planned to do stuff before then turned around and done it...(cough Gachapoid V3)
Now it's getting interesting! If V4 updates are not allowed, then Cryptonloid appends have to be V5. But a part of me is a little dubious since I think Wat stated they won't be V5 (of course things could've changed). Though we don't know if Crypton is allowed to bring the appends on V4 if they so desire, since they probably started the project before the ban on V3/4 updates.
I wish Crypton would give us some info on the appends, I was hoping they would've officially announced at least something on Luka's bd.
I think I agree. This brings us back to the original topic, I believe Internet Co. doesn't see Gackpoid English worth it because a) Costs and amount of work, and b) Low sales expectations. As already stated, recording an English VB is time consuming, and I feel the market for (non-native) English voicebanks is not that big.
I think overall Vocaloid companies don't see the upgrading of their existing V3/V4 products being immensely beneficial. And for completely new characters, it's hard to grab a share of the somewhat crowded Vocaloid market (especially so for Japanese VB's (Haruno Sora anyone?) Nowadays there's a lot of competition and well-established brands that are hard to compete against.
I think Haruno Sora has actually sold fairly well. She already has a million view song, which is more than most Japanese vocaloids released after 2012 can say.
The big problem most new Japnese vocaloids have is they aren't getting promotion, the ones that are (Akari, Sora, maybe Tianyi) are selling pretty well and seeing a lot of use.
I was saying this on Twitter yesterday, but since V5 was released companies have to release vocals on V5. Even if they worked on them on V4 (and even if the DB was basically complete), they have to at least port them to V5. I belive that Xin Hua and Yuezheng Ling were exceptions as they had (most likely) already been approved for release on V3. Regarding the lack of V5 updates, you have to remember it's very expensive to get the license for a VB from Yamaha, so updating a VB that really doesn't need changes is essentially a waste of money. I'm guessing Yamaha was running a reduced fee or something for VB updates in V4 since so many ports got released. I trust Noboru's word more than wat's because wat says one thing and does the other a lot of the time (see Luka V3/V4 etc). We'll just have to wait and hope we see some new VOCALOIDs soon.
Sorry, I worded myself somewhat poorly there. What I meant is that from what I gather following the Japanese Vocaloid world, the initial hype following Sora's release is dying down and I'm afraid she's going to have a hard time maintaining, let alone growing her fanbase. And part of Sora's hype was purely thanks to being V5 (In that sense Sora wasn't the best example I admit). Of course it's natural that after the release things settle down, but I feel that, looking at the big picture, Sora was left with a relatively small fan/userbase.
Now, Sora has done well in comparison to many Vocaloids, but I've understood that actual sales of her VB haven't been great (after the novelty wore out). I must stress that this is only what I've personally gathered, it's not an undeniable fact. Observing the Vocaloid scene in Japan as a whole has kinda given me the image that many people forgot Sora after a few months.
It'd be nice to see some actual sales figures for her VB though.
Anyway, sorry for going off-topic.
As well as Moke and Qingxian. Basically, I think unless you're basically finished, you release on the next engine. In all fairness, a lot of those ports were (no longer supported) V2s, however.
EDIT:
it seems like the ports all fell into at least one of these categories.
-V2s, which were having support removed
-Standard vocals (Miku, Gumi, VY1)
-AHS "let's update EVERYTHING"
-Yamaha: hey, you know what'd confuse the heck outta people?
Hm, Akari (close release cousin) seems to still be getting a decent amount of usage, but I'm not sure tbh. AHS loids seem to maintain pretty high popularity, especially if they are also voiceroids (which Sora is).
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Spoilered for off topic and also you're purely talking about Sora as a Vocaloid, but:
Sora's actually very popular, but not really for what you'd expect. Voiceroid fandom is huge and arguably most Voiceroids are more popular than most Vocaloids now -- that's where Sora's popularity comes from, but Voiceroid is a completely separate fandom at this point (to the point that singing Voiceroid videos tend to be done only with the Voiceroid itself, even if said Voiceroid has a Vocaloid bank already. There's a lot of usage of Yukari, Akari, Zunko, and Sora's Voiceroid banks being used for singing. Relatedly, Itako and Kiritan's Voiceroids are commonly used for singing too even though they literally have free UTAU banks)
So... as a Vocaloid, yeah, her sales probably fell a bit flat, but considering V5 is a huge investment compared to previous generations, it's not super surprising. As a character though, Sora definitely has a lot of fans who make content for her, and she at least has that going for her if some really big fans end up buying her Vocaloid later on down the line.
(it helps that AHS actually markets her and AHS has a big fandom on its own now, so no one following them will be forgetting her anytime soon, aha)
So... as a Vocaloid, yeah, her sales probably fell a bit flat, but considering V5 is a huge investment compared to previous generations, it's not super surprising. As a character though, Sora definitely has a lot of fans who make content for her, and she at least has that going for her if some really big fans end up buying her Vocaloid later on down the line.
(it helps that AHS actually markets her and AHS has a big fandom on its own now, so no one following them will be forgetting her anytime soon, aha)
Back on topic, that tweet about not being allowed to do updates for V3/V4 Vocaloids completely caught me off guard and my original thought was they weren't allowed to make anything from V3/V4 anymore, including updating V3/V4 Vocaloids to V5, but that. makes no sense and reading the rest of the replies quickly made me realize I was probably way off, aha.
It really does seem like Internet has no plans on doing anything, which is... odd. Oh well. They still do sales and uh... kinda promote their Vocaloids that way, so I hope they aren't out of the scene for good. They were really quiet during V4 aside from just three releases (one of which was just a complete port), too.
