SynthV Medium⁵ Updates/Discussion Thread (Quadimension voices)

[peaches2217]

It's official: Stardust's original bank is gone. Rest in peace, baby girl.

VOCALOID4 Stardust(Xingchen) Officially “Out of Print”

A screenshot of Stardust V4’s Taobao page viewed through ParcelUP As I was browsing through my list of vocals to keep an eye on, I stumbled across an update on Stardust V4’s sales page …

vocalsynthretailers.wordpress.com

 

[Cerāgi <º•]

Noooo, this is so sad . I mean, we all knew it'd have happened someday, but seeing it actually happen hits differently... I personally love her V4's tone, and seeing all these voicebanks being discontinued one after the other is heartbreaking tbh

 

[poser]

can i ask why it was discontinued? sorry im out of the loop with quad stuff

 

[___]

can i ask why it was discontinued? sorry im out of the loop with quad stuff

judging by context, once it was possible for Chalili ( Stardust's VA ) to record SVS voicebank for Stardust ( there were some contractual issues that prevented her from doing so ) they possibly didn't see a reason for the V4 vb to stay in print, whether it'd be hard for the two to be in print or if they chose not to, I'm not 100% on, it's a shame either way.

 

[lIlI]

Over the past few days Ddickky and other Medium5 creators have been posting about slowing down Quadimension's activities; such as halting progress on the game and albums due to lack of funding. This doesn't come as a huge surprise, as Quadimension has damaged its own profitability in a variety of ways:

• Ddickky has been generally unprofessional and unreliable, making false promises too early, and constantly frustrating fans with rude or careless communication. One example is Stardust's AI design being heavily documented, then suddenly abandoned without explanation, leaving fans with a temporary design they disliked.
• Restrictive licences that were hostile to fan creation, even by the standards of Chinese vocal synths, whilst being simultaneously some of the most expensive products on SynthV. A pricey piece of software that requires you to contact an unpredictable company to sell songs instantly removes professional producers from your pool of potential buyers. Preventing people from covering Medium5 songs with other vocal synths discouraged and angered hobbyists.
• Aggressively sleazy marketing that focused most of its sexualisation on underage characters, alienating another large chunk of potential fans.
• An almost impossibly complex buying process for anyone outside Mainland China, crippling the growth of fan communities in other regions.

All these factors meant the writing was on the wall for Medium5, making Quadimension another unfortunate example of a poorly managed company. That said, this doesn't mean activities are over, as they still promised AI voicebanks coming this year. We'll see if they come to fruition.

 

[___]

Restrictive licences that were hostile to fan creation, even by the standards of Chinese vocal synths, whilst being simultaneously some of the most expensive products on SynthV. A pricey piece of software that requires you to contact an unpredictable company to sell songs instantly removes professional producers from your pool of potential buyers. Preventing people from covering Medium5 songs with other vocal synths discouraged and angered hobbyists.

I pretty much agree with all this but if I'm not mistaken there were no major issues with acquiring permission up until recently, I've seen some eng speaking producers describe acquiring permission as just giving them a heads up that "hey I've made a song" as they aren't restrictive in song themes, don't require formal applications and were responsive to english inquiries. I recall the experience being positive but there was a lot of fear mongering regarding their licenses in the community...but this is just my circumstantial evidence, not a fact. However they seem to have stopped responding recently so it's not like your point doesn't stand they are unpredictable.

Just wanted to offer further context that they supposedly had good customer service in that regard and there was just a lot of paranoia surrounding it and have became unreliable just recently.

 

[lIlI]

That's true! One thing I should have emphasised is how it appears to normal music producers outside the vocal synth bubble. For an instrument to need permission from the manufacturer before it can be used in a song is extremely unusual; and would have a company run out of town with pitchforks from the normal music scene. It can't be overstated how much of a dealbreaker commercial restrictions are for artists outside our community - it's virtually unheard of, the sort of thing that would provoke angry threads and boycotts. Even if the company is responsive, it's considered a giant overstep of the normal seller-customer relationship: an extra level of hassle that drives artists elsewhere.

This wouldn't be an issue for a company that exclusively targeted the fandom, or aimed small-scale; but with their English demos impressing producers from outside the community; it was another missed opportunity for Quad. I think it was indicative of a certain level of protectiveness they had towards their brand: rather than creating a tool for producers to express themselves, Quadimension was focused on their own worldbuilding, for which producers would be more like fanartists and collaborators, their work secondary to the company's central story. Their philosophy was counter to the creator-driven vocal synth community, putting them at odds with their audience.

 

[___]

I think it was indicative of a certain level of protectiveness they had towards their brand: rather than creating a tool for producers to express themselves, Quadimension was focused on their own worldbuilding, for which producers would be more like fanartists and collaborators, their work secondary to the company's central story.

Which reminds me of the feeling I got from them: that they were kinda selfish, more concerned with what they wanted and sticking to their own vision, at the expense of the health of the company.

 

[___]

I believe enough time's passed to post now ? But here a chinese fan talks about what's been mentioned in the thread.

 

[Blue Of Mind]

I think it was indicative of a certain level of protectiveness they had towards their brand: rather than creating a tool for producers to express themselves, Quadimension was focused on their own worldbuilding, for which producers would be more like fanartists and collaborators, their work secondary to the company's central story. Their philosophy was counter to the creator-driven vocal synth community, putting them at odds with their audience.

If Quad was that more interested in building up lore for their characters, why did they release public VBs of their characters in the first place? We know about all sorts of private Vocaloids, though I dunno if Dreamtonics would allow private SynthVs.

I've only just seen the Chinese fan tweet, and it pretty much confirms that Quad have now alienated mainland Chinese fans. Staying insular and sticking to one corner of the fandom would be one thing (because some Japanese companies still do this regularly), but pissing off your core fandom is pretty much guaranteeing certain doom.

 

[___]

If Quad was that more interested in building up lore for their characters, why did they release public VBs of their characters in the first place?

Granted, giving chinese synths lore is popular practice, obviously that doesn't excuse Quad's behaviour as they went overboard >_> like even Vsingers have lore but if they deviate from said lore in a song that's okay because they're seen as an actor playing a character in the song.

 

[Tortoiseshel]

If Quad was that more interested in building up lore for their characters, why did they release public VBs of their characters in the first place? We know about all sorts of private Vocaloids, though I dunno if Dreamtonics would allow private SynthVs.

Now that you mention it, it does kinda seem like they wanted to have their cake (characters with strictly controlled images, stories, and relationships) and eat it too (rely on user-created content to build their community).

 

[mary34]

I briefly talked about this in the SynthV Wiki discord (so I might repeat some of the things I said there), but here are my two cents:

The news are unfortunate, but sadly, not too surprising. I generally dislike being "I told you so" at people, but tbh I kinda thought the MEDIUM 2050 game was a bad idea, especially once they unveiled that it was gonna be a mobage. Like, even before the pandemic threw a monkey wrench in the economy this seemed like something too ambitious for Quad's resources. Even with the backing they had, they were not a big comapny, nor do their character's have the monumental cultural presence and larger than life marketing that say, Crypton has. Combine that with the saturated as hell nature of the mobage scene (especially in China), the best case scenario for MEDIUM 2050 would have been a lukewarm launch, a small but dedicated fanbase of Chinese vsynth fans with preexisting investment in the IP, maybe some brave foreign players with a VPN, and then shutting down before the game's first anniversary, because the market for sci-fi mobage with anime girls is more saturated than the market for isekai light novels.

Now this combined with the preexisting issues with the company above (some of which I admit have not heard of until now) AND the pandemic, the writing was kind off on the wall. From what I heard they broke with their previous company that licenced Stardust V4 was because they felt to restricted by them, but seeing how everything turned out, maybe they needed that hands-on aproach after all.

It is kind of a shame things turned out like this thought, as much as the game did not terribly intrest me (it felt like "the honkai impact at home" so to speak to me) some of the concept art looked cool. And we did get Minus out of it, who ended up becoming my favorite Quad voice. I am paticularly saddened by the possibility of no more albums, if there is anything Quadimension is undisputably great at is music, so that is a huge loss.

Edit because I realized I had one more thing I wanted to say but didn't wanna double post: Others in the tread bringing up their protectiveness of the IP suddenly reminded me of that Symphoneme thing a while back, that online vsynth that also had infamously restrictive usage licence for the characters (in fairness to Quad, their's does not seem quite as bad, but that's a lowbar to jump when your competition is Symphoneme) as one of the reasons kneecapping it's potential success, among other things. (Thought at least Quadimension had the good sense to hire someone else actually competent to make the voicebanks and not release what could be charitably described as an unfinished alpha for their official public demo pardon the shade but I am still baffled by that)

 

[mary34]

Okay so since the thread has been pretty inactive and there has been some curious developments, I decided to make a post. It's been a while since my last message so hopefully this doesn't count as double posting.

First: Quadimension Finale crossfade got posted a good while ago:


Bilibili link: 【五维介质】全新创作专辑『平行四界Quadimension Finale』试听PV_哔哩哔哩_bilibili
SynthV news writeup with more details: https://www.deviantart.com/tomeiame/journal/Quadimension-finale-Album-Details-962633652

It's kinda old news, but for completion's sake, I thought it was worth posting

The second, is this:


At first I thought this was just a really well made Diff-SVC but:



The official Medium 5 account retweeted it which suggests this is actually Cangqiong's Plus bank.

I wonder if this means the plus banks will get released after all? Personally given Quad's sticky situation they would do something like that, either as a way to appease the fans they pissed of or as a sort of "we are going bankrupt anyway, so screw it what do we have to loose?" move. Still a bit unexpected, I mean the last time we heard anything from these banks they were apparently canned for quality problems? (Though even that came from a screenshot of a dm a fan had with quad over at weibo, so there is that.)

Well, either way, we probably find out more tomorrow when the video premiers.

 

[aru ii]

Okay so since the thread has been pretty inactive and there has been some curious developments, I decided to make a post. It's been a while since my last message so hopefully this doesn't count as double posting.

First: Quadimension Finale crossfade got posted a good while ago:


Bilibili link: 【五维介质】全新创作专辑『平行四界Quadimension Finale』试听PV_哔哩哔哩_bilibili
SynthV news writeup with more details: https://www.deviantart.com/tomeiame/journal/Quadimension-finale-Album-Details-962633652

It's kinda old news, but for completion's sake, I thought it was worth posting

The second, is this:


At first I thought this was just a really well made Diff-SVC but:

View attachment 7646

The official Medium 5 account retweeted it which suggests this is actually Cangqiong's Plus bank.

I wonder if this means the plus banks will get released after all? Personally given Quad's sticky situation they would do something like that, either as a way to appease the fans they pissed of or as a sort of "we are going bankrupt anyway, so screw it what do we have to loose?" move. Still a bit unexpected, I mean the last time we heard anything from these banks they were apparently canned for quality problems? (Though even that came from a screenshot of a dm a fan had with quad over at weibo, so there is that.)

Well, either way, we probably find out more tomorrow when the video premiers.

Nope, that’s just a demonstration but they are still not coming out (most likely)

 

[Twillby]

I want to be happy for more Plus content but I'm also a bit "Don't tease me like that if you're not gonna publicly release her " X'D

I didn't realize Bee had done demos for other banks in the past, that explains how they got access I suppose (saw it mentioned in a reply tweet)

 

[Mika]

Sadly, the Plus Voicebanks are private voicebanks and will not be sold. At least we know. I'd rather have them dump the Plus voicebanks completely though, hearing the possibility of Cangqiong AI but being unable to get her just hurts.

 

[MillyAqualine]

Sadly, the Plus Voicebanks are private voicebanks and will not be sold. At least we know. I'd rather have them dump the Plus voicebanks completely though, hearing the possibility of Cangqiong AI but being unable to get her just hurts.

Same (and also same comment over Haiyi if she ever had one at any point)

 

[WyndReed]

Can someone explain to me why the vbs won’t be released? I don’t understand why Quadimension wouldn’t release them if they’re finished or wouldn’t finish them if they’re close to being finished.

 

[aru ii]

Can someone explain to me why the vbs won’t be released? I don’t understand why Quadimension wouldn’t release them if they’re finished or wouldn’t finish them if they’re close to being finished.

It may be bc dt thinks that they’re “not up to today’s SynthV standards” as they have outdated crosslingual, no vocal modes and are generally less “natural” and “versatile. This also may be one of the reasons why SynthV std unfortunately isn’t being developed anymore. I myself am kind of upset if this is the case but oh well

anyways, the full cover with cangqiong+ premiered pls check it out!

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