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SynthV New Voicebank "Rosa" announced for SynthV and CeVio or AiVoice!

nachodorito

Aspiring Fan
Apr 21, 2021
58
The amount of crowdfunding campaigns coming out around the same time as each other reminds me of the V3 era, when it felt like a new Vocaloid VB was dropping every month with poor promotion. Truth be told, I thought Solaris was extremely lucky to meet her crowdfunding goals, and it's disappointing to see Rosa struggling considering everyone is down for new SynthV banks.
It's just that we are down for SynthV, but CeVIO, and specially japanese CeVIO...
And there isn't even that much VBs like in the V3 days, it's just that they're long campaigns and they come out each after the other! I can only hope the best for every bank. SOLARIS was able to make it by making the community join as one, so Japanese users should be able to do that for ROSA... or are they too waiting for the Synthesizer V AI bank?
 

Rylitah

kiyoteru enthusiast
Staff member
Moderator
Apr 8, 2018
575
I mentioned this in Star Palace's status a while ago, but here's a list of the voice synth related crowdfunding campaigns that have happened in the last year (going back to summer 2020, and it's entirely possible I forgot some):

- Zunko's various CF campaigns - all succeeded
- Tsuina-chan's Synth V campaign - success
- Seika's Synth V campaign - success, though it was close
- Adachi Rei's A.I.VOICE campaign - success, though it was also close
- Miku Expo 2021 - success
- 1st Place's concert campaign - definitely will not hit the goal, but it's flexible funding so they'll keep all that was raised
- Solaris's Synth V campaign - success, though it was getting close
- Rosa's CeVIO AI campaign (and even if this succeeds, will there be more campaigns to try and fund the other banks they wanted to make, like the English talk bank and the Synth V languages? Iirc this current campaign is only for the Japanese talk bank, and stretch goals past the initial goal to fund this haven't even been announced) - TBA, but it's not looking good

And this doesn't even include miscellaneous crowdfunds that have happened but aren't exactly voice synth related (i.e the Kotonohas were pushing a crowdfunding campaign to succeed due to their involvement being a stretch goal, and it did hit that goal in the end).

All that, and there are at least two more crowdfunding campaigns that we know of that will begin as well: Tange Kotoe's A.I.VOICE campaign, and the campaign for the two twin CeVIO AI banks (assuming this one ever... actually starts, considering the person in charge of this product has apparently been quite the controversial figure in the JP community already).

And most of these campaigns aren't campaigns that Western fans can contribute to (and even if they can, there's a lot of overlap i.e Western fans can contribute to Rosa but they probably contributed to Solaris instead), so it all falls down to the JP community. Rikka's crowdfunding campaign was the last one that was a smashing success, but in the end it burned people by changing the type of product at the last minute and had to offer refunds to angry pledgers (she was originally pitched as a VOICEROID product but then switched development to CeVIO near the end - this made many people angry), so it's possible that people are being more cautious about pledging to a campaign in order to avoid getting burned like that again (the chances of it happening are very low, but if it happened once...)

So there's that, and I also think there's just too many crowdfunds happening in such a short period of time. JP fans are known for contributing insane amounts of money to these, but these crowdfunds typically were for VOICEROID products specifically. Talking banks are more popular than singing banks, and... a lot of VOICEROID fans don't really care if the product isn't VOICEROID, in all honesty. (Though CeVIO is popular too, AHS hasn't exactly been promoting these crowdfunds since they aren't involved. I know they RT'd stuff about Rosa on occasion, but it's a lot different from announcing it themselves and hosting entire livestreams around it like they did in the VOICEROID era. So Rosa's more or less just on her own.)

As for what will happen if Rosa fails... I'm not sure. ZAN-SHIN's started a Vtuber project which makes me think they want to use that to gain additional money, possibly in the case of this failing, but who knows. I'm sure they'll want to create Rosa either way since Cul's lore is a passion project, it'll just take longer.

This was a whole bunch of word vomit just to say I think there's a lot of reasons why Rosa's not doing particularly great sdoifjsdfi I think she'll still be funded eventually since there's a lot of love for her, but it will take a much longer time than if she were to hit her goal now. Her campaign is all or nothing, so if it doesn't reach the goal they'll have to start from square one.
 

Leon

AKA missy20201 (Elliot)
Apr 8, 2018
979
Another good point that Uncreepy made on Twitter was that most western fans can't actually speak Japanese, and buy JP sing VBs because they can make covers. But a talk bank is fairly useless if you can't speak Japanese, which lowered interest on the overseas end of things. Plus there were fewer tiers that overseas people could donate to iirc :S
 

peaches2217

Give me Gackpoid AI or give me DEATH
Sep 11, 2019
1,930
26
Arklahoma
Another good point that Uncreepy made on Twitter was that most western fans can't actually speak Japanese, and buy JP sing VBs because they can make covers. But a talk bank is fairly useless if you can't speak Japanese, which lowered interest on the overseas end of things. Plus there were fewer tiers that overseas people could donate to iirc :S
What appalls me is all the ruckus made on Twitter about how unfair it was that Western fans couldn’t support her, so her creator went out of his way to ensure we could… and then a total of three Western fans donated $5. We’re so fucking entitled, with what to show for it? It’s the perfect and pure epitome of “Why doesn’t this Japanese product revolve around English-speaking audiences?” glimpsed with Maki and on full display here.
 

peaches2217

Give me Gackpoid AI or give me DEATH
Sep 11, 2019
1,930
26
Arklahoma
From what I saw, the majority of Western fans were interested in supporting her English Synth V bank, so it's not too surprising her CeVIO talk didn't get much hype.
A lot of what I saw specified they wanted to support her CeVIO bank too, which is what’s so off-putting to me. No one followed through. Either way, the fact is that Rosa came at the end of a string of crowdfunders; it’s just very poor timing. I really hope she gets another shot.
 

Leon

AKA missy20201 (Elliot)
Apr 8, 2018
979
Wow yeah that's a shame. I saw a lot of people wanting to support when they thought it was a singing bank, but most of the hype I saw on the English side trailed off when it was announced that it'd just be a talk bank. I don't recall how expensive the overseas tiers are either -- are they more expensive? If so that could explain it a bit as well. But I hope she gets made either way :(
 
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peaches2217

Give me Gackpoid AI or give me DEATH
Sep 11, 2019
1,930
26
Arklahoma
Wow yeah that's a shame. I saw a lot of people wanting to support when they thought it was a singing bank, but most of the hype I saw on the English side trailed off when it was announced that it'd just be a talk bank. I don't recall how expensive the overseas tiers are either -- are they more expensive? If so that could explain it a bit as well. But I hope she gets made either way :(
There were expensive tiers as well as cheaper tiers; not as big a variety as the Japanese tiers, but you could still donate $5/$20/$50, perfectly reasonable amounts.

Hmm… it’s been reasoned that talk banks tend to have bigger followings in Japan since they’re more versatile, especially in the wake of Vtubing, which is likely why Rosa was chosen to be a Talk bank first. But at this rate I can’t help but wonder if being promoted as a song bank would have helped her chances. At least then she’d have more than one audience backing her.
 

Rylitah

kiyoteru enthusiast
Staff member
Moderator
Apr 8, 2018
575
I don't recall how expensive the overseas tiers are either -- are they more expensive? If so that could explain it a bit as well. But I hope she gets made either way :(
There are only three tiers for overseas backers: 500 yen (~$4.50 USD), 5000 yen (~$45 USD), and 30000 yen (~$270), with only the last one actually having the product. (The 5k yen tier has the 500 yen tier stuff which was just a thank you, as well as 100+ voice files for supporters only.) I remember HirotoP asking how much Western fans would be willing to pledge if they wanted to support her, and a lot of people complained that she'd be too expensive for the proposed tiers (not taking into account that the tiers have to be more expensive so it'd actually go into funding... and the 30k yen tier comes with a lot of cool merch including an actual plush doll).

People complained about how expensive Solaris' tiers were too, but after the costs of production were explained to them people were more willing to (and did) contribute hundreds of dollars to her - though of course Solaris in general is a product that the Western fandom wants much more than Rosa regardless (native English, mature vocal, etc.)

And yeah, this is still a Japanese Talk product. If it were an English product it would've been met with more support from overseas for sure. I can see why they did it this way, but it's unfortunate orz

I think at least a 17k yen tier for Rosa would've been nice - people could pledge just for the bank and get no extra merch if they didn't care for it. It is what it is though, I guess.
 

nachodorito

Aspiring Fan
Apr 21, 2021
58
This... will probably fail. But ROSA will eventually materialize, I am sure of it. CUL's family, as someone said, is Hiroto's passion project, and I know he and ZAN-SHIN will make it happen eventually. Maybe if it had been a SynthV bank it would've been more popular, but we can only look as the ship sinks for now.
 
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sapplerx

+-=÷x
Dec 26, 2020
574
United States
3 days left and she's not even in 50% completion yet. Since she's a derivative character from CUL, this is where the line ends...because V3 vocals aren't marketed as often as they used to be anymore, with some exceptions. Still, she has potential even if she fails
 
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Leon

AKA missy20201 (Elliot)
Apr 8, 2018
979
Hmm. I felt kinda bad for rooting for her without supporting so I tried to give a bit, but it won't accept my card. I tried letting Google autofill and it kept saying "The payment could not be completed. Please check the card information and try again.", so I thought maybe there was something up with that and typed it in manually, but it still won't accept it. At least I tried :S
 

YOYo_MAMA

I am Thou and Thou aren't Shit...
Oct 19, 2018
288
Observing the last minute Twitter feed where the percentage literally went up every few seconds was actually pretty exciting.
It seems We'll be seeing more of Rosa in the future, great news for her and her creators.
 

Rylitah

kiyoteru enthusiast
Staff member
Moderator
Apr 8, 2018
575
I'm genuinely shocked. I noticed she was getting a little more support in the final few days, but it really seemed too little, too late. I went to bed with eight hours of the campaign remaining and she hadn't even hit 60%.

I know there was a livestream this morning with Hiroto-P and Internet Co.'s president. That's probably where the surge of support came from?

Still, wow - Rosa's narrowly avoided being the first failed synth crowdfund. I still think how close it was sets a dangerous precedent for future crowdfunds and after Kotoe's, companies might want to hold off on them for a little while, but I'm still really glad that Rosa was able to reach the goal in the end.

Hmm. I felt kinda bad for rooting for her without supporting so I tried to give a bit, but it won't accept my card. I tried letting Google autofill and it kept saying "The payment could not be completed. Please check the card information and try again.", so I thought maybe there was something up with that and typed it in manually, but it still won't accept it. At least I tried :S
It's pointless now since the campaign's over, but there was actually an English guide for how to pledge overseas (I wonder if this'll work for other JP-only campaigns, though? You'd need a Japanese address to ship to, but putting in Tenso information in the past on other JP-only things has worked for me).

I'm not sure if this was what you followed, but when I tried (and failed) to back Rikka's campaign way back, I got the same error you did orz. Apparently it just wants you to select the JCB/Amex/Diners Club option regardless of what kind of card you actually have, which seems to be the big thing.
 

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