Just a late night random thought.
I'm first introduced into the Vocaloid world in my junior high school phase. Years and years I only cared about the music people created using the software and the characters, and also tried the software by myself to make covers. Until I entered the Utau rabbit hole in my early 20s, and noticed the interesting trends, especially about voicesynth designs.
It's no doubt. Hatsune Miku. A phenomenal success. Fans, companies, virtually everyone and their mother wants to be her. The birth of Utau is also influenced by her. The "mascot" design of voice libraries made for Vocaloid and Utau in the era more or less inspired by Miku-like design cues, some of us called it as "Miku formula" or "KEI formula", but I now prefer to call it "CV Series' cliche" or "the Crypton cliche". Shiny, neon, bichromatic color schemes, headphones, ties, shirts, detached sleeves, belts, boots, FM synthesizer components, speaker components, or just electronic components in general. It kinda feels like "this is the representation of the future powered by the cutting-edge technologies". The concept of "singing computers", albeit originated from the previous century, was considered grotesque, and that also help the cliche. The cliche have been used by many for years to come.
Fast forward to the current era. Except Crypton themselves, virtually everyone ditched the cliche and they just going wild in designing the "mascot" of their voice libraries. Lots of variations of the aesthetics. From the very generic schoolgirl outfits, casual fashions, to the extremely spooky looks and feels.
I don't even know when the trend of using the CV Series' cliche began to fade, but I can guess that: people were bored; the cliche was rather limit the vision/creativity; and, urgh, the plagiarism accusations.
So, yeah. There you have it. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. And good night.
I'm first introduced into the Vocaloid world in my junior high school phase. Years and years I only cared about the music people created using the software and the characters, and also tried the software by myself to make covers. Until I entered the Utau rabbit hole in my early 20s, and noticed the interesting trends, especially about voicesynth designs.
It's no doubt. Hatsune Miku. A phenomenal success. Fans, companies, virtually everyone and their mother wants to be her. The birth of Utau is also influenced by her. The "mascot" design of voice libraries made for Vocaloid and Utau in the era more or less inspired by Miku-like design cues, some of us called it as "Miku formula" or "KEI formula", but I now prefer to call it "CV Series' cliche" or "the Crypton cliche". Shiny, neon, bichromatic color schemes, headphones, ties, shirts, detached sleeves, belts, boots, FM synthesizer components, speaker components, or just electronic components in general. It kinda feels like "this is the representation of the future powered by the cutting-edge technologies". The concept of "singing computers", albeit originated from the previous century, was considered grotesque, and that also help the cliche. The cliche have been used by many for years to come.
Fast forward to the current era. Except Crypton themselves, virtually everyone ditched the cliche and they just going wild in designing the "mascot" of their voice libraries. Lots of variations of the aesthetics. From the very generic schoolgirl outfits, casual fashions, to the extremely spooky looks and feels.
I don't even know when the trend of using the CV Series' cliche began to fade, but I can guess that: people were bored; the cliche was rather limit the vision/creativity; and, urgh, the plagiarism accusations.
So, yeah. There you have it. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. And good night.
Last edited: