Unpopular Opinions

[lIlI]

Popularity is relative to the target audience you're referring to: Voisona is unpopular among English producers, but popular with Japanese producers! Overall, it receives a high number of originals, particularly on NND. It's fair to say it's on a different level to Vox Factory, XStudio, Emvoice etc.

Popularity rankings in vocal synths would be completely different depending on who you're referring to, I would estimate them to be something like this:

Western fans as a whole:
1. Vocaloid
2. UTAU
3. SynthV but ONLY in relation to Teto
v
v
v
Unknown: Everyone else, including SynthV as a wider concept

Western fandom producers:
1. SynthV
2. Vocaloid
3. UTAU
v
v
Known but not widely used: Everyone else

Western non-fandom producers:
1. SynthV
2. Ace Studio
3. Emvoice
v
v
Outdated: Vocaloid
Honorary mention: RVC voice changers

Japanese producers are hard to rank because healthy competition in the market has left them without as dominant a leader. All the big engines have a reasonably sized userbase. However, this userbase is much more lopsided towards their most popular characters (Vocaloid is mostly Miku, CeVIO is mostly Kafu, Voisona is mostly Chis-A, and SynthV is mostly Teto)

 

[Granata]

If I'd try to rank engines in Japan it would probably be

1. Vocaloid
2. SynthV
3. CeVIO
4. VoiSona
5. UTAU
6. Neutrino

Though I'm not exactly sure where to put UTAU. However SynthV should be at 2 because aside from Teto there also are the Tokyo6 girls, Mai and Moca who are doing pretty well in Japan

 

[StrawbebbyPancakes]

I really don't find it all that surprising that engines outside of SynthV and Vocaloid are less popular in the west. People generally want to write music in their native language, and SynthV/Vocaloid have crosslang that allow the most popular vocals usage in English.

I've seen a lot of people talking about how great voisona is lately, and I agree it is a good engine, but your options there are only Selena, Chis-a English, and IA. If someone wanted to get started producing with Voisona exclusively they wouldn't even have a masculine vocal as an option!

 

[Granata]

While I agree with you I'm still suprised how little attention Selena got, I expected her to do Anri-level well but here we are only 8 originals on vocadb yet (including demos!)

 

[sunnyp4rk]

I've seen a lot of people talking about how great voisona is lately, and I agree it is a good engine, but your options there are only Selena, Chis-a English, and IA. If someone wanted to get started producing with Voisona exclusively they wouldn't even have a masculine vocal as an option!

as MYK-IV's self proclaimed #1 fan, i feel great offense at this statement

VS is definitely lacking in male vocals, but we've got....at least a few? Kirune, MYK-IV, and Soyogi x2 are the only ones that I can think of off the top of my head, and there aren't any English male vocals either (but in VS's defense, there's really only 3 ENG vbs at all, sooooo)

 

[StrawbebbyPancakes]

as MYK-IV's self proclaimed #1 fan, i feel great offense at this statement

VS is definitely lacking in male vocals, but we've got....at least a few? Kirune, MYK-IV, and Soyogi x2 are the only ones that I can think of off the top of my head, and there aren't any English male vocals either (but in VS's defense, there's really only 3 ENG vbs at all, sooooo)

Well yeah, that's what I meant, English options. Sorry if I was unclear!

And I also thought Selena would have done better, her demos got a lot of attention!

 

[___]

Hi! A friend showed me the discussion that's currently going on here and I wanna chime in because it's a topic I've had a lot of thoughts on! I absolutely adore VS/CAI and a powerhouse ENG vb made for the english speaking audience on mind to help introduce more people from the west to VS is something I really wanted to see!

There were definitely circumstances that weren't working in Selena's favor and I think there were certain marketing choices that didn't help her case either. I will specifically be talking about success among english speaking fans and fandom producers, I am not qualified to speak on the "professional" market and that blatantly doesn't appear to be Selena's target audience, however, it can't go unstated that VS not having any western non-fandom/professional audience hurt a lot too.

• VS/CAI doesn't have nearly as strong fandom presence:

People are already comfortable with and used to the current options, the platform's endeavors to expand outside of the japanese sphere are very recent, the market is already very saturated as is.

I think this was the biggest hindrance in Selena's case, I believe it is possible to break the ice and for VS/CAI to gain bigger presence among western fans, however, I believe there were shortcomings Selena had and mistakes that were done with Selena:

• Doesn't commit to her theme:

She doesn't play into the alien theme, in both design and marketing, the only places where it is explored are her bio and 2 stickers, she's very comparable to Avanna who has completely different concept.

Hindsight is 20/20 but it is a very charming theme that has proven to have a big potential among fans judging by how adored Glorpi Miku, and Gnarpane Teto on a smaller scale, got.

It is true that Miku and Teto are already popular characters in of themselves, but still, I imagine not making it as blatant as the 2 above examples didn't help her case.

What I'm talking about

• Weak character design:

A character design may be pretty but that doesn't mean it's appropriate for every medium, a really strong comic book character design may be a bad character design for animation, although not nearly as strict, I definitely think there are characteristics that help a vsynth thrive in a fandom space:

Simplicity or easy to translate into simple design, it's not just about fanart, a creator may need to draw a character a lot or 3D model for various vsynth-related content, this is a multi-medium community so the design needs to be very flexible.

Selena has a lot of complex and/or hard to draw elements in her design ( a lot of patterns, ruffles, zippers, different fabrics ) and big shortcoming of hers is that her most characteristic elements are also the most complex ( like her crown(?) ). It is also hard to imagine/draw her in movement.

I think she has elements that make her difficult in 3D too but I have dabbled in that medium briefly so I don't want to be talking out of my arse.

A good characteristic to have is adaptability, observable pattern and elements and/or themes on the design that are easy to "reimagine" for other characters, think cryptonloids and macloids, it is true that it's easier to observe a pattern on a unit but that doesn't have to be the case, Teto SV is not part of any group/unit but her SV design is very easy to re-imagine on other characters and people do!

• Didn't utilize Oktavia in the marketing enough

Oktavia's YT Channel has the biggest reach out of any of the parties involved and I don't think it was fully used to it's advantage. She did make YT posts, they don't have the reach her videos do, neither do her tweets, she made promotional video, that being the exclusive video on Selena on her channel is a big mistake imo. It's the worst performing video of hers for a reason.

People don't know what Selena or Voisona are, it's obviously not a song cover at 1st glance, if someone clicks on it they hear Oktavia basically reading an ad, naturally, they click off.

A proper song/cover featuring Selena should've been uploaded to her channel. I think a duet between Selena and Oktavia would've been very lovely.


Even though getting people invested and using your product alone is really hard, once you get around to using it, there are some issues from user friendliness standpoint with Selena that don't make her very good entry point VS vb sadly.

 

[Bookworm2]

I dunno if this is an unpopular opinion, but I don’t really like older Voicebanks (Vocaloid 2, 3, and some 4 + Utau) getting SynthV or… other realistic synth voicebanks. I think it’s because I expect them to sound robotic because of how I’ve heard them, but it just sounds wrong. Take Big Al for example. I love him, and I would love for him to get an update (I really want a V6 one), but I feel like SynthV or another SUPER realistic synth makes it sound less like the original bank. Or maybe Gumi would be a better example, as Gumi SynthV is, from what I’ve heard, really bad. Like it doesn’t sound like her.

 

[Rylitah]

I see the sentiment often that people don't like updates because it doesn't sound like the original bank. My personal take on this is... if I wanted the sound/quality of the older bank, I'd just... use the older bank? Obviously this gets complicated when it comes to discontinued/impossible to find products, but at that point I'd take what I could get haha. I dunno. I think it's awesome when a vocal gets updated and sounds completely different! There's a use in that versus just having the exact same bank again but on a different engine or something. Different isn't bad.

I think that I feel the way I do because I've always been far more into the character aspect of vocal synths rather than the actual technical use or voices. Kiyoteru is my favorite Vocaloid, has been for over a decade now. I like when he gets anything at all, and though I personally don't really understand or feel the sentiment that his SV sounds nothing like his V2 or V4 banks (I think he sounds just like his V4 Rock bank, which I thought everyone loved above all other Kiyoteru banks lol), which I have seen people express, I'm just excited that he has something and that it sounds good. This adds onto his character for me, versus it having it sound the same as his previous banks - in that case, I'd have no reason to buy or use it since I already have his older banks (I still would for collection purposes of course since it's Kiyoteru, but applied to any other vocal synth I just wouldn't bother).

But maybe I'm just not very good at parsing the exact differences in voices. I thought Minase Kou Voicepeak was an incredible upgrade of an arguably mid quality product (or so I've read JP users express), but I've seen comments upset at how different he sounded and just... couldn't understand it when just hearing him sound so much more human for the first time made me emotional. It sounds exactly the same to me, just better. And I feel that way about Kiyoteru too. It's not to say that I prefer realistic banks over robotic ones either - I love Adachi Rei! I think everything about her is so fascinating. Something like that made into a more realistic bank would lose the purpose of her existence, but anything else it just feels like a natural progression to me. And I really like that.

Older versions will get harder to use over time, but people are still making V1 work to this day, so I dunno. As long as you have the bank, you can use it whenever. I think it's great when a character gets more options of use for more people and their fans to use however fits them best. All that to say - I do understand being upset if something sounds different or not what you expected, but to me it's always felt like the same character even if the tone is different. I've never felt like any synth's update sounded not like them (except for Maki SV, which had a completely different VP so it really wasn't her).

Sorry for the ramble. I've never gotten to say my exact thoughts on this topic and your post inspired me to finally lay it all out, haha. I understand your point though. I just feel differently.

 

[LAZARUSCROSS]

I see the sentiment often that people don't like updates because it doesn't sound like the original bank. My personal take on this is... if I wanted the sound/quality of the older bank, I'd just... use the older bank? Obviously this gets complicated when it comes to discontinued/impossible to find products, but at that point I'd take what I could get haha. I dunno. I think it's awesome when a vocal gets updated and sounds completely different! There's a use in that versus just having the exact same bank again but on a different engine or something. Different isn't bad.

I think that I feel the way I do because I've always been far more into the character aspect of vocal synths rather than the actual technical use or voices. Kiyoteru is my favorite Vocaloid, has been for over a decade now. I like when he gets anything at all, and though I personally don't really understand or feel the sentiment that his SV sounds nothing like his V2 or V4 banks (I think he sounds just like his V4 Rock bank, which I thought everyone loved above all other Kiyoteru banks lol), which I have seen people express, I'm just excited that he has something and that it sounds good. This adds onto his character for me, versus it having it sound the same as his previous banks - in that case, I'd have no reason to buy or use it since I already have his older banks (I still would for collection purposes of course since it's Kiyoteru, but applied to any other vocal synth I just wouldn't bother).

But maybe I'm just not very good at parsing the exact differences in voices. I thought Minase Kou Voicepeak was an incredible upgrade of an arguably mid quality product (or so I've read JP users express), but I've seen comments upset at how different he sounded and just... couldn't understand it when just hearing him sound so much more human for the first time made me emotional. It sounds exactly the same to me, just better. And I feel that way about Kiyoteru too. It's not to say that I prefer realistic banks over robotic ones either - I love Adachi Rei! I think everything about her is so fascinating. Something like that made into a more realistic bank would lose the purpose of her existence, but anything else it just feels like a natural progression to me. And I really like that.

Older versions will get harder to use over time, but people are still making V1 work to this day, so I dunno. As long as you have the bank, you can use it whenever. I think it's great when a character gets more options of use for more people and their fans to use however fits them best. All that to say - I do understand being upset if something sounds different or not what you expected, but to me it's always felt like the same character even if the tone is different. I've never felt like any synth's update sounded not like them (except for Maki SV, which had a completely different VP so it really wasn't her).

Sorry for the ramble. I've never gotten to say my exact thoughts on this topic and your post inspired me to finally lay it all out, haha. I understand your point though. I just feel differently.

As someone who has just very recently researched actual works with Kiyoteru, i see what you're talking about. I will admit that while i didnt dislike Kiyo's voice at first, i wasnt crazy about it either. But the more i listened to it, and the more i heard usages of his SV in particular, he grew on me a bit. <3 I guess I'm an example of someone who liked a Vocaloid more after an update as opposed to before.

But conversely, i've loved Teto as an UTAU since around 2015. Was my second most favourite (and still is) vsynth to listen to behind Leon for years now. And while i'm over the moon that shes so popular now, and while i DEFINITELY dont dislike her SynthV, i'd be lying if i said i preferred it over her UTAU VB. The reason i loved Teto so much to begin with was because of her mechanical timbre combined with her expressiveness. Dont get me wrong, her SV is objectively very very good and i do like it, i just like her UTAU VB more.

I guess its just that people make the mistake of assuming that realistic automatically = good and that just because you want something (like a new update) to sound a certain way in your head, doesnt mean it'll actually turn out that great once the product is actually in your hands.

All that aside i literally do not care how it sounds all i know is that if Leon gets an update on a modern platform with his original VP (iykyk) it will literally be the best thing to ever exist and literally nothing else will be relevant to me ever again- *shot*

 

[Suzuki Hoshi]

my 10 hot (more like lukewarm) takes:
1: Super Pack isn't absolutely shit, but still like 80% shit
2. UTAU is better than VOCALOID and CeVIO combined
3. Tuning in VOCALOID is relaxing
4. VOCALOID originals made by western producers (English or Japanese) come out as bangers
5. Kikuo is NOT THE BEST.
6. Kiyoteru is cool (I like his Synth V)
7. Miku is way overrated, like she's in almost ALL the songs. What about Yohioloid? What about Fukase?
8. VoiSona's Chis-A is great
9. Kasane Teto SynthV is not for me.
10. I like Miku V3 English better than Miku V4 English

 

[Granata]

5. Kikuo is NOT THE BEST

Sorry I have to be that person here, not claiming he's the best and holy music artist that ever existed but he's unique, very skilled and all of his popularity is 100% deserved. There aren't many Vocaloid producers who can keep up with that. And I'm saying that even though I love *Luna, EZFG, CircusP and Nejishiki who make very diffrent music compared to Kikuo

 

[Blue Of Mind]

5. Kikuo is NOT THE BEST.

Sorry I have to be that person here, not claiming he's the best and holy music artist that ever existed but he's unique, very skilled and all of his popularity is 100% deserved. There aren't many Vocaloid producers who can keep up with that. And I'm saying that even though I love *Luna, EZFG, CircusP and Nejishiki who make very diffrent music compared to Kikuo

I know I'm gonna get keelhauled as a judgemental ass for saying this buuuuut... Kikuo is one of those artists who belong in a personal tier of mine which I can only designate as 'Sus'. I don't have any solid reasons as to why, but there's just something about him I don't like. It's really hard to explain, but have you ever come across an artist (vocal synth producer or not) who just emits vibes without doing much, if anything wrong?

I swear this has nothing to do with the intense subject matters of some of his songs - I'm not the least bit squeamish or easily triggered. But altogether, Kikuo's output as a whole feels really ugly to me for reasons beyond the obvious, and my brain doesn't like it.

 

[WyndReed]

I know I'm gonna get keelhauled as a judgemental ass for saying this buuuuut... Kikuo is one of those artists who belong in a personal tier of mine which I can only designate as 'Sus'. I don't have any solid reasons as to why, but there's just something about him I don't like. It's really hard to explain, but have you ever come across an artist (vocal synth producer or not) who just emits vibes without doing much, if anything wrong?

I swear this has nothing to do with the intense subject matters of some of his songs - I'm not the least bit squeamish or easily triggered. But altogether, Kikuo's output as a whole feels really ugly to me for reasons beyond the obvious, and my brain doesn't like it.

I'm like this with Kikuo and Maretu. Funnily enough Kairiki Bear is ok, but I can't bring myself to interact with any of Kikuo or Maretu's content.

 

[Suzuki Hoshi]

I'm like this with Kikuo and Maretu. Funnily enough Kairiki Bear is ok, but I can't bring myself to interact with any of Kikuo or Maretu's content.

i basically don't think about MARETU

 

[Granata]

Maybe I sounded a bit extreme in my previous response but I also can see why someone wouldn't like Kikuo's music. All I tried to say was that he is very skilled and his popularity is deserved

 

[pico]

You didn’t make an extreme statement at all. He’s objectively skilled and has a highly developed style even if it isn’t to personal taste.