Unpopular Opinions

[peaches2217]

The free contrast is fair, I agree. Too bad there doesn't seem to be a coming commercial English SynthV to contrast her with...

Quadimension's been planning on releasing an English bank with Xingchen's VB for a while! It's slow-moving thanks to some kind of contract not being expired yet (I don't remember all the details, admittedly), but her VB has excellent English, so I think that'll boost interest in third-party English vocals! That's my hope anyway... it took a few years for Vocaloid to generate so much interest, so I'm patient and confident the same will happen with SynthV.

 

[DefiantKitsune]

Vocaloid didn't have as much competition, however. To be honest, I think SynthV may have already missed it's boat for Japan- Piapro NT, CeVIO, and even V5 seem to have overshadowed it there at this point.

 

[peaches2217]

Ya never know! It's going up against more competition for sure, but I have faith the Japanese market will come around, even if it doesn't reach the popularity level of Vocaloid or Piapro or such.
Anyway, I think I knocked this thread off track and I apologize. You know I love my SynthV

 

[DefiantKitsune]

To be fair I was the one who started the conversation lol

If nothing else, Quadimension will definitely keep it alive (like 1st Place and Sasara for CeVIO)

 

[TheStarPalace]

People don't say "vocaloid is dead" as in "people don't make anything using vocaloid anymore" (though I have met a few individuals who think this, it's pretty easy to prove them wrong), most of the time they just mean that vocaloid isnt "relevant" as a fandom anymore, whatever that means to them. And theyre right, outside of vocaloid fan groups most people online just see vocaloids as nostalgia fuel for kids who grew up watching anime and listening to jpop. Cant tell you how many times ive seen a tumblr post where someone draws vocaloid art and the caption is something like "omg guys this is so embarrassing im going back to my weeb phase lol"
Very few people keep up with new vocaloid music unless it becomes a straight up phenomenon like Bring it On did. The utaites are much more popular from a big picture standpoint, because most music consumers prefer a human voice over a synthesizer.
The only time I see vocaloid talked about outside as a concept of fandom is academic writing (rarely), or people memeing and starting discourse purely to farm likes.

Is this post generalizing a lot? Yeah, but after spending years on social media primarily to keep up with artists and indulge in fandoms, it's really hard not to notice.

 

[Leon]

Also a lot of recent comments on that front are more regarding the lack of apparent interest on companies' sides of things. Yamaha doesn't seem interested in it, and Ling and Yan He's (likely port) updates are the first release news in what, two years? Fandom will never die, I strongly believe that, but official production (of voicebanks, not songs) has definitely pretty much died off.

 

[Axxell]

tbh IA is literally the number 3 vocaloid still, she hasn't gone ANYWHERE. same with Yukari, she's just not as popular in the west i think
SeeU/galaco and Mayu are odd cases, because SeeU/galaco were never actually popular (despite getting tons of art)- Bruno/Clara might have outsold SeeU. And as for Mayu, it's honestly hard to tell how popular she ever REALLY was cuz Exit Tunes commissioned so much with her?

(end long ramble)


I think moving to NT is a make-or-break moment for Meiko tbh. Either she picks up a bit, or she's gonna slide even further and never resurge.

Man there's definitely some points to be had with galaco and SeeU (though Bruno and Clara did not outsell SeeU), but it feels just a little bit ridiculous to me to accuse MAYU of this situation and exclude IA when she is far and beyond the premier example of this.

MAYU had her 2CD thing that came with her vb and a couple songs on the VEx series (that ended after three albums and was shared with GUMI and IA), but her own exclusive compilations are literally just covers for the most part.

Meanwhile IA has the entire IA Project situation which is a record label DEDICATED to IA (which often enough when a producer goes in the IA machine such as Jin or Ishifuro they're stuck to only using her unless they leave), the 13 album long IA THE WORLD series which was most definitely a bunch of commissioned songs as well as the numbered IA series... the majority of this happening within a year or so after her release...

If you genuinely think that IA herself holds that much power or popularity to get this much usage when not even Miku had this from the get go... I implore you to read between the lines on IA's entire marketing presence.

 

[cafenurse]

iroha and gakupo are both voices i love but i hate their designs

 

[DefiantKitsune]

IA had incredibly heavy marketing early on, but she took off naturally much later. The difference b/t Mayu and IA is that IA's marketing succeeded, while Mayu's did not. IA became popular, Mayu did not.

Also, Mayu being on EVERY Vocalocreation album definitely wasn't a coincidence.

 

[Axxell]

IA had incredibly heavy marketing early on, but she took off naturally much later. The difference b/t Mayu and IA is that IA's marketing succeeded, while Mayu's did not. IA became popular, Mayu did not.

Also, Mayu being on EVERY Vocalocreation album definitely wasn't a coincidence.

In Mayu's case of course not, but in every vocalo- album after her release, she more or less ended up with one solo track at best, later on it would just be a part of the expected group song really... Despite being made by the label for vocaloid releases, a lot of her marketing muscle was used for pre-release and was all but dropped post-release.

For IA tho... she had heavyweight marketing and a very large amount of money pushing her to heights a lot of other vocaloids could only dream of reaching. It doesn't really feel like a coincidence to me that she was able to succeed as a result of such aggressive (and still to this day!) marketing. I can't imagine her being able to do so well on her own though.

A big example of being able to on simply it's own merits is GUMI. Whenever Internet Co tries to push things outside of just voicebanks, they tend to flop (concerts, her game, etc), and yet she consistently is in 2nd place to Miku. That is an example of something making it without commissions imo. Yukari is another example because it took her until nearly 2015 to have a song that reached the heights of the so-called big 8 (or 9 if we include IA).

 

[DefiantKitsune]

Oh, IA definitely succeeded partly because of her marketing (although there was quite a bit of hype in Japan for her anyway apparently, far more than the other early V3s). But the reason I picked Mayu is because Mayu didn't succeed- despite all the commissions, which made her LOOK like she was popular for a while, she never got much use.

To be honest, I don't think a JP loid could succeed like Miku and Gumi did anymore- there's too much competition.

 

[Axxell]

I mean hey, flower and Una are doing pretty well all things considered. flower I would say is because she really carves her own niche with her voice, and Una I think it's just a strong marketing team + VP recognition.

((But even then the VP thing doesn't = results as shown by galaco, Mew, Lily, CUL and Zunko))

 

[DefiantKitsune]

Zunko is EXTREMELY popular...just not as a vocaloid. She's an odd case. Lily has done OK over the years too, not crazy good but not terrible.

flower and Una were both fairly heavily promoted, though. Not IA levels, but heavily.

 

[GreenFantasy64]

Just a friendly reminder that is an "unpopular opinion" thread you guys.

I'm happy that as far as I can see there is no fights/heated arguments going on, but we should continue on with doing unpopular opinions.

Unpopular opinion: When used right Len English could be really good in my opinion, moreso than Rin English. I even find him more pleasing to use in his voice that I feel guilty on using him more than Kaito, Rin, and sometimes Dex.

 

[Blue Of Mind]

Man, the discussions on here have gotten super interesting recently. But to keep things on-topic...

(Possibly) Unpopular opinion: I don't think the Vocaloid fandom is as toxic as some people say it is? Maybe I'm biased because I don't hang out on Twitter or Amino (where most of the fandom drama tends to start, I've noticed), but as an old lady by Vocaloid fandom standards (I discovered Miku in 2008 and I was on VO from 2010 until it closed down), I can definitely say that the Western fandom was much more toxic back in the late 2000s and early 2010s compared to now. I think the main reasons for why are that:

1. The fandom was mostly made up of teenagers back in the day (I was in that exact age group back then too), and everyone knows that teens tend to be way more immature than adults. X)
2. Because of the younger age of the Western fandom on average compared to the Japanese fandom, there were less Western producers at the time, so Western fans just tended to draw fanart, write fanfiction, create OCs, etc. This is where you found the bog standard fandom drama, such as shipping wars. (I found Rin/Len shippers to be particularly annoying). Also, there were the people who only hated certain Vocaloids because of certain songs or because they "interfered" with a particular ship. (The amount of character bashing Meiko got because she just existed was atrocious back then). This is where the "weeaboo fandom" label got slapped onto Vocaloid, and I do think to some degree it still carries that stigma to this day. (Hence a previous comment on here saying that people only recall Vocaloid out of "weeb nostalgia" now.)
3. Some information and fandom cornerstones, such as VO and the Vocaloid Wiki, gained a negative reputation for causing random drama because they tended to host the worst kinds of people within the fandom at the time. As someone who used to be on VO during its "heyday", I always felt intimidated by the some of the veteran members on the board because they were super aggressive about everything, and it put me off from posting. But once the Western fandom started to calm down around 2013 or 2014, VO calmed down a ton as well (it helped that some of the more aggressive members either just left the site or left the fandom entirely), and I started posting more on there because the atmosphere was changing to become less hostile. When VO closed around 2018, an old, toxic part of the fandom died with it, despite VO's culture changing a lot over its last few years of existence. Meanwhile, the Vocaloid Wiki is still populated by asshats lol.
4. The noted changes within the Japanese fandom (more focused on producers than before, people losing interest in Vocaloid in general or moving on to other vocal synths, etc.) seeped into the Western fandom too, so a different atmosphere emerged in the fandom which caused some drama spots like VO to change.

From the perspective of this old Vocaloid lady, the fandom is way more tolerable and less toxic now compared to say, ten years ago, and it's much easier to ignore random Twitter/YouTube/Amino drama now compared to back then because the annoying fans tend to congregate on only one or two sites now. I can definitely say they don't come to VocaVerse!

Wow, that was an unexpectedly long post. ^^;

 

[peaches2217]

When used right Len English could be really good in my opinion, moreso than Rin English.

I definitely agree with this! It’s just... my God, he’s a pain, and a much bigger pain than Rin English. There’s a reason I haven’t touched his English bank in two years and I applaud you for working with it more regularly. But he can definitely give more desirable results than Rin English, I think!

 

[Aruruu02]

My unpopular opinions:
P-project diva models with the realistic shader are ugly! And the models lack expression and energy especially due to the lip syncing ;w;
and
Miku deserves the hype! (But please show the rest some love too! Especially Rin)

 

[ThatGirlMyra]

I don't know if this is unpopular or not but I find Matsudappoiyo to be really average. His voice is really only fine. I see people praise his voice to be amazing and very good quality for UTAU, but to me he's just pretty meh. I've heard plenty of better quality UTAUs.

 

[___]

I don't know if this is unpopular or not but I find Matsudappoiyo to be really average. His voice is really only fine. I see people praise his voice to be amazing and very good quality for UTAU, but to me he's just pretty meh. I've heard plenty of better quality UTAUs.

I get the appeal but he suffers from severe engine noise even on moresampler and sounds awfully strained in his upper register. He's been around for long and I get he has sentimental value to many which I'm not taking from anyone but I too wish the fandom would stop putting him on a pedestal.

 

[DefiantKitsune]

Internet didn't make a good voicebank till V3.

EDIT: this is too short adding another:
"Lover's Suicide in Oblivion" is absolute crap to the point where i thought i refused to listen to anything else with Meiko for a good month after I heard it (my first Meiko song) cuz it made me think she was absolutely terrible