Unpopular Opinions

[Nokone Miku]

I put the physical boxes on a shelf above my computer so they can stare at me judgmentally for not working on my songs when I should be.

 

[morrysillusion]

I'm not a big fan of the mindset of paying insane prices for a physical just to put it on a shelf. I mean, to each their own and if you spend a shitton of money on something then you do with it as you see fit, of course. But in my mind, it's different from a figure or trading card (etc) that you can display in a case or packaging. Vocaloids (synths in general) are meant to be used.

It's why, when my friend bought me a Lola box she happened across (not that $700 one from recently lol), I gave her my digital Lola installer/serial, and when I got the box I tore off the plastic wrap and activated that serial instead. I may be a chronically slow worker with heavy executive dysfunction, but I do have wips with nearly every voicebank I own. Sure I can stack all my boxes on a shelf and say "ooh pretty!", but the best way I know to show my love for my collection is just to use them

yeah i can definitely agree with this-- i mean i get it, for some people vocaloid is a collection but for me its just an instrument i want to use.... and if im not gonna use one voice or another, im prooobably not gonna buy it ever. i had a couple physicals for a while but i sold all but one because i realized i really didnt need them, i havent used them for originals and had no intention to do so. they were cool to have i guess, but as a collection vocaloid makes itself very expensive and if i could sell off some of my unwanted digital vocaloids too then id definitely narrow myself down even further! even as a person who does use the program i just have no desire to collect them when i know i have no use for them in the end.

 

[Deleted member 6215]

I don't buy VOCALOIDs because not only because they're expensive and I don't have skills lol, its because I just don't like hoarding things. I already hoard books that I barely read anyway, and I have too many CDs that I barely even listen to.
I did wanted to buy Avanna(digital), but I was thinking "what in the hell am I going to do with her once I buy her?!" and it would be a waste of money. She would've ended up sitting in a "My VOCALOID shit" folder like a pokemon in a PC box.

 

[crtstatic]

I don't think Miku is THAT high pitched of a vocal. She seems to be medium pitch to me, and i'd say she's deeper than what people let on

 

[Leon]

Oh man LOL yall are a little purer than I am, re: collections. I'm still very much a collector, I have many boxes, it's just that I try to make it a point to use them all, at least have some wips with them. But yeah I'll go for a box over a digital any day, guilty

I think many "high pitched" vocals are actually not that high. Even ones like Teto and Rin have nice lowers. It's just how they got popular being used, and that's how people tend to know them by :(

 

[TheStarPalace]

I don't think Miku is THAT high pitched of a vocal. She seems to be medium pitch to me, and i'd say she's deeper than what people let on

Considering Miku Dark and Miku Solid are recommended to be used in Alto range this checks out. Saki Fujita's voice isn't naturally very high either.

 

[morrysillusion]

Oh man LOL yall are a little purer than I am, re: collections. I'm still very much a collector, I have many boxes, it's just that I try to make it a point to use them all, at least have some wips with them. But yeah I'll go for a box over a digital any day, guilty

oh no i totally get what you are saying, collection or not lol. there is nothing wrong with a collection bc thats basically what i started doing first lmao (and man i cannot even begin to describe all the non-vocaloid collections i do have). but i mean yeah, there is a difference to use them with intention versus collecting with no means to use them and i cant relate to spending so much on something i cant/dont use. i think its important to remember theyre products with a use and theyre also.... very expensive. my main angle on mentioning i only use and buy the ones i know i will use is just that i see very avid collecting normalized in vocaloid communities when its very very expensive not really an accessible collection to make in the first place, mostly for the casual fans, which is usually where my issue settles when it comes to ppl talking about collecting. if i could afford it id be taking every box i could get my hands on tbh.

 

[DefiantKitsune]

I think the "high-pitch" thing is also because a lot of people say pitch when they mean timbre/tone (Miku's timbre is very high in pretty much all her banks- even dark sounds pretty moe)

 

[Tortoiseshel]

I don't know if this counts as an "unpopular opinion", but I just gotta say that Maki's SynthV designs bug me so much. Not the designs themself so much, but like, they're backwards! Why does the Japanese voicebank have the punkish rockstar outfit and the English one have the idol singer outfit? Did they run into each other, drop the outfits, and both pick up the wrong one and not notice until it was too late?!

 

[Scarlet Illusion]

OH MY GOSHHH! I thought I was the only one who felt this way, lol. I always thought the JPN banks should have the more idol looking one and the English should have the punkish rockstar one!

 

[ruffe]

I noticed there’s a huge overemphasis on phoneme editing within non-native ENG VB user circles, and oftentimes it comes down to trying to Americanise or reduce their native accent. I personally think American being the standard accent that people try force voicebanks into is both a futile effort and also a big waste of time, because it’s often the case that voicebanks like Miku ENG (who i’ll be referring to onwards since i’ve used her pretty extensively) are perfectly understandable without rewriting every single phoneme from scratch.

I have to stress the importance of mixing, because it’s going to play a huge part in whether your Vocaloid is understandable or not, a solid EQ will make their diction so much clearer without ever having to go through all the effort in the editor, and with Engloids that’s all the more important when muffled notes can get lost in the background—leading to what are perceived as issues with pronunciation and diction.

In short, accents aren’t a bad thing and don’t need to be reduced, oftentimes they aren’t as strong as they’re made out to be. Mixing is the biggest leg-up these voicebanks can receive when it comes to clarity of diction.

 

[Scarlet Illusion]

Honestly, thank you for this! I’ve gotten tired of people sleeping on Miku English just because she has an accent. To me, that’s always been her charm—I don’t care if she pronounces a short “I” sound with a long one instead; she’s understandable for me. Also, in a non-native bank, isn’t the accent part of the charm?

(Also seconding the importance of mixing! With some good EQ and compression, you can add a lot of clarity!)

 

[___]

Also, in a non-native bank, isn’t the accent part of the charm?

While, in the end, they're products that should be held to certain standard and they aren't exempt from critcism and people have full right to do so ( and there absolutely are fair criticisms to be voiced ) there comes a point where it's not the product that's at fault but, imo, you for having unreasonable expectations from it. Not that you should lower your expectations, but that they simply aren't the product you're trying to force them into.

I think Macne Nana and Miku V4's eng vbs are the beiggest example of it when there comes a point where criticism is no longer a criticism but plain mockery of japanese accent in english and I think it's way too normalized in the engloid circles.

 

[Leon]

I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to be able to understand the bank, which is most of what I see. Mocking an accent isn't good, but I haven't seen it so I can't speak to it. It doesn't help that Vocaloid's English dictionary makes native Engloids difficult to understand too though. I hugely emphasize phoneme edits in all English banks, native or otherwise, if you want passable results

 

[peaches2217]

It doesn't help that Vocaloid's English dictionary makes native Engloids difficult to understand too though. I hugely emphasize phoneme edits in all English banks, native or otherwise, if you want passable results

Honestly, I think YMMV on that one. When I work with English Vocaloids I don’t have to meticulously edit their every phoneme, just a few tweaks here and there. That’s the way it is for any English synth. I’ve already posted about it here in the past so I won’t delegate an entire separate post to it, but people reeeeeaaaaaally overblow how essential phoneme editing Engloids is.

 

[Prism]

I do think vocaloid has a problem with it's English phonetic system and it only gets worse with non native English voice banks. I don't think it's crazy to want a clear understandable voices from a hundred dollar commercial product. I'm glad new synths seem to fix this problem with better English phonetic systems and I hope if we get a V6 they revise it.

 

[peaches2217]

Mocking an accent isn't good, but I haven't seen it so I can't speak to it.

Ah, if I may: a lot of people don’t directly mock an accent, because of course that’s Not Good. You’ll instead see people mocking or criticizing things directly tied to an accent. Nana and Miku V4 have already been brought up, and honestly, nearly every complaint I’ve heard about them (Nana’s Ws instead of Rs being the most blatant) is directly tied not to the quality of their banks, but to their accents. So it’s definitely a recurring issue, and one that I wish people would approach with more sensitivity and understanding.

 

[MillyAqualine]

Regarding English, I've always felt (even on UTAU side) that people would be more indulgent over accented foreign languages (and even to Japanese even though there had been backlash onto Englishy-styled Rs in Japanese banks) than accented English

 

[___]

Ah, if I may: a lot of people don’t directly mock an accent, because of course that’s Not Good. You’ll instead see people mocking or criticizing things directly tied to an accent. Nana and Miku V4 have already been brought up, and honestly, nearly every complaint I’ve heard about them (Nana’s Ws instead of Rs being the most blatant) is directly tied not to the quality of their banks, but to their accents. So it’s definitely a recurring issue, and one that I wish people would approach with more sensitivity and understanding.

That and you often hear people mockingly equating it to baby-talk.

 

[ruffe]

I don't think phoneme edits are a bad thing by any means, and are really useful in cases like swapping [t] for a [d] or something for smoothness' sake and for the occasiona vowel swap! I think it has to be said though, that the more intricate and complex phoneme editing tends to only make a significant difference for the user tuning them, and rarely will they make a big enough difference to be impactful in the final piece. What I mean to say is... There should be a balance between relying heavily on phoneme editing and also letting the mix do some of the work for you, while also considering "would the average listener even notice that I changed this one tiny phoneme?" I do the same with my tuning and it's immensely helpful in reducing both my workload and improving the quality of my work.

Maybe this is the proper unpopular opinion i've been getting at, but I think Engloid stans have ended up conditioning themselves to believe Engloids are inherently bad at pronunciation, thus not bothering to pay attention to pronunciation, or even recognise the pronunciation as good to begin with. Just because a voicebank isn't recorded in an American or British accent doesn't necessarily make it horrible at pronunciation, and is quite disheartening to hear when Saki Fujita and Haruna Ikezawa likely worked their ass off when it comes to pronunciation. Having an accent that may be harder to understand to native English speakers isn't grounds to devalue a product and never should be.