imo the only time where high pitched miku can sound appealing is when she's using a softer tone (patchwork staccato for example)
Unpopular Opinions
- Thread starter TheStarPalace
- Start date
As Bookworm said Ci being more feminine was much of what did it, I believe. I wasn't there for her release and the ensuing controversy. But going back with the benefit of hindsight and seeing people discuss her now, I think the biggest concern was "is this the future of VFlower?" Her fans do love her androgynous design, (she my favorite androgynes person, suck it Bowie) so pushing a new more 'cutesy' design and a 'weaker voice' I'd say people were worried she'd become more broadly marketable at the cost of niche.
I haven't read all the posts here, so I'm unaware if this has been brought up before and if so how recently. I apologize if it has, diminishing the longer it has been sense these opinions have been shared.
With the discontinuation of 'Maika' I've felt inclined to give voice to what is likely an unpopular opinion, particularly in this group. These smaller more indie voice banks are often less popular for a reason. Not that I have anything against indie development on any level, in fact I like it. But how important was Maika to the fandom? Or any other discontinued one?
The issue I'm trying to stab at is this: some hard-core fans (this is the case with all sorts of forms of media, not just here) become fans of lesser-know VB and artists. Which is all well and good, less they adopt an air of superiority, or look down (attempt to at least) on newer fans, or just ones who like more main-stream content. I do of course support new fans finding new parts of the fandom and finding smaller personal gems that they can love, I have my own VB and songs and art that *I* like. But in the same sense in which a fan should look beyond Miku, or any other "basic" VB, they shouldn't be judged if they're their favorite.
And wouldn't it make sense that these VB's that are 'pillars of the community' have more and bigger fans? They have more content, typically more talent backing and making more frequent use of them. And this community this fandom is driven by content: content is created by fans, bringing in (hopefully) more fans to make more content. The process repeats.
This reveals much of the issue I have with those who insist on that "to be a true fan you have to listen to niche VB's!" Sometime there simply isn't enough. I love Adachi Rei, she's great, and all the support she's getting lately is awesome. But it's still nothing compared to Miku, Teto, and the Kagamines. The overwhelming amount of content is part of the reason I love Miku so much; I can't buy an Adachi Rei mug, now can I?
The tone I want to strike here, is *balance,* both the big VB's and the little ones are needed for this fandom if not to exist, at least to feel so alive. And being bent on one side over the other diminishes the whole. So where does Maika fit into this rant? Nowhere in particular, she simply got my mind on the subject.
P.S. This isn't to call out anyone in particular, merely sharing my opinion as a hardline-middle-grounder, in a topic where sometimes extremes can becomes easy to hold.
With the discontinuation of 'Maika' I've felt inclined to give voice to what is likely an unpopular opinion, particularly in this group. These smaller more indie voice banks are often less popular for a reason. Not that I have anything against indie development on any level, in fact I like it. But how important was Maika to the fandom? Or any other discontinued one?
The issue I'm trying to stab at is this: some hard-core fans (this is the case with all sorts of forms of media, not just here) become fans of lesser-know VB and artists. Which is all well and good, less they adopt an air of superiority, or look down (attempt to at least) on newer fans, or just ones who like more main-stream content. I do of course support new fans finding new parts of the fandom and finding smaller personal gems that they can love, I have my own VB and songs and art that *I* like. But in the same sense in which a fan should look beyond Miku, or any other "basic" VB, they shouldn't be judged if they're their favorite.
And wouldn't it make sense that these VB's that are 'pillars of the community' have more and bigger fans? They have more content, typically more talent backing and making more frequent use of them. And this community this fandom is driven by content: content is created by fans, bringing in (hopefully) more fans to make more content. The process repeats.
This reveals much of the issue I have with those who insist on that "to be a true fan you have to listen to niche VB's!" Sometime there simply isn't enough. I love Adachi Rei, she's great, and all the support she's getting lately is awesome. But it's still nothing compared to Miku, Teto, and the Kagamines. The overwhelming amount of content is part of the reason I love Miku so much; I can't buy an Adachi Rei mug, now can I?
The tone I want to strike here, is *balance,* both the big VB's and the little ones are needed for this fandom if not to exist, at least to feel so alive. And being bent on one side over the other diminishes the whole. So where does Maika fit into this rant? Nowhere in particular, she simply got my mind on the subject.
P.S. This isn't to call out anyone in particular, merely sharing my opinion as a hardline-middle-grounder, in a topic where sometimes extremes can becomes easy to hold.
You're not wrong, but I think this is a pretty prevailing opinion among most fans who've been into vsynth for a while. It's even a bit of a running gag that your average fan's Vocaloid phase went "OMG I love Miku!" -> "Ugh, Miku is so overrated, I hate her" -> "OMG I love Miku!"
Unfortunately it just kind of is what it is that most diehard fans of niche and unpopular banks will feel a little jealous at some point, of all the attention and merch that the big popular banks get. But it is also true that the popular ones are popular for a reason, and it makes complete sense to be into them as well. And it's also fine to only be interested in the popular ones and never look into the smaller ones. It's a hobby, the point is to enjoy it however you enjoy it
Re: Maika... Well, Bruno and Clara stayed pretty obscure, but as far as I know Maika actually did get some amount of attention. I really think it's a shame Voctro didn't try to update any of their trio, either to a more recent Vocaloid engine, or even hopping engines to something like SynthV. ES already got Spanish up and going 🥲
It's also a shame that this makes both Spanish and Korean pretty much nonexistent on modern Vocaloid. I'm sure that's not an unpopular opinion though lol
Unfortunately it just kind of is what it is that most diehard fans of niche and unpopular banks will feel a little jealous at some point, of all the attention and merch that the big popular banks get. But it is also true that the popular ones are popular for a reason, and it makes complete sense to be into them as well. And it's also fine to only be interested in the popular ones and never look into the smaller ones. It's a hobby, the point is to enjoy it however you enjoy it
Re: Maika... Well, Bruno and Clara stayed pretty obscure, but as far as I know Maika actually did get some amount of attention. I really think it's a shame Voctro didn't try to update any of their trio, either to a more recent Vocaloid engine, or even hopping engines to something like SynthV. ES already got Spanish up and going 🥲
It's also a shame that this makes both Spanish and Korean pretty much nonexistent on modern Vocaloid. I'm sure that's not an unpopular opinion though lol
I had seem some remarks from people that were half-way through the pipeline recently, so perhaps my hackles are just raised atm.
Literally nobody is saying you HAVE to like niche voicebanks to be a true fan or something. You can like Miku and that's fine! Literally nothing wrong with that (Just don't complain about not getting any content for a popular vsynth because fans of Miku and the other cryptonloids (even meiko and kaito) get much more than other vsynths get).
Sometimes its literally just a lack of marketing that can kill a voicebank. I know several V3 and V4 voicebanks were like that, where the companies barely marketed them (mostly Yamaha. shadow dropping a voicebank doesn't exactly make it successful). I don't think it's on the fault of the voicebank itself that fans don't cling to them like Miku. Some discontinued Vocaloids were ones that were very popular in the fandom at one point, too (like Oliver. He was popular in the Engloid scene in the early 2010s). People who have their favs as the popular voicebanks don't understand how little food these companies give for the less popular/dead voicebanks. That's why it's important for people to show their support for the little guys.
Sometimes its literally just a lack of marketing that can kill a voicebank. I know several V3 and V4 voicebanks were like that, where the companies barely marketed them (mostly Yamaha. shadow dropping a voicebank doesn't exactly make it successful). I don't think it's on the fault of the voicebank itself that fans don't cling to them like Miku. Some discontinued Vocaloids were ones that were very popular in the fandom at one point, too (like Oliver. He was popular in the Engloid scene in the early 2010s). People who have their favs as the popular voicebanks don't understand how little food these companies give for the less popular/dead voicebanks. That's why it's important for people to show their support for the little guys.
The reason is less marketing. That's basically it. It's not for any reason that actually means they're worse.
I'll add that I have experienced both sides of this. On one hand, I LOVE Meiko and Kaito, and have done the thing were I say they get nothing. However, I also love Big Al a lot, and he gets absolutely NOTHING usually.
I think she got attention because of her extra phonemes for other languages, not for being a native Spanish Vocaloid. A shame, because her Spanish is very pretty too, not just her phoneme-edited English or Japanese.
I can't really say I understand this part of the argument. For me, either I like things or I don't - how much content they get has absolutely no bearing on my enjoyment of the thing in question. I think most of the time, saturation of one character or thing sours people's opinions, see: Kasane Teto's popularity and how many people come out of the woodwork just to say they're sick of seeing her everywhere now.
Sometimes Vocaloids just fail... just because. The best example I can think of is probably Mayu, who got included in so many Exit Tunes albums with the Big 8 and IA simply because Exit Tunes owned her and could just do that. She basically had the best setup any non-Cryptonloid could have, and yet she never got super popular despite all the commissioned songs she got. I wouldn't say she's completely unknown or anything, she's definitely more recognizable than most, but I don't believe she's really seeing much usage these days - and I think Maika was in a similar boat (despite not having as much support from her company besides maybe one song contest?).
I've always suspected them putting out Mayu as a super-defined yandere character pigeonholed her too much, while technically you can obviously use a vocaloid for any song I definitely would suspect a super-defined archetype character isn't going to spring to mind as a choice for a more generic song. (For what it's worth in basically every JP vocals case as opposed to Maika, they also had a lot of competition - IA's heavy marketing and popularity in V3 probably choked a lot of other early-mid V3 vocals off early.)
I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but I feel a lot of producers that got popular aren't that great at tuning and mixing the vocals, although now with AI this has improved a lot. This is very sad because these people are extremely talented at producing music but sometimes the vocals are so grating I can't listen to their songs unless it's a cover. And speaking of covers, here's where the opposite is true. Cover artists are one of the most skilled at mixing and tuning vocals and that's why they get popular, after all. Cover artists need to do a good job, not just slap another vocaloid on the song and that's it, because otherwise it just wouldn't be memorable or worth listening over the original.
Now, my opinion is: they just should collab more. Producers already collab amongst themselves for editing, lyrics, illustration and PV, even making different parts of the song. This means that it wouldn't be surprising for a producer to just be like ''hey, amazing cover artist that can tune better than me, could you handle this?''. Songs would improve in quality so much.
Now, my opinion is: they just should collab more. Producers already collab amongst themselves for editing, lyrics, illustration and PV, even making different parts of the song. This means that it wouldn't be surprising for a producer to just be like ''hey, amazing cover artist that can tune better than me, could you handle this?''. Songs would improve in quality so much.