Unpopular Opinions

[Grzesiek11]

The Japanese fandom and the English fandom don't have to be the same. Japanese people use vocalo (NOT Vocaloid) to mean vocalsynth, so they *are* making a distinction. We have an English word for vocalsynth, we can use it.

Here's an unpopular opinion. "Vocalsynth" is a lame word. Lowercase "vocaloid" is much better sounding, and genericized trademarks are nothing new. Yamaha also holds the trademark to「ボカロ」btw so this is not at all different to using the word "vocaloid" in English, it's just more common to shorten words in this way in Japanese. I wouldn't be opposed to using the word "vocalo" either, it sounds pretty sweet as well. Anything but "vocalsynth".

I'm convinced the word "vocalsynth" was invented by the Big English Speaking Community as a way to continue selling Teto Is Not A Vocaloid to new fans.

 

[Heruru Meruru]

I just call Vocal Synths "'loids" at this point.

 

[IO+]

Thinking about it, I actually prefer using more (not entirely) genre-specific voicebanks to more general tone voicebanks. With genre-specific ones, I can easily know if a voicebank will sound good with the song, I don't have to test anything regarding tone. But general ones? I can't really find a use for them! My best examples are Meiko vs Luka (v4x) English. Luka English has a general pop-adjacent tone, while Meiko is clearly geared towards light pop and ballads. When I look for songs for Meiko, I can easily think of songs that fit her niche, but with Luka? I have no idea! She, along with a lot of other voicebanks, is so general that I simply have no idea what to use her for! Why would I use a general voice that'll get the job done when I can use a voice that fits this niche? I might be rambling, so please tell me if this is incomprehensible and I will do my best to explain.

Vocaloid English are quite troublesome because how their unintuitive phonetic structure and quite hard to get vocaloid english to sound good or Pronounce/Accent right. Which is completely opposite to the Synth V English bank that are much more mature and more friendly to edit. You might not believe what i say but this alone contributes such a huge impact of how english voicebank will "end-up" sound like. Just simply easy to edit can make a Night/Day difference for a singing performance.
Singing range and tempo range is just a "suggestion" and should be treated as such, most VBs can be push far beyone the limit before it sound like a noise.
Honestly anything will sound like a beeping sawtooth wave if push unreasonably excessive.

There is always some unwanted / leftover weird noise when exports. Some VBs are doing excellent, some are doing poorly. So what came out from any singing synth engine are not absolute. This is where mixing stage are for.

 

[sunnyp4rk]

I'm convinced the word "vocalsynth" was invented by the Big English Speaking Community as a way to continue selling Teto Is Not A Vocaloid to new fans.

Or maybe people use it because there are multiple vocal synths now? Are you also bothered by the fact that Teto is Literally Not a Vocaloid? She was never released on Vocaloid, and a concept voicebank does not count.

There's no point in using Vocaloid to describe every vsynth when it's not the only one anymore. It would be weird to call SynthV characters Vocaloids unless they're actually on Vocaloid. I think that separation is a good thing actually.

Vsynth is the perfect term because it describes what these pieces of software are, but it doesn't describe them with a specific brand name. I'm not going to call UTAUs Vocaloids unless they actually are on Vocaloid, like with GekiKaze V6 and Ooka Miko and her upcoming Vocaloid6 voicebank. I could call them Vocaloids because they're actually on there.

I would think vsynth is an easier term for new fans to understand, rather than calling everything Vocaloid.

 

[MagicalMiku]

It's an interesting fact for both the fan community and the companies: Crypton, for example, on their blog and twitter often refers to them as Piapro Characters or virtual singers, but when is another character from, let's say Internet Co, they write something like "Gumi from Internet Co.", and if necessary, adds more details about the voicebank engine used for the song or the artwork.
Virtual singers is also the "official term" used for Project Sekai, and it's interesting that on Sonicwire official shop, all Piapro Characters (both Vocaloid and NT) are listed as "virtual instruments".
How about on Yamaha Vocaloid website? Well, there is another term, voice bank:

Voice Banks are libraries used in the VOCALOID Editor to synthesize singing voices. Choose your favorite character from over 100 different characters.

 

[Grzesiek11]

[...]

tfw you post an actually unpopular opinion in the unpopular opinions thread

Are you also bothered by the fact that Teto is Literally Not a Vocaloid?

No, I'm bothered by the fact apparently everyone in the English speaking community loves to correct people when they call [insert voice not on the VOCALOID™ engine] a "vocaloid".

There's no point in using Vocaloid to describe every vsynth when it's not the only one anymore.

Why? It's a better sounding word than "vocalsynth". Also vocaloid* not Vocaloid.

It would be weird to call SynthV characters Vocaloids unless they're actually on Vocaloid.

Why? It's perfectly normal for trademarks to become genericized. List of generic and genericized trademarks - Wikipedia

I think that separation is a good thing actually.

Why? Engines only matter when discussing engines. Most of the time, you are not discussing engines.

Virtual singers is also the "official term" used for Project Sekai [...]

Oh wow I forgot about that, this might actually be worse than "vocalsynth" because it's also independently used to describe what you could describe as "singing VTubers" (obviously there are normal VTubers that sing, but this is kinda a separate category, from what I understand), which is a pretty much unrelated phenomenon. バーチャルシンガー - Wikipedia

 

[sunnyp4rk]

Why? It's a better sounding word than "vocalsynth". Also vocaloid* not Vocaloid.

Well I'll be petty now and use the proper official spelling of VOCALOID now because you want to correct that. Also, it's not a matter of "what word sounds the prettiest" its "what word can convey what a vocal synthesizer is the best". yes VOCALOID was the standard for ages but it's not anymore. Vocal synth literally means vocal synthesizer. VOCALOID doesn't actually mean that. It's just the ENGINE name.

Why? Engines only matter when discussing engines. Most of the time, you are not discussing engines.

I mean, I specifically do discuss engines. Macne Nana is a VOCALOID and UTAU because she was on both engines. If she wasn't on VOCALOID, I wouldn't call her a VOCALOID.

I'm not going to be like "oh hell yeah my favorite VOCALOID chis-a!" because she was never ON VOCALOID. It doesn't make sense. Like I think lumping every single character into the term VOCALOID would make it more confusing for me if I was a new fan, because not every character is on VOCALOID.

edit: I'm sure there are probably people in the Japanese speaking sphere of the fandom who are also just as picky about stuff like this. It's just not something you'd see unless you were in that sphere. I don't think its only Big English Fandom that would be super focused on correct terminology if you looked around.

 

[lIlI]

Reminder to keep it civil when discussing singing synthesiser semantics, everyone.