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Vocaloid Basics Presentation.

Bookworm2

Your friendly neighborhood Vocaloid nerd
Dec 1, 2024
112
The depths of my computer
This is a bit of a strange request, but I have a presentation I'm working on for the basics of Vocaloid, including what the software is and the more popular (imo) Vocaloids. Could one of you humans review it and give any feedback and what to add/remove and fact checking? Thanks! (if the formatting is weird it's because I did this in PowerPoint not slides)
 

MagicalMiku

♡Miku♡
Apr 13, 2018
2,251
Sapporo
the presentation is good! and here are some things I think should be corrected a bit:
1) first of all, I would change some background and characters fonts colors, for example slide #3 I feel is a bit difficult to read. Of course it depends a lot on the room and what display will be on, but I really recommend to preview it on the same room environment and make adjustments about some of the colors.
2) slide #2: you should change a little the first sentence, because Yamaha started development on Vocaloid not as an alternative for not paying artists on a hour/fee, but it was an experiment by some of Yamaha audio engineers in Tokyo while recording audio sources from their musical instruments and developing effects for their AV receiver. Official Vocaloid development started in 2000 with the Daisy name with a secret team of audio engineers in their Tokyo office, only the top level knew what the team was working on. Yamaha wanted to release the software as "Daisy" (a reference to Daisy Bell song), but then changed the name to Vocaloid. Vocaloid 2 used vocal samples, but Vocaloid 1 was based on voice analysis (something similar of Vocaloid 6).
3) for the slide #3, I would put some sample videos or more screenshots of the Vocaloid interface for each of the points
4) slide #9, Crypton characters are officially called Piapro Characters (from Piapro website of Crypton, "Peer Professional", where creators can put their works of songs, lyrics and artworks for both free and commercial use, depending of the license of each work)
5) slide #10: Miku item is spring onion ("negi" in japanese), not leek! I know many fans are confused about it, but it's spring onion, not leek.
6) still slide #10: Miku also has SP (Super Pack),Vocaloid 6 (in development, planned by end of 2025) and NT ver.2 (which is completely different from the first NT, in fact you can use the two NT voice banks together)
7) in the most popular songs of slide #10, I would put also Senbonzakura ^^
8) for Rin and Len, I feel you should tell that they are twin characters (is not clear in the points of slides #11-12), and their names are made after the R(ight) and L(eft) of audio channels of speakers and headphones
9) slide #13: Yuu Asakawa actually likes Luka, but at first wasn't interested in anime, she had a different professional background compared to the other voice providers
10) also, both Miku, Rin, Len and Luka have the kanji 音 (oto=sound) in their last names
11) for Meiko in slide #14, character items should be also red wine and red rose :meiko_ani_lili: Luka has pink wine as item too (and she is 20, so in Japan is at age that can drink wine). Meiko and Kaito share a similar age of around 23~25.
12) for Kaito in slide #15, you should say that his popularity grew up more and more thanks to his duet songs with Miku, Len and Meiko, and also more and more artworks together with all Piapro characters
13) Kasane Teto is missing:teto_ibis:
14) you should make a slide about companies like Pixiv, NicoNico (Dwango) and Good Smile Company, because they are all part of Vocaloid culture
15) also, write about Producers and that each of them have a very different sound signature, and that usually a Producer make the song, but then hire an artist or an animation studio for the video. Many times, the Vocaloid characters change their default outfits and hairstyles to customized ones made by the artists to suit better for the song. Some producers draw too (like LamazeP and PinocchioP), and some big producers like Deco*27 have now their own producing studio that take care of all the making of a song and album (and they make anime songs too).
16) talk about Project Diva and Project Sekai series!:miku_rylitah: and the collaboration between Crypton and Sega (with their company Marza Animation Planet) for all the concerts
17) about the Vocaloid culture, you should also tell about that every year there are in Japan (Magical Mirai) and overseas (Miku Expo) both official and fanmade concerts and events that gather tens of thousands of fans:gumi_lili:
 
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parallax_fifths

Passionate Fan
Jun 27, 2019
201
Yamaha funded Vocaloid research and also developed its editor. However, the Vocaloid engine itself was the work of Jordi Bonada at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. You can find his dissertation (in English) here:

Additionally, Vocaloid itself was born out of an abandoned attempt to make karaoke software that could change a person's voice to sound like someone else. You can read a paper (co-authored by Jordi Bonada) on that technology here:

It's important to note that Vocaloid 1 was not exactly a roaring success. That didn't happen until Vocaloid 2, specifically with the release of Hatsune Miku.

Jordi Bonada (or maybe it was someone else) mentions in one of his many papers that concatenative synthesis produces different quality results for different languages. For example, the moraic nature of Japanese means that the end result is inherently more convincing than English. Related to this, English requires a voice provider to sing a gazillion sound combinations, which is time-consuming to record and prep for Vocaloid usage. In contrast, Japanese needs far less sound combinations, which translates to far less recording and preparation time. These realities are arguably one contributing factor as to why Vocaloid took off in Japan and not the rest of the world.

Finally, although I no longer use Vocaloid, when I did, I *never* used the piano roll to draw notes. Instead, I would compose in notation software, export as MIDI, and then import that into the editor.
 

Bookworm2

Your friendly neighborhood Vocaloid nerd
Dec 1, 2024
112
The depths of my computer
the presentation is good! and here are some things I think should be corrected a bit:
1) first of all, I would change some background and characters fonts colors, for example slide #3 I feel is a bit difficult to read. Of course it depends a lot on the room and what display will be on, but I really recommend to preview it on the same room environment and make adjustments about some of the colors.
I noticed that, I tried to change the colours more, but I guess they still need more editing.
2) slide #2: you should change a little the first sentence, because Yamaha started development on Vocaloid not as an alternative for not paying artists on a hour/fee, but it was an experiment by some of Yamaha audio engineers in Tokyo while recording audio sources from their musical instruments and developing effects for their AV receiver. Official Vocaloid development started in 2000 with the Daisy name with a secret team of audio engineers in their Tokyo office, only the top level knew what the team was working on. Yamaha wanted to release the software as "Daisy" (a reference to Daisy Bell song), but then changed the name to Vocaloid. Vocaloid 2 used vocal samples, but Vocaloid 1 was based on voice analysis (something similar of Vocaloid 6).
I forgot about that. I will make sure to edit that slide with the new info.
5) slide #10: Miku item is spring onion ("negi" in japanese), not leek! I know many fans are confused about it, but it's spring onion, not leek.
Whoops! I forgot! Thanks!
6) still slide #10: Miku also has SP (Super Pack),Vocaloid 6 (in development, planned by end of 2025) and NT ver.2 (which is completely different from the first NT, in fact you can use the two NT voice banks together)
She has so many voicebanks and I don't like NT so I completely forgot. Thanks!
7) in the most popular songs of slide #10, I would put also Senbonzakura ^^
I am limiting each Vocaloid to 3 notable songs, and I felt that Senbonzakura wasn't quite well known enough to make the list.
9) slide #13: Yuu Asakawa actually likes Luka, but at first wasn't interested in anime, she had a different professional background compared to the other voice providers
...huh. Slide changed.
11) for Meiko in slide #14, character items should be also red wine and red rose :meiko_ani_lili: Luka has pink wine as item too (and she is 20, so in Japan is at age that can drink wine). Meiko and Kaito share a similar age of around 23~25.
12) for Kaito in slide #15, you should say that his popularity grew up more and more thanks to his duet songs with Miku, Len and Meiko, and also more and more artworks together with all Piapro characters
I did not know about the rose and pink wine, but I don't think Meiko and Kaito have official ages? The common fan interpretation has them as adults, but that is not official. And added for Kaito.
13) Kasane Teto is missing:teto_ibis:
I'm not including Utaus and other vocal synths in this one, maybe a future presentation.
15) also, write about Producers and that each of them have a very different sound signature, and that usually a Producer make the song, but then hire an artist or an animation studio for the video. Many times, the Vocaloid characters change their default outfits and hairstyles to customized ones made by the artists to suit better for the song. Some producers draw too (like LamazeP and PinocchioP), and some big producers like Deco*27 have now their own producing studio that take care of all the making of a song and album (and they make anime songs too).
Completely forgot to mention that, thanks for the reminder!
17) about the Vocaloid culture, you should also tell about that every year there are in Japan (Magical Mirai) and overseas (Miku Expo) both official and fanmade concerts and events that gather tens of thousands of fans:gumi_lili:
Added! Thanks!
 
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MagicalMiku

♡Miku♡
Apr 13, 2018
2,251
Sapporo
good good!! yes correct, Meiko and Kaito don't have official ages, but among fans they are always felt around 23~25 :kaito_smile_lili::meiko_ani_lili:
for the text, if you want to keep dark green background, then try some yellow or white or pink or azure text, you need some contrast between background and text to make it readable well.
and Kasane Teto should deserve at least one mention in the Miku slide:teto_smile_lili:!!
(edit: or make a final slide where you make a list of the alternatives to Vocaloid, like UTAU, openUtau, ..)
 
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