VSynth status when you became a fan/producer?

[AmazingStrange39]

Bad title, I know. But I concocted this idea a while ago.

When I became a fan:
-It was early 2015, around February or March, and I was an active fan until around late 2016 and since then I'd flicker off-and-on until becoming a producer (even when I wasn't a fan, it was almost a personal TRADITION to listen to Miku in the car on long road trips though, and it kinda still is).
-The latest VOCALOID engine, I believe, was VOCALOID4, and it was still fairly new; only two databases had come out at the time, VY1 and Cyber Diva.
-Hatsune Miku was on her V3 and V3 English voicebanks; VOCALOID4 was still fairly new and most synths were still on their V3 (or V2...or V1)
-Luka V4X was about to come out
-The Kagamines were on their V2 and thus could not speak/sing in (supported) English yet; Miku, of course, did not yet speak Chinese
-There wasn't a huge amount of free vocal synths at the time; I think most stuck to UTAU. We have been blessed (or cursed) with many free/free-version vocal synths since.
-Leon, Lola and Miriam may have already been quote-unquote "dead"
-Project Mirai DX was coming soon (I got it not too long after its release date)
-The latest Project Diva game was F 2nd (I believe I eventually got all 3 of the "F-style" games; F, F2nd and X, I mean.)
-Vocaloid was still pretty much at the top of the VSynth food chain with UTAU following close behind. This was before SynthV became a sensation and CeVIO rose in popularity.

When I became a Vocaloid producer:
-I bought the Hatsune Miku V4X Bundle on June 6, 2021. (I also bought AVANNA on 8/17/21, Miku V3 English on 8/20/21, and SONiKA on...technically 8/18/22, it was pretty late at night).
-There were many more free options available for vocal synthesis, such as DeepVocal and Synthesizer V Studio Basic (the latter I predominantly used before I bought Miku and I still occasionally fiddle around with today)
-Hatsune Miku's latest vocal package was NT (her NT appends wouldn't come out til a little later though); when it comes to English and Chinese, her latest is still her V4. (I bought her V4 bundle both due to Miku V4X sounding less wonky than NT and due to the included English voicebank (also just more voicebanks in general due to having Soft and Solid). I kinda like NT's sound in a way but I'm glad I chose V4X in the end.)
-Vocaloid had decreased in popularity, with Synthesizer V and CeVIO AI quickly overtaking it. However, VOCALOID seems to currently maintain a steady "nostalgic popularity" especially with the continued popularity of vocals like the Cryptonloids and Flower.
-The latest Vocaloid engine was (and still is) VOCALOID5; however, you can get an "earlier" Vocaloid engine with Piapro Studio (V3 API; V3 Cryptonloids) or Piapro Studio for V4X (V4 API; "V4X" Cryptonloids) and some VSynth companies still sell their VOCALOID2 vocals which means you can get that editor as well. (Thankfully V2 vocals work in Piapro, since I have Sonika and English in V2 is hard!)
-Miku started collaborating with other franchises more frequently.

 

[PearlStarLight5]

When I became a fan:
-I started with Project Mirai DX. I borrowed my sister's game and got my own copy for Christmas 2017.
-I don't recall by memory what was going on in the Vocaloid fandom during 2018, as I was only playing Project Mirai DX religiously during my exercise routine and only knew Cryptonloid stuff and Gumi (and heard of Gackpo I think?). I very much stanned Haku and Neru wishing they were in the game.
-So apparently I was missing V5's release and SynthV R1, how fun
-I started using the programs after getting Project Diva: Mega Mix on Switch and wanted to create Vocaloid fan characters, where I found out about Utau (even then, Deci is an OC, not a fan character)

When I started using the programs:
-I downloaded Utau in January 2021 and bought Sonika in August 2021 (Zero-G summer sale)
-So where vocal synths were, let's see: V5 was the latest version of Vocaloid, V4 was impossible to buy unless you got Piapro Studio
-The V1s and Piko were already dead, and I saw SeeU and the CeVIO Color Series dying instead.
-SynthV and CeVIO had already risen up in popularity. I highly anticipated Kevin not even knowing his name and icon, I saw Tsurumaki Maki release and every SynthV and SynthV update after her, but I missed the CeVIO AI releases of IA and Fee (for the better) because I didn't care about CeVIO back then (and I didn't stan IA yet).
-Same here, latest version of Miku was NT.
-OpenUtau wasn't a thing yet or if it was I didn't know it existed until this year.
-DeepVocal existed but Utau and SynthV Basic still reigned supreme in free synths.

 

[Blue Of Mind]

When I wandered into the fandom way back in 2008, Miku and Vocaloid were exploding like crazy and outsiders were extremely confused as to what it was actually about. Technology-wise, vocal synth software was pretty choppy in terms of phoneme transitions and had a long way to go before VBs started sounding more natural - the idea of AI banks with realistic automatic tuning would have been a sci-fi pipe dream. Vocaloid was almost the only name in town, and V1 was still supported. UTAU was a thing, but for a long-time the VBs were considered lower quality than Vocaloid, though the Vipperloids in particular managed to gain a cult following, especially Teto.

In terms of fan content, fanmade Vocaloids ran rampant (including lazy octave pitches of songs supposedly being sung by a fan Vocaloid), and a few even managed to get acknowledged by Crypton, such as Neru and Haku. Otherwise, most fan Vocaloids were either recolours or genderbends of the small pool of established Vocaloids that existed at the time. (I remember the male Vocaloid options being so miniscule back then that people would sometimes incorporate male or genderbent UTAUs within fan works). Character items were also a huge thing. It was also tricky keeping track of who made what songs and which ones belonged to what series, because people didn't tag Niconico uploads on YouTube with the right credits, so fans who couldn't speak Japanese made up all sorts of theories on either individual songs or tried to connect completely unrelated ones to each other. Some Vocaloids like Kaito gained fanon surnames and ages. The announcement of the very first Project Diva on PSP was something of a "HOLY SHIT" moment. In hindsight, the early fandom was a proper wild west of misinformation lol.

 

[morrysillusion]

ah its fun to think about the difference between when i came a fan versus when i started producing...

became a fan around 2009-2010...
- certainly a good peak period for vocaloid. It had been a bit since some had released so they were quite established in a fandom sense, and many fanmade 'loids and utau like Teto were known enough that as a new person in the space i didn't know the difference for a while. it certainly felt like (in the west at least) there was a general understanding of vocaloid even if it meant loads of misunderstandings about whether or not it was an anime- it was so big, with so much content by fans now, that it was hard to know what was going on when you joined with no context!
- while fandom was growing rapidly, and i came to know vocaloid because of when i went to Anime Expo, it still was new to the west and very very confusing to make people i tried to explain it to.
- while i had no knowledge on the software for some time, the interest in vocaloid having grown in general meant i saw more loids being used than just miku, and even some older ones that are very much not supported anymore.

Blue of Mind also says numerous things that seem pretty much comparable to 2009-2010 considering it wasn't too far off!

but i started using the software in 2015, and producing around 2016:
- i had taken a bit of a break from thinking about vocaloid for a bit as i had other interests, so coming back at this time was certainly a shock with how much had happened since! so many more voices. soooo many. it was easy to find people with varying interests in numerous loids and not just miku and co. i was in the (formerly) niche group of flower lovers for quite some time. it seemed like anyone could find some kinda loid that wasnt very popular to get obsessed with, with how many there were to choose from lol.
- overall i feel like in the west there was now a much better understanding of program vs characters- miku wasnt an anime, all those songs and stories were by fans, etc etc. more information was out there, and it wass easier to find.
- overall people's ability to mix, tune, etc had improved a *lot* and the covers/originals i came back to in this time blew me away! of course, i had no concept of how much people would continue to improve over the years, nor how the voices themselves would improve too. this seemed like the best it could be.
- additionally, utau piqued my interest a lot now, before it seemed "worse" than vocaloid way back in its start, with many CV banks and people not knowing how to make oto's. but when i got on soundcloud and heard more utaus that were now VCV, i was blown away. I actually often felt they sounded even better than many vocaloids when i heard 'kire' banks and was amazed by how powerful and emotional people could record them to be.
- i also feel like around this time there were more english prodcuers starting to pop up? perhaps also due to some more english vocaloids coming out too (and more progress in better english utaus which also amazed me too) and it had me more interested in producing, which is why i started around this time!
- however, there was still a lack of *other* software to use. eventually some programs were coming out like deepvocal, sharpkey, and muta were ones i tried- but they were in their infancy and i definitely couldnt see myself using them back then for anything.

 

[AmazingStrange39]

When I became a fan:
-I started with Project Mirai DX. I borrowed my sister's game and got my own copy for Christmas 2017.
-I don't recall by memory what was going on in the Vocaloid fandom during 2018, as I was only playing Project Mirai DX religiously during my exercise routine and only knew Cryptonloid stuff and Gumi (and heard of Gackpo I think?). I very much stanned Haku and Neru wishing they were in the game.
-So apparently I was missing V5's release and SynthV R1, how fun
-I started using the programs after getting Project Diva: Mega Mix on Switch and wanted to create Vocaloid fan characters, where I found out about Utau (even then, Deci is an OC, not a fan character)

When I started using the programs:
-I downloaded Utau in January 2021 and bought Sonika in August 2021 (Zero-G summer sale)
-So where vocal synths were, let's see: V5 was the latest version of Vocaloid, V4 was impossible to buy unless you got Piapro Studio
-The V1s and Piko were already dead, and I saw SeeU and the CeVIO Color Series dying instead.
-SynthV and CeVIO had already risen up in popularity. I highly anticipated Kevin not even knowing his name and icon, I saw Tsurumaki Maki release and every SynthV and SynthV update after her, but I missed the CeVIO AI releases of IA and Fee (for the better) because I didn't care about CeVIO back then (and I didn't stan IA yet).
-Same here, latest version of Miku was NT.
-OpenUtau wasn't a thing yet or if it was I didn't know it existed until this year.
-DeepVocal existed but Utau and SynthV Basic still reigned supreme in free synths.

For a while it was difficult to search for DeepVocal. I kept getting "deep vocal house"

 

[___]

-Vocaloid had decreased in popularity, with Synthesizer V and CeVIO AI quickly overtaking it. However, VOCALOID seems to currently maintain a steady "nostalgic popularity" especially with the continued popularity of vocals like the Cryptonloids and Flower.

Vocaloid's actually experienced another boom in popularity, it's popularity dwindled in the mid 2010s ( that's when it was least popular ) and has experienced resurgence in usage/popularity by the very late 2010s and early 2020s, alongside Cevio growing in popularity, especially with the release of Kafu, SynthV has had some voicebanks who have done pretty okay but it's the least popular out of the 3 and hasn't surpassed either of the two.

Not sure if SVS could surpass Vocaloid by the merit of Miku having voicebanks available on that engine, the number of yearly uploads featuring Miku most likely exceeds the number of yearly uploads featuring every SynthV vb combined, it's often underestimated how massively popular she truly is haha.

Hope I don't sound condescending apologies if I do just wanted to give a heads up hope it's not too off topic.

 

[AmazingStrange39]

When I wandered into the fandom way back in 2008, Miku and Vocaloid were exploding like crazy and outsiders were extremely confused as to what it was actually about. Technology-wise, vocal synth software was pretty choppy in terms of phoneme transitions and had a long way to go before VBs started sounding more natural - the idea of AI banks with realistic automatic tuning would have been a sci-fi pipe dream. Vocaloid was almost the only name in town, and V1 was still supported. UTAU was a thing, but for a long-time the VBs were considered lower quality than Vocaloid, though the Vipperloids in particular managed to gain a cult following, especially Teto.

In terms of fan content, fanmade Vocaloids ran rampant (including lazy octave pitches of songs supposedly being sung by a fan Vocaloid), and a few even managed to get acknowledged by Crypton, such as Neru and Haku. Otherwise, most fan Vocaloids were either recolours or genderbends of the small pool of established Vocaloids that existed at the time. (I remember the male Vocaloid options being so miniscule back then that people would sometimes incorporate male or genderbent UTAUs within fan works). Character items were also a huge thing. It was also tricky keeping track of who made what songs and which ones belonged to what series, because people didn't tag Niconico uploads on YouTube with the right credits, so fans who couldn't speak Japanese made up all sorts of theories on either individual songs or tried to connect completely unrelated ones to each other. Some Vocaloids like Kaito gained fanon surnames and ages. The announcement of the very first Project Diva on PSP was something of a "HOLY SHIT" moment. In hindsight, the early fandom was a proper wild west of misinformation lol.

i may have become a fan in 2015 but i actually remember a lot of old stuff cause i tended to gravitate toward the classics.

and yeah, i remember "kaito shion" and "meiko sakine" being a thing. i always saw kaito being in his late teens-20s and meiko being in her mid-20s-30s

i think character items were also a bigger thing in 2015 than they are now (aside from miku's leek probably being re-popularized by jashin-chan)

 

[AmazingStrange39]

Vocaloid's actually experienced another boom in popularity, it's popularity dwindled in the mid 2010s ( that's when it was least popular ) and has experienced resurgence in usage/popularity by the very late 2010s and early 2020s, alongside Cevio growing in popularity, especially with the release of Kafu, SynthV has had some voicebanks who have done pretty okay but it's the least popular out of the 3 and hasn't surpassed either of the two.

Not sure if SVS could surpass Vocaloid by the merit of Miku having voicebanks available on that engine, the number of yearly uploads featuring Miku most likely exceeds the number of yearly uploads featuring every SynthV vb combined, it's often underestimated how massively popular she truly is haha.

Hope I don't sound condescending apologies if I do just wanted to give a heads up hope it's not too off topic.

not at all, as a loyal miku user that actually gives me hope! XD

i was actually EXTREMELY biased toward miku back in the day, I barely listened to anyone who wasn't Miku (especially not on road trips, and it's still generally Miku on road trips for me), haha...I've opened up since then but most of my interest is in the Vocaloids I currently have: Miku, Avanna and Sonika.

 

[___]

not at all, as a loyal miku user that actually gives me hope! XD

aah I'm glad tyuio

i was actually EXTREMELY biased toward miku back in the day, I barely listened to anyone who wasn't Miku (especially not on road trips, and it's still generally Miku on road trips for me), haha...I've opened up since then but most of my interest is in the Vocaloids I currently have: Miku, Avanna and Sonika.

and based taste that is, I'm also on the same page as you, that I adore Miku's ENG vbs, both of them. Avanna is lovely too and Sonika is actually relaly fun challenge, I like them

anyways I won't be derailing further from the main topic of the thread! my apologies

 

[peaches2217]

I became a fan in February 2011. The only reason I remember the exact date is because it was a snow day, I was pirating a camcorded copy of Megamind, and then I was like “Huh. A friend of mine mentioned something called Vocaloid. I can only watch Megamind so many times, so I might as well look it up!” I explicitly remember within the first year:

• Miku made her American debut with Mikunopolis. I remember watching her and Luka perform Magnet and realizing for the first time that neither the Japanese lyrics nor the English translation rhymed, although why I expected the translation to rhyme I’m not sure.
• Sh*ta was still a beloved and widely-used term to describe Len. Someone covered Black Rock Shooter with him. Every last comment was some variation on “Black Rock Sh*ta”.
• ALL of the Kaito derivatives. On a related note, “smexy” was still in widespread use, and I used it unironically to describe Kaito, Len, that one Kiyoteru song where he lets out an eerily realistic scream at the end, and particularly Gakupo.
• Everyone lost their collective minds over this Cendrillon cover.
• It took me a solid month to figure out that Vocaloid was not, in fact, a group of singers, but software. Even so, it took me many months more to wrap my head around the concept of vocalsynthesis in general.

I came back onto the scene in early 2018 as a wannabe cover artist. Admittedly I have far less to say about that; early attempts at integration were met with backlash, and that’s what I remember most vividly (I vaguely recall that being the trigger for my current aversion to Circus-P, though what exactly happened I don’t recall, and I was also called a p*do for shipping Oliver with Len instead of Fukase and took down half of my covers for fear of my YT account getting banned because of those comments. A few of my Vocaloid fanfics from that era are lost to time for the same reason).

Which is to say, I kept a pretty fair distance from most of the fandom until I joined VVN, so there was a year and a half where I just don’t know what was really going on. By that point the fandom was in the beginning stages V5 Bad SynthV Good syndrome, and for all my criticisms towards that mindset, it helped open me up to the wide and wonderful world of synths outside of Vocaloid and Utau.