VOCALOID What you like in a Vocaloid and what makes it a financial success...

[YOYo_MAMA]

So I've been in the vocaloid fandom for about 5 years already, and I've seen how my taste have change over time. We all have our taste in what makes a vocaloid song good but I would want to know what other people consider a good characteristic of a successful song, the character, what makes it "click" to you.

Especially if they have different cultural background since majority of the the Vocaloid fans are in Japan. Oversees fans, like myself, have different taste than others. I'm also worried with how the producers earn money to keep doing their passion. I see them as synthetic dj musicians, not just an otaku with a hobby. With enough market appeal and the right marketing strategy, they can be as successful as famous DJ's like Avicci, Zed, even Daft Punk, and they don't even sing, they spend most of their time remixing synthetic sounds on a computer. Do they have to wait for the company to notice them and fund their tuning skills? Are they completely dependent on the fan to be considered a success?

I'm just wondering why most vocaloid companies won't expand from their usual marketing strategies, and if they did, why it don't really take off to be a financial success. Besides Crypton cause they already spend millions on advertising, merchandising, novelties, collaboration, video games, and so on.

 

[uncreepy]

Here is my (poorly written) tinfoil hat theory...

I think that Miku got a huge boost (even without concerts, games, merch, etc) due to internet culture in Japan when she released. Nico Nico Douga was fun because viewers can interact with the videos by commenting directly on it and created a web of Miku lore.

For income, I think Western vs Japanese producers are in a different boat. Japan has a huge culture of doujinshi artists who sell their cds and art at events (some do this as a hobby and have a different job). It seems like western producers have to beg to get money (through Ko-fi or Patreon). Japanese producers also have a chance of their songs being used at Vocaloid events like Miku Expo, Project Diva games, IA's concerts, or being used for official demo songs. The percentage of a Western producer's song being used officially seems extremely low (at least they have Vocamerica). (Personally, I think western producers should diversify their income by not only selling songs, but also selling merch, having a YouTube channel that maybe uploads their process or gives tips, looking into selling background music, etc.)

Certain Vocaloid companies have more income than others due to their size. Both Crypton and Zero-G sell other virtual instruments, not just Vocaloid, but Zero-G doesn't have enough funds to dedicate to selling merch (Zero-G said on Twitter that they would be interested in simple merch someday (maybe like stickers, but not plushies because it costs like $2000+ to make the minimum plushie order)). For the Vsingers, they said they make more money off of brand deals and just do concerts for the fans' sake cause it doesn't really make money.

I think some Vocaloids fail because the company who made them releases them unexpectedly. Mirai Komachi is a good example. Even though she was made by Namco Bandai, a huge company everyone knows about, they just released her without warning and didn't give her a demo song until it was too late. And then they just expect the fans to do all the marketing for them when there is no incentive to use them (as in maybe your song will be used officially). Other companies release the same old cutesy voice western producers are sick of hearing (probably due to the fact that Japanese producers are mainly men).

Personally, I would rather see many niche vocals (ex: male rock vocal, female rap vocal, etc) that sell over time compared to dead-on-arrival cutesy vocals. I also think it takes more these days for a successful character rather than a successful Vocaloid, because 2D idol culture is booming in Japan and China right now. For example, recent vocals like Meika Hime and Mikoto, Akari and Yukari, come with both a Vocaloid voice and talking voice and free 3D models so that creators can use them for tons of stuff like Let's Plays. Only releasing a vocal seems unhelpful and lazy.

 

[Kona]

I'll share my thoughts on this, though they're a little messy and probably hard to understand

For the income side, the Vocaloid community is different in both sides. The Japanese producers in particular tend to be older and previously established producers of some remote kind, while the West sees a lot of newcomers to music altogether around 14-20 years old for the start of most, especially popular, Western producers. In Japan, they also have greater opportunity, with their songs having the potentiall to be in games, events, and other things on top of Vocaloid record labels like KARENT and EXIT TUNES. It helps them signal boost teir stuff out there, at least for the ones that can get into those big albums.
In the West, most of income comes from fans. It's either YouTube monetization, Patreon, Ko-fi, commissions, or selling songs. There aren't really any events or anything that allow smaller producers to grow, so the popular ones stay dominants rather than a larger spread like Japan and China. I think that's why we only see the same couple producers getting in events or doing demo songs--mostly referring here to CircusP who heavily dominated for a while and still does what with all the demo songs he's done plus winning the Miku Expo 2016 Song Contest and getting another song added during Miku Expo 2018.

Personally, speaking about the West, the "perfect formula" I've observed for songs is the ones that get more attention always either come from a contest or are electronic songs that use Miku English or Gumi English. Native Engloids don't get as much attention in their music releases, with the exception of probably just Dex and Daina. For that reason, I think most companies that COULD have merchandise don't, because the demand needs to be there first and to be profitable, there has to be more than just a few dedicated fans. I think this is why we see Una getting her own online shop and lots of collabs, including a café, following her extreme rise in popularity.

I think it's also important to keep in mind that while Vocaloid has become very character based, it's meant to appeal to professionals not just a niche fandom community. The rise in character over stock photo or illustration I think, is just a result of Miku's success and influence. Many of the companies don't do solely Vocaloid, and it's just another musical product. Marketing can help, but Vocaloid is very saturated, I would think something similar to say how many different piano VSTs there are out there for producers, and most will stick to the popular ones that everyone recommends while few will find the hidden gems.

It's part marketing, part community that creates a successful Vocaloid.

 

[Blue Of Mind]

I'd say Miku achieved popularity because she had a full body avatar that utilised trypical moe traits and had some kind of backstory (even though neither the fandom nor Crypton follows it anymore). Both these and her VB endeared her to NicoNico's otaku community. The previous Vocaloids released before Miku (even Meiko and Kaito, even though they had avatars too, but I think they were mostly decoration and they didn't have backstories) didn't have this going for them. (Leon and Lola were just a pair of lips; Miriam had a photograph of a woman (Miriam Stockley herself?) but again it was for decoration. And Sweet Ann's original box art...)

Japanese producers back in 2008 could rely on doujin circles for income, even though the market there was and is still niche, and in terms of physical releases of music, you wouldn't have been able to print too many copies at one time. The digital era was rising at the same time as Vocaloid in general, and in the long run, Japanese producers benefited from platforms like iTunes and KarenT. Western producers are caught in a double bind of Vocaloid being niche and tied too closely too the anime fandom ("Weeaboo music!"), but again digital platforms exist for Vocaloid songs and albums, and Vocamerica exists for Western producer promotion.

I do agree that dropping a voicebank at short notice and at random is the most surefire way of a VB doing badly. Having a similar voice type to a previous Vocaloid is another strike against a VB. I do wish more niche vocals like the Operaloids were a thing, because then the fandom would have more genre and VB variety, and not rely on the same VBs which don't always work for some genres.

 

[Exemplar]

I think a lot of the differences have to do with how western countries see celebrity culture and it's role in the music biz differently than in Japan & China.

It has been discussed before how vocaloid songs in Japan can touch on topics that would have been considered a bit taboo if a flesh and blood singer to sing about. And how over there it gave many creators an experimental space to combine different styles and genres many singers would normally avoid (take a look at how many producers have transitioned to the Top 40 or have produced music Top 40 acts over there). In China much of the success of vocaloid is based on how real singers are watched like hawks looking for a lunch by Beijing bureaucrats. It's significantly less risky to have Tianyi promote a company's products than an actual celebrity that can accidentally torpedo their own career by saying the wrong thing. If anything, the things I just mentioned shows a night and day difference between the scenes in Japan and China.

Singing synth tech in the west and in the east does one thing that is universal... it truly evens the playing field resulting in a true meritocracy. That fact might scare those in the western music business.

The western music biz revolves around access. Access to singers, producers, physical/digital retail, concert venues, promotional material/budgets etc etc. It's actually a bizarre 3d chess game where artists see the label figures as chess pieces and label figures seeing artists as chess pieces also, with pieces being played against other pieces (just look at the drama between Katy Perry & Taylor Swift over the years). Uncertainty scares those folks. What would happen if a western vocaloid producer made a song that ended up in the top 40? Those industry folks would freak out. Months networking and building up hype for their artists to just end up being upended by a bedroom producer putting out something really high quality they never saw coming. I mean just look at the conniption Billboard threw about Old Town Road being on the country charts. The singing synth community has the potential to be a true wild card and be possibly seen as a disruptive, volatile force by entertainment biz folks.

Let's look at Pharrell's remix of a Miku song for a moment. It took 5 years for that song to get 1.4 million views on youtube. You know how long it took for Oddeeo's Chinatown Blues remix to reach those numbers? Less than a year (I think the reupload took less than three months to reach that number). Pharrell is still a significantly more well known producer/artist, but in the vocaloid space he did not stand out that much compared to many of the bedroom producers in the scene. Heck I can turn on the radio right now and hear over the course of an hour quite a few poorly produced songs being sung by well known singers. If that meritocracy transferred from the vocaloid community over to the mainstream music space, it would throw many industry folks into a panic. I suspect with how limited english vocaloid tech is, the industry folks took solace in that. But, singing synth tech is beginning to go through a technical renaissance with SynthV, Emvoice and the potential upgrades for CeVIO and UTAU. If a western vocaloid producer broke through, it's not going to be without a very big fight. It could end up being a big drag out and impolite fight.

 

[DefiantKitsune]

Personally, I would rather see many niche vocals (ex: male rock vocal, female rap vocal, etc) that sell over time compared to dead-on-arrival cutesy vocals.

The problem is, cutesy generic voices at least stand a chance of success- niche vocals never do well, ever, simply because the net of people interested in that genre and then net of people interested in vocaloid is a really small combined net. For example, neither the operaloids nor Sachiko did very well.
(Also, I'd point out making a vocaloid for rap makes basically no sense- that's what stuff like voiceroid is for.)

Personally, speaking about the West, the "perfect formula" I've observed for songs is the ones that get more attention always either come from a contest or are electronic songs that use Miku English or Gumi English. Native Engloids don't get as much attention in their music releases, with the exception of probably just Dex and Daina. For that reason, I think most companies that COULD have merchandise don't, because the demand needs to be there first and to be profitable, there has to be more than just a few dedicated fans. I think this is why we see Una getting her own online shop and lots of collabs, including a café, following her extreme rise in popularity.

I would point out Avanna is one of only three vocaloids i know of that have gotten a song to ten million views (along with Miku and Gumi). Avanna actually seems more popular outside of the vocaloid scene than in it, which is an....interesting situation.

 

[YOYo_MAMA]

Avanna's success is interesting cause she doesn't fit the "cutesy" norm like Miku and Gumi, she's more realistic in sound, more than Gumi was intended. Wasn't she used by Porter Robinson in some of his songs? He is not known as a vocaloid producer but a EDM artist. Most, if not all of his listeners are not vocaloid fans. The same can soon the said to Oliver cause he is used as the voice of the character Puppycat in the webtoon "Bee and Puppycat". Some of the people who watches the show didn't know a vocaloid is the voice actor until the creator, Natasha Allegri said it in an interview. She previously worked on the show Adventure time.

 

[DefiantKitsune]

Oliver never really caught on outside the fandom like Avanna did, and honestly faded away pretty quickly.

But yeah, most of Avanna's popular songs are from edm artists like Porter Robinson and Phantom Sage.

 

[Blue Of Mind]

The problem is, cutesy generic voices at least stand a chance of success- niche vocals never do well, ever, simply because the net of people interested in that genre and then net of people interested in vocaloid is a really small combined net. For example, neither the operaloids nor Sachiko did very well.

I'd like to counter that many cutesy/generic VBs released nowadays don't tend to make a lasting impression among both the Japanese and Western fandoms. Otomachi Una leaned cutesy but after some brief hype she was forgotten about. (Yes, I know she has diehards fans. Don't throttle me!) Mirai Komachi? Who's that? (Jk, but seriously, I forget about her all the time). Out of the two Meika banks, Mikoto seems to be the more popular one because she has a HQ mature voice (even though Hime has a nice, airy HQ cute VB).

By "niche VB", I was personally thinking on the lines of a VB that's obviously geared for a specific umbrella genre. Say for example, a VB that's specifically made for rock music, but in theory could sing classic rock, hard rock, modern indie rock, certain subgenres of metal, etc.

 

[Rylitah]

Una definitely was not forgotten about -- she has more than just diehard fans, she's doing incredibly well and actually recently had a cafe event themed solely after her. She has tons of merch too, but honestly I think her popularity mainly stems down to the fact that the company behind her (not Internet co, the one that actually owns her) actually bothers to promote her; Vocaloids with the companies actually promoting them constantly and engaging with the fanbase tend to go a long way these days.

Also she has a talk bank and that really doesn't hurt either.

As for the Meikas, Hime is actually the more popular one from what I've noticed. Western fans tend to like Mikoto more, but Hime has more usage on Nico (337 videos in her solo tag now while Mikoto hasn't even broken 200)

Personally... I feel that any "niche VB" probably may not do well, even if it's for something popular like rock. I understand companies wanting their voices to be as versatile as possible -- and imo kind of a bold/risky move to make a vocal specifically suited for one genre. (Then again, Flower doesn't have a voicetype fitting for a lot of things (especially slower, gentle songs) so that probably doesn't really stop anyone as they'll use her for those too.)

this post is a mess grammar and organization wise orz i'm sorry

 

[Chuchu]

I'd like Megater Zero to be able to record a Vocaloid voicebank, but I know it's just wishful thinking. Virtual idol culture is booming, so I think new and old Vocaloids can greatly benefit from an official channel where they just have to dance to their original songs here and there. Good thing is that it isn't really that exspensive and another way to get attention or staying relevant.

 

[YOYo_MAMA]

Una definitely was not forgotten about -- she has more than just diehard fans, she's doing incredibly well and actually recently had a cafe event themed solely after her. She has tons of merch too, but honestly I think her popularity mainly stems down to the fact that the company behind her (not Internet co, the one that actually owns her) actually bothers to promote her; Vocaloids with the companies actually promoting them constantly and engaging with the fanbase tend to go a long way these days.

I actually noticed the more successful vocaloid's like Miku and IA, their companies actually go through a ton of advertisement and promotion. We already know Crypton spends a fortune of Miku's advertisement and promotion alone. Miku is their third attempt on a vocaloid voicebank and the only one who became a financial success so it makes sense that their focus will be on the "golden girl".

1st place, on the other hand, were pretty late on promoting IA herself. Her popularity took off when they employed Jin and Shidu to mainly use her, which we all know started the Kagerou project franchise. Jin started with Miku but IA got more attention after the deal. Since then they start rolling of merchandise and concerts with kagerou songs.

Most of the Chinese vocaloid companies are starting to be more active on promoting their vocaloid products, Luo Tianyi for example already had a coffee commercial and a chinese anime based of her.

Though I'm lost with how AH-software promotes their products. Tohoku Zunko for example already had a short anime based of her. It's mostly the voiceroids that get more attention like Yukari Yuzuki, though I noticed she is mostly paired up with IA.