• We're currently having issues with our e-mail system. Anything requiring e-mail validation (2FA, forgotten passwords, etc.) requires to be changed manually at the moment. Please reach out via the Contact Us form if you require any assistance.

VOCALOID Why do you think not many professional producers use English Vocaloids? Discuss.

REDD

Aspiring Fan
May 19, 2020
96
By "professional producers" i mean music producers that aren't in the Vocaloid fandom. (this isn't to say producers in the Western Vocaloid fandom are inexperienced by default)
But yeah, why do you think there aren't more non-fandom usages of English Vocaloids? (like that one time Porter Robinson used Avanna, that one time S3RL used Sonika, e.t.c)

Personally, i think that if:
-the software had better DAW implementation, (which it allegedly doesn't, IIRC, please correct me if that's changed)
-the software was easier to use and control, (like if you had more ways of fine-tuning phonemes and pronunciation instead of being stuck with whatever the engine renders)
-and if the end-product vocals sounded better, (im sorry, but as much as i love Engloids, you really have to know exactly how to tune them in order to get them to sound good, and even then, they're an acquired taste)
I really don't think there's any reason why it wouldn't be commonly used. Ive heard the argument that people don't use Engloids because the anime character designs turn them away, but honestly i think the reasons they're turned away are a bit deeper than that. (such as the software not producing good results)

What do you guys think?
Do you think it's because the anime personifications turn them away?
Do you think it's because the software is hard to use?
Do you think it's because English Vocaloids don't sound very good?
I wanna hear your take on it.
 

Katastrophe

Not An Actual Phoenix
Apr 8, 2018
78
Seconding. The learning curve to get "decent" human-sounding vocals might be a bit too high especially for producers who aren't familiar with the sound. (Unless you intentionally want something that sounds more artificial, and even then there are probably cheaper alternatives for an "artificial"-sounding human voice)
 

Blue Of Mind

The world that I do not know...
Apr 8, 2018
699
I think there's two big reasons:

1.) Vocal synths in general are seen as "creepy" by Westerners, because when poorly tuned, they sound like they're trying to imitate humans, but at the same time, they don't sound human at all. (The "uncanny valley" reaction). Of course, some producers deliberately use that effect for their tracks, but professional Western producers aren't going for that most of the time. So programs like Vocaloid aren't that appealing to them, especially when you consider that Engloids still don't sound as smooth as J-loids, and the current version of Vocaloid is too expensive and system intensive.

2.) Related to the 'Vocaloid is expensive' point, human singers are cheaper for professional musicians to hire that buying a VB. And if forced to choose between a human singer and a program with odd pronunciations and the need to tune everything just to make the vocals sound right, a professional musician would rather deal with a human.
 

REDD

Aspiring Fan
May 19, 2020
96
1.) Vocal synths in general are seen as "creepy" by Westerners, because when poorly tuned, they sound like they're trying to imitate humans, but at the same time, they don't sound human at all. (The "uncanny valley" reaction). Of course, some producers deliberately use that effect for their tracks, but professional Western producers aren't going for that most of the time. So programs like Vocaloid aren't that appealing to them, especially when you consider that Engloids still don't sound as smooth as J-loids, and the current version of Vocaloid is too expensive and system intensive.
I think this is a really crucial point as well.
To me, right from the very beginning, Yamaha has always been marketing Vocaloid as this magic program that will completely make human vocalists obsolete, when it never had the capabilities of doing that.

And while i do think that the pursuit of trying to make human-sounding virtual vocals is very very cool, i dont think Vocaloid has ever gotten there quite yet. (and it probably never will now because the software's on its last legs)

I get that the English language is very hard to synthesize, but i think that they got so caught up in trying to make the vocals sound human, that they forgot that the finished product also needs to sounds good. It is possible to have a synthesized voice that sounds nice without it necessarily sounding human.
Take Miku for example. People dont listen to Miku because she sounds human. They listen to Miku because they like how she sounds as is. I think Vocaloid sounds its best when producers embrace the software for what it is rather than trying to fight to make it sound human.
 

Prism

Enthusiast
Jul 18, 2019
524
Also, a lot of people in non-fandom see vocaloid as that weird Japanese anime software. Miku kinda killed English vocaloids in their eyes especially when Miku v3 English came out because they see vocaloid only as that. Vocaloid has a weird marketing problem you can see Yamaha trying to fix it with v5 but they keep on messing up in the eyes on the western non-fandom music producers. Also, they see it as too hard to use for not the best results.
 

DefiantKitsune

Lonely kanon fan
Apr 11, 2018
621
To be fair, there aren't that many examples of Japanese professional users using vocaloids outside of Miku (which is frequently either for sponsorship or publicity) either.

(A voicebank is actually cheaper than a human singer if you want to do more than like two songs but the learning curve still applies.)

And there are a fair few examples of non-vocaloid users, especially in EDM, using vocaloids- both Mendum and Phantom Sage have used vocaloid somewhat regularly before. Porter Robinson uses Avanna very frequently too, a lot more than just in "Sad Machine"
And there are probably a lot of examples of vocaloids being used for backgrounds/samples that aren't credited and we don't know about.
 
Last edited:

Trevor

?
May 2, 2018
78
Yamaha has struggled with English since gen one. It's hard to get English to sound expressive and audible due to the complexity of the language. Not to mention, most of the funding for vocaloid comes from Japanese and Spaniah speaking communities. Economic incentive was not as strong, thus here we are.

It's also worth noting many western users do not use engloids as singers. Instead, they use the program to test melodies, harmonys and lyrics before hiring a vocalist. Clear, exaggerated vocals like the cyber series are fantastic for that even if it means awkward sounding tonal issues.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)