The Vocaloid Thread That Bladida Named

What is Vocaloid?
Vocaloid, quite simply, is a software that simulates singing. Each Vocaloid has a voice bank recorded by real people. Think of it as the most extreme auto-tune software in existence. It's become quite popular in Japan, to the point where there are even Vocaloid music tours.

I'm going to cover the most popular/well-known Vocaloids, but currently there are 27 official Vocaloid products, with plans to release many many more.

What is Nico Nico Douga?
NND is a video-sharing site. It is very popular for releasing Vocaloid content, and the Vocaloid weekly charts use NND metrics to determine rankings. Most Vocaloid videos on YouTube are reprints from NND, and many will reference the original NND video URL in the format sm#######.

What is MMD?
MMD is Miku Miku Dance, which is a freeware commonly used to make videos of various Vocaloids. Most of the models and scenery are user-created, though the software comes with models for many of the older Vocaloids.


Hatsune Miku

If you've ever seen a Vocaloid before, it's probably Miku. There's currently two versions of Miku, Hatsune Miku (CV01) and Hatsune Miku Append, and a third version slated for release later this year.

Miku is considered the most popular Vocaloid, and was largely responsible for the growth of the Vocaloid user base. Her software was much easier to use than previous products. Miku is also the base software for two popular spin-offs, Yowane Haku and Akita Neru.


Kagamine Rin and Len

Kagemine Rin and Len are packaged together, with separate voice banks recorded by the same voice actress. There is no canon relationship between them, but they are frequently depicted as twins. They are also occasionally depected as lovers, and less frequently, in some sort of suboordinate/superior relationship. Rin and Len have had three releases so far, with three more currently planned.

Megurine Luka

Luka's was the first Japanese Vocaloid to be able to handle English (and the second Vocaloid to do any English at all after Sweet Ann), and has competing popularity with Miku. There is currently only one version of Luka, with two more planned.

Kamui Gakupo

Gackpoid, or Kamui Gakupo, is the first second-generation vocaloid with an adult male voice. His popularity is partially attributed to his voice actor, popular visual kei musician Camui Gackt. There are two versions of Gakupo.

Kaito and Meiko

Kaito and Meiko are the most popular first-generation vocaloids. Their software is older and the resulting songs generally sound more "computerized" than Vocaloids from second generation or newer. They are packaged separately. There are two versions of Kaito, and one version of Meiko with two more versions planned.


These are the Vocaloids you're most likely to see.

So, wait, if these are so popular/awesome, why are there none in English?
Well, there actually are! They are Sweet Ann, Big Al, Sonika, Avanna,and Oliver but they are not nearly as popular as their Japanese counterparts. Additionally, many Japanese Vocaloids either can or are planned to support English. There are also Vocaloids that support Spanish and Korean.

This is all the starter info I have for now. There's a lot to know about the various fan-based lore, different 'album' projects, and derivative works (and even competing software!), so feel free to ask questions!

HEY GUYS.

You know of Nyan Cat.


But did you know that the song is originally by Vocaloid Miku?



Vocaloids? In your memes? It's more likely than you think!

Okay, question time (you said it was allowed!). If they need voice actors, why have Vocaloids? Is the appeal entirely in the characters created? I'll have to admit it's sort of pushing some "BEEP BOOP I AM ROBOT WIMMIN" buttons with me but that's probably not fair. I'm not that of an annoying hipster that I can't get why people like it, but the catchiness of the songs is being overshadowed in the uncanny valley for me. I really want to enjoy this because I love weird electronic music but it's kind of creeping me out.

That is part of it, sure. Another I suppose would be the ability to manipulate the voices in ways that are generally not possible by anyone who except perhaps the most skilled vocalists. In addition, it may be arguably easier to learn to use the software than to learn to sing (you only get one voice box!) and so music as a medium of expression becomes much more accessible to the layperson.

I will admit that I find some of the avatar designs problematic, and I will elaborate more on that when I am not on my phone.

Wait what



Vocaloid? In my Spanish classics? It's... not bad at all, actually.

For me, I think that the appeal of Vocaloids is because they're kind of basically animesque crowd-created idols, with many different stories and narratives and interpretations and covers attached to the songs. It's like how people who flock to Touhou, not necessarily because of the games themselves, but because of the numerous doujin and stories and art and videos and songs and fan-created stuff that surrounds it. It's the same with Vocaloids; they're popular amongst fans partly because they're in a very real way created and shaped and continuously refashioned by the fans. They're more like vehicles for expression instead of something you passively consume, you know?

So it's more a reaction to the factory assembly line idols? It's still a weird sort of projection of perfection, which seems a little problematic to me (in line with the whole "ugly people can't have talent" kind of thing). I'm probably talking out of my asshole though, because I know Jack Q. Shit about idols and Vocaloids.

Eh, I was talking more about appeal in the sense of "Hey, I like anime, ooh, here are some anime dolls, now let's draw them in pretty pictures and make them sing!" The Vocaloids all have their own crowd-created personalities and backstories that fluctuate from song to song and video to video, connected by nothing but their voice quality and character design. So it's not a homogeneous pop-star ideal but more of a frothing pot of varied ideas and interpretations of the very basic info we get about these characters.

I'm personally not a fan of the electronic quality of Vocaloids, so I prefer covers of them, actually, but I like that I have a narrative framework within which I can enjoy these songs. I enjoy these songs more because I feel an emotional connection to the Vocaloids singing them, because they've become characters in stories that I like. Take Len and Rin for example; they have a canon of sorts of extremely melodramatic tragedy narrative music videos that are kind of like anime shorts, depending on the quality of the video you're looking at (I won't lie, I cried my eyes out at some of them), but then you get fun catchy songs with them that react AGAINST the way they're typically portrayed, and their characterization and dynamics are constantly in flux, which means there's always something new and interesting to appreciate about the same characters. The fact that many Nico Nico Vocaloid videos have pretty art definitely helps to engage us more. I mean, it's no different than making fancy music videos to sell songs, basically.

Maybe that's just me though, haha.

I love Vocaloids and I'm probably gonna to annoy some people now
I agree with both Alligator and Anabanana. Since they're computer programs, they don't have human limitations. They get their voices from humans, but in the program, you can pretty much modify it in all sorts of ways. The original idea, I think, was to sell it as a tool for people who produce music. If you're a terrible singer and/or you don't want to hire a vocalist, you can just pay for a Vocaloid once and have it sing whatever you want, however you want. I think it offers a lot of creative freedom, and many people who use Vocaloid start off independently.

The avatars/characters side plays into a lot too, though. The very first Vocaloids were actually English and didn't have avatars; subsequently they weren't (and still aren't) very well known. Vocaloid didn't really get popular until Miku was released, and it kinda became more of an otaku type thing I guess. At least partly, though it's starting to become more mainstream. But like Ana said, there's a huge fandom surrounding it. There's actually little to no canon information about the characters themselves, so again, people can use them however they want. Nearly all content is made by the users and fans, which I think is pretty cool.

As for the uncanny valley thing, the videos from the first post are from the hologram concerts. While some Vocaloid vids use 3D models, most use 2D animation or stills, and some don't even feature the Vocaloid avatars at all.

I don't feel like I was very eloquent here but oh well

And the one used in the Nyan Cat video is sung by Momo Momone. Not sure how that happened, but I love that it did.

Yeah, pretty much. Vocaloid are kind of like electronic instruments - but with personalities and stories! Which is pretty fun.

And yeah, those are from the hologram concerts, which are a whole different ballgame. Usually Vocaloid videos are more like this:



I just randomly chose Riseha's cover of Len's Namae no nai Uta because I love that song, it's so soft and soothing. <3 (The original Len version is quite stiff, I much prefer human covers of this one, since it's pretty emotional and all.)

Also in Chinese. They have 5 Vocaloid personalities for Chinese, one (Luo Tianyi) is already out.


Luo Tianyi's first song:

OKAY I AM BACK.

First I'm going to explain why some of the Vocaloid avatars are problematic. Or rather, just show you.

As a general note, there is very little official art. If it's not box art, from one of the live tours, or from the Project Diva games, it's safe to assume that the design is not official and not sanctioned by any of the software producers (be it Crypton, Sony, Yamaha, or whoever).

Additionally, very very little about the Vocaloids are decided by the software writers. Appearance, age, and gender are about it. Anything else (including the relationship between Len and Rin, who I mentioned earlier) are decided by the fans in varying degrees.

Miku, Len, and Rin are designed with the school uniform trope. It's pretty common and I don't bat much an eye at it. I'll focus on Miku, since she has the most visibility in non-Japan audiences.



I don't have a whole lot of issues with this design by itself.

But then we get to her upgrade, Miku Append.



She's pretty much been sexed up. If it's hard to tell by the official art, here's a fan's version of the new outfit:



Miku is supposed to be 16. So, I'm not a huge fan of the new design, but for the most part it hasn't really caught on. I can think of only one video off the top of my head that uses it, of the 220+ Vocaloid videos I have in my library right now. So, that's the good news?

Other Vocaloids have gone through similar transformations (all of them female, but there are few male Vocaloids to begin with, so part of that is luck of the draw).

My favorite, Gumi, went through what I consider a pretty pointless redesign:


Sonika went through what is probably the most dramatic redesign.


There's not much in the way of male Vocaloids to compare transformations with. Here's Rin and Len's:


Kaito didn't really get a redesign. His new box is a silhouette.

Gakupo's design was controversial at first because people said he looked too feminine:

His outfit did not really change with the release of his Append. He doesn't have pink lips anymore, though.

So, we see that in an attempt to market the products better, the official art has gone through some pretty sleazy motions.

For my next post, I'm going to illustrate why it's largely irrelevant what their designs are like.

I used to like Vocaloid. In fact the reason I met horse-ex was because he came into town to see a Miku concert.

consequently, i now greatly dislike vocaloid. Rather, I dislike all of the cray hype it gets because while it's a good way to get out some of the people out there's wonderful musical talents...it's still prone to things like that Miku..."redesign". As most, if not all, things are, I guess.

I dunno, I just fell out of my enjoyment phase for reasons and never picked it back up. Ever. And I don't think I ever will. Ever.

Re: The first Chinese Vocaloid song

Heh. That is quite something isn't it? The diction is much, MUCH clearer than, say Hatsune Miku in this charmingly bad rendition of China's national anthem. Not a fan of the somewhat hard nasal tinge to Luo Tianyi's voice though. Do you know who provided the voice bank for her? The character designs are quite pretty though, especially panda boy over on the right there.

Because so much of what makes Vocaloids appealing is how it's user-driven, there's often costume redesigns for specific story arcs or single songs.

Here's Rin's outfits for "Meltdown":


Luka in "Tailor of Enbizaka":


One of many versions of Rin and Len for "Servant of Evil":


And Miku's outfit in "Magnet":


These are just a few examples, but there are many cases where the designs are mostly thrown out in favor of other outfits that better suit the videos. That's not to say that they *always* wind up better, but the fandom, for the most part, doesn't sexify characters for the sake of sexification, and it's easy to filter out the producers that do.

O-oh wow.

I've never seen that particular Servant of Evil outfit.

It's... it's magnificent.

And I haven't seen the new redesigns of Miku etc., either! To be fair, I haven't been following the Vocaloid fandom for a while now... They look much more sophisticated and polished now (partly due to the art style, of course) - honestly, I've always found the bell sleeves to be a little tacky, haha. The school uniforms HAVE grown on me though.

I don't really consider myself part of the fandom, in that I actively avoid any participation whatsoever (UGH YOUTUBE COMMENTS), and happen to have zero friends who are anything beyond "Oh, I think I've seen that weird robot anime girl before!"

And yeah, bell sleeves... ugh. I've seen a lot of people draw from the original designs as inspiration though and just subtly tweak them and they look awesome! For example, Miku's "Chaining Intention" outfit lacks sleeves at all, and her "Necro Carnival" outfit is creepy as hell despite only a few new colors.

The "(something) of (color)" series (Servant of Evil, Daughter of White, Prince of Blue, etc.) and Synchronicity series probably have some of my favorite outfits, because they're sortof drawn from that old-timey Victorian area.

Ahaha, I would probably only count as a casual fan myself, since the only series I've seen amongst the ones you mentioned is Servant of Evil. I do like the Victorian/gothic themes in that though, I have to admit.

If it makes anyone feel better, it's been almost three years since Miku Append came out, and I am still having a hard time finding that outfit used. It seems most artists prefer her classic design or making their own (and the only video I've seen that uses it uses a Miku Miku Dance model of it).

I looked it up. It's 山新 Yamashin (real name: Wang Youji), a Chinese voice actress born in 1989.

Her personal audio broadcast: http://www.ximalaya.com/1014267/

Kaito actually does have a new outfit for his V3 release, but it's not much different, just nicer art and more techy.

But I wouldn't call any of those redesigns (except for Sonika, who honestly needed it), since the characters are still the same. They just get new outfits for new boxart.
Most of the English Vocaloids, on the other hand, got redesigned when they were released in Taiwan. The weirdest being Tonio, who went from sexy tux guy to unicorn man.

The problem I have with the avatars is that some people care more about what the Vocaloid looks like rather than what they sound like. Gumi, for example, initially got a lot of flak because her box art was kinda shitty and her outfit looked "too much like Ranka Lee" (which was intentional, since they share the same voice actor). She's actually pretty popular now, because she sounds goddamn amazing, but the fandom can be shallow like that. (And obnoxious, as seen in Youtube comments, yes. The Youtube comment section is typically terrible in general, but if you're watching a Vocaloid video, don't even bother.)

Blah, you guys beat me to this thread, I was gonna make it. Now I'm too lazy to read everyting and the embeds are killing my compy.

You need to look into stuff like the original Vocaloid, which were in English, leon and Lola, and moreso, Vocaloid Yamaha 1 & 2. The latte rin particular were meant to appeal to those like you, with no faces, SUPPOSEDLY asexual voice banks, and actually for the music and not the moe.

The original intention of Vocaloid software back when Leon and Lola came out was for example, back up voices to another singer. Harmonies and such. Maybe to use in experimental work like eletronic music. There's an album of Miku stuff where she's used like that. It's not all anime stuff.

Apparently, when Crypton released their vocaoids with the anime box art, it just happened to set off the otaku fanbase into inspiration to create characters and such for, and there was money and popularity in it, so that culture has grown around it. But that's not the original intent, or the entire soul of it's existence.

If you go deep into Vocaloid history and practical technology past all the weird fans, it's actually pretty fascinating stuff. The wikipedia article on it's pretty informitive and should probably be included soemwhere on this thread. I'd like it myself, but as I said, compy's acting up again.

Seriously though, if you have any interest in this at all, don't let all the glitz scare you away. It's a fairly interesting concept.

My favorite Vocaloid video and song :

I did see that one, but like Gakupo's, the changes aren't nearly as drastic as any of the female Vocaloids (or Len's, for that matter).

I really really really love Gumi, and with one song off the top of my head as an exception, the fans have done a great job creating stuff that I would consider "in-character" for her (which is kindof meaningless since there isn't a real "in-character" but I HAVE HEADCANON DAMMIT). I just wish her boobs weren't falling out of the bottom of her shirt.

I guess luckily for me, most of the Gumi videos I've seen don't use her original outfits. "Sweet Float Flats" is the only one I can think of that uses her boobtacular top, and the style is just so adorable that I didn't even notice at first.

I MEAN HOW CUTE IS THAT

Personally, the appeal about Vocaloids to me is the end product. Is it good music, is it good storytelling? I could care less whether it involves the avatars; two of my favorite songs at the moment, "Breaking Things Into Pieces" and "Don't Look At Me In That Way," both by Miku, have zero Vocaloids in the videos. "Two-Faced Lovers," which even got onto one of the live tours, doesn't have any Vocaloids in its video either.

I saw my first Deino video last week! It really creeped me out but I liked the song. It was... Nehanshika.

I don't consider myself a fan of vocaloid since I actually know many of their songs. I have come to like it because I think it's grounds for amazing collaborations. Someone composes a song and use a vocaloid to perform it. Someone else finds the song/story compelling enough to draw art/make animation/videos for it. Then there's people that do covers for these songs, and nico nico chorus and concerts! To me, there are just a lot and lot of love in this...fandom? if you can call it that.

My first vocaloid video was also servant of evil/daughter of evil. Then it was kokoro/kokoro kiseki. I like the story they illustrated, the way they were articulated and the fact there's two versions of them. It was interesting. At the time, I think, quite a few friends didn't like their electronic voice (and Rin's voice can get pretty high pitched), but it grew on me. My favourite servant of evil is still a cover though.

Oh, and it spawns quirky things. like catchy songs about paradichlorobenzene.

"Kokoro" and "Meltdown" were what hooked me into Vocaloids.

And so far my favorite thing to have spawned from the fandom is this (courtesy of Somnium, who first pointed it out somewhere in one of the social groups or something):

Eeeeeh she's so cute <3

Not all that big on Vocaloids. I like some Luka songs, though.
- Just be friends, which was linked above

- Interviewer


- Ebizaka no Shitateya


- Perfectionist Complex


And ... that's mostly it. A lot of songs are really catchy, and the whole dynamic behind Vocaloid is amazing (people writing songs, the video making, etc). But the artificial sounds just don't do it for me.

I like Utaite from Nico Nico, though! That's real people covering (mostly, but not exclusively) Vocaloid songs. 【蓮】's version of Rainbow Girl is so beautiful~

I'm a bit the other way around--I like when songs get good covers by Vocaloids. Among my favorites are Dear You by Rin from Higurashi When They Cry, survival dAnce ~no no cry more~ by Miku (originally performed by TRF), and Too Shy Shy Boy by Luka (originally performed by Arisa Mizuki).

I don't think the covers are necessarily better by the Vocaloids (except maybe survival dAnce xD), I am just more impressed and pleased that someone can take the original song and form it into something different that is still a great final production.

Also, I present to you one of the several hilarious reasons that English vocaloids like Big Al haven't quite caught on yet:



(This one actually made it into the daily charts!)

That video scares me.

Small Correction: Project Diva outfits are considered official as well.


So this came on my husband's Jango station and I was surprised to find that the vocals were done with a vocaloid, Lola (L♀LA)



Incidentally this reminds me of Anabanana

I knew I was forgetting something! For some reason I thought to myself, "I'm pretty sure there's a video game but all I can think of is MMD and that's not right, OH WELL."

I meant vocally. Like, the electronic humanoid voices creep me out. I actually think live-shows are very interesting (the technicals and stuff). It's the same technique that was used that made Gorrilaz come alive right? I think the phenomenon around it is a lot more interesting than the music itself. One of my favourite singers once quoted Picasso (I think) on the subject of autotune. I'm not sure exactly what the quote was, but it was about how imperfection is what makes a thing interesting. She applied it to her singing, saying that yes, you need to be able to hold a tune, but if you brush away the imperfection it becomes a lot less heartfelt. I agree, but that's a personal preference.

I really do think the whole idea of expanding creativity to fans in this way is nice, but it just doesn't work for me. I think the subject is pretty interesting is all, and I like that I can be schooled about it from people who actually, you know, do like this stuff and are in the know.

I like the art but this should go on http://boobsdontworkthatway.tumblr.com/

If only they accepted fan works... there's quite a number of disturbing depictions across the various fan projects.

(that one qualifies for eschergirls too)

And that is why during the live concerts, the producers inserted breaths in between lines for Vocaloids who don't need to breathe! :D

Though, I don't know if it's just me, but I think if you use autotune for special effect purposes instead of fixing your vocal mistakes, it can be pretty cool. In Ura-Omote Lovers, one of my favourite Vocaloid covers of all time, the singer Akiakane has incredible technical prowess, but she uses autotune (or something else - in any case she's digitally manipulated her voice) to achieve very specific emotional effects at certain points in the song.



It's just so passionate and quirky and full of life and artistic expression I just can't help but grin like an idiot whenever I watch it.