Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-53539-20180529221920/@comment-53539-20180531191448

110.184.47.217 wrote: Perhaps I'm cherrypicking here, but I think it is highly dependant on the Vocaloid user. Look at kyaami/cillia for example. All of the difficulties that have been previously pointed out in this thread (limited emotional expression, sudden shifts in tone that don't quite natural, etc.) were no obstacle to her at all. Tons of her work is very realistic-sounding; I distinctly remember hearing her VY1 cover of "Donor Song" and being shocked to find that it wasn't a real person singing, and the same thing with her "Rolling Girl" UTAU cover.

Also, I believe I once read a comment on the official Vocaloid YT channel asking them when they thought Vocaloid technology would reach the level of sounding like actual humans. The reply was something along the lines of "we're pretty much already at that stage where it's possible to realistically emulate the human singing voice, but it's too much work and therefore not worth the effort". So, from this response, it seems to imply that as long as an individual has the sufficient skills and commitment towards a certain work, then there really isn't anything holding them back from creating an amazing, realistic song. Unfortantely we're not there at all. When you compare the unedited human audio and unedited even from the best producers, there still are many things the human voice can do a vocaloid can't. As mentioned they can't learn new phonetics to producer new words in other languages. A real singer can. They can't change tone completely and make it sound just as realistic. To get a sudden change of tone with Vocaloid often results in loss of quality, as there is only so much you can do with a voice before it has problems, this was a issue with Gumi in V2 and was especially a limiter for her. Sadly sample quality with extra changes or even just a tad bit of change for some vocaloid is enough to break the vocaloid.

The more you listen to vocaloids, the more you can tell where their failing on subjects a real singer can do easily.

You also have the roboticness problem and listening to several cover songs by real singers/fans still notes how better the real singer is. Gackt's cover versions of two of his Vocaloid songs he recorded for a album as part of a contest, aside from giving him issues with some notes, are still at the day better then the original, those are Dancing Samurai and Episode,0 I believe the other was. That's because Gackt had the free to add expression where his vocaloid couldn't, putting real power and emphasis on certain notes.

You can do this with aids like Vocaloid Listener, but then you have the question of why your using vocaloid in the first place, which has always been the problem with such tools. Plus, it turns out there is no better way to make vocaloids produce more bugs, glitches and awful notes then using such software as the Vocaloid software still doesn't like certain things about the human voice when it comes to making Vocaloids match it. A lot of producers don't bother fixing the issues. They have alternatives to Vocalisner too, which is fine also, but not much better either.

Still even the best tuned songs aren't a match for any of the best songs by singers exactly. And a bug or glitch within a voicebank, doesn't go away no matter how much you want it to. I've long since noted most producers particular in the overseas can't tell when their vocaloids collapse. I have a funny idea Vocaloids also appear more realistic for the same reason. It sort of is based on the V2 myth that English Vocaloids were less realistic then Japanese ones... Notonly were many not attempting to sound realistic compared to the English ones, but the larger sample voicebank of English vocaloids (x5) gave far more room for realism, but often at the cost of precision which Japanese vocaloids have. So there is the easy thought of falling into the trap of mistaking something as more realistic then it is. The V2 myth was based on bias, so was a product of fans wanting the Japanese vocaloids they loved far greater to be better then they are. Its often said that when you love something you hold it in a higher regard and hate to see it put down which often is the case for human beings. Nostalgia, being the worst cause of such a thing.

The other issues with Producers is they get used to a certain style... Anyone recall the demo song for Lily V2 that gave the impression she was a higher pitch then she actually was? What works for one circumstance will fall apart if they make changes, and producers can get really good at one thing, but their skills fall apart in other areas. Sometimes its luck and they have not much skill at all...Remember Giuseppe, despite the attitude he had at vocaloid fans, still was a very good producer and one of the best overseas. He could make Vocaloids do things most couldn't.

And yes, there is the thing we agree on with vocaloids can't do just any song, which is another problem. Vocaloid isn't at the point wherein every vocaloid can break out entirely from their comfort zone.