Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-53539-20180531232550

So the last topic I wanted to create was more or less about languages.

So discounting Petit and Nemu we have had 10 releases and mostly are in the Yamaha group, in fact 8 of the ten are in this group.. I guess it makes people apricate more even when common voice types like Mirai Komachi come along and I'm glad for it. But considering how many new vocaloids we've had and how we got used to regular releases from Japan, the slowness of the new releases is notable. In regards to re-releases, as I said several times over the last couple of years, I now really discriminate re-releases as to what they add to the old vocaloid. Its nice to see the old V2's updated and I felt Ah Software was strong this generation for doing that move. But then theres Internet co who basically did two re-releases and then nothing except Una. I'm hoping this means we'll get one re-release before V5 as I really can't imagine Internet being silent for this long without a major release, but at the same time compared once again to V3, Internet are also victims of the V4 downtime. Its hard to get excited for Japanese vocaloids when so little is coming out of Japan to be excited about and even in late V3, we had things to look forward to constantly.

So as you know, in regards to the great ancient V2 engloid myths, their still around... I'm worn and tired from constantly tackling this and addressing this issue. Yes, things are a lot better in this department which is good, but I see a lot of the same old, same old and after 8 years of it, I'm a bit fed up. I am still an Engloid fan, but there wasn't even a release last year for a single English vocal and that's sad to think about it, I kinda feel PowerFX would have put one out last year which marks the impact of loosing a studio in Vocaloid and its effect but I note how I sat there expecting Megpoid English and also nothing last year. Basically for me, things were slow. I know if the V5 speculation is try then Zero-G has vocaloids lined up already and we won't know until then what they are. So we're looking likely at a Engloid release next year. I feel this is disappointing as we've had releases every year since Prima without a break from any studio. Now Zing and Uni were both said to be having English vocals and last year Uni English was expected and its not with us. Either Uni was that badly received or this is another project caught up in V5. On the other hand, 5 natives altogether isn't bad at all especially since 4 of the 5 had good reception and the 5th is debatable. Ia English coming out for CeVIo is the biggest disappointment of them all and I think the worst move by her company, they should have made a new vocal for CeVIO with English rather then using IA. IA talk though, since Vocaloid covers only vocals, is fine and I guess expected. To me, this is my favourite part of vocaloid and I've been with it so to speak since Lola, so I'm worn but still here which is good.

Spanish Vocaloid is dead, really it is. The loss of PowerFX was bad, but this is supernova. I don't know what else to say, except you can praise Maika now all you want as the goddess of languages, but that didn't help "Spanish Vocaloid" at all. u=Unless we get more Spanish voicebanks, we've got a serious problem. I have a slight worry that because someone like Guiseppe had influence in Vocaloid and his issue was Vocaloid should never have seen a public release, I hope nothing was from him to cause the Spanish company to come out of Vocaloid. I don't think they would make much money on their current basically super autotuned, but they should have also kept a finger in Vocaloid's pie, if they are indeed fully out. I think as well, the other issue is compared to many other companies, this was more or less their own product. I did hear the super-auto tune software and though VO praised it... I felt it was somewhat disappointing, considering some of those on it are also in Vocaloid. But then again... They wrote the Yamaha English script with all its bugs.

Korean Vocaloid is a mixed bag of issues, while we have a new vocaloid, I am not sure whats going on and if they are doing much. Its hard to based things purely on fanart and songs since not all songs are from legit vocaloid copies and artists draw what they like and don't ness. have to own the software at all.

I feel the Chinese vocaloids are doing well, they've had a couple more voicebanks released and a couple of re-releases, with a clear stinker in Miku. I honestly wish the other English fans would relise English Miku isn't much better, as the Chinese fans saw the problems in Miku Chinese. But I know this isn't going to happen as Miku poops gold bars to them. I'm pretty sure Miku likely did well despite all things and we'll be seeing Chinese vocals for their V5's. It makes me happy because I'm not a miku fan and I've dislike her voice from the start, but also CFM's approach to new languages. My only thoughts on the venture into Japanese is perhaps this was too soon and they should have waited 1 more generation to get this sorted. It would be nice if more Chinese voicebanks came out first and we had a clear buffer zone, especially as Japanese voicebanks are not a certainty to sell a vocaloid as both SeeU and Yohioloid found out. There is some mixed messages though sent out this generation about the approach to Chinese vocaloid as two of them have XSY with the Japanese side but not the Chinese. However, I have a funny idea its due to the voicebank size, as from what I've read, Chinese voicebanks are fairly large like the English ones. So its likely cheaper to producer 2 Japanese vocals then 2 Chinese. But whatever happens, its a little confusing.

I honestly don't know what to expect as we draw ever closer to the question on when V5 is due, since its an overarching shadow that could come within the next year. But, in regards to the languages, I hope things turn out better all around. I think the Vocaloid engine will increasingly see more Chinese voicebanks as they appear to be doing better and accepted easier then English ones. I expect a new English vocaloid next year possibly from Zero-G, their overdue. I think we'll be seeing Chinese voicebank releases for the next 4 years every year so V5 will have a good Chinese lifespan like V4. I think when V5 comes around, we'll see yet another round of re-releases of the typical vocaloids like Megpoid or Miku with EVEC being improved upon and expanded. The slow down of English vocaloid concerns me, but we did have a overload in V3 with about 3 times as many as in V2 with the damage of loosing PowerFX hitting us in the long term. I don't see any new additional English voicebanks besides Zero-G being released and unless Yamaha English native vocals begin to appear in the Yamaha group, we'll perhaps see a re-release of Diva and Songman with XSY or improvements, but we're looking at 2-3 English native vocals next generation. This is a disaster no matter how many non-natives come out. I did recently contact PowerFX to see whether or not they really are full out of vocaloid for good, but without Bil there is little hope.

Anyway, I don't know what else to say here, but I'm actually not looking forward to V5 right now based on the state of things. V4 has been a rather dull release period even in comparison to V2. There are part of Vocaloid dead, part that need revitalising and parts that are on a loop. For V5 I'd rather instead of a new released language they work on getting more voicebanks of existing languages out which show off whatever V5 will show off. I'm also not as excited as I should be for V5 because its going to have to be a very promising release. My last hope is that re-releasing vocaloid companies, don't just rush to get out the latest Megpoid, the latest Miku and they put effort into not just piling out the latest copy. I basically don't want to see another Megpoid V4 this next generation ith pointless extra voicebanks and I don't want to see a Luka Vx4 with such a messy release. 