User blog comment:OtterJiang/V4 - I'm Not Impressed/@comment-53539-20150313085505

Most presume that a "power" vocal automatically means "clarity is awesome" but as I've explained before, "power" just means "strength". It means that have more omph to hold notes and go high without waning. Clarity is just a by-product of that strength, that most vocals end up receiving. Best example of "power" vocals not having what is expected of a power vocals is the Kagamines Act1. Just saying this because everyone is more excited for Yukari power then her softer vocal, I quite prefer the expression of softer vocals.

But... I think the whole "clarity versus any other trait" is the root of a LOT of Vocaloids long-term problems. With clarity comes issues like enhancing the faults of each vocaloid vocal, since audio troubles can also get clarity. And then there is also a loss of expression, which concerns me with Cyber Diva.

I agree that V4 feels like a update for the sake of a update (Microsoft + windows did this more then once), but it has some new technical things that make me feel like it does have enough to separate it from previous versions... The trouble is... The updates aren't MAJOR. XSYing needs work and growl isn't that useful to be honest... I certainly don't call them "big selling points". >_<

VY1 as a vocaloid is slowly getting as popular as Yukari, IA and the "big 8", but its a slow process. Most of it amounts to how Yamaha is selling her persistently on every platform, save the pocket piano version. And the VY1v4 version of VY1 feels like the best version overall in terms of what it adds...

I think the overall big issue is that as Vocaloid goes on in its development, each new vocal requires more and more work done to it. We've had it confirmed that V4 vocals have even more triphones then V3 vocals, which means extra time added to development. The other thing is, if Ruby's development is to go by, the studios WEREN'T handed any dev kits until only months prior the V4 release... the result is nobody has anything ready yet. With V2, pretty much the Dev Kits seemed to have been waved in front of the studios eyes even before VY2 was released (VY2 was delayed don't forget). So there was more vocals ready at launch.

It often happens with platforms such as consoles that a product is released before the 3rd party developers have anything to toss out for it. Both VY1v4 and Cyber Diva have the "yamaha" label on them after all. On the one hand this works in Yamaha favor as both VY1v4 and iva have had a good reception overall, on the other there is still no big rush forward to grab V4... As I said, it offers some nice things but their not enough to leave V3 behind. Top it off, those with V2 vocals at first couldn't import them to V4, thus, had to still invest in a V3. :-/

With a lot of vocals released for V3 as well, there is less reluctance to move forward as many vocals are already still in V3. A lot of producers won't have rushed to get Diva or VY1v4 as well, but just focused on the engine itself. This happened with V2. Others, are holding out for the CFM vocaloids and others still won't fix on Miku as the only vocaloid they really need. Miku pretty is much most producers end up buying, many, only buying. >_<