Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-148.109.1.11-20131219190545/@comment-53539-20131220095851

Some people can take a "easy" Vocaloid and find them hard. Others find the "Hard" ones easy. This is why such ratings are difficult to maintain because quite frankly... How do you measure these. :-/

Excuse me if this turns out a little bit too much "beginner's guide", I don't know your level so I'll cover all the bases I can think of.

As a beginner, since we're on the V3 era, there are a lot more options then before. If you own the V3 engine, you have the luxury of any V2 vocal and V3 working for that engine.

It depends on what language your going for overall though... As to which Vocaloids you end up with. And now there are many vocals it makes things only more complex in the V3 era then with V2.

For example, here is the typical situation you face;

Miku Japanese is obviously easy but at the same time "advance" for Japanese becaquse her orignal vocal was easy enough to use, but the V3 version comes with 4 additional vocals. Her English vocal is rated easiest Japanese -> English vocal to use, but not as good as the English native vocals.

My advice;
 * I'd listen to all the vocaloids and make a list vocals you are interested in.
 * Then read up on those vocals and try to come out with about 4-6 which you are interested in the most.
 * Then approach Vocaloid otaku forums for advice of which of the 6 is best. :-/

Some don't;
 * Don't be bias and discriminate about vocaloids based on artwork on the box or hyper fan reasons.
 * Take language into consideration. If you can't write Japanese or Spanish for example, don't buy those vocals.  If you do want them, look at what bilinguals are out, that way you still can use one side of the Vocaloid if you can't use the other.
 * Some users are bias themselves, so don't go for one persons opinion on a vocaloid.
 * Some vocaloids like Prima and Tonio are excellent vocals,, but grounded in one style,.  Do also read what the vocaloid is designed for.
 * Before buying, do check you have a software DAW like Cubase or FL studio, and can manipulate vocals to mix them into songs. the number of people who don't know how to mix vocals or have a DAW in the western fandom is crazy and youtube has many bad covers produced by such vocaloid users

And finally a do; do make sure you know what your doing... You need to know how to make music basically. Read some on-line stuff on music making and guides.