User blog:Misos13/Favorite and Least Favorite Vocaloids (2015)

I didn't do this last year, and I regretted it, so here I am. I skipped the "neutral" section because I didn't see the point. If I'm neutral on them, then I don't really have anything to say...



I could've said a lot more, but I decided to cut it off at twelve short paragraphs so I can get on with my life.



Warning: I'm really opinionated and biased.



Favorite VOCALOIDs

Hiyama Kiyoteru

Let’s focus on V2. His V4 banks may be amazing, but they’re just appends in my opinion, and they’re not why I started loving him in the first place. For one thing, his V2 has one of the largest in-practice ranges of any Vocaloid – I like how he sounds in just about any octave. He’s also one of the most emotive Vocaloids, and he has such a capacity for sounding human. I love his distinctive, piercing tone (which was tragically lost in V4), and also he’s adorable (which was fortunately perpetuated by V4). I started liking him in March 2014 because he reminded me of Kiyotaka Ishimaru from Danganronpa, and his Rock voicebank wound up sounding exactly like Ishimaru. Amazing.



Camui Gackpo

Let’s not talk about my /Kiyoteru  shipping, or else we’d be here all day. My favorite of his three voicebanks is Power, but I love the other two as well. I just really like deep, mature voices. His V2/Native is endearing and oddly cute-sounding, and his Power and Whisper are two of the highest quality male voicebanks I’ve used. And his design is amazing, if frustrating to draw.



BIG AL

He was the Vocaloid I liked first, and he’ll always be my favorite Engloid. I really like his tone – deep, emphatic, and powerful. He’s one of the few Engloids who has significant power, and I just…love deep voices. He’s the only Vocaloid who could qualify as a bass, I think. That alone is reason to count him as a favorite.



<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">YANHE

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">She’s the only Chinese Vocaloid I really like. I don’t dislike the others, but they’re just too young and high-pitched for me. She’s also my favorite female Vocaloid of all time. Her voice is just perfect, and sounds great both high and deep. I can’t say as much about her as the others, since she’s the only one of my favorite Vocaloids I don’t actually own.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">YOHIOloid

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">He has a very distinctive voice that I can’t mistake for anyone else, and that’s a huge plus in Vocaloid nowadays. He’s  currently the only Vocaloid who can’t sing in his VP’s native language, which puts him in an odd category by himself. I love his accent and how smooth his voice is. and I like how his English and Japanese voicebanks actually sound almost identical, unlike most bilingual Vocaloids. I also love the breathy sound he makes at the end of some notes.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">YUU

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">He’s my favorite of the ZOLA Project, although I like Wil almost as much and Kyo is good too. He’s supposed to have a “sweet” voice, but in practice he has a very powerful, emotive voice, somewhat akin to Kiyoteru. He actually sounds more like Naoto Fuuga than Kaito V3 does. Sometimes I think of him as a slightly younger, much higher quality Kaito. I’ll admit I started liking him because he reminded me of Clear from DRAMAtical Murder.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">Least Favorite VOCALOIDs

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">KAITO

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">He’s painfully low-quality and unrealistic, yet he’s by far the most recognizable adult male and has a disproportionately large fanbase. His V1 voicebank is all right, if terribly outdated and full of glitches, but his V3 is impossible. I’m pretty sure Soft and Whisper just use digitally altered versions of his Straight recordings, he has an electronic buzz that won’t go away, his tone is affected, and he sounds perpetually bored and has an unusually low response to parameter adjustments. His English is weak, whiny, has a minuscule range, and has a cartoonish tone I just can’t take seriously. All in all, he’s an enormous waste of Naoto Fuuga’s voice. And people used to think Kiyoteru was the inferior one! I cannot emphasize my Kaito hatred enough.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">Hatsune Miku

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">Leaving aside her Solid and Dark voicebanks which I actually like a lot, her main voicebank is impossible to escape from. It’s not at all the sort of voice I’d like even if I weren’t forced to hear it constantly as a result of being in this fandom. Also, her Sweet voicebank makes me feel vaguely nauseous whenever I hear it and might very well be my single least favorite Vocaloid voicebank.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">IA

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">I just…don’t like her. I’m not sure why. Something about her voice rubs me the wrong way. She sounds too young and too pretty. I don’t get why people call her voice deep and mature and compare her to Vocaloids like Luka and Lily. She’s more mid-range. She’s not Miku or Rin, but she’s certainly not deep or mature. She also has a tendency to sound bored.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">Kaai Yuki

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">I dislike children, I dislike the way their voices sound, and I really dislike how often she and Oliver are sexualized. The world would be a better, more moral place if child voice synthesizers didn’t exist. Humans can’t be trusted with them. Also, she has a tiny range which she sounds pretty bad outside of.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">OLIVER

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">Same as Yuki, with the added problem that he’s basically Engloid Miku. He’s used in far too many original songs, a lot of which his voice doesn’t even fit at all. He’s not as all-purpose as he’s used. And I’m just really sick of hearing him.

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<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">AVANNA

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:Helvetica;">Her voice is soft, pretty, and sweet. Everything I hate. She’s not bad really deep, but her lovely melodic tones higher up drive me crazy. She is very high-quality, I’ll admit, but I can’t abide her voice type or the ballad-like songs she’s typically used for.