Board Thread:Japanese VOCALOID discussion/@comment-35301431-20160521155050/@comment-35301431-20160521155808

Tbh I don't think CV04 will ever happen, and if he does he won't be successful at all. The reason Crypton's Vocaloids are so popular are because of their memes from 2010 era of the Vocaloid fandom, and nowadays that has died out. They would have to give CV04 like 5 appends, 2 English voicebanks that can XSY, and a Spanish voicebank or something if they want people to have any interest in him at all. Also CV04 would have to sound totally unique from any previous male vocals, like Ryuto but appealing. Either that or they could get a famous utaite or currently trending singer to be his voice provider. 1 day ago by Scintillarescenza
 * Talk:Crypton_Future_Media,_Inc./@comment-Scintillarescenza-20160520073640


 * Talk:Crypton_Future_Media,_Inc./@comment-Angel_Emfrbl-20160520103248

CV04 was not a planned member of the CV series.

The CV series was originally meant to portray the way sound travels from start to finish. miku being the start, the Kagamines being a echoe of sound or "bouncing/reflecting" as it travels and Luka being the sound as it travels across distance. CV04 was a male that came later in announcements because the series lacked a male. He is stuck in developers hell because the Vocaloid engine releases occur every so often, and the vocals do not always get tossed out in time. This is basically why Ruby and Luka ended up on V4 and not V3.

They said that when the current updates are over, they will think of doing new vocals. So once Miku v4x is over and done with, then expect another CV vocal. Now, we're not due another engine update for at least 2 or 3 years as V4 is only a year and a half old basically and the updates tend to come every 4 years; this is plenty of time for CV04 to come out.

Does he have to be unique? No. If anything, you only have to look at Meiko and you get the gest of things. Meiko's vocal is the "any girl" of Vocaloid, and there are several vocals who either overlap her tones, range or genres and some of which do everything she does better. Its also likely that as a member of the CV series, CV04 will come with EVEC and English, even if its cheap. This basically means you have a vocal that off the bat has things bout it that other vocals of the same type wouldn't ness. have. Out of all the vocaloids, less then half the Japanese ones have access to English still; there are only 3 males with both Japanese and English (And no, Len doesn't count being a female type vocal). The CV series has always been more focused on voice acting, with Luka being the only one who supposedly has decent enough vocal to pass as a professional singer, so he doesn't nesss have to be a professional singer and can be a voice actor. His EVEC will reflect the direction for the vocal CFM wants.

Speaking of Meiko and while we're at it Kaito... The pair have no plans for a V4x versions, their update was because V1 was retired. To keep the characters going, and justify merchandise of them they had to redo them. So really, Miku should be the last update to old vocals this generation from CFM.

There was no Kagamine V3 or Luka V3 because of several issues. Firstly, meiko and Kaito being updated and secondly, CFM moved. In addition, because they did not make the V2 retirment deadline, Meiko and Kaito, as well as Luka Append and Miku English had to be redone. This is why CFM were so late getting into V3.

In short, if CV04 doesn't get out this generation, then you should give up. Luka came out either enough to start the series afresh with plenty of time to get the job done. As it stands, its 2 years too soon to write him off just yet.

1 day ago by Angel Emfrbl

Okay I'm not saying that I think CV04 will absolutely never happen, just that it's unlikely (Crypton is probably going to make Miku V4 English appends or 64 more languages) and that he won't get to the same level of fame that the "Big 8" has. Unless he has some unique trait that's lacking in previous male Vocaloids he's not going to stand out, at most he'd be right behind Rana or Flower in popularity. Judging from rankings on Niconico it's mostly the female Vocaloids that are popular, and the only male Vocaloids that are equally as popular are Len (which isn't even an actual male vocal) and Kaito (who sounds like Kermit the Frog imo). Gackpo is slowly declining in popularity and I'm pretty sure Rana is above him. The reason Meiko is popular despite being painfully average is because she was there from the start so she kind of has that reputation or whatever. If Meiko was released now, she would be like Chika or Arsloid or Unity-chan. Also E.V.E.C is completely useless and no one uses it because of how badly it was implemented. It's literally a shortcut for adjusting parameters and doesn't use separate recordings for the voice colours or whatever it's called. From what I know, they got the idea of E.V.E.C from the UTAU Gahata Meiji, who has a voicebank called Fantasy which combines 3 different voicebanks recorded in different tones into one. The 2 other voicebanks than her main bank can be activated by suffixes, and that's the concept they tried to simulate with E.V.E.C, except E.V.E.C is just an editing of preexisting recordings and it only works for vowel sounds. E.V.E.C could have been effective but it's really just lazy, and it produces low quality results compared to using fresh recordings for the different tones. There are lots of E.V.E.C-style UTAU voicebanks that are way better than Crypton's official E.V.E.C system, and when a Vocaloid thing is inferior to UTAU that means Crypton really screwed up. CV04's English voicebank is a good deal, but if he's voiced by a random obscure voice actor, people who are wanting a bilingual male vocal will go for Yohioloid or Fukase instead because they're both voiced by famous people who are proficient in singing. Be that as it may, a Vocaloid being voiced by a famous singer does not guarantee success as we observed with Piko, who had terrible marketing and a tiny vocal range. So that's why, unless there's going to be a new wave of memes in the Vocaloid fandom (which was how Miku and Crypton Vocaloids became internet phenomena) CV04 could potentially end up as another Arsloid or Unity-chan.
 * Talk:Crypton_Future_Media,_Inc./@comment-Scintillarescenza-20160521042237

11 hours ago by Scintillarescenza

I'm just going to give great piece of advice to ya right now; paragraphs make things easier to read and break up your points into sections that are easier for others to address... Trust me, if you write long posts, this helps. I have a habit of going into full on internet nerd mode, since when I first logged on in 1998, I just got used to nerd banter. So I'm just used to long post writing, though I'm not always great at it, being dyslexic and all. ^_^'
 * Talk:Crypton_Future_Media,_Inc./@comment-Angel_Emfrbl-20160521084011

Okay I'm not saying that I think CV04 will absolutely never happen, just that it's unlikely (Crypton is probably going to make Miku V4 English appends or 64 more languages) and that he won't get to the same level of fame that the "Big 8" has.

You underestimate the popularity of CFM Vocaloids, even their worst vocaloids are quite well established. In fact the only thing that will likely hold him back is if CV04 truly ends up being male, a male Vocaloids don't do so well in Japan. Its likely he'll get lot of buzz and interest since he'll be the first edition to the CV series since 2009. As for the Big 8 level... Well... VY1, Yukari and IA are proof Vocaloids can still get as popular as them, but a lot of the trouble is that we had a lot of vocaloids at once in V3. Some made it, some didn't. It was as simple as that. Either way, a a CFM vocaloid he'll have the best chance of any Vocaloid, as he'll be merchandise and feature in Diva games and all that.

''Unless he has some unique trait that's lacking in previous male Vocaloids he's not going to stand out, at most he'd be right behind Rana or Flower in popularity. ''

Flower and Rana are close to the previous 3 I just listed. Rana was quite sucesful due to the way her vocal was sold, it meant that those who normally couldn't have gotten their hands on a Vocaloid were able to. This is simple because it was easier to pay out for a magazine then a full vocal all at once.

In terms of Vocaloid sales, the magazine was successful - therefore she sold well for a vocaloid vocal. We're talking about a product whose sales aren't expected to break 100,000, Meiko getting 3,000 copies in the day being "successful" at a time that things were expected to be 1,000 units... Even if the 1,000 unit is still a thing, Rana would still be a successful vocaloid at this point.

Flower must have also been a decent sales for them to consider updating her so soon as well. Vocaloid updates usually reflect various point about the vocaloids previous run of any nature.

Take note, despite being considered a member of the Big 8, Gackpoid hasn't done so well in recent years compared to his V2 run. Others such as Lapis met quite a fair bit of success, which is also why she continues to have articles on her on Vocaloid net and has even made it onto Mobile VOCALOID Editor. :-/

As for unique trait... Again... EVEC counts here. Plus if he gets English he has only competition from Kaito, Fukase, Yohioloid right now... Even if the vocal trait are common for a male vocal, there isn't a lot of choice in terms of true masline vocals that do both English and Japanese. Even a plain vocal at this stage has a good chance because of the limited competition. And seriously, don't underestimate the CV series popularity.

''Judging from rankings on Niconico it's mostly the female Vocaloids that are popular, and the only male Vocaloids that are equally as popular are Len (which isn't even an actual male vocal) and Kaito (who sounds like Kermit the Frog imo). Gackpo is slowly declining in popularity and I'm pretty sure Rana is above him. ''

Careful! Uploads don't always reflect the full extent of a Vocaloids success. See Avanna or SeeU, both reflecting both sides of the coin - Avanna has barely a look in but is successful while SeeU has a lot of look in but little success. Despite the number of them, Vocaloids that are male overall still get a decent success overall, but realize they get the same level of success as females - but there are a lot fewer of them.

I don't think Gackpo is declining in success, its that he isn't competing anymore. In my opinion his as popular as his ever been, its just he hasn'thad as much growth as the other members of the Big 8. Therefore, he is simply being left behind. Being as popular in V4 as in V2 isn't the same as being more popular in V4 then you were in V2. But this is for several reasons.

Primarily, the reason we at the wikia use the term "Big 8" or "Great 8" is because these refer to the original 8 Japanese vocaloids who made the Vocaloid software successful between them, with Miku being no.1. They aren't ness. the most overall successful, its that their culturally the most iconic. It saves us having to write Gumi, Miku, Len, Rin, etc nmes every time we want to talk about the group. Its not a term that really exists outside the wikia, except on occasion. Though some have started using it I've noted. Its like "Engloid" though, traditionally this refers to English built vocals by PowerFX and Zero-G ment purely for English.

So Big 8 doesn't ref ness. to the overall most popular or successful vocaloids. So falling behind the other 7 isn't so bad as it seems.

Gackpo himself has always had a rough time. Back in V2 he was popular because well... At the time of sales... You had Miku and the Kagamines and thats it. Kaito and Meiko were on V1. This made him an option because of the limited vocal choice. Luka and Gumi came a year later and the Engloids had a more reclusive and selective fan group since they were making any kind splash at the time. With Kaito and Meiko having limited notice as well, this meant most fans only knew 4 Vocals for the software. So of course, Gackpo was a decent consideration. However, compared to Miku he wasn't easy to use, you'd only likely by him if you were a Gackt fan. The difficulty in using was simply because as a professional vocal, he reflected a more realistic approach to vocal synthesizing and as the terms goes "warts and all". And after the Kagamines, the illusion was broken about Vocaloid vocals already. :-/

''The reason Meiko is popular despite being painfully average is because she was there from the start so she kind of has that reputation or whatever.If Meiko was released now, she would be like Chika or Arsloid or Unity-chan. ''

This is debatable and falls under the issue of "what if" scenarios... Which means we have lots of speculation. Meiko even under the CFM thumb is meeting success of some of the non-CFM vocaloids and is aong the lesser popular of the vocaloids they sell. Again, like Gackpo she isn't unpopular. The primarily difference would be, she'd likely be headed by a 3rd party, as most Yamaha vocaloids are 3rd party vocals and she is a Yamaha built vocal.

Next you'd have to consider she and Kaito are the original VY vocals and would likely have been ushered into Vocaloid stuff like VY1 and VY2. Overall, the only real lackluster Yamaha vocal was Tone Rion, She was overall the one Yamaha vocal who struggled in V3 and was not even give a Neo update when Neo was rolled out while the other Vocaloids sold by Yamaha were. Likewise...No SE before NEO came out. Meiko herself even under CFM is nearer the bottom of the Big 8, with Kaito normally above her as he still is often more successful

''Also E.V.E.C is completely useless and no one uses it because of how badly it was implemented. It's literally a shortcut for adjusting parameters and doesn't use separate recordings for the voice colours or whatever it's called. From what I know, they got the idea of E.V.E.C from the UTAU Gahata Meiji, who has a voicebank called Fantasy which combines 3 different voicebanks recorded in different tones into one. The 2 other voicebanks than her main bank can be activated by suffixes, and that's the concept they tried to simulate with E.V.E.C, except E.V.E.C is just an editing of preexisting recordings and it only works for vowel sounds. E.V.E.C could have been effective but it's really just lazy, and it produces low quality results compared to using fresh recordings for the different tones. There are lots of E.V.E.C-style UTAU voicebanks that are way better than Crypton's official E.V.E.C system, and when a Vocaloid thing is inferior to UTAU that means Crypton really screwed up.''

EVEC is a new nthing. Right now its crap jut because it is. As I said at the time of Luka V4x, its likely things will be improved in the future. NEverless, EVEC hasn't been a deal breaker as per such for CFM vocaloids, but has been a gimmick for them this generation.

It has tried to offer a solution to a problem that extra vocals present and is likely an alternative to have to fork out for every new vocal from Yamaha. Each vocal library a company releases requires licensing fro Yamaha, who take a slice out of the profit pie. EVEC being CFM's own thing won't do this. This means they can put more into a Vocaloid and pay less for it. They meant have to pay for EVEC to work with Vocaloid, but not every vocal colour.

Time will tell if EVEC will get better in the future, right now its a experimental crap but one that will likely resurface in the net CV updte.

''CV04's English voicebank is a good deal, but if he's voiced by a random obscure voice actor, people who are wanting a bilingual male vocal will go for Yohioloid or Fukase instead because they're both voiced by famous people who are proficient in singing. ''

How many English users or fans have heard of Yohio or Fukase ? answer; not many. Yet they still have sales in English domains. Not to mention, Miku's voice actress was relatively unknown in many respects and I recall the Kagaines VA being more well known at the time.

Even then... Back to Gackpo... Gackt is a amous voice actor, actor and vocalist in Japan and "known"outside of Japan. Yet this still doesn't mean he is outselling Miku. There are lots and lots of factors in play here. Provider being known or unknown is not a factor. Don't forget - Lapis and Merli are still getting decent sales.

''Be that as it may, a Vocaloid being voiced by a famous singer does not guarantee success as we observed with Piko, who had terrible marketing and a tiny vocal range. ''

Its more then that...Piko had issues with Sony being over protective of their property and putting their foot down even on popular producers and the trial before release. To top it off, he was competing with Len Append and hit a bad timing. Then there is the masculine vocal issue of V2 still being a big deal breaker. And... Before he was a year old -Vocaloid 3-. This kinda happened in V3 with V4 popping up, some vocals like Chika likely got impacted by its release.

So that's why, unless there's going to be a new wave of memes in the Vocaloid fandom (which was how Miku and Crypton Vocaloids became internet phenomena) CV04 could potentially end up as another Arsloid or Unity-chan.

Okay firstly... Memes only impacted Vocaloid greatly early on. A number of the vocaloids are getting sales without them now. All the memes did were get the names of the Big 8 around. Since ah software came onto the scene in 2009, there haven't been that many notable memes at all. Last we had was Lily V2 in 2010. So Yukari, VY1 and IA haven't been largely impacted by memes.


 * Yukari did well because there wasn't a vocal like her since most were going for more faster tempo vocal types and her voiceroid meant she had a deal of flexibility to her character. Voiceroid isn't an unpopular software and in Japan its used in alot of lets-plays and videos on Nico video.  In short, she found a niche, filled it and stayed there.
 * VY1 has done well over time because of the fact there are so many ways you could end up with her. Even going into the Mobile Vocaloid Editor she is the first vocal you get and comes with the app.
 * IA had a lot of things going for her. Her provider had decent popularity and her range and vocal performance and versatility was unmatched by any existing vocaloid.  Toppled with a flexiable licensing usage from the company behind her, Ia was a sweet deal the producers had never been given before.

Unity-Chans been decent, Arsloid suffers from a poor vocal and being male in the Japanese Vocaloid market. Remember; its a shock Fukase is doing well and a lot of it falls onto the vocal itself. Unity-chan also has other factors, she was a thing before Vocaloid and was already popular before Vocaloid. So in short, with the free version existing, she is still being a semi-successful vocal in the end. Both these vocals are also quite new to the market, so aren't expected to be super popular off the bat.

Going back to Avanna... It took a while for her success to be known since she had a fraction of Oliver's overall presence in the fandom. So when it came about, yeah, people were jerks about it... *how must have the other Zero-G products fared if she was no.1* till is a dick comment to make. A lot of it fell to her lack of presence and being an Engloid. Nobody expected her to get anywhere, so when it came about she was doing well, it was kinda a surprise. Fast forward to last christmas, she is barely holding onto her title of no.1 position for the 3rd year in a row and Dex and Daina almost got in two weeks what she got in a year - thats a shocker for Engloids and a mark of the end of the idea English vocaloids don't sell.

In contrast, one would have expected SeeU to have been on par with the Big 8... But in Japan she flopped (politics of the cultures at time and a lot of scandals from SBS and her provider over things) and Korean she didn't do much better. In her first yer SeeU had an awful lot of interest overseas nd it was difficult to forget that Japans fandom and the west aren't on par level wise with each other. So it was not known for a time that she wasn't doing well, and its mostly outside of Japan she got decent levels of attention to begin with.

In short, I feel you are being overall unfair to this situation. CV04 is most certain to be on par with Meiko. Thats not a bad thing. I doubt if it turns out male it will overall get the attention it needs to in Japan since there is still issues with lack of interest in masculine vocals, but they don't fail to sell they just fail to sell as much as the females. Its difficult because even Internet co is held back. Even if we look at Tone Rion, the least successful of the Yamaha vocals it seems, its worth noting had she been male with the same directions and vocal results in male form, she'd likely have faired worst then she did. But the trouble with "what if" is this...

Vocaloids popularity to begin with is a utter fluke, with that right now you can't say too much. Its hard to predict how CV04 would turn out, but the bottom line is that CFM are good at milking their vocaloids. Though Miku is their cash cow, there is still more official merch for the other 5 CFM vocaloids then the entirely of the non-CFM vocaloids combined. And he'd likely get at least a year of decent focus.

Not to mention, the overseas fans would likely jump on him, as they don't share Japanese obession with the female vocals. :-/

7 hours ago by Angel Emfrbl