User blog:Angel Emfrbl/The pictures coming together...

Of what happened in the early days of Vocaloid!

Vocaloid was released when theres no competition from any other software. Much is put into the english version, which is passed around the approptiate websites like Sound on Sound, which were fairly well known at the time. At the time there were many indy muscians roaming the web, all looking for a quick sale to build a name via the internet. Synethizers were commongly being used when such thing was an absence. New music styles were coming in, all using these new technologies. In the midst of all, Yamaha tries to take advantage by producing Vocaloid a singer when you have nothing else, perfect for the indy muscian.

Theres a lot of focus in these early days on the Vocaloids, up until Sweet Ann, with lots of keen eyes browsing over what these new technologies can do. But at this point, Vocaloid is just another software, reflected in the design of Leon and Lola. Cantor enters the scene 4 months after the release of Vocaloid, offering so much more be it at a higher price. At the time, it seems, Cantor was winning the race because of its capablities, but neither software was leaving an impression. Cantor stops updating months before Vocaloid 2's release. Sweet Ann is released and praised and...

NOTHING!

Vocaloid in the west begins to die, indy singers are overcome by newer websites, iTunes, the slowly increaing populairty of youtube. A generation of young bidding muscians who took in these old technologies is disappearing, unable to compete with these newer formats. Websites like Myspace slwoly take a turn, Myspace currently is loosing even now 10 million visits a month according to the news on the site... These websites are what the indies relied on.

Vocaloid begins to fade into obscurity in the west.

Meanwhile in Japan, an explosion happens. Previously, Vocaloid being a nothing software changes around, Supercell and other great artists took control of the software and began to push its limits. Hatsune Miku becomes popular pretty much overnight upon release, backed by NND's new release. Crypton takes the oppotunity to open the indy doors and start its own label KarenT. This boasts the new Indy muscians, who have a chance to show of their works and get a name for themselves.

The english Vocaloids begin to slowly gain notice in Japan, but by this point the west has pretty much forgotten they exist. By 2009, Miku is getting noticed outside of Japan. By 2010, the media has begun to notice the rise. As the demand for syn. voices grows, UTAU enters the scene to provide the gap Vocaloid cannot close at the moment.

During this time, a slow rediscovery of english vocaloids is discovered, although even now they remain fairly unknown. The rediscovery starts with a familair face discovering Leon and continues with Sweet Ann and Prima. By Sonika we're where we are, the slow warming up to the fact they DO exist and with Big-Al we're fighting the biased pro-Japanloids that everyone loves. While in Japan, the Vocaloid revolution is according much faster due to an easier acceptance.

There are, however, gaps... But I can definately pin point the decline of the engloids in the west at the point of Sweet Ann. At this point, Ann's released just before things collaspe and turned around. Its no wonder Vocaloid went that the way it did. Some of the information I mention here came from the experiences of a couple of mates of mine, who told me about how Indy music wasn't making as much as it used to. Its not so much that their on the way out, its just theres a sudden loss of vital websites that made things what they are. To make matters worst, a lot of Indy musicains were loosing out because their music was being sold via payment, by people were hitting the illegal downloads of popular music is becoming heavy. How can a amateur compete with a professional whose music is being stolen? They can't.

There is a lot of people who'd why download a popular music for nothing then download theirs. Thats why the music industry suddenly took up arms to find and conquer these websites, they were hurting the industry a lot. A lot of people also were giving up music because even though the net was there, they were not getting back anything worth while. :-/

I won't pin anything on a single factor, but at the time of these events, no one thought Vocaloid was going to be where it is now and no one thought anyone was going to try and do the things we see Japanese producers do now. I saw someone praising Paprika's introduction, but there were songs like this in the west before that, its just they were forgotten or subject to standards of interest. Popular (pop) music has always taken a lot away from smaller music genres. Also, the East is more media based then the west and the industries are focused in different places. The west also favors traditional music far more then then it should, most can't even tell a lot of the stuff is audiotuned.

Theres a lot more to the bigger picture, but overall, yes, something happened between Ann and now. I must admit, part of the problem is also that the focus was so much on Crypton, because their the ones leding the Vocaloid movement, that no one notices the rest of the Vocaloids. Without a flow of information on what it all entrails, theres a backlash. Once you put up information on the full software, suddenly doors open that were not there previously.

I noted with Crossfrowne's history, its built by a fan, not someone who has acknowledgement of the bigger picture. So Cross is writing from a fans point of view. So "unpopular" is applied to the engloids, when in truth they never lost populairty - they just got forgotten. Its the same thing that happened with Meiko and Kaito in Japan, until the P's put effort into getting them reconnigsed and the consquences is we have updates for them on the way. They too fell into obscurity for a while. :-/