Talk:Character Vocal Series/@comment-98.208.16.113-20170928004438/@comment-53539-20170928032406

The CFM V4x vocals... Have problems... And talking about them brings in so much negativity that its almost impossible to make a conversation about it positive. Every time someone tries to talk about the V4x range, they end up coming off in the wrong light for this reason.

You can read their pages about it, with Luka's being the most problematic and Miku's the best. But in comparison to other Vocaloids, there are still better around.

The CFM vocals can be summed up basically with a list of issues;
 * 1) Their English vocals are single octaves that have no matching Japanese counterparts and have the bare amount needed for MQ English. Luka V2 had a English and Japanese voicebank set that match, but there were sounds missing in the English vocal... And it looks like if more Chinese vocals come out, then there is going to be the EXACT same problem.
 * 2) CFM takes short cuts (Luka V4x is basically 3 vocals top, repeated to make 6) which plague their vocals. There is no hiding it either. :-/
 * 3) As it has been pointed out, EVEC's functions are basically a group of presets and aren't really needed. They align sounds to certain referenced traits, but these traits are all part-voicebanks, so they only impact things like vowels.  This makes the entire EVEC system robotic sounding. EVEC has had huge amounts of complaints, especially aimed at Luka, which is bad because the system was meant to be the big seller of their Vocaloids and instead... Well they went bad to the Append-like system for Kagamines and Miku rather then 2 voicebanks with 12 settings.
 * 4) Aside from Miku, the other CFM vocals get it pretty hard off. While Meiko and Kaito were fairly treated, this is more likely because they weren't theirs to begin with.  The Kagamines and Luka had it worst in V4, with Luka producing an overall disappointing update that wasn't anything like people expected and the Kagamines basically being rushed out to get to Miku so they ended up with a limited function release compared to the other two V4x.
 * 5) CFM is stuck on loop, forced to focus on producing the same vocaloids constantly and have not been able to produce anything new for a while. This is why we've had Miku every engine so far.  Luka and the Kagamines would have been out in V3 too, but the other problem with the loop is CFM don't make the deadline.
 * 6) They have no male vocals - even Len is female and Kaito isn't fully theirs as mentioned. This creates problems as CFM is the reason why there are more females then males in Vocaloid.  Back in V1, it was because Meiko was a success and Kaito was a flop... Now its because the most popular vocaloids are mostly female.  Even outside of CFM, the next most popular vocaloids tend to be female. It doesn't help when 4 of the most popular vocaloids come from one company.  Since CFM aren't in a position to release a new vocaloid and their popularity has the most influence of all Vocaloid studios, they aren't helping this situation either.
 * 7) Their always presumed to be the best vocaloids... But... They range from LQ to HQ and can do so within the same generation, like in V2. Yet are presumed to always be the best because their the most popular.  Basically, some fans believe everything the company makes is like gold dust.
 * 8) Their heavy marketing and stuff like video games, has also caused problems with people who don't really know what Vocaloid is. They tend to think Miku and co sum it all up.
 * 9) They turned to rely on voice acting. As consequence, Miu and the Kagamines can't really sing.  There is a lot of the Vocaloid engine at play here and their not very realistic at all.  Miku V2 had issues with pitch and she actually wasn't a good singer at all.  Luka was actually the best singer and the only one whose provider could sing before recording, which is why Luka is the best overall singer of the CV series.  The worst?  That's Len... Can't maintain masculine tones in some voicebanks, so isn't realistic, on top of the other issues with voice acted vocals. The CFM method of working is to filter and alter a sample too until you achieve a certain effect.  Thus they further remove realism from their vocals.  Meiko and Kaito aren't like this as they were professional vocalist vocaloids, so their methods were different and it paid off. They are much better as singers overall then the CV series.

You don't really notice... Until you really start comparing their vocals with other vocals from other companies... The more you compare... The more issues arise. There are a lotof bad vocals, but the best of Vocaloid.... Show up the best of CFM... =_=

And this is why it can be very hard to talk about CFM's vocaloids. If you say anything negative, you give the wrong impression of intention. If you say something positive... Then you aren't talking about the reality of CFM vocaloids. Both situations aren't good.

To be fair though, because of the EVEC mess this generation, and the fact V4 has been CFM's "laziest" era where they have taken the most short cuts... Its not a good era to talk about CFM at all and the V2 and V3 eras were better eras in comparison. They will sell well because their name makes them popular either way. For example, there are many fans who will buy the Kagamine English because its the Kagamines; ignoring the fact Len doesn't sound like Len at all and the fact of CFM vocals being really limited compared to even vocals like Gumi English. At the same time, Nana English, which is actually one of the best examples of Japanese -> English, kinda gets ignored because its not Miku or Len or whatever.

The annoying part is, when CFM gets it right, its kinda notable. The Appends led to extra vocals in other vocaloids and thus to XSY eventually. But CFM's influence is starting to wane and the company which inputted the most this generation was Internet co, as it redefined how to record voicebanks to make Vocaloids more unique and avoid the problems that plagued past versions. They also led to the problem of Vocaloid struggling to keep to its original intentions and much has been lost since Miku.

My favourite 3 vocals are Tonio, Big Al and Macne Nana. Nana wasn't a Vocaloid originally and I liked her Reason and G. Band versions (her UTAU vocal, I didn't like), so when she came into Vocaloid she shot straight to my favs... I'm also a big supporter of English vocaloid, and she came with English. I try not to let my liking for English vocaloid become pure bias, as in the past I was left trying to combat the bias people had for English vocaloid over Japanese.

One of the other notes is, if CFM could do so they would ditch Vocaloid altogether. It was noted how rather then calling them "Vocaloid" on one site they own, they resorted to calling them "Piapro characters". They no longer come with a full Vocaloid engine and instead come with Piapro studio. CFM basically has to fork out money for use of "vocaloid" by name or otherwise, so they are now trying to find ways around it. This is why its been theorised EVEC exists, as they can make a lot of variant vocals without forking out for each voicebank.