User blog:Serza5/Vocaloid - Not enough experimental Vocals?

We have, not only one new female Vocaloid coming out, but two of them. One of which respectfully enough comes from an outside company working with Yamaha, while the other is from a company with 2 vocals which could be considered decent enough sellers although both of which are also female. Naturally however we have the influx of people who complain about the lack of male voices or rather ironically mature female voices. On one end I am not one to complain about what new Vocaloid we get and each new addition is a wonderful one. But at the same time I do question why companies are so insistant on female banks?

We've heard the same old story in regards to that though; females notably sell more than males, especially on the Japanese end. It makes it understandable therefore, why so many companies make female vocaloids, especially those who are just starting out. Even so, we have noticably more female voicebanks than we do male, especially from companies that do not only have 1 Vocaloid (The only company that breaks the higher F to M rule being Power FX, with only 1 female vocal in comparison to 3 male vocals and 1 upcoming male). While some companies only have one shot Vocaloids it is strange how some of the bigger ones are less likely to produce male Vocaloids isn't it?

Let's start with big daddy Crypton, although it seems to be too obsessed with their current Vocaloids much like those fans who are stuck in the 2010 era. If it can update all it's vocals it clearly has enough money for playing about but it's clearly not going towards new vocals at all, beyond the obvious append ones because more selling of the current line up.

Then we have the more respectable Internet Co. who have big guns Gackpo and Gumi making the money, especially the later. Not to mention they have been creating more experimental vocals like kokone fit for falsetto (despite being originally for gumi but let's ignore that). Even so how many male Vocaloids do they have? Only 2, in contrast with 4 female vocals (not counting galaco).

There's also AHS who only has 1 male Vocaloid while having 5 female Vocaloids. Zero-G with only 2 vocals (+ at least 2 confirmed ones) compared to 5 females. bPlats working with 4 male vocals (3 bundled in the same package) in contrast with 11 female vocaloids (2 bundled in 1). And then outside that, there are only 2 other male Vocaloids (+1 if Ueki counts) compared to the rest of the sea of females.

As I said, there isn't a big issue into having a new female voicebank, there is no voicebank that has yet to be considered a complete waste of time despite all the complaints some have about being similar to other vocaloids, as they all each have 1 unique thing about them that makes them different to whom ever they may be compared to.

But also again, the question is, why are companies not more experimental in what they release?

Despite what I said above it's becoming somewhat clear that what sells isn't always what's best anymore. The best example still being the flop that is Tone Rion who was marketted as a cute vocal whom personally I thought was of much more quality than obvious rival Miku, who failed to make any sort of impact, while we have IA who isn't on the cutesey vocal type but is doing extremely well for herself.

In short we have essentially reached the stage, or beggining to reach the stage, where the Vocaloid market is saying "We've seen too much of that already and would like to see something new". Right enough, that's not to say that females aren't doing well, and that males aren't doing as such, but with so little impact on the current market is it not safe to say that a change would do better than keeping to the age old formula?

This sparked from a convo over on Ling's page; in which Vocanese was clearly doing well with themselves so trying out a male vocal on the Chinese market wouldn't hurt them too badly, especially if they used Longya or Moke who both were established characters with a fanbase. Is that not where you'd go "Yeah, maybe there should be a male vocal there? It could go well after all".

Either way that's me done considering that I conemplated over why I talk so much about Vocaloid when "Pokemon" is my main thing at the moment.