/leek/ - Vocaloid Lounge

Do you guys think that this holds up as an overall retrospective of the Vocaloid scene? How would you define this era or past eras of Vocaloid? Is there really that much of a radical shift of when pure Vocaloid listeners started making Vocaloid songs themselves?

The first quotation has been nagging me recently. Was there really that much of a 'formula' back then as there is now? (as stated by anons with the "high-BPM meta" in the Vocaloid General) Hell, could these 'formulas' be traced back to trends within the Japanese music industry itself? Am I mistaken to believe that there is a 'formula' in the first place currently?

I think I'm overthinking this.

>>9781
I don't think Vocaloid or its culture will ever "disappear", if anything it will evolve (perhaps into something less recognizable to the older fans). But Vocaloid itself is more popular now than it was when this interview came out.

I do agree that Vocaloid culture has changed though, and as much as it pains me to say this (because I really don't want to put the blame on 32ki or Channel) there's a before and after with Mesmerizer. I feel like Mesmerizer set the bar for what becomes viral. The "high bpm" that you mentioned here, the flashy visuals with memorable dances + character outfits, etc.

>>9781
>Now, there are less people listening because it's Vocaloid, with more of a focus on "who's making it."
He's right

>>9785
To be fair I don't really care who makes it as long as it sounds good

>>9794
I think most people only care if the producer in question is controversial, but I don't.

I can't help but wonder if the "who" doesn't apply to producers anymore, but instead whichever voicebanks are trending.

If you want to complain about overexposure, you have to participate in overexposure. If you want to complain about Teto, you still have to use Teto: you can't write something like "Tei being betrayed by Teto and believing that an SVloid and a Vocaloid are the same kind of enemy". Nobody will listen to it if Teto isn't featured on your thumbnail and title. Likewise, if Teto were to drastically fall in popularity, using her wouldn't get you the views she's getting now as all the casual listeners would have moved on to whoever's trending after her.

The meta's devolved to complaining about the meta. The "who" no longer applies to producers themselves, but rather who can game the algorithm best, all to get their fifteen second of fame. After all, you think people are going to tune in for their next song if they went back to making what they want to make? Or using who they want to use? Will we even remember their names by next week?

>>9795
Controversial in what way?

>>9798
A lot of the time the VP or company will do something that will inadvertently label the bank as controversial. Can be as small as NFTs which most people don’t care about anymore or as big as the nightmare clusterfuck of Zan-shin’s embezzlement and talent abuse.

>>9801
I thought you were referring to a music producer

>>9802
Wasn’t paying attention and mixed up the replies rip

>>9798
Anything from a mistranslation to years-ongoing producer drama where the producer is clearly spiraling. I'll still listen to Masa, for example. There's more Western examples I can give than JP, though. I genuinely like Meat Man by Steampianist, too.

>>9782
There are two questions I think end asked together in your last paragraph, and which Hachi is also stewing: what makes something a "Vocaloid" song beyond synth usage, and what defines "Vocaloid culture" either as a scene or going concern?

There's some close coupling with those questions, but I do think it's important to recognize that Vocaloid is strictly pop music to a lot of youth, and more specifically Japanese youth. Vocaloid operatively isn't so much a scene to this audience as it is just pop music. People don't follow an "autotune" scene and many of these people aren't following a Vocaloid scene. With that limited lens, I think Hachi's characterization feels at its most correct, in that the focus on producers ends up overriding other elemenets.

Even when he said this in 2020, though, I find it fairly myopic. Miku's success as a character has become decoupled from much of Vocaloid, just as Hachi's success has, so it's understandable why he might have this perspective. Looking at Teto's success and a broader resurgent interest in Vocaloid specifically, though, it's pretty obvious that character focus is still a huge lifeblood for it. That element never really went away to begin with, even if it has ebbed at times, so I think the producer element does end up overstated at least in this interview.

(cont)

>>9782
>>9830
Vocaloid music certainly has solidified characteristics (fast piano melody runs always come to mind for me) and a lot of them are developed inherent to Vocaloid, not Japanese pop (think fast, breathless melodies). It's also tremendously difficult to put a lid on what constitutes modern "Vocaloid" music that I think would have a satisfying totality. The 2013-2015 era he speaks about certainly had a stale fad of narrative-focused series (e.g. Kagepro), and there is a trickling fad now of duets, but they really are just demonstrable fads. Vocacolle is an unbelievably diverse display of genres, some that would be unrecognizable to a mainstream understanding or even a 2015 understanding of Vocaloid, but it's also overwhelmingly not how most people are interacting with Vocaloid.

As much as Vocaloid might be pop music, it also has a large underbelly of indie/doujin interest that is probably at the healthiest it has ever been overall. It's not to say Hachi's retrospective here is wrong, because I think he does hit on the malaise of a decade ago, but I think the conclusions prove flimsy or less than prophetic about where Vocaloid is going. There are enough people being swept up in the mainstream attention from things like Mesmerizer or Teto overall that are trickling back down into the scene proper, whether as creators themselves or just digging deeper beyond billboard charts.

>>9834
That's what we call a self own. It's funny, I saw vgperson and just presumed it was gonna be Hachi. Oh well, I'll stand by the rest.

Vocaloid today might be more based on trends, but that's when you're only looking at what's currently charting. I personally prefer this era to the 2010's and 2000's. Some of the 'legends' from that era like Hachi might be gone, but good music is still being made and these days it's easier than ever to find it due to the fact that every producer is on Youtube. Back then you relied on Youtube reuploads and translations straight out of NicoNico.

>>10068
Personally I always liked looking around for fan-translations and lurking on NND for new songs (which also helped me on learning basic Japanese), but I can see why people prefer the 2020s in terms of accessibility.

Honestly, I don't really know where to find new producers nowadays. You could basically find a bunch of Vocaloid songs by a single fan-subber and start looking around from there (and it also helps if they have the same taste in music), but you can't really do the same now. There's vgperson's monthly list, but it feels a little hit or miss.

>>10470
If you're using niconico, the current meta is upload festivals. Most casual fans in Japan have stopped using the site regularly and only log on when an event happens. A good place to start is the Vocacolle site (vocaloid-collection.jp), you can find rankings for the main Vocaloid event and personal recommendations by popular producers.

>>10068
>every producer is on Youtube
I dunno, I spend a lot of time adding entries to VocaDB and there is a lot more Nico exclusive than you probably think. It tends to go overlooked too because western fans aren't using the site.

>>10470
Try the Vocacolle app, it's pretty much built for this use case. Also check out the YouTube playlist that Crypton maintains, there are some lesser known greats in there.

>>10471
Y'know, I was aware of Vocacolle and their rookie rankings but I didn't know that they had producers curate playlists for us. Nice to know that half of BuzzG's selections include some of my favorite songs. (also since when did iyowa make a rock song wtf it's amazing)

>>10472
The Vocacolle app has been a mainstay on my phone for a while now (ever since it was called Nicobox) and honestly I just use it to download songs from NND. I take a quick glance at the ranking section here and there, but not too thoroughly. Guess that's my fault. I'll check out the Crypton playlist since I didn't even know they had one.

Now that I think about it, I haven't really been trying to look for newer producers/songs recently. Guess that's a product of my own stubbornness rather than anything else :/

>>10474
>since when did iyowa make a rock song
Is this about AKUMA! or the recent Miku song?

>>10475
Well I was referring to this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3Son6CzPUk), half-debating if it's really rock but it was in BuzzG's rock playlist so rock it is

>>10472
same with bilibili. there's a lot of really good songs on there that aren't on youtube. i've considered reprinting but 1. i don't know how to download from bilibili and 2. i'd probably get a lot of flack for it

>>10477
I've been able to download some stuff from bilibili with yt-dlp, if you want it in higher quality with your own bilibili account privilege, there are browser extensions to obtain the cookies file for the site
You could always ask about reprinting, due to China's laws it's impossible to the uploaders to reprint onto Youtube without VPNs, and there are a few people who reprint from youtube/niconico onto bilibili with and without permission (although they usually listen to takedown requests)

>>10477
Bilibili basically only exists because it spits on copyright and doesn't follow DMCA takedowns. Even so, I often see uploaders there are usually pretty accepting if you just ask to reprint in the comments because they know they're firewalled.

>>10502
Bilibili exists because most western SNS is blocked in China (including Youtube). But yeah it is true that they can get away with reposting a lot of stuff.