Honestly it’s a mix. Personally I’d just start with some of the music of at least the crypton characters, so Miku, Kaito, Meiko, Luka, Rin and Len. As for learning about it, as much as people don’t like recommending it because there’s a lot of information that is outdated, biased, etc, the Vocaloid wiki is at the very much a good starting point for some learning. I would say the most important pieces to learn is general history, the culture and community, and what doujin is.

There’s a lot of information that doesn’t often get cited these days. I personally wouldn’t recommend trying to learn everything but the core information I mentioned before and information on your favourite characters. We’re at a point where it’s becoming more and more difficult to know everything, so it’s fine if you don’t know something and learn about it later.

Of course figuring out which characters/voice banks you like will be more tricky but take your time and don’t feel like you need a favourite immediately. Listening to music, looking at art and videos, etc will help develop it over time.

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You can check out this thread for starters >>21305
Otherwise, there are many ways. Back in the old days I had to use Nico Nico Douga, and I would scan through the vocaloid tags there, but nowadays there are far easier ways without having to navigate through a Japanese site. YouTube a loid's name + vocaloid/their engine (like Cevio or Utau) + songs and you would get tons of results now that the algorithm is pretty much settled. You can also check out a random loid's Vocaloid Wiki page for their notable songs, as well as their VocaDB entries if you feel like digging further.
If you're talking about information about the loids, the Vocaloid wiki should be a good place to start. The other engines also have their own wikis that are just as detailed.

Just listen to music. If you find a song you like, look up the producer (artist)'s other songs, and/or other versions of that song. If you find a vocaloid character you like, look up the basic "fun" info like the character's traits or relations with other characters, and also other songs and videos with that character.

The thing to remember about getting into anything is that you never stop learning. There will never come a point where you know every vocal-synth, every producer, have heard every song, etc. Honestly just relax and focus on what interests you. As long as you're polite, I don't think anyone's gonna mind if you participate in discussions without knowing the full context to everything that was said. I also feel a bit overwhelmed by the sheer volume of Vocaloid stuff out there, and personally, I like lurking, listening to music people post, searching VocaDB and RYM, reading wikis, browsing image boorus, looking at Vocaloid charts, and checking out what YouTube recommends me.

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>some characters posted here I have never seen before
That's normal, don't worry about it. Nowadays, voicebanks are like video games - there's a handful of names that everyone knows and loves, a couple hundred that appeal to different niches, and thousands of indies that barely anyone cares about. It's really up to you how much you want to dive into the voicebank library, versus focusing on the producers, games, events, etc.

VocaDB popularity will give you a pretty good overview of which characters and producers have been most relevant over the years:
https://vocadb.net/Search?searchType=Artist&sort=SongRating

>>21380
>Deco has more total ratings than Kaai Yuki
That's fucking impressive actually. Especially when you consider a producer only has some few hundred of songs at most and a voicebank will probably have tens of thousands recorded on VocaDB.

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>>21378
I think the majority of hardcore fans I'd run into between the late 2010s and early 2020s got into Vocaloid because they liked one of the games and started looking up the soundtrack

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>>21381
I'm more surprised by Utsu having a higher total song rating than Pinocchio.

>>21383
VocaDB can be a bit biased towards what the power users like (old admin was a metalhead lol). I'd take the exact rankings with a grain of salt, but most of the stuff that's popular is broadly relevant.

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I think siinamota's discography from Yume no Manimani until his recent releases is a good way to get acquainted to the styles of Vocaloid. He covers a lot of ground such as trance, electropop, indie rock/j-rock, denpa, etc. within one discography and its honestly impressive how he's basically a capsule of the entire vocaloid scene. Other good artists to get into would be Pinocchio-P as, like Siinamota, he covers a lot of ground but in reverse. Instead of being a dance artist transitioning in to rock, he is the opposite. Pino is a bit hit or miss though at times.

Then for more electronic/idm stuff Lemm and Electrocutica are essentials for getting your feet wet.

For more pop/indie pop oriented stuff, I think Nekobolo is a good artist for that (Present in particular is a great album). If you want more straightforward pop stuff though, kz livetune pretty much started the whole game so start there. For art pop though, especially creepyish art pop, go for kikuo.

Heavier rock and metal stuff is obviously Yuyoyuppie and utsu territory though. Shoegaze, I'd recommend Wintermute just because I'm biased.

Trance is definitely Hiroyuki Oda territory.

More modern stuff, I would start with Iyowa, 32ki, and Akasaka~nnnn for art stuff. Inabakumori if you like yakoushi style stuff.

Also listen to Dennoko-P just because I said so

>>21385
oh yeah also listen to tosho_aTe because I said so

I'll piggyback on >>21375 and say that there is no learning "everything" in a discipline/field/hobby. It's corrosive to think there's a finite corpus that everyone is clued into that you need to catch up to. You will not live long enough to learn everything about Vocaloid or vocal synths, or interface with every aspect of them.

Some people will reject all corporate synths and bum around with UTAU covers forever. Some people will cast a wide net and never produce anything themselves other than a credit card bill. Others will fixate on the cult of personality for a single producer, or never learn the music beyond mastering charts for what is in the games, or spend all their free time hunting for original songs that earned a dozen views on Nico because it's now lost media. The free-wheeling nature of Vocaloid is why there has never been a strictly valid approach to enjoying it. If you like the music, listen to the music. If you like a character, look at the art and the comics. When you are ready, or you feel a desire to, make stuff.

>>21374
I'll second what >>21387 said. You can be the most autistic Vocaloid fan in existence and you still won't get to learn about every vocal-synth, song or producer in existence. Also people have the idea that listening to the most popular songs/producers or only listening to one vocalsynth (usually Teto or Miku since they're the most popular) will make you a "bad fan" or a "newgen" but the truth is that music taste is completely subjective and you should only listen to what you enjoy. I still would recommend making an effort to expand your knowledge a little though. You don't need to know about Maiko Hakaine but you should at least know Gumi.

btw if you enjoy specific stuff i recomend checking out this thread and posting on it if you want to hear something that suits your taste >>2235

>>21382
I think this still happens to some extent with Project Sekai except most Sekai fans kinda don't care about the cryptonloids themselves as characters and just like the music

https://youtube.com/watch?v=mVGdz93LUaI

Just listen to music, if you find a song you like then you look up the producer on youtube or niconicodouga. Rinse and repeat 200 times.
There are some old school playlists that you can find either on NND or youtube (I mostly found most of my music in NND), so just listen to them in the background and screw around and have fun. The video embedded is a good start. (also listen to whoo, that's an order!)

Some song compilations:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=u7sF1RcaLUU [Embed]

(heisei-era classics)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=NpbSjg382vk [Embed]

(really good one)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VmlAxeVWBeQ [Embed]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HahzuzcPvyQ [Embed]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y5GSSvybKQ0 [Embed]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=781E3kpmWYM [Embed]

Regarding characters/vocalsynths themselves, you'll just find them as you listen to music over time. Or not. You could stick to a handful of vocalsynths and be perfectly fine as a Vocaloid fan.

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Just listen to the music and engage with the community i suppose. There's vocaloid music for all sorts of genres so I think you'll be able to enjoy it lol

>>21417
>engage with the community i suppose
Don't do this

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>>21418
it can be fun on 39chan and twitter

>>21419
39chan maybe
But Twitter is where fandoms go die and Vocaloid is no exception. Do not engage with vocatwt users.

>>21417
>>21419
>Twitter
OP don't do this. At least not the english side.

>>21420
ehhhhh it's not too bad in my experience, maybe its just because i get a curated view of it rather than being thrown blind into the fire.

>>21422
The WVF is infamous for being extremely hostile and drama hungry, especially on Twitter, but its been like that even before Twitter was "the" social media site. You won't see drama on 39chan because its against the rules, but start following a bunch of producers and artists on Twitter and you'll slowly start seeing dramakuso on your feed.

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>>21424
Makes sense, I mostly avoid those parts and/or don't see much of it. The vocaloid tweets i get are usually just about the actual topic so i rarely see random petty BS

>>21424
there used to be a thread on /g/ for dramakuso but the everyone including the old owner saw it as a shitstain on the site so it got locked

>>21426
Because it goes against what 39chan was made for. It was made as a drama free alternative to the jaypee generals and the Twitter bs. Bringing in people who start shit and gossip about literal nobodies will enshittify the site and turn it into Twitter.

>>21427
There's a reason why crossboarders tend to get a bad rep here. They are the ones who usually bring that attitude here because they refuse to lurk, and that behavior is exactly what we're sick of.

>>21428
>>21427
This
I welcome newbies if they're respectful

>>21424
Twitter is especially bad regarding fandom because it groups all different kinds of people together that wouldn't normally get along into one singular fandom. Instead of not interacting with each other they make it everyone's problem and thus you're dragged into drama you never even knew about bit of a tangent but there's an anime I like where the main ship was revealed to be aunt and niece and now you can't have a meaningful conversation about the relationship between them without someone turning it into ship discourse. I miss forums, they were the gated communities for fandom.
For OP, I think lurking and learning as you go is the best. Vocaloid has a lot of subcommunities under its belt. There are people who are interested in the software(s) only, UTAU is basically its own community separate from commercial voicebanks, etc. I haven't used it myself but there's a Vocaloid Radio you could check out too.

>>21434
It's bad for discussion in general.

>>21435
It is but genuinely I can't think of where else we can go if we want to discuss fandom. 4chan is a hollow husk of itself, Tumblr and dicksword are hit or miss, TikTok is a cesspit, etc. 39chan is a lifesaver. I miss forums

>>21436
Vocaverse exists

Speaking of the WVF I hear it's on fire right now

>>21437
Should've been more specific, I meant for things outside of Vocaloid. If you wanted to talk about non-seasonal anime for example your only option are inactive forums or social media.

>>21439
There are still anime forums out there but my issue with old forums is that they're either past their prime and rarely active and/or they're still active but i feel like i don't fit in with the rest of the users

>>21440
also sorry if i'm derailing the thread

>>21438
As the /g/ poster who was terrified of people finding out who I was in the thought dump thread I might actually be way less scared now (though my computer needs to be repaired) and when I get access to my files and WIPs again I might show off my work now.

>>21449
As long as you don't bring xitter drama here we don't really care

>>21450
Don't worry, I won't. I don't have a xitter for a reason and I never will ever again. I just want to discuss the funny singing robots on both a technical and musical level

>>21384
A while back i found out that the current admin likes my music, lol

>>21434
> but there's an anime I like where the main ship was revealed to be aunt and niece
is it happy sugar life lol

>>21436
You can also just disabuse yourself of the idea that most fandom is worth engaging with when it's a magnet for bad personalities. This site is tolerable because I don't have to know who any of you are or continually dog you if you have a bad opinion.

>>21436
Honestly if you wanna talk fandom drama it’s just better to go and make your own board or forum site.

As much as I do feel it’s important to discuss some of the goings on, it’s also like… we have a good community here and I don’t think any of us wants to add that to our mix.

>>21456
Adding on to this real quick.

39 chan is basically the place to come together and chat without having to worry about others personal beefs.

>>21439
>>21440
You should check out the friends of 39chan on the homepage if you haven't already. I haven't used them much myself because I'm more interested in Vocaloid than anime at the moment, but they might be what you're looking for. There is a thread for anime on /g/, but it's glacially slow. You can always just make a new thread on /j/ and see how it goes, someone made one for Dokuro chan recently.

To get things back on topic, the websites we like section on the homepage may be of interest to OP. I would also add https://utaforum.net/ to that list, and there is also Reddit, but I mostly use this site and VocaDB. If you're not looking for other communities to lurk, and you just want to learn as much as you can as fast as possible, the various wikis hosted on fandom are probably your best bet.
https://vocalsynth.fandom.com/wiki/Vocal_Synthesizer_Wiki#Affiliates

>>21459
Take Wikia and Reddit off the list lol

>>21460
In fairness to the wiki, as much as there is a lot of outdated info and bias, it is still a good starting point. Just wish we had more sites for Vocaloid info outside of the wikis since they’re essentially dying out

>>21460
I'm not suggesting that we add Fandom or Reddit to the homepage. Is there a suitable alternative to the Fandom wikis? Vocaloid Lyrics Wiki on Miraheze seems fine, but it's not for general information.

>>21462
I don't think there is. Some anons were making one on Miraheze but no one contributed to it and it ended up kinda dying.

>>21460
What's wrong with the wiki? It's outdated sure, but it is info regardless and there isn't anything that contradicts new info.

>>21466
There used to be an admin that essentially acted like a dictator and there’s a fair amount of their bias reflected in many articles to this day despite having been banned.

There’s also a good handful of information which even staff acknowledged was based on mistranslations because machine translators used to be complete ass. The mistranslations were never corrected either. There’s not enough active staff to write proper articles these days, especially after what happened a month or two ago. It gets a bit into drama territory so I won’t delve deep in it but in short it’s dying and there’s not enough interest in reviving it.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qcfuA_UAz3I

>>21468
Fanwikis are infamous for having people like that, especially Wikia/Fandom ones.

Wikia/Fandom is also infamous for being a shitty service.

>>21459
>Utaforum
I have had an account for a decade and never had an issue with the staff myself (in fact, the one staff member I know is pretty nice) but there's been a small handful of stories I've heard over the years. It seems like a far better alternative to Fandom or Reddit still, and is an excellent resource on whotaus, some of which are astoundingly high quality like Cherilee.

>>21471
Utaforum is cool, i'm surprised it exists after all these years

>>21472
I agree. The only problem I personally have with it is how slow it loads, but as the announcement says it's not their fault but the fault of AI bots scraping it.

>>21473
>AI bots
The fatigue is real

I think the PJD soundtrack's already a good start

>>21466
It runs on Fandom (the site), which is probably the worst thing you could host your wiki on. Self hosting or Miraheze are the better alternatives.

>>21491
Back in the old days that was the norm though. I can't remember what caused the mass migration to the other hosters, probably some crappy policy change.

Just listen and enjoy of course.

>>21502
This

>>21500
Amount of ads making it impossible to read or navigate, I think there was a policy change too, and it is insanely heavy for no reason. Like my phone heats up just visiting 1 page. This isn’t an old phone either.

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>>21522
My almost decade old Android with Firefox and uBlock Origin loads it just fine.

>>21500
Aside from the annoying UI updates, Fandom as a company can basically do whatever it wants to all the wikis hosted there. VLW finally left because Fandom used some kind of content moderation bot to flag random pages for deletion.

I think Vocapedia could've done well if people bothered contributing articles about popular topics instead of obscure shit 90% of vocaloid fans don't know/care about

>>21528
Honestly I could only see it happening if someone outright forked the old wiki. It would be really difficult to rewrite everything from scratch after almost 20 years.

>>21524
Turn off your Adblock

>>21528
Vocapedia would be an awesome name if it wasn’t already being used by another site

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>>21528
>>21529
A new wiki would need the core team from the Fandom wikis if it was to succeed; you can't recreate that level of institutional knowledge from scratch. An independently hosted, unified vocal-synth wiki would be ideal, but there might be some conflict between the people who want high quality articles on notable subjects, and the people who want a comprehensive wiki with articles for every whotau and fanloid ever.
>>21531
Still loaded fine. Ads are not showing up for some reason. They do show up on Chrome, and yeah, it is unusable.

>>21526
This. I don't think anyone is saying that the Vocaloid fandom wiki itself sucks but rather fandom itself sucks and has no respect for any of the stuff that's hosted on their service.

>>21534
I know this is contentious, but I think VocaDB kind of fills that space in the fandom these days. The only thing I turn to the wikis for is in-depth stuff like the character articles.

>>21539
i agree to some extent. vocadb is missing certain info like the voicebank's release, fan reception, etc which the wiki does have but for basic info its fine.

>>21539
>>21540
A new version of VocaDB that runs on MediaWiki would be amazing. It would basically solve every problem that a new Vocaloid wiki trying to leave Fandom would have.

>>21541
You gotta remember that VocaDB is meant to be a database not a wiki so a lot of things wouldn't translate well to that format.

But an update to the VocaDB software in general would be good.

>>21542
Agree with this anon
VocaDB is a database not a wiki and the Vocaloid Lyrics wiki on Miraheze already covers songs and producers.

>>21380
Off topic but who's that in pic related

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>>21548
Meimei Himari. She's only popular in the Voicevox fandom ime.

>>21542
>>21543
https://vocadb.net/T/394
I fail to see why the numerous tag pages could not just be expanded into proper articles. The problem seems more technical to me, and not one of site purpose. I'm pretty sure the only reason there even is a separate wiki for lyrics if because of limitations with VocaDB.

>>21552
Vocaloid Lyrics Wiki is older than VocaDB iirc, don't remember why it's a separate thing though

>>21555
I don't know the history. I just know that VocaDB is obviously worse to read. Compare:
https://vocaloidlyrics.miraheze.org/wiki/%E4%BD%95%E3%81%A7%E3%82%82%E8%A8%80%E3%81%86%E3%81%93%E3%81%A8%E3%82%92%E8%81%9E%E3%81%84%E3%81%A6%E3%81%8F%E3%82%8C%E3%82%8B%E3%82%A2%E3%82%AB%E3%83%8D%E3%83%81%E3%83%A3%E3%83%B3_(Nan_Demo_Iu_Koto_o_Kiite_Kureru_Akane-chan)
https://vocadb.net/S/179162/lyrics

>>21454
It's probably Ave Mujica

>>21531
Who browses the internet without adblock these days? Surely even the kids know about it?

>>21562
I switched to Brave because I got sick of Youtube trying to block the adblockers

>>21562
Too lazy to find one I like. I’ll risk the digital std and rawdog the net.

>>21566
not that anon but you're not gonna get an e-STD from the firefox/chrome store.

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>>21566
https://www.firefox.com/
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/

>>21374
OP did your friend send you this site or something?

It's 2025 and there's still people who don't have an adblocker

>>21567
actually, you can get bad stuff from official stores

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4mibE4YidK8 [Embed]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=dWeecSnuUWA [Embed]

tl;dw - old extensions are sold to random companies that inject malware into them
so be careful, even with 'official' stuff

>>21671
>Company is called ShadyPanda
>Their extensions are shady
You can't make this shit up

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>>21666
>2025

>>21666
>2025
Anon........

>>21678
>>21681
It has actually been 2020 for 6 years now

>>21682
The decade of the SONiKA!


Your fortune: Godly Luck

>>21480
This
Start with the Diva OST, its filled with classics

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>>21452
I thought you were joking but Pyther does indeed have your music favorited