I've been thinking about this for sometimes, but I feel like these vocaloid artists could go really far in the music industry, if they only had the chance to produce music for a live singer. Instead, they have to settle for a vocal synthesizer and forever be relegated to a niche group or occasional use doujin singers to break out of this realm of relative obscurity. Now, I'm not hater of Vocaloids; I actually really love them. But they sometimes feel so restraining and it feels like the artists use them as a last ditch effort kind of like, "We have no money and we have no sponsor, so let's use this software for our vocals". Like, when I hear songs like the embedded song, I just think to myself, "My god. How far could this artist have gone if they were just given a chance?" I dunno, maybe this is all just a figment of my imagination and that these artists use vocaloids because they like them, but I can't shake the feeling that all these vocaloid software are just crutches to help new artists with no financial support to break it into the music circle.
That's probably some degree to it, I mean wasn't that why the software was created? Ryo from Supercell even said that he used Miku since he didn't know any singers. Personally, I have no idea what the fuck you're trying to say, Vocaloid isn't holding anyone back. As you said this is a "last ditch effort" to get their songs heard. Well where would they be without it then? No one would hear their music cause no. Also let's not forget that Vocaloid is really part of the doujin scene which is known for derivative works for existing properties. Why do people put work making stuff for other characters? Cause they love the characters and want give their own interpretation of them. A lot of songs were written to be sung by the specific Vocaloid; Disappearance of Miku Hatsune and Gemini by Dixie Flatline to name a few. It's not just about using a program to make a song, it's about giving a character life.
>>223 I too, have no idea what I was trying to say. I wrote that like at 2 o clock in the morning so the fact that something was conveyed is a miracle in itself. I guess it was more of a rant on the actual anthropomorphizing of vocaloids because I'm slowly becoming aware that these vocaloids, no matter how hard we try to inject human emotions into them, that they will forever be nothing but software. And being software, how can these programs adequately convey the emotions behind the songs that these artists worked so hard on? Like when I listen to Ryo's "Sayonara Memories" sung by both a person and Miku, There's just so much more emotion behind the person than what Miku can portray that I just begin to wonder how many other artists lost the emotion or intent that the lyrics or songs were attempting to convey due to the limitations of vocaloids. I love vocaloid, I love what it has done for doujin artists. But the more I listen to vocaloid songs, I just can't shake the feeling that the vast majority of these artists are being held back because of the limitations on vocaloid.
I think you may be placing too much emphasis on comparing Vocaloids and people. As >>223 had said, there's no disadvantage to using Vocaloid if the producer doesn't have a singer to work with. If a singer likes the song, then that person may give it a shot. I suppose what I'm getting at is that though you claim vocaloids are unable to show emotion, they give any producer a chance to broadcast his works to anyone who may be interested. Take Treow for example. He's a brilliant composer in my opinion, and it seems like Luschka (ルシュカ) has taken an interest in his style of music. She created a rendition of iDOLLA, and Treow took a liking to it, putting it up on his mylist in nicovideo. Later on, he came out with Hysteresis featuring 4 Miku songs, 2 Luschka songs, and 1 song by another person. One last thing that I would like to emphasize is that vocaloids are in their own genre in my mind. Sure, there are tons of songs where people show more emotion than vocaloids, but that doesn't mean that the vocaloids are bad. They simply "sing" the song different than a human would. My advice is to not focus on the differences between vocaloids and people, but to rather separate vocaloids into their own form of music. And the album I was talking about before: http://tyw214.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/ Try taking a look at track 3, Drain. Though I have no clue if he's using Miku Append or not, it sure fits well.
One last thing I had forgotten to mention. There are several things that vocaloids can do which would be impossible to people without editing. There are the obvious points such as singing incredibly high pitches or extremely fast, but there are also a couple more subtle things that I've noticed. Most of livetune's songs use a very unique method for changing notes. Rather than making a clear note change, he often creates a bunch of mini notes to simulate slurring between notes. Listen to Crosslight and focus on the beginning of every note to see what I mean. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ulcsMyVfog To be honest though, that style tends to give me a headache at times. And then there are of course the absolutely ridiculous examples of vocaloid songs such as Disappearance's quick singing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xtEy951Dic) and L'azur's high notes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve7ytbMt8-Q).
>>232 One of the reasons that spurred me to make these posts is because of Treow's works. I honestly believe he is a genius when it comes to music and I'll give credit where credit is due: if it weren't for vocaloids, I bet Treow won't be as well-known as he is now. But the thought crosses my mind is that do these artists sees vocaloid as a tool or something else? Maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing but for me, vocaloids are in this weird realm falling into the depths of the uncanny valley and being treated as nothing more than a synthesizer. I'm just at the point where I'm trying to work out if vocaloids are just a means to an end (though I recognize the existence of a sub-culture dedicated to vocaloid and its songs), or something that should be legitimized as a proper musical movement, and a respectable medium of music.
>>235 >do these artists sees vocaloid as a tool or something else? I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say here. You're asking whether the vocaloids are being seen specifically as a synthesizer product or if they're being personified by the producers, right? As for whether they're a proper form of music, I assume that the producers do see them as such, seeing how much effort the serious producers put into their songs. Take Jutenija for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tuDzZsDwUs. Considering how abnormal Rin's voice normally sounds (in my mind anyway), the time spent making that must have been tremendous to have it sound so realistic. Seems to me that the relative obscurity is natural though. Where I live, chatting about vocaloids is as common as chatting about bagpiping, hardstyle, and just about any other form of music that originated elsewhere. It's not well known because most people aren't willing to cross the nationality gap, and the ones that do usually don't spread the word. As such, I doubt that vocaloids will ever become a large musical movement. As for being respectable, that's simply a matter of opinion. What matters to me is whether the people producing the music are taking it seriously despite their obscurity to most of the population.
