I think the community may have some problems

Avalia-Kasa

probably a potato tbh
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
There was a 2015 thread that further went into this topic, but I didn't want to necro the thread and yet I still think the problems haven't fixed themselves. I think they've grown.

What I mean to say is there's some problems that have been plaguing this community for a long time and I think it has everything to do with the perceived decline of our fandom.

I'm not really worried for usage of UTAU as a medium. I think that people are starting to more use UTAU as a tool for making originals more and more, which is really cool! I love seeing all the new songwriters in this fandom.

But problems I've seen are rapidly inflating and deteriorating trends, indirect criticism hurting chances of newcomers joining us, lack of innovation/collaboration, and too much self-promotion.

EDIT: This came out as way too much text so im gonna divide it into sections rip

Trends

Trends have a tendency to last for a few days to maybe a week. New popular voicebank or bandwagon song? Everyone makes covers the first few days and then it's not cool to do it anymore, and those who still want to feel like they can't anymore because it's not "the thing." This has made bandwagon songs less and less of a thing -- people who really take the extra mile on covers don't make it in the time frame of the trend. I've also noticed people tend to copy the songs the most popular tuners make (ex: flood of "Koe" covers after kyaami did it. i dont blame them tho koe's a damn good song)

Indirect Criticism

Indirect criticism is by far the worst problem I've seen imo. People are constantly saying what they want out of a voicebank and making it sound like demands -- the way they phrase things make it seem like the way they describe is absolutely necessary to make a good voicebank, when really it's down to people's preferences. I get it if there's a commercial voicebank; you should have what you want for your money. But something free?

I've seen people say almost word for word the following: "Voicebanks that don't have frqs rendered are trash;" "Nobody is going to use an UTAU with a bad oto;" "people have to know how to fix their frqs to release a bank." We're speaking way too generally and most newcomers don't jump into a place and talk to people right off the bat, they lurk for a bit to see what information they can find, then steadily join in. When we send messages like that, it's wrong. We're scaring them off and making them feel like they're not worth our time.

We need to stop phrasing things that way. It's FINE to have preferences! It's COMPLETELY OKAY to say "I don't like voicebanks without frqs," or "I don't usually use UTAUs with bad otos" -- the way we use our words makes the phrase take on a whole different meaning. We're shifting the blame from the creator, because while they might need improvement, they aren't going to get there with silent hate.

We need to sandwich our criticisms and tell them directly to these people -- "I like this, it looks like it'll be really cool! Do you have an oto tho?" A nudge in the right direction can work wonders.

Lack of Innovation

A few years ago, when VCV was first starting to become popular, and CZ first started CVVC English, people got inspired. Reclists were made left and right, and people were coming up with new ways to use the program. Everyone was interested in thinking of something new, not just the few. Now, people have dropped that and just keep waiting for the next new thing instead of coming up with something more on their own. And while that's okay, this is just a hobby, I've noticed most people who do this rush those people, feel entitled to the New Thing(TM), feel like they deserve the best from it. It's really made things slow down.

Self-Promotion

And self-promotion has become such a hard thing to get by in the community. I want to talk to people, and yeah, some discords have things that prevent people from constantly spamming their own stuff, and YES, it's completely okay to want recognition for your work! But I'm finding more and more people I once talked to often -- and had enjoyment talking with them -- I've ended up having to spam our work back and forth, and all the while I'm the only one giving feedback for their work. I want to be recognized too, but I don't want our entire time chatting together to be just "look at my thing!" "haha look at mine!" I want to have something to say in between.

Look at the chatbox. Today as of posting, we managed to have a pretty decent conversation. But most of what goes down in there is someone putting their work in and leaving because nobody is on it anymore. And yeah, since nobody on it, there's reason to put something in it, but... that depresses me, honestly. It just makes me think of the same scenario of people throwing things they did at each other instead of actually talking. And, personally, it makes me want to click your thing less. I'm more likely to look at something you post in the forums than in the chatbox.

---

I don't mean to be like. Doom and gloom, lol, but I just want something to change. I want people I've seen (and no, I won't point fingers at anyone in particular, but they're there) to realize that the way they talk to people -- even if they're not directly talking to new people -- is influencing how newcomers view this fandom. If we can like... chill, for just a little bit, and actually encourage each other through words and actions rather than just... likes and reposts? I think this fandom could be a lot better than it is right now.

anyway vent over i just wanted to get it out there. hopefully someone gathers something out of this lump of text but who am i kidding in this age nobody reads past the first paragraph anyway
 

Awaclus

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
I think Kiyoteru mostly got it right:

I feel like this is one of the issues that the UTAU community has, actually.
Most people are caught up in creating characters and voicebanks and hoping that somebody else will use them- oh, senpai, notice me!

I've kind of fallen out of this. The reason I make reclists and banks and such is because I personally want to use them, for whatever reason.
This is MUSIC software, but not enough people are actually making MUSIC. They're hoping and hoping that somebody else will like their UTAU and do it instead. It's Someone Else's Problem and eventually that Someone Else ends up not existing. We gotta take charge in creating content.

Another thing to note is that there isn't necessarily a need for a huge UTAU community, but perhaps people should be more focused on getting people outside of the community to use UTAU instead. Look at the Kontakt community, they're hardly more active than we are, and yet Kontakt is super commonly used by music producers across all genres of music, to the point that when I have conversations with other music producers, I can pretty much assume that everyone has it and that assumption rarely turns out to be false.

Of course, it matters that Kontakt is a lot easier to use than UTAU, it's getting updated regularly, and it has an "industry standard" status, all of which are things that we can't have. That being said, it kind of feels like we're doing everything in our power as a community to make it extra difficult for music producers to make any sense of this whatsoever.

I have had the experience of never having used UTAU before and deciding that I need to use it for the vocals in a project that I was working on, and it certainly wasn't one of the easiest things ever. I found tutorials where they explain what "tempo" means and show you how to download a ust of an existing song and plug that into UTAU, and as I was trying to find a good sounding female voicebank, I found a lot of voicebanks with an elaborately written character but no audio preview, and a lot of voicebanks where they used the "gender" field to describe the character's gender identity (or lack thereof) instead of describing whether it sounds like a male voice or a female voice, not to mention a lot of voicebanks that just didn't sound very good in the audio preview. Eventually I found some that actually sounded good, but that took a lot more effort than going on YouTube, typing in "string ensemble Kontakt library" and finding tons of videos where people review and compare some of the best string ensemble libraries for Kontakt.

Basically all of the resources are intended for people who make their own voicebanks, not for producers. This contributes towards the problem of everyone having their own voicebank that no one uses.
 

Avalia-Kasa

probably a potato tbh
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
@Awaclus
I definitely feel you with that. I can't name how many times I want to try and find a new vb but go through page and page on the wiki and showcase with NO SAMPLES!! Honestly. If I find an UTAU that doesn't have samples on their page, I ain't downloading it.

@susrever
I don't think that I 100% agree on the younger people point. Most kids I see don't usually start the drama, and imho? The way they handle it is okay usually. Getting a little heated when talking it out is okay as long as it ends in a productive way. But we have to realize kids are very impressionable and we as the "oldies" of the fandom have to set an appropriate example for them. I really think most of the drama is stemmed from US than newcomers!

When people who've been here for a really long time faces drama, they'll take it to the extreme and never let go of it, block people but still follow them and complain about the person they blocked instead of just getting on with their lives. When newcomers see that we deal with drama that way, and don't get any of the blame for it, they'll assume that that kind of behavior is okay and that's just how it works. Then, when we hold them accountable for their actions, and not ourselves, they'll leave this fandom and their accounts associated with it behind in a flash.

It's odd to me how many people in this fandom feel it's okay to spread such negative messages just because they're not doing it directly to the instigator. I see so much behind-the-scenes drama instead of just sitting down and talking.
 

Awaclus

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
I have never found myself having problems with young people in any community. It's always the adults who will have a harder time adjusting, and especially when it comes to hobbies such as music where things cost money and you probably have to know English pretty well to be able to tap into all the learning resources online, young people oftentimes have legitimate reasons why they can't do something, whereas adults have excuses.
 

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