Vocaloid Engine Development

[Zoku]

It's obvious that Vocaloid's engine hasnt gotten any real improvements from V3 to V4.

Discuss.

 

[bio]

after the ruby incedent, and Kenmochi leaving the scene, welp...what can you expect?
I knew vocaloid waa going to go down hill.....

 

[oteto]

Not that ive used vocaloid, but the only improvement was xsy right?

 

[Nat]

And growl ?

 

[Zoku]

Yeah. And no real improvement will really happen since Voctro/MTG indefinitely left the vocaloid scene. They were the reasons why Vocaloid really evolved.

 

[fmccaddy12]

Mostly growl and XYS, the editor just feels like a V3.5. But the most change is how voicebanks are made. Growl, the emphasis for Appends for XYS use, more triphone recordings for smoothness, and, mostly with English banks so far, reclist customization has been more of a thing.

 

[KNΞMΛTCS]

Vocaloid is pretty much a dead end as far as I can tell. At least, the core engine is. I can very well see them releasing a few more versions with more features tacked on, but I don't imagine it lasting too much longer. You gotta think Yamaha, and all the things they make money off of, and the fact that Vocaloid is a teeny drop in the sea for them. Simply cutting it off wouldn't hurt them one bit. Add in the fact of so many people abandoning the Vocaloid scene (most likely as they were waiting for a major business, and that never happened), on top of more alternatives (Utau etc) you pretty much have a dead product.

 

[Nat]

Tbh in a bit worried for vocaloids future

 

[bio]

Cyva was no real improvement for ENG vocaloids because sure they fixed the phoneme proble, but theymessed up her tone and it ended up sounding...nasteh

 

[oteto]

If that does come to pass, 1) physical copies will skyrocket in value
2) piracy will not only be condoned in the vocaloid community, it will be par for the course

 

[bio]

how long before VOCLOID besomes like UTAU being allowed to make our own banks? loljk

 

[KNΞMΛTCS]

how long before VOCLOID besomes like UTAU being allowed to make our own banks? loljk

Well, in the rare case that Yamaha drops vocaloid altogether in the future, I'm sure some "unofficial development" will take place and your dream will be true!

 

[Zoku]

If Vocaloid development is dropped indefinitely, it won't stop Yamaha trying to make money off it through 3rd-party companies. Crypton would still make the eternal V(x) updates, Internet Co. will make 999 Gumi VBs and 4 Gakupo updates, and bplats would independently update the VY series.

 

[bio]

You have a point Zoku-san...
But even if most companies faded away and the remainng companies Update/create vocals(hell even if a lot of em' stay), they will eventualy run out of ideas/genres/voice types

Also i do believe that pfx is done with vocatone xD but hopefully not vocaloid cuz...i need Big AL v4

 

[na4a4a]

The engine hasn't really changed much but tbh it's more of an issue with the voices rather than the engine. Sure the engine could probably be improved upon but are they gonna?
I doubt it.

I'm gonna digress a bit...
For Vocaloid to be successful, they'll need to actually deliver something.
For a "professional" product it sure has a lot of bugs and an absolute lack of good voices.
I mean, none of the English voices sound good from a non-vocutau user's perspective. Poor tone, unwanted accent, weak/brittle, nasally, slurry, or a combination of it.
Not to mention the poor standards on the voices. I mean you can actually hear the noise when you use certain voices.
A situation that would of been entirely unacceptable with recording a real vocalist for mixing.

From the looks of it, Vocaloid is an easy ride for Yamaha?
They license it out for companies to use with probably little to no effort on their part beyond that. They could just let Vocaloid rot without real updates and as long as it still sells, are being produced, and they get a good profit margin then they'll beat the dead horse 'till it's ribs cave in.
All they'll need to do is mess with the UI and release the same technology over and over again and people will still buy it.
I get that Vocaloid is mature and much of it is set in place but I'd hate to see it reach a sort of "development death" where it is left to fester and only gets compatibility updates maybe once every several years....like a lot of software goes through.

I think something cheaper, like Utau (that's right, Utau isn't free. You should think about supporting it), actually does pose a threat to Vocaloid as the quality is there. Just people aren't utilizing it in a way that sounds natural and is convenient to use for an end-user.
imo no public method of making voicebanks is very natural and they all aim for an exaggerated speech tone while being more abrasive than a tts voice.

tl;dr
So the engine could use some tweaks maybe but tbh that won't help if the voices are still trash.
And cheaper stuff poses a threat so that's always a possibly as well. But it all sucks anyways

 

[KNΞMΛTCS]

The engine hasn't really changed much but tbh it's more of an issue with the voices rather than the engine. Sure the engine could probably be improved upon but are they gonna?
I doubt it.

I'm gonna digress a bit...
For Vocaloid to be successful, they'll need to actually deliver something.
For a "professional" product it sure has a lot of bugs and an absolute lack of good voices.
I mean, none of the English voices sound good from a non-vocutau user's perspective. Poor tone, unwanted accent, weak/brittle, nasally, slurry, or a combination of it.
Not to mention the poor standards on the voices. I mean you can actually hear the noise when you use certain voices.
A situation that would of been entirely unacceptable with recording a real vocalist for mixing.

From the looks of it, Vocaloid is an easy ride for Yamaha?
They license it out for companies to use with probably little to no effort on their part beyond that. They could just let Vocaloid rot without real updates and as long as it still sells, are being produced, and they get a good profit margin then they'll beat the dead horse 'till it's ribs cave in.
All they'll need to do is mess with the UI and release the same technology over and over again and people will still buy it.
I get that Vocaloid is mature and much of it is set in place but I'd hate to see it reach a sort of "development death" where it is left to fester and only gets compatibility updates maybe once every several years....like a lot of software goes through.

I think something cheaper, like Utau (that's right, Utau isn't free. You should think about supporting it), actually does pose a threat to Vocaloid as the quality is there. Just people aren't utilizing it in a way that sounds natural and is convenient to use for an end-user.
imo no public method of making voicebanks is very natural and they all aim for an exaggerated speech tone while being more abrasive than a tts voice.

tl;dr
So the engine could use some tweaks maybe but tbh that won't help if the voices are still trash.
And cheaper stuff poses a threat so that's always a possibly as well. But it all sucks anyways

+1

Totally agree with you about the voices. From an audio standpoint they're absolute garbage. In fact I could honestly see more "pros" using it if it functioned more like an actual synthesizer (e.g. give a TON of controls over the engine so you could make all sorts of crazy sounds) instead of this quote "singer in a box" approach. No producer outside of this niche is going to want mediocre, robotic-sounding vocals. On the other hand, I can see lots of people using a product that allows them to quickly create unique vocal effects.

A VST plugin is also a must. How many other synthesizers are stand-alone? Not very many. And for a reason: Having to export to audio, move it into your DAW, and then repeat that every time you want to change something is a huge pain. I'm sure even current Vocaloid users would love to see a proper VST plugin instead of this relic from the XP ara.

Now, of course you couldn't do this change very well as there is already a substantial fanbase of Vocaloid as we know it now. Completely changing the program would result in a mass of pissed-off fans. Yamaha could, however, create a separate program that accomplishes this goal. That would also add the benefit of not being related to the current Vocaloid scene (and that is a good thing, as pretty much everyone but Vocaloid fans and users see it is "Japanese virtual idol weeaboo J-pop thing". Thanks Crypton :/ ).

 

[Zoku]

A VST plugin is also a must. How many other synthesizers are stand-alone? Not very many. And for a reason: Having to export to audio, move it into your DAW, and then repeat that every time you want to change something is a huge pain. I'm sure even current Vocaloid users would love to see a proper VST plugin instead of this relic from the XP ara.

One thing I didn't think about until now--Cubase is a DAW, and Vocaloid for Cubase proves that it can work as a VST.

Yamaha prevents a wider range of producers to use Vocaloid since they basically limit DAWs to just Cubase. Cubase is hella expensive. ChipSpeech/AlterEgo will skyrocket past Vocaloid soon since there is DAW support

((Im not sure if half the things I said made sense, butttt))

 

[na4a4a]

It's because Yamaha and Steinberg are basically the same company.
They want to restrict Vocaloid to their "ecosystem", if that makes sense.