Synthetic Singers: Vocaloids

Synthetic Singers: Vocaloids

People die, fame fades, and those who are remembered the most will one day be forgotten. However, this is not the case for the synthetic singers known as Vocaloids. Vocaloids aren’t a new thing by any means, they are an aging program nearing a decade old. However, their popularity has only been increasing in the past few years.

 

Vocaloid is a piece of software developed in Barcelona by Yamaha in 2004. It was a small piece of software that only professional musicians ever used. However, in 2007 Crypton Future Media developed a Vocaloid named Hatsune Miku, but this wasn’t like the previous Vocaloids that had come before—this one had a face to go with it. This boosted Hatsune Miku’s popularity astronomically higher than the previous Vocaloids, immediately entering it into Japanese pop culture.

 

Hatsune Miku became the face of Vocaloid itself. From then on, Crypton Future Media kept producing high quality vocaloids with massive followings, and other companies began to follow suit and create vocaloids with faces. In December, Crypton’s Kagamine Len and Rin will be reaching their decade anniversary, and what better way to celebrate this than to write an article on vocaloids?

 

Vocaloids have the advantage of being able to have song be mass produced, rather than having one album being put out every couple months there are thousands of songs produced per day, giving more content to people who want to listen to them. Plus, due to these characters not being real people, they cannot be involved in fall from stardom by doing things such as becoming an alcoholic or being involved in a sex scandal. or that creative geniuses can get themselves into.

 

However, they of course have their drawbacks to real singers. You will never be able to meet these characters in real life and have a chat with them. Another problem stated is that, “Vocaloids are a hologram on stage, you can’t go up and touch ‘em,” said Brandon Kuenster ‘19, occasional viewer of vocaloid The closest thing is a hologram that is on stage accompanied by people playing background instruments. Plus, they oftentimes sound like autotuning.

 

Some find Vocaloids very jarring and not listenable at all, “I don’t like vocaloid, I think it’s creepy that there’s not a real singer behind it,” said Sam Mitchell ‘19, one time vocaloid listener.

 

The reason that Vocaloids have remained a small niche is due to the “anime girls that sing to you,” as Kuenster said, “Their voices sound messed up. It’s not natural but it’s still cool.”

 

This surprising realization that Vocaloids are singing but aren’t real leads some people, mainly those who have just had a passing glance to Vocaloid, to think the medium should stay a small niche while those who commonly listen to vocaloid think it shouldn’t.

 

However, to those who think that Vocaloids are worth their time, they will find that Vocaloids are surprisingly popular for a niche. The most popular Vocaloid creators such as VocaCircus (Circus-P), Crusher-P, Mitchie M, and 八王子P can get millions of views on their videos. VocaCircus and Crusher-P primarily produce in English, so they’re a good start for someone just getting interested. Mitchie M and 八王子P mainly produce in Japanese, which means their songs sound more realistic due to Japanese having more simplistic syllables which makes it an easier language to develop for.

 

As of right now, the average anime watcher hasn’t even heard of vocaloids, as Ivan Ramos ‘20 guessed the age of Vocaloids he guessed, “I don’t know, about as old as anime?” Anime is about 40 years old, so if someone who’s an anime fanatic doesn’t know much about Vocaloid how can the average Joe? With the tenth anniversary of the most popular vocaloids coming around the corner, millions of songs have already been created and are waiting and available for you to listen to. While millions of people already listen to vocaloid and have enjoyed listening to them, there is always room for more in this largely untapped music genre. Isn’t it time for you to listen to this largely untapped niche?

 

Here are some songs to get you started if you’re at all interested!: