Vocaloid Superiority?

Kiyoteru

UtaForum power user
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
I've been following this discussion, and a lot of people are making great points that I agree with.

I think another thing that plays in is that a lot of well known producers mainly use vocaloids so that also makes the fandom think that it's way better than using utau

This is pretty true. And as a producer myself, I'm tempted to get and use more popular vocaloids for the sake of having my music more readily known. I really enjoy the versatility and power available to me through UTAU, but sometimes I feel like "Maybe more people would listen to this song if I owned Hatsune Miku." There's a guaranteed audience when you tag something as "Vocaloid." (Of course, this line of thought is partially untrue, because there's so many Miku songs, there's no guarantee that anyone will find a new, obscure one.)
 

Arissa

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
Also, I think that mostly it's people that have never even used the programs, or maybe one, are the people that have this attitude. A lot of people in the Vocaloid fandome see the Vocaloids as characters, some to higher degrees than others, and while this may be innocent, I've noticed the negatives of this.

For one, some people take Vocaloids like Hatsune Miku way too seriously, and don't even use her voicebank, but just seem like rabid friends.

*In addition to this, a lot of people that like Vocaloid and don't use it can form the mentality that it's Miku singing on her own, or they give no mind to the producers that actually work hard on covers and original songs. For example, former producer Wowaka changed his album/song(can't remember which) from My Song to Miku's song, due to people giving Hatsune Miku all the glory and credit and seeming to forget the fact that she's just a vocally synthesized voice. A lot of people are guilty of this. Wowaka even left producing, I think, and the issue with Miku was encountered in his song, Unhappy Refrain.

And I think with utau, a lot of people have never used the program and have preconceived notions about it anyway, and some people use it but hardly try so they give up when things get difficult. If people could hear utau like Renri and get their ears out of the poor voicebanks of 2009, things would be a lot better for the communities, I'm sure ^=^
 

Mougeki Mero

Defoko's Slaves
Defender of Defoko
Also, I think that mostly it's people that have never even used the programs, or maybe one, are the people that have this attitude. A lot of people in the Vocaloid fandome see the Vocaloids as characters, some to higher degrees than others, and while this may be innocent, I've noticed the negatives of this.

For one, some people take Vocaloids like Hatsune Miku way too seriously, and don't even use her voicebank, but just seem like rabid friends.

*In addition to this, a lot of people that like Vocaloid and don't use it can form the mentality that it's Miku singing on her own, or they give no mind to the producers that actually work hard on covers and original songs. For example, former producer Wowaka changed his album/song(can't remember which) from My Song to Miku's song, due to people giving Hatsune Miku all the glory and credit and seeming to forget the fact that she's just a vocally synthesized voice. A lot of people are guilty of this. Wowaka even left producing, I think, and the issue with Miku was encountered in his song, Unhappy Refrain.

And I think with utau, a lot of people have never used the program and have preconceived notions about it anyway, and some people use it but hardly try so they give up when things get difficult. If people could hear utau like Renri and get their ears out of the poor voicebanks of 2009, things would be a lot better for the communities, I'm sure ^=^
I totally agree with you specially on the character part...Nowadays it is slightly better, but back on 2010 (up unitl 2013-14) peeps (including myself) used to say "Miku's song" rather than "X producer's song" . It might seem like a very small thing and thta I am SJWing over a simple thing, but imo it is important and kinda frustrating for producers...+give again the almighty status to VOCALOID and obscures other synths that are as good as it is.

Well, the only part I "disagree" with you is the Renri one: I agree people should take his eyes off of the 2009 VBs, but then again, Renri, Meiji and Shione Lt will/are turning into the new fever and will again obscure the other UTAUs.
 

Arissa

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
I totally agree with you specially on the character part...Nowadays it is slightly better, but back on 2010 (up unitl 2013-14) peeps (including myself) used to say "Miku's song" rather than "X producer's song" . It might seem like a very small thing and thta I am SJWing over a simple thing, but imo it is important and kinda frustrating for producers...+give again the almighty status to VOCALOID and obscures other synths that are as good as it is.

Well, the only part I "disagree" with you is the Renri one: I agree people should take his eyes off of the 2009 VBs, but then again, Renri, Meiji and Shione Lt will/are turning into the new fever and will again obscure the other UTAU.

That is true, as those utau I've been seeing more reprints of, not so much Yamine Renri but Shione and whatnot. I meant that I wanted people to see how great utau can be, since a lot of people think they sound choppy/bad and not as good as Vocaloid or humans or whatever, and with her being known in the community for having a really realistic and smooth voice, I used her as an example >=< Especially since most in the Vocaloid fandom don't hear any utau other than Vipperloids and Momo or something which sucks
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mougeki Mero

Buck

Ruko's Ruffians
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
Concerning the usage of the programs themselves, Vocaloid requires significantly less effort to start getting results out of. With UTAU, you have to individually write out each phonetic, which means you need to familiarize yourself with your voicebanks' reclists' particular set of symbols, which usually means digging through a menu to get the sound list and figuring out which checkbox to press to make the sounds actually show up. Some of these phonemes will be configured improperly or in a way that is incompatible with what you intend to use it for (especially with VC samples), requiring manual labor to correct that you may not have the knowledge to perform adequately.

With Vocaloid, you type the word you want in the note, and it does the phonetic symbols thing for you. It also does a fairly decent job of making multiple words blend together, something that is more or less a manual effort in UTAU.

However...

When you start to try to produce anything more than a baseline-average level of work that the program mostly does for you, it quickly becomes apparent that Vocaloid's automatic nature is extremely limiting. It actually makes excruciatingly complicated specific (but crucial) details like minute timing adjustments or timing adjustments to specific phonemes (something that the manual nature of UTAU actually allows for to an extent).

So to conclude, no, Vocaloid is not superior to UTAU. It mostly is just more consumer friendly to the average user (to the chagrin of Yamaha, it seems). UTAU actually could even be more powerful from a raw usability standpoint, it just isn't automatic, and rather tedious.

If i'm wrong about something here let me know
 
Last edited:

Arissa

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
Concerning the usage of the programs themselves, Vocaloid requires significantly less effort to start getting results out of. With UTAU, you have to individually write out each phonetic, which means you need to familiarize yourself with your voicebanks' reclists' particular set of symbols, which usually means digging through a menu to get the sound list and figuring out which checkbox to press to make the sounds actually show up. Some of these phonemes will be configured improperly or in a way that is incompatible with what you intend to use it for (especially with VC samples), requiring manual labor to correct that you may not have the knowledge to perform adequately.

With Vocaloid, you type the word you want in the note, and it does the phonetic symbols thing for you. It also does a fairly decent job of making multiple words blend together, something that is more or less a manual effort in UTAU.

However...

When you start to try to produce anything more than a baseline-average level of work that the program mostly does for you, it quickly becomes apparent that Vocaloid's automatic nature is extremely limiting. It actually makes excruciatingly complicated specific (but crucial) details like minute timing adjustments or timing adjustments to specific phonemes (something that the manual nature of UTAU actually allows for to an extent).

So to conclude, no, Vocaloid is not superior to UTAU. It mostly is just more consumer friendly to the average user (to the chagrin of Yamaha, it seems). UTAU actually could even be more powerful from a raw usability standpoint, it just isn't automatic, and rather tedious.

If i'm wrong about something here let me know
Interesting, I see your point, even though I've never really used Vocaloid... But why would Yamaha be against its user-friendlyness?
 

Buck

Ruko's Ruffians
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
Interesting, I see your point, even though I've never really used Vocaloid... But why would Yamaha be against its user-friendlyness?

They wouldn't be against user-friendliness, but they are trying to market it as a professional software, and mostly non-professionals are the people who are interested in it, since it's limitations usually don't get in the way of their goals like it would for a professional producer. So there is a conflict of target audience there (this may be less true as of late).
 

Similar threads