What do you think drives popularity in Vocalsynth?

[수연 <Suyeon>]

Preface: Before you all collectively groan and repeat verbatim to 'do it for the music, man!' and 'if you're in it for popularity, then you're in it for the wrong reason!' etc. etc. note: I'm not asking how to be popular.

We've all seen banks and their owners come, go, return, move on to vocaloid, and move on entirely from synthesized music. We have also seen voices and banks that have become popular overnight for mystifying reasons - even pulling an audience before a voice is even confirmed to be in the works.

What do you think drives popularity? What appeals to you when it comes to a voicebank or vocaloid?

Appealing Art?

Are they backed/created by your favorite company/friend/collective group of people?

Are they tuned/used in a way that's pleasing to your ears?

Are they simply everywhere and you've gotten to like them overtime due to constant exposure?

Do they have a lot of voicebanks/appends associated with them, allowing more options for use?

Are they done on high quality equipment (UTAU), or do they have a ton of effort put into them that shows in the final product?

What drives you to a particular voice?

Personally, my favorite voices are SeeU, Yuki, Iroha, Luka, Gackupo, Piko, and Dex. While their designs are all either hit or miss for me, they all have something that appeals to me vocally or they're associated with companies/artists that I already liked. Even if a design doesn't work for me personally, I'm willing to forgive a design that's lackluster if the voice holds my attention.

 

[KNΞMΛTCS]

For the general mass, I'd say it's a combination between appealing art (esp. if it's cutesy art) and a well done promo, a well produced voicebank, and good tuning. Remember, in this fandom "kawaii" sells a lot of the time, art is probably more important than sound to a lot of people.

Me, on the other hand, doesn't give a crap about art or videos. If it sounds good to my ears i like it.

 

[Shine]

I'll talk mostly about UTAU:
I won't lie and say that I think art isn't important. Well, in one hand, it isn't important for the voicebank itself - and it's not a bad artwork/design that will stop me from using a good voice. But, let's see, when you're scrolling through youtube or soundcloud, you don't have imediate auditorial stimuli (you have to click on the video or hit the play button), but your eyes are always looking for something that will catch your attention. That's why I think that almost everyone values art to a certain extent, because it grabs our attention.

Now, keeping the viewer interested after you've grabbed their attention it's a different thing. Most people still know how to dissociate the art from the bank and evaluate their qualities separadetely. If the art grabbed my attention but the voicebank isn't really that good, then I'll probably move on to something else. We all must keep in mind that the most important thing is the voice, while not forgetting that in this fandom (and not only in this fandom, it's really part of human nature), we are influenced by a huge number of factors that Sayuri listed - so we shouldn't just completly brush this whole popularity thing off as if it isn't true/real/important, because it is, and it's not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion!

Also, advertising your UTAU, promoting them on social networks, here on UTAforum, on groups, all that will help them get more attention, and, therefore, popularity. If you have friends that can help you do so, even better! But, once again, it's not the connections, the promoting, the awesome art that will finally "sell" a voicebank - it's the voice itself.

I really could elaborate a lot on what I think that makes a bank popular but it would always be, somehow, biased by my own personal preferences! I just wanted to settle the statement that, for me, the quality of the voice should be top priority - but, given that we work as a community, we mustn't overlook important aspects such as art, promotion, tuning, appends, connections, et cetera, because those factors all work together to make a VB more....alluring!

 

[Kiyoteru]

I guess I'll throw in my two heavily salted cents.
Either be a special shiny outsider, or claw your way up the social hierarchy.

There's so many vocalsynth users that really never get seen at all, because they come from the inside, and because they haven't made appeals to all the big names yet. (A user who comes from the outside would be a musician who just happened to pick up a vocalsynth once, so even if Porter Robinson wasn't already a popular producer, he would have gotten HUGE in the vocalsynth community for being an outsider who used Avanna.)

Voicebank popularity is driven by who uses it. If your voicebank is used by Kyaami, congrats, you're popular now! Or sometimes drama. If you're an insufferable a-hole who believes they're god incarnate, your LQ voicebank might be getting a lot of attention from people who see your hypocrisy.

When I'm personally choosing an UTAU to use... it's either me choosing a friend's voicebank, or me looking for a certain voice type and using the first UTAU I can think of. Sometimes some UTAU that I saw on Tumblr? (which goes in the "using a friend's bank" category I guess)

 

[Terindie]

I recall back when UTAU was a newer thing, it was mostly about who could churn out the most videos. I don't think I can recall many people now who only updated every so often. Perhaps Steel, but Steel has maintained notoriety through several means anyways.

Now that there's 9 billion more UTAU users there were, it's more about word of mouth. Either you're proactive in the community and earn a name that way, or just plain mind-blowingly good at everything, and people start talking.

Being "generally good and professional" is probably the most one needs. If I see a user who is at least capable in the various academic fields that UTAU encompasses (as in, they're making good videos, good tuning, good voicing, good oto's, good reclist, good art, good website...) then they've obviously got some jack-of-all trades skills and I have lots of respect for that.

 

[RaccoonButler]

this thread is old but i need to revive it because nobody said hot anime dudes