/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

What has happened to the vocaloid fandom?

While I wouldn't say that the vocaloid fandom is completely gone nobody can deny that a large portion of it has disappeared in the last few years (I think around 2016-2017 is when the dropoff really began to accerate). What has caused this? Could it be old fans just outgrowing it and moving onto other things? Producers stopped making enjoyable things? Vocaloid getting stale? Younger generations using it on things I have no idea about (things like instagram, tik tok and the like)?

Once again, don't get me wrong. Vocaloid is far from disappearing altogether from otaku culture (though otaku culture is disappearing as well) but I would find it hard to deny that the influence Vocaloid has is declining quickly and I don't know the reason why.

Lastly, I would like to comment that you don't need an active community to enjoy something so don't interpert this as me saying that because Vocaloid is dying that theres no point in caring about it anymore.

Would be interested to see what some of you think.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286
if the last couple of years has proved anything it's that unlike the early 2010's people dont actually care whether a song use vocaloid for its vocal or not, what really matters are the songs itself, and if you have been in the fandom for the last decade you will know that a lot of producer decided to retire or in indefinite hiatus on 2014-2016, I'm still not sure how or why that happened but that also leads to the decline of vocaloid songs that's being produced, i can't really speak for all of the fandom but for the people i know and the community i joined in, they didn't leave because they grew up from it or it's becoming stale, there's just not enough good new songs to keep their interests going.
Vocaloid now is more popular than the last couple of years though, a lot of producers are coming back from the dead, project sekai is a big hit, new producers flex their skills, and shit like that, it really feels like the early 2010's all over again.

[Anonymous No.]

Vocaloid is a relic of the old Internet before it got flooded with boomers, zoomers and karens

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286
I shared this feeling through 2015/2016 but since Miku's 10th anniversary I feel that Vocaloid has been going strong again. It's more like it had a quiet period during 2014-2016 which gave everyone the impression it ended.
>Younger generations using it on things I have no idea about (things like instagram, tik tok and the like)?
This is definitely part of it. The general younger western audience has significantly changed from how it was during the 2012 boom.
>>34985745
>before it got flooded with boomers, zoomers and karens
Vocaloid in the west has always been overwhelmingly popular with underages and overall has a gigantic normalfag audience compared to other /jp/ interests. The cringy casual weeb fanbase is what made it infamous in the west in the first place.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286
>I would find it hard to deny that the influence Vocaloid has is declining quickly and I don't know the reason why.
Vocaloid influence is inclining massively with the vast majority of people unaware of its presence at all.
Many of the big hits in recent years in Japan are vocaloid tracks at their core, like Charles, Yoru ni Kakeru, Usseewa.
Your conclusion has no basis in reality.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34988245
Usseewa and Yoru ni Kakeru aren't vocaloid songs though, they were just made by vocaloid producers, but the singer is human, and Charles is a 2016 song. If you want to pick some popular recent hits, then at least talk about Kanaria's songs or Deco*27's Vampire.

Vocaloid itself is really whatever these days, what is actually relevant are the producers.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34988346
>Usseewa and Yoru ni Kakeru aren't vocaloid songs though, they were just made by vocaloid producers
If vocaloid producers have an influence then obviously vocaloid has an influence.
So the conclusion has no basis in reality.
The lyrical content of Usseewa, which is the main cause for its infamy, is definitely influenced by the climate of old vocaloid culture. The demo for Yoru has been released, and it is in fact a Miku track. The lack of tuning in the guide track influences the way Ikura sang it, she's stated as such.
2016 was pointed out as a drop off point so I picked a song to counter that claim.

If you want to talk about explicit vocaloid use, then of course it's resurging; you've already pointed out some of the noteworthy tracks.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286
>What has happened to the vocaloid fandom?
Vocaloid was a fad that ran its course. It was a long running fad but a fad all the same. There will still be dedicated vocaloid producers but gone are the days where you can make some song, put Miku on it and get hundreds of thousands of Youtube views instantly. Many will basically try to make the move into more legitimate musical endeavors as Asahi did with Necry Talkie, Ayase with Yoasobi or Utsu-P with Zsasz.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34988346
Many of these songs are made by vocaloid producers bringing elements of that style into the mainstream. Yoasobi is arguably the biggest act in Japan right now and was on fucking Kohaku Uta Gassen. It might be sung by a real singer but it's still being produced by someone bringing versed in that style who's giving it a more mainstream/pop flare.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286
Guess vocaloids not so popular anymore either.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286
Vocaloid existed before the appeal-to-anime-fans era, even though Miku & co were huge successes. What do you think is next for the software? Appeal to vtubing for voice changing purposes? Appeal to mobile games as an alternative to voice actors?

[Anonymous No.]

vt*bers

[Anonymous No.]

I'm fine with vocaloid and 2hu becoming less popular and a smaller niche.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286
Vocaloid fandom got infiltrated by fancops, tumblrites that only know hatsune miku from that minecraft meme, and unfunny ebooks gimmick accounts.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34990928
That all sounds like western trash to me.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34988692
>the days where you can make some song, put Miku on it and get hundreds of thousands of Youtube views instantly.
That era never existed, especially on youtube. The majority of vocaloid/miku songs throughout all of it's history got barely any views in comparison and were forgotten, A few producers that were talented, good at marketing and/or lucky always hoarded the high popularity songs outside of a few one/few-hit wonders.

For example Miku songs with 1M views have been stable throught the years and even increasing in the latest years.
https://vocaloid.fandom.com/wiki/Hatsune_Miku/Notable_songs_list,_Million

>>34990783
They already make many talkloids (though not character based voice converters that I know of), which are used for let's play and stuff, but it will take a while before game developers can use the tech to replace VAs (especially since indie games can always record with their own staff or just leave unvoiced if they have zero budget). Plus that technology will probably not come from companies focusing on the virtual singer niche. Vtubers character (including their voice) is their brand so I doubt the big ones will use something that allows anyone to copy them (like Kaf having Cevio AI KAFU being tuned like a chipmunk to avoid becoming "replaced").

Crypton will probably keep focusing exclusively on singing since that's what Miku's brand is about and they are really good at exploiting it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286
Controlled decline but not completely dead.

See this graph for more details.
>>34891991

Some of it was caused by some prominent producers going mainstream. Eg. Pandora Voxx left to go be a guitarist in Penguin Research. But y'know, some people are still around, people like 40mP, DECO*27, Honeyworks etc.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34990831
And Gatcha games like KanColle, Fire Emblem, and, Genshin Impact.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34990952
You're apart of the western fanbase, in case you haven't noticed.

[Anonymous No.]

Keep finding recent 100k+ tracks that nobody on /jp/ ever mentions.
Makes these doomposts look ridiculous.
Stop living in a bubble.

[Anonymous No.]

It might just be an age thing. I was a huge Vocaloid fan when I was 14-18, but then I just gradually stopped caring. My little brother and his girlfriend are both 18 and they're both pretty into it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286
>While I wouldn't say that the vocaloid fandom is completely gone nobody can deny that a large portion of it has disappeared in the last few years (I think around 2016-2017 is when the dropoff really began to accerate). What has caused this? Could it be old fans just outgrowing it and moving onto other things? Producers stopped making enjoyable things? Vocaloid getting stale? Younger generations using it on things I have no idea about (things like instagram, tik tok and the like)?
You've stopped following it.
Producers come and go, new songs are being released, communities continue to interact, concerts happen, merch is announced, producers might have moved from niconico to yt and sound cloud, but it's all the same as it used to be. The difference is that there is more genuine newcomers who just recently learned about it from concerts and yt instead of normies who just bandwagoned into the community because it's a new hot thing.

Ask yourself, do you pay as much attention to Vocaloid as your did years ago? Do you still spend as much time searching for new songs, producers, discussing with other fans, watching concerts and stuff as you did years ago? Maybe that's why it seems like it's declining for you.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35015774
>>35007988
this
people keep parroting that vocaloid is dead but in reality they just stopped caring about it theirselves

[Anonymous No.]

too saturated
too hard to discover anything in
moving in significantly new directions from when it got popular over here

[Anonymous No.]

Hordes of skill-less spammers on modern apps and sites with extremely weak searching and filtering functions. Basically you have to know someone who already knows what's good and there's little reward for exploration. It's also gone corporate AF on the other end of things with big money on safe, groomed celebrity creators and consoom culture

[Anonymous No.]

>>35023854
>thing literally invented by a corporation got too corporate

[Anonymous No.]

>>35017585
Yeah, anyone who wants to find neat new Vocaloid content will find it. Until tech starts getting abandoned, official content slows down, concerts start becoming rare and it stops being hard to keep up with new fanmade content, there's no reason to doompost. And there's no hint of any of those things happening anytime soon (hell, the tech and concerts (ignoring covid cancellations) are even expanding). Just keep having fun, or if you've gotten tired, take a break, Vocaloid will still be there when you get back.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35024954
Pretty much. Even now it feels like a lot of new voicebanks have been coming out since VOCALOID as a software killed itself

[Anonymous No.]

>>35004353
Only on 4channel. I only use niconico and not Youtube and block all non-Japanese comments on Twitter.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286
I like meme covers by Luka and Miku

[Anonymous No.]

>>35024164
Who are you quoting?

[Anonymous No.]

>>35028513
You are a westerner. No amount of dabbling will make you eastern. Get it through that thick skull of yours and stop trying to be something you're not.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35028333
>since VOCALOID as a software killed itself
What?

[Anonymous No.]

>>35049620
There's a firewall separating 4chan from western fandoms.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35062597
Yes. It's called autism.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35023787
There has always been a mountain of Vocaloid content, and there still is.
I say it's harder now because of what >>35023854 states regarding the search function. Eventually I gave up on looking for stuff since it was virtually impossible to find something you hadn't already seen. This goes for other random vids you can't find again even with specific titles.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35057363
You may want to look up what happened with VOCALOID and Piapro Studio.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35067089
>You may want to look up what happened with VOCALOID and Piapro Studio.
The stuff from 2013?

[Anonymous No.]

>>34990831
If anything Vtubers are helping bring Vocaloid back. 90% of the music Vtubers sing and cover are vocaloid tracks.

[Anonymous No.]

What? If anything, it's bigger than ever. Unfortunately it brings in a lot of mentally ill people and children, so you end up with whatever this "hatsune miku is trans / fucks bees / made minecraft" fad is.

[Anonymous No.]

I just hate that trannies have made miku their symbol, so I stay away from the Fandom.
would have been nice.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286
There has been a crowdfunded online concert that reached its goal of $228300 within one day and ended up on $559476 in the end. It aired with 60-80k viewers early in the morning only an hour ago. There still get published a dozen vocaloid songs every single day.
Kys vocaloidisdead shitters.

[Anonymous No.]

I didn't become a Vocaloid fan until like 2017 and I've never stopped since. I'm in it deep now.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35084656
It was all the fault of one miku parody account run by a highly autistic transgirl, thankfully they stopped posting
I still can't believe tons of people had their one and only exposure to vocaloid be in the form of a spiteful trans rights meme, "fuck you I invented minecraft"

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286
Roughing 62k people tuned in to the Miku Expo stream between Youtube and Twitch. There's still very much an audience for Vocaloid shit. I will say that I think VTubers being the new hotness does contribute to less people being into Vocaloids, especially since the hyper popular ones like Kizuna AI are basically fully blown idols except with actual singing

[Anonymous No.]

>>35088298
I'm sure it would have been higher if they promoted it.
I didn't even know about it until like hours before because youtube told me out it.
I hear everyone who paid for the kickstarter was disappointed too, it was only 80 minutes.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35017585
yep. this pretty much happens with regular music too
"wtf they stopped making good music"
no you retard, you just stoped caring about new stuff

[Anonymous No.]

>>35088335
>it was only 80 minutes
It was about 70 minutes. The Kickstarter said 16 songs, and we got 16 songs, but the schedule also said we were going to get a 90-minute show.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35088298
A lot of those Vtubers use Vocaloid as a crutch too. If they do live performances like 80% or more of their setlist is Vocaloid covers.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35089021
making original forgettable songs is a trap that multimedia franchises often fall into, you get more engagement when you sing old classics

[Anonymous No.]

>>34988751
>>34988346
not to mention ayase still makes miku songs even though yoasobi is booming.
Miku just as an irreplacable spot in the japanese music industry, whether through producers that started with her and moved on to their own things or producers who kept with it and are still massively popular like deco.
not to mention the concerts/ vocacolle stuff that is just increasing in volume year after year (not counting corona of course).
there is absolutely no indicator that vocaloid is declining

[Anonymous No.]

>>35077890
miku and the squad have moved on from vocaloid and are their own thing now

[Anonymous No.]

>>35023854
its really easy to find good shit though, theres plenty of playlists, twitter tags etc...
if you actually took the time instead of speculating about it you could already have found like 20 + producers that you like and their entire discography, the problem is you not the "search functions".

[Anonymous No.]

>>35089909
Vocaloid as a program is dying fast, nearly dead.

Everyone jumped ship and there is a small turf war going on with everyone hedging their bets on both waiting to see what sticks I think.

SynthV, Cevio and the AI variants of those. There are others too but not really taking off as fast but notable mention to Neutrino AI.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35087932
Impressive.
Good job anon.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35090846

[Anonymous No.]

>>35090846
yeah fuck yamaha, miku will be fine she's invincible at this point

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985896
Underages 10 years ago were very different to zoomers
Though they were still pretty bad

[Anonymous No.]

>>35087932
Are those all official? I wanted to collect Haku stuff but I kept getting fucked over by bootlegs.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286
most of the popularity i would think came from youtube with those 3dcg's or high quality 2d videos. All the creators on there have either died (literally) or moved on with other projects/life

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286
The boom in 2010-2012 was related to flavor of the month projects like Kagepro, and many fans of those projects didn't stick around. The community has since stabilized.
>Younger generations using it on things I have no idea about (things like instagram, tik tok and the like)?
This has a significant effect in western fandom.

[Anonymous No.]

Vocaloid is also a relic before the Internet turned into a corporate hellscape and zooms are into vtumours and the like
Most songs created recently are just "songs" rather than attached to vocaloid like before
And now that vocaloid itself is going to be a dead program it'll do more damage

[Anonymous No.]

The decline of nico has been a bummer since YT sucks ass for finding vocalo tunes. Crypton needs to make a more accessible, international piapro-like platform.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35093866
At this point I miss their cringe MMD videos and shitty fanart. Looking back on it it has this wholesome charm to it in a way. The zoomers kind of scare me now.
>>35090846
Isn't a good thing to have more competition and options this time around? Though you know people will all call them Vocaloids anyway because that's what people think of now when it comes to vocal synthesis programs.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35094407
theres kiite which is great to find songs.
youtube works fine for me though, im subbed to obscure producers and it keeps recommending me some really good hidden gems

[Anonymous No.]

>>35093908
Let me know if you want help, sometimes I find Haku stuff I pass up because I already have it. But everything is official merch on the table or from fan events like Voc@loid M@ster or whatever, Comiket etc.

>>35094680
It is good. Fuck Yamaha. Not innovating and suffocating everyone with fees and licenses and bullshit. AI is the new hotness but even SynthV is a good step up from Vocaloid.

The term Vocaloid is going to forever be used as an umbrella term for singing synths or whatever, no reason to change that.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35095672
What made me give up was the plushie. Every place I looked it was either insanely expensive or a bootleg. If I could get any help with that.
I could try and look for the Nendoroid again too, but I zoned out when it was released and missed it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35096258
If you got an email or something let me know. I see the Haku plushies listed sometimes and I get excited seeing them because they're kinda rare but I have no one to show it to and I already own one. Same with the Neru plush. The nendo petites are easy to get though, as long as there is a picture to the listing it's easy to verify.

[Anonymous No.]

>>35096361
Thanks anon. I'm going to use a two step so my e-mail isn't put into the archives if that's okay.
[e-mail]

Just reply to that one and I'll handle the rest

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286
The vocaloid fandom is definitely more alive than 2016 what are you talking about, those years were the real dark ages

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286
the software is basically a synthesizer and vocaloid itself is irrevocably unique. it's changing the landscape of music whether it's popular or not. it doesn't need a huge fan following to stick around. it's like saying because drum and bass is dead that samplers are dying too.

the thing you think is dying out is the public popularity of miku. she was never going to plastered all over billboards in times square, a name in every household kind of thing.

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286

[Anonymous No.]

>>34985286

[Anonymous No.]

literally replaced by gura

[Anonymous No.]

vocaloidbros....vtubers took our songs...

[Anonymous No.]

>>35139736
You've got all wrong. vtubers cover vocaloid songs because they don't have the talent to come up with their own songs.

No amount of vtuber covers can possibly take those songs away from us.