Vocaloid- Part of my Past, Part of our Future
A world of new sounds, languages, and meanings awaits everyone willing to experience it. This new world is called “Vocaloid”. These voice synthesizers reach pitches that no human could ever imitate.
Vocaloid is a computer program made up of voice synthesizers that is created by Yamaha, which is a Japanese electronic company. The first Vocaloids ever created were called Lola and Leon. They were not as successful as successful as the second version of Vocaloids released. First one out of this bunch was named Hatsune Miku. She has single-handedly took over the music world in Japan and quite possibly even America’s. Famous stars like Lady Gaga had used Miku’s hologram as an opening act in her concert.. There was an even a Miku Expo concert right here, in NYC (and of course I passed by tons of weeaboos playing on their DSes while headed there).
Vocaloid is often seen as something strange due to it not being played by actual people, but by holograms and voice banks. The critique is usually that if humans can do what these “holograms” can do, they think “what’s the use for them?”.However, many people fail to see how Vocaloid is revolutionary .
Vocaloid provide a better outlet for producers as these voice banks can change the tone of their banks unlike humans. Meaning, the voice banks can reach extremely high pitches while remaining in a certain tone of voice (a whisper-like tone with a high pitch). Not only that, but fans can imagine and be creative with the type of personality that the character that is attached to the voice bank. Which is why there is so many different types of stories that each character/voice bank plays out in their music videos and songs.
(Miku Expo 2016, for anyone who wants to watch!)
(V2- Meiko, Miki, Rin, Len, Gumi, Miku, Kaito, Gakupo, Luka) –left to right
However, Vocaloid’s fame is not what makes a big part of why it is so influential. What’s important is the content being created with Vocaloid. Many of the producers pair up with illustrators to use these voice synthesizers to tell a message and a story through music videos and lyrics.
There’s always the “but you can’t even understand them, why listen to them?” reply when telling people I listen to them. Well, there is often translations for the lyrics. Although the meaning becomes skewed and the feeling is lost when translating to another language, the music video transmits the feelings and message just as well as the original untouched Japanese lyrics.
(Meltdown — Kagamine Rin)
Regular listeners and creators of music can actually buy the program Vocaloid and make their own music with it with any character of their choosing. However, using the program itself is can be very hard, as it’s difficult to get the characters to sing harmoniously to what the creator wants. Most of the vocal banks come in only Japanese. In V3(Vocaloid 3), Yamaha has updated a lot of the voice banks to include English, Korean, Chinese and even Spanish. There’s endless possibilities with these characters and their voice banks.
In all, Vocaloid has reached out to many people: producers, creators, and listeners. It gives a new world to those who were looking for new outlets in music and illustration through Vocaloid’s wide variety of voice banks and new ideas of music videos (or PVs). Will you give a chance to this new world and open your mind?
