Covers of various songs using Vocaloid and other virtual instruments. Songs covered are, in order:
USA artist Swing Out Sister - Breakout ROK artist Shin Hwa - yo ROK artist Cherry Filter - Nang Mahn Guh Yang E ROK artist Finkl - Young Won Han Sarang Cutie Honey, from the eponymous anime Egg Corridor, a track from the game Cave Story, by Pixel ROK artist TT MA - Prism
An entry in MMD cup 7, which as far as I know is a tournament for use of MikuMikuDance, a program related to Vocaloid characters (traditional usage is having them sing/dance along to Vocaloid-created music).
I haven't posted in a month or so due to new job and loss of internet connection. Things settled down a bit recently and I got to working on Vocaloid some more.
Tonio was forcibly detained by Japanese militarists. He should find his way out at some point in the future. In the meantime, here are some sub-par Vocaloid performers:
Each track uses a single Vocaloid voice bank and either a single one-syllable word or a phoneme. Three of the tracks are music. Would not suggest listening with headphones for most of these.
I've been hanging around with Japanophiles for the past few weeks, mostly because of my research into Vocaloid and its applications. A nice crowd, worth noting for their extreme tendency to synthesize everything. Each Vocaloid voice bank, in the minds of many fans, has its own apperance and personality. Each is a virtual pop icon, the avatar singing and dancing using programs like "MikuMikuDance."
"Real" instrumentals are rarely used, most everything being done through software. Their anime-styled avatars and the less-than-perfect synthesis Vocaloid provides, however, might be considered barriers to more mainstream approval.
Enter AKB48.
AKB48 is a long-standing popular Japanese girl-pop group, often noted for having more active members (58) than any other pop group. The newest member, Eguchi Aimi, has made no live appearances and has no real record of existence, as noted by fans. Here is a video revealing the nature of the being:
The face, shown to the left in the latter half of the video, is a CGI amalgamation of the "ideal" portions of other popular band members. This is not a CG representation of a single face, basically being a kind of cyberpunk Frankenstein monster. Imagine! This is pop icon synthesis perfected, aside from the distinctly human voice. This, too, will be replaced, perhaps much sooner than we realize.
I, for one, welcome our new synthetic overlords.
If interested, here is a very popular Vocaloid-oriented forum which I am now frequenting. There's also an IRC, sakura.tsukihi.net #mikuchan.
ETA: here is an article released just yesterday about the virtual icon.
Made using test card music from test card music compilations featured on Cosmobells. Most tracks are distorted beyond being recognizable, though the original pieces' names are kept. Each track is around a minute long.
