I've been seeing more and more music posted that's created with vocaloid software. It's like a speech synthesizer, only the pitch can be controlled in such a way that it is designed for singing, rather than plain speech.
Even though it was originally programmed for English lyrics only, most of the stuff I've seen around the 'net has been in Japanese. Apparently they have it for some other languages but by far it's most popular for singing in Japanese. There are a lot of remixes of songs done with vocaloid (including Touhou music) but the most interesting thing to come of this are "virtual idols" like Hatusne Miku.
It's developed by Yamaha (musical instruments / software division) and commercially available. Not being a music maker I haven't played around with this. I'm curious about whether or not the folks around here who make music have ever used vocaloid.
Virtual Idols. Now that's a scary concept. I recall seeing a Hatsune Miku concert where she was a 3D hologram projected in a huge pane of glass while a live band played along side her and a screaming crowd filled the concert hall.
While I don't see virtual idols replacing real singers, it's an uncanny valley kind of situation.
The blue sky is infinitely high, crystal clear...that's what the world should be...a world of infinite possibilities, laid before us, crystal clear"
I haven't messed around with the software. I use Cakewalk but haven't found any vocaloid-style plugins around. I would consider buying the actual vocaloid software if it isn't prohibitive expensive. At around $300 for the software alone (without any supplied voices), that's a bit pricey. I'm also not sure if my software synths would be compatible, so I'm going to hold off on considering this purchase for now.
I'd have to be working on some specific music projects that call for vocaloids to consider this. Eventually, I think some open source / free alternatives (though not as good as the real thing) may come along which would be more suitable for experimentation.
