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For those not familiar, Hatsune Miku is a promotional character for voice/song creation software. In short, Yamaha sells a music synthesizer IDE called Vocaloi

by fenomas 11y ago

For those not familiar, Hatsune Miku is a promotional character for voice/song creation software. In short, Yamaha sells a music synthesizer IDE called Vocaloid, and one of its features is that you can add lyrics via voice synthesizer packages, and then control the tune, vibrato and whatnot. Several 3rd parties sell voice packages for Vocaloid, and usually they were just given names to distinguish them, but a company called Crypton made a voice package called Hatsune Miku, and marketed it along with visual assets and a minimal backstory. Importantly, they released the character (not the software) under remix-friendly licenses that encourage (noncommercial) reuse, so fans sort of took Miku and made her their own in a very Gibsonesque "Idoru" sort of way. As such, the difference between Miku and bands like Gorillaz or similar is that here there's no particular artist behind the scenes. The company who owns Miku's copyright just makes software; the music comes from fans.

cdr 11y ago
If you count professional music artists, producers, and songwriters among fans, sure. It's certainly true that anyone can create a vocaloid track and have it gain popularity, but a number of the biggest hits have unsurprisingly been produced by people already professionally involved in music.
- fenomas 11y ago
  > If you count professional music artists, producers, and songwriters among fans If they're making something outside of work and sharing the result on niconico for free, I don't know why I wouldn't.
- rquantz 11y ago
  It's even been used at least once by a classical composer: Matt Marks' Kamikaze Karaoke, a setting of texts written by kamikaze pilots before their missions, for flute, violin, cello, percussion (the incomparable Cadillac Moon Ensemble), and Hatsune Miku. Here's the fourth movement, my favorite: http://youtu.be/j8h6PKkAvdo http://youtu.be/j8h6PKkAvdo
- kalleboo 11y ago
  Do you know if any of these professionals have actually "come out", or do they all hide behind their VocaloidP pseudonyms?

by fenomas 11y ago

cdr 11y ago

If you count professional music artists, producers, and songwriters among fans, sure. It's certainly true that anyone can create a vocaloid track and have it gain popularity, but a number of the biggest hits have unsurprisingly been produced by people already professionally involved in music.

fenomas 11y ago
> If you count professional music artists, producers, and songwriters among fans If they're making something outside of work and sharing the result on niconico for free, I don't know why I wouldn't.
rquantz 11y ago
It's even been used at least once by a classical composer: Matt Marks' Kamikaze Karaoke, a setting of texts written by kamikaze pilots before their missions, for flute, violin, cello, percussion (the incomparable Cadillac Moon Ensemble), and Hatsune Miku. Here's the fourth movement, my favorite: http://youtu.be/j8h6PKkAvdo http://youtu.be/j8h6PKkAvdo
kalleboo 11y ago
Do you know if any of these professionals have actually "come out", or do they all hide behind their VocaloidP pseudonyms?