Vocaleek 2012

It's been a quiet news day for me: things have happened, but nothing appropriate for me to post about here.

Therefore I have spent the last two hours watching Vietnam's first vocaloid concert, which they have named Vocaleek – though Miku's infamous accessory was not actually in evidence. The event featured the usual four Crypton Future Media "character voice" performers we know so well: Miku, Rin & Len, and Luka, and was held in Ho Chi Minh City on 14 October 2012.

There's some stuff at the beginning (nearly twelve minutes of this), and there was also a cosplay talent contest in one interval and a karaoke session (seemingly with a dud microphone!) in the other, so the actual concert performances are in parts, also with some editing here, I notice.

Technically, this fan-based event was well produced with admittedly less than perfect motion in places, though this was still noticeably better than (for example) the Vocalekt events, and much of it was still very good indeed. A lot of this seems to stem from how much is attempted in admittedly very clever software, and how much is implemented through modern (and now well-established) motion capture of actual performances by skilled dancers.

It all goes to show just important the motion is at these concerts, and the significant input made by those motion capture performers and the technicians where used in preparing the show.

The video production is a little flawed, mostly because of the projector glaring through the performers whenever they are in alignment. That's a point worth bearing in mind for future events: set up in a different position and try it out in advance, to minimise this effect. Overall, it is clear that a lot of good work went into this event, and all those involved are to be congratulated.

Anyway, the Vietnamese are certainly enthusiastic, as the audience shots showed, though typically for folk from that region of the world they aren't (mostly!) over-the-top. There seemed to be only a few hundred of them, which is as many as the venue could hold.

So, here we go. If it's too much in one sitting, one can always pause the video and come back to it another time...