Voc-Xmas 2013 – How Many Nights Until Christmas?

Not many now; but here's Vocalekt Visions' original song of that title from two years ago, featuring GUMI and CUL and lead vocalists – and don't they go well together? There is also a chorus of SF-A2 Miki, Iroha Nekomura, Miku and Gakupo.

No English words are provided, unfortuinately, though there are some obvious ones actually in the song. As it happens, with this song, it isn't essential (though it would be helpful) and it is essentially a getting-in-the-mood number, which it does well enough as is, complete with cartoon-y graphics.

This is also yet another reminder of just how good the two primary driving forces of Vocalekt Visions – Tempo-P and neutrinoP – were as a composing team, and it is so good that the bond between them has just this past few weeks been re-established, after a period of several months when they were going separate ways. Perhaps, in a way, that 'mending of fences' is the best Christmas present the Vocaloid community will have this year...

LOL – Lots of Laughs

That's the title of this three-voice song. I don't know what they're on about, but it frankly doesn't matter all that much! This is one of those enjoyable items where it is actually probably better not to be distracted by the words anyway, and just enjoy the spectacle and sound 'texture'.

This is a very nice trio vocal, performed by three Lat models independently choreographed (though there are short sections where they act more-or-less together). I always appreciate when a video's creator has taken the trouble to make each character individual, rather than simply copying one motion to the others. I'm not certain about the singing, though, so it's best not to assume anything: I'm treating this simply as a visual with 'some kind of sound backing'.

Here we have the lovely CUL, for whom I have to confess I have a bit of a soft spot, plus pink-haired Aika and Kaishi Orahi who are UTAU, not vocaloids, and both new to me. Those two are edited versions of the Lat original models, which I hope the creators sought permission to do as Lat models aren't usually permitted to be changed. Anyway, they are nice jobs, so hopefully all is above board with them...

Fire! Endless Night

Here's the cute CUL – the Lat model again – performing the song most commonly associated with GUMI, title here changed subtly to CUL CUL Fire! Endless Night.

I think it works better here than in any other version I had previously encountered, and I am sure it is a combination of voice and the actions in this motion. CUL is just so very good for certain things, helped by that wonderful outfit and a very assured posture (or so it often seems to me).

This lady is both feminine and very much female in her portrayal, and is definitely one of the more interesting of the lesser-known Vocaloids...

Look CUL's Way

The delightful Lat model of CUL (far and away my favourite of her) excels in a very well suited motion of Look This Way Baby! Such a commanding and assured presence: it just works so well, I really can't think of anything to add.

The video is topped and tailed by stuff from the uploader – a kind of trade mark, in effect. Don't worry when this starts: it is the right video...

Honey – Yukari and Friends

I haven't featured  any of those multi-performer videos for a while, but this one is actually quite well thought-out and fairly well executed. The motion isn't the most natural, but it's better than many and most of the pitfalls seem to have been successfully avoided.

Here, then, is Honey, with Yukari taking the singing solo lead, and it's switchable to High Definition too.

The performers are, left to right in the following order for most of the track (and no, I hadn't heard of the little UTAUloid on the far left either): Nana Haruka, Lapis Aoki, SeeU, Yukari Yuzuki, IA, CUL and Akikoloid...

WaveFile by CUL and VY1

This short item (just over a minute and a half) illustrates an interesting feature of vocaloid CUL, who unusually was created as a character first, and her voicebank was added later.

Thus, in this video, we are actually hearing the vocaloid usually known only as VY1 ('Vocaloid Yamaha 1', but also codenamed Mizki) singing, mimed by the delightful LAT models of CUL, both the red and the black version. I am very taken with these, and much prefer them to the other design that tends to dominate but which I find unfeminine and not at all flattering.

These LAT models are soft, flowing and cute. What's not to like?

This voice business all stems from the time when CUL was used to introduce the Japanese television programme Vocalo Revolution, and the intro sequence to that was also with VY1 providing the singing voice. In a sense, then, CUL was produced back-to-front, as usually a visual character appearance is added as one of the last stages, when designing the product's packaging.

There are of course some genuine CUL singing performances now, and I hope to feature a couple or so of those soon. Meanwhile, here is WaveFile...

Happy Birthday, Papa GUMI!

Another simple but brilliant song from neutrinoP to which I was privileged to contribute some of the (short) lyrics, which is a very kind gift from 'neutrino' to Noboru Murukami, head of the company that produced the vocaloids GUMI, Gakupo, Lily and CUL, all of whom are featured here. Murukami-san turns fifty today!

If the widget fails to appear, force a page re-load: there seems to be a bug in the widget's code that sometimes needs this...

We actually produced this song yesterday; and although it has been publicly visible since then, I thought that in my own case it was better to wait until the man himself had heard it, which has now been confirmed.

If you hover your mouse pointer over the little lilac square (you might need to click on the sound widget's background first), you'll find someone's comment displayed; and you can add your own comment as well if desired...

Tora-Con 2013

This is the official Tora-Con AniMiku event, uploaded by Re:Vb himself (creator of the software) and with embedding enabled, so there is clearly no problem with my posting it here. The event was on 23 March of this year. I thought I posted this before – I certainly intended to, but it wasn't already on the 'blog when I checked. I've now sussed it out: this is very similar to the NekoCon event I posted previously, but quite a bit better in several respects. The other event had only Leaving Donna by SeeU, and the shading didn't work as well throughout, so this video is definitely a worthwhile view!

The AniMiku animation and rendering engine has really come along in the past year or so, and this is an ideal showcase for the quality of its rendering in particular. I have to admit I am impressed with the clarity for stage projection, the shading, and other characteristics of what was by this time version 3.9 (beta) of the software. It has been carefully designed to simulate a holographic projection, and it does seem to at least partly achieve that – in fact, probably just about as well as can be done with non-holo systems.

It lasts just over an hour in total, and features (alphabetically) CUL, GUMI, Miku, Rin and SeeU, performing songs from nine producers/composers. The Rin model looks a little sad, and I must admit I'd have chosen a different one myself.

Even if all you watch is the opening number, I think you'll be pleased you did; but I hope that many visitors here will go further than that, especially for SeeU's choreography and animation (both by tourbux, no less, which explains the top-notch standard) and CUL's song...

Galaxias!

This is, unusually, the full-length version of Galaxias! – most videos of this song are just ninety seconds in duration.

This one features the lovely Lat model of CUL, along with two pansy model Mikus (designed by one Atakinomon) with CUL's voice. CUL is named thus as part of the word culture, and there is also another reason that is a bit obscure to us in the west so I shan't try to explain it(!)

There are no English words provided here; but this is really best enjoyed just as a spectacle with music: it works best that way. CUL is one of my second-favourite Vocaloids (along with IA and Rin), and perhaps visitors here might be able to see why, after watching this...