Future Single by Tripshots

I feel a bit bad to post it here, since you can buy it in iTunes store, but I really like this one. It has consistent style and rythm that carries you along. Probably the best Vocaloid song I've heared in weeks. Now go and buy it too, because when we support Tripshots, he can continue making more great songs :)

Lately, I was offered a job for creating augmented reality app for Android phones. I turned it down, because I don't have enough time and experience I guess. But I did some research and found this cute vid I'd like to share with you :)

Kids react to Hatsune Miku

Thank you youtube for knowing (for the first time) what would interest me.



I can not blame kids for not knowing what a vocaloid is. But what disappoints me is the reaction of the kids. They like the image, the character, the song, the voice, everything. As soon as they hear that she is just a synthesizer, they start shouting whatever the media has been telling them. What is sad, is that I am not hearing the kids voice their opinions, but just repeat what they have been told. Yes, children do that, but this was a question of liking something. If you liked it before, why do you now have to deny it?

q: " so if you were to find out that your favourite singer or favourite band was computer generated, would that change your view on them?"
a: "that would be terrible"
a: "I would be creeped out and probably would never listen to them ever again"

"you can't be a fan because she does not exist"

Synchronicity trilogy

I wanted to post it long time ago, but I was waiting for the last piece from the trilogy to be completed. I didn't know it got canceled and forgot about it for a while. But even without the third part, it is worth posting.

It has loads of story behind it. You don't need to know it to enjoy the videos, but in case you're interested, then as described by "DestinySeraphim" (scroll to comments):

Kamui Gakupo has doubts about the governance of the oracle over the lands due to the beliefs of dragonology due to the Dragon which must be appeased by the songs of a Diva, to prevent it from attacking the humans. Gakupo's grandfather was killed, probably by the dragon, and he probably sees the Diva system as something abhorent to him. Luka is that oracle ruling over the world. Kamui voices his opinions to Luka and is punished by him.

... (read more, scroll to comments)

Music by: ひとしずくP (Hitoshizuku P)
Art: Suzunosuke
Translation: motokokusanagi2009

1/3 Looking For You In The Sky

Nicolink

2/3 Paradise of Light and Shadow

Nicolink

3/3
Canceled :(

Project Diva desu

Please play this at your next party :D

Song by t.Komine (うたたP/Utata-P)

Cinnamon Philosophy - Review

The last post from Toomas reminded me of something - back in March a friend of mine visited japan, coincidentally it was 1 day after the Great Tohoku Earthquake. Her stay in Japan was short, but among other souvenirs, she brought me "a Miku album" which she picked out with care - a cute girl came to her and said "this came out yesterday, please buy it".

First off - this is not just a CD. It comes in a box that is about 2 CDs wide, the extra space taken up by a cute handkerchief. The design and overall quality are laudable, after all, this is OSTER Project.

Front:



Back, with the handkerchief:


Sadly, music-wise this album was far from impressing me. It has Miku, chibi Miku, Meiko, Kaito, Luka and the Kagamine twins, but after listening through the CD once more to make this review, I remembered why I shelved it back in march - it just does not have much appeal. The tracks are too generic and for OSTER Project, even too amateurish. The only track that I liked was Sweet Drops, but that was in the 1st Project Diva game, making it quite old. I would like to tell more about it, but as the CD didn't give me much, this would be all that I could muster.

Alice in Musicland

This got my attention in the last Vocaloid weekly ranking. Presented to you by OSTER Project, reinterpretation of Alice in Wonderland played and sung by Vocaloids. Available on album Cinnamon Philosophy. Great name :D


Nico link.

Digging a bit more around I found some Project Diva 2 videos of the same song like this where Miku has Little Red Riding Hood costume. But here's something more interesting, partly dubbed into English version of it, which does not suck. Really.


Here's their youtube channel, if you want to check out more.

Enjoy!

Remote Controller

I was suprised to not find it in Vocaloid Weekly Ranking, maybe I'm getting blind or it's that old song O_O

Miku's official Car

It seems that Toyota has now given Miku her own set of wheels - they have made the new 2011 Toyota Corolla the official car of Hatsune Miku. Here is the promotional video:



The commercial is not that bad, considering that this is actually targeted towards the American market, the CGI model looks rather decent and you have to love how they put in the concert appearance.

If Toyota would start selling the FT-86 concept, the revival of the legendary AE86, I would just go to the dealership and quote Futurama: "shut up and take my money". Having Miku that as her official car would have meant that every anime and miku fan would go and buy it.

Here you can follow the official Toyota page: http://www.toyota.com/corollamiku/
The banner has a bit of a different design as I would like, but that is a matter of taste.

Don't Mylist me

The truth about "mylist"-ing in NicoVideo. Direct analogue to "favourite"-ing in Youtube and "like"-ing in Facebook dialect.


NicoVideo link

Here are the notes from translator to help you better understand the hidden clues. These are the same as under the video in Youtube by lygerzero0zero.

0:01 - MyList is Nico Nico Douga's video favoriting system

0:45 - "imifu" stands for "imi fumei" literally "meaning unclear," I thought "WTF" was the closest English equivalent

1:12 - "Temporary just one click" refers to the button on the side of Nico Videos that allows you to add a video to your temporary MyList with one click. "Ippatsu" (which I rendered as "one click") probably also has certain -other- ways of interpreting it. "One go," "one fling" perhaps.

1:23 - "wktk" I couldn't come up with an English equivalent so I left it as it was. "wktk" is a common Nico comment and stands for "wakuteka" which in turn stands for "waku-waku teka-teka" which is roughly "sparkling with excitement." Imagine an anime character with sparkles around them and you get the gist.

1:44 - Just in case anyone didn't catch it, this refers to the video statistics, in this case probably the MyList count. People on Nico will often post congratulatory comments when a video hits a landmark such as 1000 MyLists.

2:00 - When a video becomes popular enough (I don't know the exact criteria but MyList count is definitely a factor) it will be marked as "Silver" or "Gold" and the video thumbnail will be surrounded in a silver or gold frame (incidentally the original video is currently silver. Everyone with a Nico account go MyList it!)

2:32 - This isn't really a note, I'd just like to apologize for the text being screwed up in encoding.

2:37 - Your guess is as good as mine for when she mentions "points." I wouldn't be surprised if Nico has some kind of points system but I don't know of it and couldn't find anything on NicoNicoPedia.

UPDATE: Neibaku says: "I'm pretty sure the points are from when people pay to promote a video on Nico. They get points for it."

Miku Drift in Moscow

Hello, dear reader. Until now I have avoided simply taking content from Sankaku, but this is just so bewildering that it deserves to be shared.

Itasha - anime character or symbol decals on cars seems to be a rather japanese trend, most of us wouldn't be caught dead in one. But one crazy russian drift fanatic has taken his (rather beaten) Nissan 180SX and plastered it with Miku. It is one thing to see a shiny track BMW on a japanese circuit, seeing a 180SX with plastic-welded bumpers and missing rear hatch going sideways through the downtown of Moscow is impressive to say the least.



You can read the whole article and see the rest of the pictures on Sankaku Complex



If you know where to find such itasha, do leave a comment. I swear that if I can find a proper itasha, it will end up on my 1997 Saab which is the last car where it should belong.


Sometimes spirit is more important than the impression it gives to the ignorant. I am sure, many would like to mock him for having anime style shimapan on his hood, but with his driving, who would actually dare to?

UTAU ranking gets political

I guess you all remember this song standing out amongst others.
"meltdown" by iroha(sasaki). Voice Kagamine Rin.


Due to the ongoing nuclear crisis at Fukushima, this song, I'd say, was abused to achieve something or more likely, was remade just for fun. A green faced politician "talking" about the situation (NicoVideo link). I checked that the lyrics are exactly the same as in the original song with some parts left out. It is bizarre to see how its high popularity has pushed it onto the first place in UTAU rankings. Scroll to 22:29 or click here to see by yourself.

Vocaloid covers by ichiko

After being away for a while, pressure for me to post has been building up. I keep finding songs that I really like. These lead to other great ones. I do a small background research and there I have it, a story to share. This time it is about certain Vocaloid/UTAU covers.

It all started with this song. "Ten faced" (十面相). Music: YM, Vocal: GUMI, NicoNico link.



The same song sang by ichiko. Very lovely I'd say (NicoNico link)


Next. "Mosaic Roll". Music: DECO*27. Vocal: GUMI. NicoNico link.


Ichiko's version of it (NicoNico link)


Let the last one be a mashup cover of wowaka's (Genjitsutouhi-P) works sung by toco×iciko.


I hope this was enough to either scare you away (which I believe is very unlikely) or make you interested in ichiko's covers. I didn't find any playlist of her songs in Youtube, so you have to search by a tag ichiko (If you know or are willing to make a playlist, then let us know too :). A better source for digging deeper is of cource NicoNico video ( her user profile). You can also follow her in Twitter.

As a last word, I hope that people in Japan can recover from the ongoing humanitarian crisis and that they could regain trust in government which seems to be lacking of decisiveness and openness in handling the situation. If you can and feel that you want to help, you can do it from any part of the world by making a donation to Red Cross.

Jumpstart with "Escape"

Hello, dear reader. If you are still here, it means that you have surpassed our expectations and we are truly happy to have you here after a hiatus of over half a year. I had personal matters to attend to and I don't even know where Toomas has been or doing in the meantime, but the matter was, that after a while of posting nothing, it is always difficult to come back - what would be important enough to break the silence? During the past months, Miku has been busy taking over the world, appearing in various parts of the world, being seen in paper articles, news broadcasts and even appearing as a tiny neondroid in an estonian IT paper magazine. If you are a fan, you have already read all about it in news channels like Sankaku and I personally did not feel a retelling would be worth posting.

So here is my idea - I shall use this blog to just share Miku's music, dozens of new songs might pop up on a daily basis, so discovering something good from 2009 is in no way rare.

Here is something different, a home-made CGI video to Miku's song "Escape". The small (or big) visual and physical glitches actually make it feel even more hand-made. The feeling is that some guy with limitless love for our electronic Diva spent ages doing this on his own, on a simple home computer. A feel, that can't be achieved by making something with dedicated graphics computers being controlled by a horde of guys on hire and no passion. The only real negative thing in the video would be Miku's eyes, which just look creepy.



If you feel that you would like to share your ideas, music and passion, please do contact us.

Going 3D

First Miku video on Youtube that uses native youtube 3D player. Put on your colored glasses or cross your eyes and enjoy the video. I don't have the glasses so I chose "Cross-eyed" from 3D menu. For those who are not familiar with this viewing technique, here are a few tips. Try to look somewhere in the air between screen and yourself. You'll see 4 instances of the video this way, probably blurred. You have to match the middle ones and it should instantly become clear. If it doesn't happen, try to choose another distance. I have found that the farther away and the smaller the video is, the better is to get the effect. Still fullscreen can be viewed too when you know the trick.

The embedded player doesn't show the 3D button so I suspect you might not see the "Cross-eyed" version by default. If that's the case, click on video and go to Youtube to see it.

Near Future


One more for your pleasure. No youtube-3D player this time.

White Letter


The brave will also look this random dot noise video with hidden Miku. I saw her there :)

And I'm finishing off with something I would like to have at home, on my TV.

A taste of classical music

Today it was my graduation ceremony. All the guys in suits and girls in beautiful dresses reminded the time when I sang in chorus. Especially vivid memories were from a trip to Finland where we performed Phantom Of The Opera on stage in multiple locations. I know it is over hyped, but I still like it very much. This lead me to a search for Vocaloid related classical songs, here is my selection of some of the best I found :)

Phantom Of The Opera performed by Miku and a human voice. Background music quality is good and the voice of Miku is touching. I think it was a fun to make piece - singing quality duet with Miku. Among with the good words I still must tell that even if it's the best Miku's performance of this song, I didn't like how the instruments fitted together towards the end. Also I'd like to hear wider dynamic range with such a song. Anyway, I love it.



Didn't like that the male voice was not synthesized? Here's a version for you with Gakupo. He is maybe even more enjoyable than the male voice in previous one. This video might play in mono, so you may want to click here for much better quality.



While Miku and other Japanese Vocaloids are struggling with English, this is not a case with Prima. She is a virtual professional female soprano singer and can sing in English. The next song Eden, originally sang by Sarah Brightman, gets a very cute and lovable twist when sang by Prima.



Here's one cracy one. An instrumental song by Liszt (one of my favorite classics) played through midi with Miku's voice. It is even hard to tell if it is Miku or not, but I think it is. Grand Galop Chromatique.



Let the last be not so classic, but close enough to fit under this theme. Enya - Orinoco Flow sang by Prima. I wanted to put it here, because this is a lovely song and Prima does a great job here too.



This is all for now. New news and songs next time, hopefully soon :)

Small update and congratulations

First of all, we have not been kidnapped by aliens and intend to keep on bringing you, dear readers more Miku delights. As far as I know, Toomas was busy getting his Master's degree and I was busy getting my Bachelor's degree, so neither of us had any time to keep up with the news or write anything interesting.

Yesterday Toomas had his birthday and I remembered it all too late. To make up for it, here is Miku with some chocolate. Congratulations.

「NIGHT FLIGHT」

Oh what lovely pure synth I'm hearing. Boarding to Lovely Night Flight with Miku starts in 5 minutes. Make sure you have all your belongings with you and don't forget the good mood :)



Originally a Pino commercial but it's more than that performed by Perfume.

Miku likes Perfume "Disco" songs?

Room Disco


... and Chocolate Disco too.

A Peek of Project Diva 2

As you might already know, Project Diva 2 will be released on the PSP on 29. July 2010 and is already up for pre-order. Little was known about it until now, some speculations being that it will be the same game with a new pack of songs. As it turns out, there have been changes in gameplay - in the first game, you usually needed two buttons, sometimes three and when the game wanted to make you howl, 4 buttons. Now it seems that instead of 20-hit rows with one button, there will be 4 buttons most of the time with surprise arrow targets to keep your left thumb busy, while in the original it was only idly gripping the PSP.



I seriously hope that they have balanced the tracks better than in the original. Some tracks with ridiculous bpm were easily completed because of the near-perfect rhythm, whereas some slow tracks seemed to have random targets in some places.

Let's just hope for the best.

AlliumProject

What would fit a Voice Synthesizer more than electronic music? Out of the vast depths of internet comes a completely unknown doujin album simply labeled "AlliumProject – Stir up Club Edition V2" The genres would be progressive electro and trance, befitting for a vocaloid, yet not that common. I was instantly hooked on it and have been listening to it ever since. Somewhat straying from the mainstream, it does not focus on the Vocaloid part, but more on the instrumental. As a listener of this type of music, I would go as far to say that this is "good electro with some vocaloid"



As it is doujin, it is legally obtainable for free from here. Can't link it directly though. It does not require registration nor does it have annoying ads.

In case the previous track was a bit too much for your taste, this is a bit more mellow, being somewhere in the dance region.


One more interesting experiment on the album was that there had been effort put into making Luka sing in english. I must say I am not a fan of her voice, it sounds atrocious in english and the track itself is not that good either. Now I only need an explanation to why I have been listening to it for 3 days.



All the info is tersely noted here and it is all in japanese. The 500 yen price tag is enough to make every vocaloid fan want to move to japan.