[Guest Spot: Pe-chan] Random Fandom: Vocaloid

[JT's note:  What better way to feature our very first guest writer than to bring back an old favorite of mine, Random Fandom?  I guess I need to do an introduction first, though.  Pe-chan was a freshman my senior year of undergrad, and she joined my anime club.  She came along to a the Erie Anime Experience with our little clique of members that had formed the year before, and fit right in.  That was three years ago.  Now, I've asked her to do a small piece about something that I enjoy, but don't know nearly enough about, Vocaloid .  Here's what she brought!]

What is Vocaloid?

I actually get this question a lot and it is SO HARD TO ANSWER! If I ever meet a person that says they know what Vocaloid is, I’m probably going to start hugging them. 

Anyway, people ask me “What is Vocaloid?” and I attempt to answer it. Vocaloid is a voice synthesizer that was created in Japan. You can buy different Vocaloid software that each have a different voice you can make sing whatever you want (usually limited to whatever language the Vocaloid specializes with). And, since it’s from Japan, the voices have anime personas and names to go with them. The most popular being Miku Hatsune, but Len and Rin Kagamine, Luka Megurine, and GUMI are pretty popular as well!

That usually get’s the person asking off my back, but some times they ask me what kind of music Vocaloid is. Which is even harder to answer than what Vocaloid is!

Vocaloid is all kinds of music. Since there are so many different people who make Vocaloid songs there are as many styles. I’ve heard traditional Japanese songs, rock, punk, rap, and styles I can’t even put names to. For Vocaloid, you can’t put it into a certain genre and that’s one of the reasons I think a lot of people love it. Because even if they don’t like one song, they can probably find another that they do. 

Another thing that’s different about Vocaloid is the PV’s or the animated videos that go along with the Vocaloid songs (it’s one of the reasons that people think Vocaloid is an anime). The PV’s can reveal more than what the song says and just make it more entertaining. A lot of the time the Vocaloid that is singing the song will star in the PV, along with the extra characters also being other Vocaloids, but even this isn’t a firm rule! There are videos with completely original character’s in the PV’s.

This pretty much just scratches the surface of the Vocaloid fandom. Just to give you an idea of how big of a scope this fandom is, along with a bit of how us Vocaloid fans feel about it, check out this video:

 

Hopefully that was informative?


[JT's Final Note: So that was Pe-chan's Random Fandom on Vocaloids.  Hope you enjoyed it, as well as Pe.  I have a feeling you'll be hearing from her again.  If you want to know more about her in the meantime, though, check out her deviantART.  Now go listen to some Vocaloid, ok?]


 *pic and video found online from Google and Youtube, respectively.