Dec 242012
 

santa_mikuI hope that you are all enjoying your Christmas Eve, or whatever day you may be celebrating today.

In the light of the holiday, I felt it would be appropriate to share some music to fit the season. Below you’ll find several videos of Christmas or Winter themed songs, with the first being a brand new video by SEGA featuring the track “39” by sasakure.UK and DECO*27.

Since there’s quite a few videos, you’ll find the rest of them in the full article. I wish everyone out there a safe and enjoyable holiday season, with a new year right around the corner! Happy “Mikumas”!

Image via Pixiv.

 

“39” by sasakure.UK and DECO*27. Original song via Nicovideo.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnG5f9trnmo]

Click here for more videos -> Continue reading »

Nov 232012
 

This event was certainly… Different. It’s nothing like what any of us have experienced in past concerts, and the fact they live streamed it for free was amazing as well.

The concert featured around 300 people that were either playing instruments or singing. In fact, most of the singing was done by actual people rather than Miku herself. Miku had a much lesser role in this event than she did in previous concerts, and she seemed to take a spot as more of a cast member rather than as the star of the show.

Due to the balance of how an orchestrated concert works, it’s understandable that Miku couldn’t have as much of a major role as she would with a traditional Vocaloid concert. But with as much hype as this event had, I think some of us were expecting a little more. It almost even seemed like Miku was only included as an add-on or gimmick to lure more viewers. But there’s actually a very different possible reason (explained below).

Miku herself made an appearance as a Tda MikuMikuDance model and sang certain segments of vocals of the concert. The vocals themselves may seem a bit off to people, but there is actually a VERY good reason for this: This is the first concert where Miku’s vocals were composed in real-time on a YAMAHA keyboard. It’s not prerecorded or “flawless” like the vocals would be with a traditional Vocaloid concert. This is also likely why Miku had a much smaller role.

Isao was the founder of electronic music using an electronic keyboard (synthesizer). So it seems that this event was a demonstration or display of a technology similar to what was demonstrated many months ago, all to honor Isao’s iconic art style that helped reshape the future of music.

All in all, I really enjoyed the performance, and you should give it a watch when you have an hour or so to spare. You can watch the official recording of the concert below. The event starts at around 29 minutes into the video.

EDIT: I’m sorry, but the Dommune channel has set the concert video to private. You can read a brief image story on Tokiko’s blog: [Link]

Oct 162012
 


 
It is now October 17th Japan time, which means today marks the 5th year anniversary of Hatsune Miku’s “disappearance” from the internet.

On October 17th 2007, less than 2 months after her software release, Miku’s online popularity had begun to explode on an extremely large scale. The large number of people searching “Hatsune Miku” or “初音ミク” caused Google and Yahoo’s servers to automatically block her name due to suspected spam or search abuse. Even a popular wiki page about her suddenly vanished due to suspected copyright violation. Without anyone able to search her name online, things suddenly went very dark and quiet…

The fans, being outraged, slammed the two major search companies for suspicion of trying to wipe out Miku from existence. Google and Yahoo conducted an investigation of the incident on October 18th, and they soon discovered what had happened and removed the block from their engines. Even the wiki page was restored.

The event lead to the creation of one of the most popular Hatsune Miku derivatives, Akita Neru. After it was confirmed that Hatsune Miku was alright, several posts on 2Channel contained the phrase “akita neru (飽きた、寝る。)” to show they were bored that nothing exciting was happening anymore. This phrase lead to the creation of Neru’s character. Thanks to MikuStar for the tip.

This was the first, but certainly not the last time that the Vocaloid community had banded together to stand up for our Virtual Diva. Needless to say, Miku will not be going anywhere anytime soon. On a semi-related note, here’s the official video for “The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku”.

The official “Disappearance of Hatsune Miku” PV.

Oct 062012
 


 
This week’s channel promotion goes back to one of the very first Vocaloid producers to appear on the scene, becoming popular within the first month of Hatsune Miku’s release. OSTER Project is definitely an important producer in the Vocaloid community.

OSTER Project’s first success can be dated all the way back to September 13th, just two weeks after the debut of Miku’s software. The song, titled “Koisuru VOC@LOID“, was one of the first major hits on nicovideo that helped lead to the explosion of Miku’s online popularity. She was extremely surprised, yet pleased with the success of the song, as she talked about in a rather cute online interview.

Just a few months later, she released yet another instant classic titled “Miracle Paint“. This cute and catchy song with a “stage show” type musical style was extremely popular and well received. It has been featured as a playable track in Project Diva, and received a few very impressive MikuMikuDance remakes.

The last notable track I would like to mention is Trick and Treat, featuring Kagamine Rin and Len. Released on the Halloween of 2008, this eerily addictive song is easily among one of the most popular pieces using the twins. It has even been featured as a live piece in the recent Hong Kong and Taiwan concerts.

Official Channel Link

http://www.youtube.com/user/fuwacina

Official Twitter Link (Japanese)

https://twitter.com/fuwacina

 
Quite a lot of time has passed since then, and OSTER Project has accomplished many other feats in the community. Far more than I could mention in a single article. OSTER didn’t start using YouTube until just a few months ago, and her audience is rather low to her channel being relatively unknown. As always, if you enjoy this producer’s work and would like to help her audience grow, please share this article to spread the news of the producer’s official channel.

Below is the latest video from her channel featuring the song “Summer Idol”, which has also been used as a playable song in Project Diva ƒ. Enjoy!

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY6Xe4Au_sI]
Sep 032012
 

And here’s yet another amazing collaboration video created for Hatsune Miku’s 5th birthday. This video was created with the combined efforts of 30 different illustrators and motion designers to create a pretty cool compilation of various tracks.

However, I should forewarn you that there are some adult elements in this video. But those of you who are familiar with songs such as “World is Mine”, “Romeo and Cinderella”, and “Kurumi☆ponchio” should already know this. A full list of participating artists and music used can be found in the description of the video.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO7ci7s8-yk]