Nanahoshi-san's remix song is in 28th place. I'm happy :3
Naho's Opening Statement
Hello everyone, its time for this week's Vocaran. Its been a bustling week with the opening of Tokyo Skytree, not to mention the crazy weather. There was a hailstorm and it made me went "Uhyoo~".
Well then, by the time we realized it we're already entering the month of June. If you talk about June, its about summer, its a season for a change of clothing and the streets are filled with the smell of summer. This week's ranking is filled with refreshing songs that are suitable for summer.
Maybe I should change my clothes too..? Well, we'll meet again in the second half of the rankings. This week's Vocaran starts off from 30th place.
Weekly Vocaloid Ranking will be having a new version! VOCARAN Weekly VOCALOID Ranking : Zero
The new Vocaran will be more interesting and exciting.
Zero : Resolution The new Vocaran supports the new NND Zero resolutions It will be presented in 864X486 resolution
Zero : Credit The new Vocaran is not all just about Vocaloid! Vocaloid producers, illustrators, singers, performers, dancers, PV makers, MMDer and many more will be featured in the new Vocaran
The new Weekly VOCALOID Ranking : Zero will be presented to you, in June.
Right after our dear editor Rei-san wrote her producer spotlight post for the Vocaloid music producer Rerulili (link), I was prompted to write and publish a review for one of Rerulili's latest Vocaloid album - Rhythmism.
Guess it's never be too late to talk about good (old) Vocaloid albums.
Do check out the short clip below. It's actually the crossfade for the said album which was released on NicoNicoDouga (NND) one day after the official release date of this album!
Fans of Rerulili would know that this talented producer often compose songs with music style of various genres, particularly pop and ballads. While being famous for songs such as Knife (link) and Mr. Music (link), Rerulili opted for a different genre in this album - the jazz genre (a.k.a VocaJazz).
More importantly, check out the song list below!
Rhythmism
Dancing男子！～Latin House Remix～
JOYRIDE ～Rhythmism Ver.～
PassionFruit
雨が降って。
お金がない
ずっとこのまま
DICE
翼 ～Rhythmism Ver.～
あの日のままで
It did not came in as a surprise when Rerulili started to compose songs with the vocaloid Gumi as vocals. And the vocal strength of V3 Gumi (Sweet) was once again demonstrated in the song 雨が降って。, where the simple but melodious tune highlighted that sweet vocal. "Kawaii" may be the only suitable word I could think of to properly describe this song~
The next song - お金がない - featured V3 Gumi (Power). The way the drum sounded in this song would definitely leave a deep impression on listeners as it made the song extremely catchy.
But I still believe that Megurine Luka is still the undisputed Queen of Jazz. And Rerulili added another powerful Jazz song - PassionFruit - to further strengthen Luka's position. I am sourcing the video clip below from Youtube though...
But still, do not be contented... not yet! I've saved the best for last!
My most recommended song from this album had to be "Dancing 男子！～Latin House Remix～" which featured the vocals of Hatsune Miku, Megurine Luka and the Kagamine twins! I believe this is a very catchy jazz song that have lots of pop song elements. This would have been a great hit song that would add to the fame of Rerulili if he had release it publicly on NND (such a waste!).
I've just realized that the original song (non-remix) was 1st feature in 2009 as past of the EXIT TUNES PRESENTS Supernova album (link). Anyhow, do enjoy the original "Dancing 男子" song in the link below!
Hope you woud enjoy the complete Rhythmism album (if you are able to get your hands on one)
P/S: Apparently there's a deeper meaning to the title of this album. The album title - Rhythmism - was chosen because it shows the ideology of rhythm by the producer - a tempo that may be shared in several songs from a variety of music styles (source). I guess that definitely reflects Rerulili's great talent in various music genres.
Selamat petang! How y'all doing? Its time for this week's Producer Spotlight! Today's spotlight is on producer Camellia! To start off, here's my favourite song written by Camellia. The first 5 seconds of the song blew me away.
Bokura ha Bocchi (We're all alone), written by Camellia feat. Hatsune Miku
Camellia is a producer who's more specialized into rock and techno music. Recently Camellia has been uploading more techno music though. To be more specific, he writes trance, 8-bit, Drum'n'Bass, Nerdcore and many more! Here's another song from Camellia, a Drum'n'Bass song with a wee bit mix of heavy guitar accompaniment.
Haguruma Philosophy (Cogwheel Philosophy)
Camellia is also a producer who loves to do parody songs and remix songs that you wouldn't wanna even approach lol! Remember the Popopopo~n meme in Japan? Well, he did a remix of it, a techno-ish Popopopo~n....
Its so amazing I don't even know how to express it in words....
Earlier today, Family Mart made a sudden announcement, that is a collaboration between Family Mart and Hatsune Miku. The said event is named 'Happy Kuji' (Kuji means lottery in Japanese) Happy Kuji is a lottery where you play a lottery to win various of your favourite character goods. The event will start in the midst of August 2012! Read on for more info!
Special site created for Family Mart X Hatsune Miku : http://famima-miku.jp/
The Happy Kuji costs 800¥ per round. There are 9 types of prizes to be won and currently only two prizes are announced.
Prize A
Hatsune Miku Family Mart ver. 1/8 scaled figure.
A Hatsune Miku figure clad in Family Mart uniform produced by Good Smile Company.
Prize B
Hatsune Miku Family Mart ver. Nendroid.
A nendroid version of the figure, also clad in Family Mart uniform and produced by Good Smile Company.
There are other prizes such as clear file sets, KEI's original 3D posters and many more but there are currently no images for it though, more info will be released soon.
Also!
There will be a special broadcast on NND to announce this event tomorrow.
It'll be aired on the 25th of May and starts at 20:00 hours Japan time, 19:00 hours Malaysian time. There might be special guests appearing in this broadcast.
[Reigan] Looks like Jin dominated the rankings this week. Also, EZFG's new song!
Naho's Opening Statement
Good evening, its time for this week's Vocaran. Its been exciting lately due to the annular solar eclipse!
With advanced technology, we can predict when is the annular solar eclipse, its now a form of entertainment for us. In the olden days, the annular solar eclipse was labeled as a bad omen/bad luck. Well, the prediction of annular solar eclipse dates back to the early BC though.
We enjoyed the solar eclipse with our special spectacles, I'm sure the Ancient Rome too enjoyed it back in their days.
And now let me deliver this week's rankings As usual, we'll start from the 30th place.
Naho's Closing Statement And that was this week's 1st place~
The long awaited event that unites Japan and Taiwan's VOCALOID fans, "Mirai no Neiro in Taipei - The Sound of the Future 2012-". This event will be held on the 26th of May at Taipei Guang Quan
There will be talk shows and special screenings using amid screen. They will also talk about other country's VOCALOID contents, I wonder whether a new culture will be born through this.
To celebrate Good Smile Company's 10th year anniversary, Good Smile Company collaborated with Sakuma Drops to release a special edition of Sakuma Drops. Pictures below are from Mikatan's Blogand Piapro Blog.
The front design.
The back design
The special edition of Sakuma Drops comes in a package. Inside the package there's not only the can of sweets, there's also rubber straps!
There are a total of 7 straps with one secret strap!
Good morning! Selamat pagi! Today's a Saturday, and its time for the weekly Producer Spotlight! Today, I decided to give some love for DATEKEN. As usual, do have a listen to my favourite song from DATEKEN. "Tsumugi Uta" sung by the Kagamine twins.
DATEKEN is quite a senior producer in the Vocaloid community. His first work was uploaded to NND in the year 2008. Prior to that, DATEKEN uploaded his original songs to a music site named muzie. Well then lets have a look at DATEKEN's first work.
"PROTECT CODE", a trance song with both twins rapping! For his first work, it was pretty good. DATEKEN has been using DTM (Desktop Music) Since 1998. Many praised DATEKEN's musical knowledge and his skills in mixing. DATEKEN also produces a wide genre of music such as jazz, techno, ethnic, pops, Chinese-styled songs etc.
Here's an ethnic song by DATEKEN, "Jutenija" (pronounced as Yuteniya)
For this song, DATEKEN made up a whole new language and used it as the lyrics. This song is also one of DATEKEN's notable work
And let's now have a look at DATEKEN's jazz works. Here's "One Room, All That Jazz" just freshly released this year.
DATEKEN also released 2 albums, "D.A. technology" and a remix album "D.A. technology -remixes-". He also contributed a song in "the VOCAJAZZ vol.2" album (The song being "One Room, All That Jazz")
Here's some little tidbit on DATEKEN. DATEKEN was born in Hokkaido, not long ago he graduated from his university and is now a salaryman. Its amazing how a young person can have this much musical knowledge and the skill to write good songs! There's many songs of DATKEN that I would like to introduce too but I'm afraid this post will be flooded with videos XD
There are plenty of new albums being released in the recent Vocaloid Master 20 (click for more information about Vom@20). But in the end, I decided to write a review for an old album release in April 2010 - 相愛性理論 by DECO*27 instead.
Why? Because this album was so awesome that I have to stop going through all those new songs and slowly indulge in the older works of DECO*27.
As an introduction, DECO*27 is a rather successful Vocaloid song producer. Some of his songs, notably 二息歩行/Nisoku Hokou and 愛言葉/Ai Kotoba were featured in Project Diva game as well as Mikupa concerts. His songs are often characterized by his light but quick guitar tunes, which is different from mainstream rock (perhaps light rock?). At the same time, the drums and bass were also lighter, which further highlighted the vocals (Hatsune Miku for this album). As such, I find the melody of most of his songs very refreshing.
相愛性理論 (a.k.a The Theory of Loving Each Other) is the first major album by DECO*27. As such, the songs in this album emphasized on the innocence and moe-ness which was prominent in his older works, particularly in the lyrics of the songs. Simple words and phrases were frequently used in most of these songs, but often, these simple terms were capable to evoke deeper emotions and sentimentalism of the listeners.
The complete song list for the CD is as shown below (source)
相愛性理論
ハルイチ。
愛+K=aKi
心壊サミット
愛言葉
恋様シート
僕みたいな君、君みたいな僕。
キミ以上、ボク未満。
好きよ好きよも好きのうち
罪と罰
"bye-bye" by my 愛
愛 think so,
二息歩行
一人ぼっちで二人きり
愛 think so, feat. とぴ
ハルイチ。 (kous Remix)
愛言葉 (sasakure.UK Remix)
相愛性理論 (Treow Remix)
I find great energy and passion from the songs of this album. As there are many songs in this album, you might find that some songs have pretty similar melody. Nevertheless, due to the beautifully (not godly though) tuned vocals, each song evokes a different feeling and therefore leaves a different impression in the heart of the listener.
愛 think so (what a creative song title!) is truly an exceptional song. I doubt that I can call this a ballad, but this light rock song is definitely capable of evoke a sad feeling in the listener.
One particular song that was really catchy which I would like to recommend is 恋様シート (a.k.a. Love Like Shit). It's seriously an epic rock song with a catchy beat. There's great energy in this song and it felt as if DECO*27 's guitar is ON FIRE! VocaRock FTW~
Last but not least, check out another cult song titled 罪と罰 (translates as Sin and Punishment)! I can't help to realize that the tempo and beats of this song was characterized by cute electronic sounds, such as the sound emitted by a digital watch. Again, the producer's use of simple phrases (click for lyrics) was effective in draw out some dark emotions without having to resort to heavy rock music style.
I strongly believe that if you enjoy DECO*27 's latest work, you will find his older works equally attractive. Furthermore, his older works, such as those featured in this review, offer a similar but slightly different music style which are characterized by lighter guitar tunes and cuter sense of presence (somewhat like OSTER PROJECT).
Either way, do enjoy yourself by indulging into a song paradise of the 相愛性理論 album!
I see Kameria's new song in the list, I'm a happy person.
Naho's Opening Statement Good morning, its time for this week's Vocaran again. We're right in the middle of May and the weather just feels like summer. And also, next week on the 21st, there will be an annular solar eclipse!
Please be careful when observing the annular solar eclipse! Remember to use the special solar eclipse glasses! Do not look at it with your naked eyes!
Well then lets have a look at the rankings. As usual, let's start from the 30th
Naho's Closing Statement And that was this week's 1st place~
Lately Miku has been appearing a lot in NHK.
There will be a special broadcast of 「MIKUNOPOLIS in LOS ANGELES」 on NHK BS Premium on the 19th of May.
Miku will also be featured on NHK Biz Plus on the 15th of May.
It has been an eventful year, Miku no Hi Daikanshasai was a success, not only that, vocaloid producers are also having lots of live event performances.
Seems like it'll be a busy period just before the summer season strikes.
Good evening! Its time again for this week's Producer Spotlight! As requested by fellow writer Agidyne, today I will introduce producer Hi Ton! As usual, let's have a listen at my favourite work from Hi Ton-san.
Hi Ton is a producer who focuses on producing rock songs. Among his works, you can find lots of shoegazingrock songs. Although Hi Ton is not that popular compared to most producers, but I do believe that he needs some more love!
Let's have a look at his first work.
When Hi Ton started out, his uploads at NND used default Miku art, he only started using illustrations since his 8th song.
Hi Ton songs are usually focused on 'love' as the main theme. Hi Ton says that his favourite musical is the guitar. And also, the guitar parts in his songs are all recorded plays by himself, not by DTM!
He also recently bought the new VOCALOID3 IA -Aria On The Planetes- and has already released two songs using IA.
So what do you think about Hi Ton? I'm quite fond of his works too XD Well that's all,See you again next week!
As with last year, PIAPRO, in collaboration with Good Smile Company, has announced a Design Contest for the 2013 version of the annually-released Nendoroid Snow Miku. This year's Nendoroid Snow Miku, dubbed the "Fluffy Coat Ver." (which can be seen from the above image), was the winning design of a similar design contest organized by GSC and PIAPRO last year, which had a theme involving Crystals and Jewels.
In this year's contest, however, participants are to emphasize their Snow Miku Designs around the theme of Confectioneries, including sweets, candy, cakes, etc. The winning design will be made into a limited production Nendoroid product for sale next year.
Those interested in participating in the contest may do so on the Contest Webpage, where the Nendoroid Template and Submission Guide can be found. As of now, the contest has no official deadline.
Submissions are already being uploaded by participants, and can be viewed in this page
