Song & Popular Songs

A singing program's most important fan material will obviously be its songs. Other than the original demo songs provided with the software, all Vocaloid songs are created by the end user. The end user of Vocaloid can vary from professional musicians to regular people who are simply just a fan of the software and its character.

The quality of songs created by vocaloid can range from professional album quality to extremely low. There are some users who use cracked or demo versions of the program, whilst most serious users buy it. Amatuer users of vocaloid have been known to create extremely well-made songs, and many users have been able to release albums containing songs they have composed and sang with a vocaloid.

These songs are usually released on the internet by the creator on a Japanese video-streaming website called Nico Nico Douga. The song can be accompanied by a music video (referred to a Promotional Video or a PV) or a still image.

Vocaloid users commonly either use a karaoke track of an existing song and add vocaloid vocals over the top of it, or create their own compositions, and have the vocaloid sing it. The latter usually creates a song called a 'Vocaloid Original' - that is, a song never sung by another singer before being sung by a vocaloid. They also can create arranges/remixes of existing songs, have different vocaloids cover vocaloid originals, or arrange/ remix other vocaloid originals.

The main two categories of Vocaloid songs are Vocaloid Covers and Vocaloid Originals. Many of the composers who create Vocaloid Originals release the mp3 file of the song and its karaoke track to the public in the spirit of sharing commonly seen in the vocaloid community.

The song lyrics in Vocaloid Originals contribute to the image of the vocaloid character singing it. Many Vocaloid Originals are sung from the vocaloid's perspective, and contribute greatly to fans' love of the vocaloid character. The lyric writers are usually the song composers, however, there are people who only write lyrics, and people who only write tunes. These collaborative projects reflect the open nature of the vocaloid fan community.

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One day I will list here some songs I'd recommend to get you started. For now I'm sleep and want to go to bed, so I'll just say that Miku Miku ni shite ageru, Melt, Ievan Polkka, and Hikyou Sentai Urotanda-! will be songs you will be hearing of over and over again in this community...