Artist entry: Rethinking vocalist crediting

[Shiroizu]

For more context, see the current guidelines for choosing the correct vocalist credit: https://wiki.vocadb.net/wiki/79

With incomplete information, the default credit choice being the base voicebanks leads to multiple song entries where the vocalist credit is potentially inaccurate: A song marked with "Hatsune Miku" (V2) might actually be "Hatsune Miku V3 (Sweet)". It is difficult to say if a song is actually sung by Miku V2 or if it's just a case of incomplete credit information.

Issues when it comes to relying on limited "unknown"-entries (current approach): A) Visual clutter, especially with album credits B) Incorrectly included when counting voicebanks C) Unnecessary data duplication D) Skews the song graphs/stats E) Unclear voicebank hierarchy F) No programmatic way of mapping a credit text to an artist entry G) [main issue] Potentially inaccurate credits (credited for Ar/1 but actually Miku V3 (Sweet))

There are three possible approaches for addressing these issues and making the vocalist credit process more consistent:

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Approach 1) Create unknown-entries for every possible case of ambiguity [best choice (* even better with new features)]

• If a character only has one voicebank, no "Unknown"-entry is needed
• For every voicebank credit, a search result should always return one obvious credit choice
• If more than one results (from the same character), the "Unknown" entry is selected or created if it's missing:
  • Search "gumi naturalsweet" --> 1 result --> V4 GUMI (NaturalSweet) is selected
  • Search "gumi v4" --> 11 results --> V4 GUMI (Unknown) is selected
  • Search "gumi sweet" --> 3 results (including NaturalSweet!) --> "GUMI Sweet (Unknown)" entry is created

Terminology used:	Engine	Engine version	Character name	Voicebank variant (append)	Voicebank effect (use tags)
Vocaloid	V3	Kamui Gakupo	Power
Vocaloid	V2	Kagamine Rin	Act 2 *
Vocaloid	V4	Hatsune Miku		E.V.E.C. Power

* Currently a tag, will be converted to an artist entry.

There are at least five types of "Unknown" voicebanks depending which information is unspecified:

• UC) Unspecified character - Only the engine is credited: Pocket Singer (Unknown) for example. These are listed under the Unknown vocalist(s) -artist as derived voicebanks.
• UE) Unspecified engine - Character credited only by the name: Touhoku Zunko (Unknown) for example. These are listed under the unspecified voicebank engine -tag.
• UVB) Unspecified voicebank - Character root/base for single-engine voicebanks. Character and engine credited but the rest is unspecified.
• UVA) Unspecified variant - (V4 Kamui Gakupo (Unknown))
• UVE) Unspecified version - Variant ambiguously credited: "Gakupo Power". Also relevant to any credit that doesn't belong to any main branch such as "AI GUMI (Unknown)". Entries for these are only made when necessary, as opposed to other types of unknown voicebank entries.

Required features for the new system: (updated 2024/06/30)

• [ ] Hide "Unknown" -clutter on entry pages (album/song/etc.).
  • Dynamically removing " (Unknown)" -parts from the view is the simplest approach. A tag for tracking "Unknown" vbs is also needed.
  • Other approach is to implement a new "unknown"-artist field + field for the shortened name along with a corresponding search filter. This is more complex but has likely a better performance (?).

Voicebank entry pages and the search should always include the full name (including the "unknown"-part) for clarity.

Extra QOL features:

• [ ] Display voicebank hierarchy graphs.
• [ ] Match for engines (tags) and voice synth types (artist type) when searching voicebanks: "teto kasane utau" should return Ar/116.
• [ ] Inherit voicebank pictures from parent entries.

Automatically include derived voicebanks on:

• [ ] Song listings (recent/popular songs) on voicebank entries.
• [ ] Statistics on voicebank entries.
• [ ] When following root voicebanks.

Concrete migration plan: (created 2024/06/30)

• For every voice synth type:
• For every voice synth entry:
• If the base voicebank has child voicebanks:
  • Convert the entry as (Unknown). Then, make a new voicebank entry for the previous "base" version, and transfer the songs that were definitely made with that voicebank (based on the publish date).
  • For lesser known characters, you can create a new entry for the base unknown instead.
• Split the voicebank tree so different engines are on different branches. Use the graph visualized made by Pyther. Each character should have its own voicebank tree (separate entries such as Kotonoha Aoi/Akane). See the wiki for determining if the voicebank should be split or not in unclear cases.
• Most "Unspecified variant" -entries (UVA) (V4 Kamui Gakupo (Unknown)) have already been created, but there are some missing cases, "V4 Macne Nana (Unknown)" for example.
• Songs that require "Unknown version"-entries (UVE) can be found under the unspecified voicebank version. These new artist entries should be linked to the "Root unknown" entry (UE or UVB): "Kamui Gakupo Whisper (Unknown)" should be linked to "Kamui Gakupo (Unknown)" and not "Kamui Gakupo" (current base, V2).
• Obsolete tags can be deleted:
  • https://vocadb.net/T/2982/unspecified-voicebank
  • https://vocadb.net/T/9027/unspecified-voicebank-engine

  • https://vocadb.net/T/4862/unspecified-voicebank-version

Approach 2) Only one unknown-entry per voicebank tree

• Would lead to a large informational loss but gains in simplicity.

  Approach 3) Replace all the vocalist types (Vocaloid/Utau/Cevio/etc.) with a "Character"-type. Voicebank tree graph length = 1 (no entries for Miku V3 Sweet etc.)

• Character voicebanks would be managed using the Character-entry. Available engine listing would be managed somewhere else.
• Crediting a voicebank would work similarly to artist roles, but it doesn't seem to provide any additional value and comes with large complexity and more problems.

[CatgirlFrostmoon]

We do actually have one more "(Unknown)" voicebank style, and that's the "[engine] (Unknown)" type; for an example, look at "Pocket Singer (Unknown)". Even if we swapped to character entries, we'd have to keep these engine banks around, especially for make-it-yourself engines such as UTAU or Pocket Singer.

Anyways, it looks like the first option would carry the most information. If I'm reading this right, we'd basically want Unknown entries for any multi-bank artist (presumably still ignoring UTAU split banks due to complexity...?). Would we want Unknown banks for ones where all specific bank usages are verified...? And with Unknown banks, how much info should we give them? (I personally think base Unknown entries should receive the original release date and at least the original avatar, as otherwise the entries look rather unfinished.) Still, this sounds like the most accurate option, and thus I'm down for it. We'll just have a few kinks to iron out is all. ;3

[Shiroizu]

@CatgirlFrostmoon - Good to know about these. I added them and heavily refactored/-structured the issue for readability.

If I'm reading this right, we'd basically want Unknown entries for any multi-bank artist (presumably still ignoring UTAU split banks due to complexity...?).

Yes. These will need at least the "Root unknown" entry (UE or UVB).

UTAU append entries were discourages in the past for reasons I can't recall. I don't think we should treat any engine any differently when it comes to guidelines.

Would we want Unknown banks for ones where all specific bank usages are verified...?

Potentially inaccurate credits are best avoided when unknown-entries are created before actually needing them:

1. Find all the base voicebanks for the 9 different voice synth types (Vocaloid/UTAU/CeVIO/etc.)
2. If the base voicebank has child voicebanks, create a new "{Character} (Unknown)". If the character has multiple engines, these need to be accounted as well. "Character --> Engines --> Versions --> Variants" is the most common hierarchy for voicebanks.
3. Most "Unspecified variant" -entries (UVA) (V4 Kamui Gakupo (Unknown)) have already been created, but there are some missing cases, "V4 Macne Nana (Unknown)" for example. These are difficult to find programmatically.
4. Songs that benefit from "Unknown version"-entries (UVE) can be found under the unspecified voicebank version. These new artist entries should be linked to the "Root unknown" entry (UE or UVB): "Kamui Gakupo Whisper (Unknown)" should be linked to "Kamui Gakupo (Unknown)" and not "Kamui Gakupo" (current base, V2).

And with Unknown banks, how much info should we give them?

Ideally data duplication should be kept at minimum.

The "root unknown" -entries serve as the new main character pages. It should include all the character-related information, and the derived voicebanks should inherit the relevant information where needed.

The following graph explains how Hatsune Miku's entry would be handled. Keep in mind that the amount of new entries is a lot higher compared to other characters.

Current:

New (separated by engines):

It might make the most sense to rename and add the "Unknown" to the current root voicebanks and then create the specific voicebank. In Miku's case, the current main page (Ar/1) would be renamed to "Hatsune Miku (Unknown)" and a new entry for "Hatsune Miku V2" would be created. The songs that definitely use the V2-voicebank can be detected and automatically fixed based on the publish date.

[riipah]

I remember thinking about this before, although it was more about managing all those variations instead of accuracy. This post might be useful: https://github.com/VocaDB/community/issues/54

UTAU append entries were discourages in the past for reasons I can't recall. I don't think we should treat any engine any differently when it comes to guidelines.

Explanation (back then, might be outdated reasoning by now):

UTAU voicebanks tend to have more appends/variations than Vocaloid banks, and the differences are often relatively minor. Creating artist entries for all those appends would be too complex to manage.

With the explosion of append/variations for Vocaloid voicebanks, this is no longer limited to just UTAU. A hierarchical management of Vocaloid voicebanks would be useful as well.

Personally, I think the best option would be having code level granular support for variations/appends. I don't have a concrete solution, because I never figured out a good one, but one possibility would be "sub-entries" that only appear under the parent entry. Hierarchy could be like you suggested. It would of course require development work, but I figured some way to help the management/grouping be a highly important feature considering the number of variations is increasing.

[Shiroizu]

Updated with "Required & extra features for the new system" along with "Concrete migration plan".