how december went

Happy new year! I didn't really care about it but I hope you all had a fun time celebrating. I did celebrate hanukkah though, that was fun.

So, back on the 30th I finished the course! Well, theoretically. I have to wait a while for some issues to be resolved and then I'm off to my role. I already know which base I'm going to, and thankfully all the people I like are going to the same one! At the end of the day, what makes the role I'm in a good or bad experience is the people. So while the system has me annoyed currently, I'm glad that annoyance will be ignorable with the people I work with.

Also, my hermitcraft merch arrived! I love it so much. I got the bundle (sticker sheet, 2 pins, and notebook). It arrived in questionable packaging that got the sticker sheet bent, but I just sandwiched it between a few books and it straightened out. Also for some reason the notebook was covered in some glue? I assume from production. But that was also easily fixed; with a single wet wipe. The glue was in fact water soluble so probably don't bring the notebook out in the rain. But I expect you, reader, to have enough common sense to not bring out a NOTEBOOK into the rain. But shipping issues aside, I'm content with the merch! All of the pieces are very high quality, and this is more of a personal preference but I love that the stickers have a matte coating.

Anyways, vocal synth releases! Yay!

On the 5th, released a new bandori voicebank- AVER for Synthesizer V! First off- Her design is STUNNING. I love the gothic look of it. As for her voice, she has a powerful voice, that I'd say leans more towards cool? I love her voice. I hope to see producers use her for rock music, I feel her voice would work well in those kinds of songs.

On the 15th, released Otobe Hisui on VoiSona! She's released by a company I'm not really fond of (Gemvox), due to their comments about the vocaloid community, general hypocrisy, as well as promoting NFTs and usage of AI generated imagery. Saying this now since I realized I never explained why I dislike the company. Her design is... Alright. It's pretty bland and doesn't stand out much aside from the green highlights in her hair. Her voice sounds alright, a bright kind of vocal, but I do find her a tad underwhelming. I do think depending on the genre she could really shine.

And that's all the vocalsynth releases for this month! Another reminder that these are the commercial synths out. I do not report on UTAUs, diffsingers, Niaoniao, and other similar engines. I also do not report any ACE studio releases due to personal disapproval of the developers' decisions (mainly support of AI generated images), and after this blog I will also stop reporting gemvox releases due to similar reasons, as well as a lack of apology for their disrespect towards the producers of the vocaloid community.

And this concludes the first blog post of 2026! Hopefully this year will be much better than the previous one.