Gumi, also known as Megpoid (they’re different), is one of the most popular Vocaloids around, well at least back in the day. With Miku still dominating the scene along with many other -loids from CeVIO and SynthV, there have been fewer prevalent Gumi songs. Even then, Gumi still has one of the best voices around and it’s worth talking about her, especially with the release of Vocaloid 6. This is All About Gumi. Gumi is a Vocaloid voiced by singer and actress Nakajima Megumi, owned by Internet Co. Limited. First released in June of 2009 with a Japanese voicebank for V2 and later an English voicebank in 2013, she became one of the most popular voicebanks not owned by Crypton, surpassing Gakupo. Gumi and Megpoid are often interchangeable with Gumi being used more often but it’s important to note that they mean different things. Gumi is referring to the character herself; the Vocaloid mascot. It’s the green haired, red goggled, orange suited girl that we all know and love. On the other hand, Megpoid is referring to the product; the voicebanks. With most other Vocaloids, the product and the mascot have the same name, like Megurine Luka which refers to both the mascot and the voicebank. For some reason, Internet Co., the developers behind Gumi, have different names for their mascots and voicebanks, like Gakupo, who’s voicebank name is Gackpoid. Megpoid is derived from a combination of the voice provider’s real name, Megumi Nakajima, and Vocaloid. Gumi refers to the voice provider’s nickname when she was younger, which was Gumi. For the duration of the video, I will use Gumi to refer to both the voicebank and the mascot because it’s what everyone knows her to be as. Gumi has a lot of voicebanks. A lot. In fact, Gumi has the most voicebanks out of any other Vocaloid with a total of 17. In comparison, Hatsune Miku has 15, which is still a lot but it’s partially because Miku is the most popular Vocaloid. You may be wondering what even is the point in having so many voicebanks and, well, it’s to make money but the reason why companies don’t just give 1 voicebank is also to provide a much greater variety of voices for users to use. We’ll be taking a look at all the voicebanks, except repeats. The voicebanks are split between different Vocaloid versions with the first one releasing for Vocaloid 2. This was the first iteration of Gumi and it was just called “Megpoid”, released on the 26th of June, 2009. It was then, 13 years ago, which spawned Gumi's relevance in today’s Vocaloid scene. It was a time of experimentation. A time when producers like Hachi, samfree and Deco were first emerging with their brand new songs, often trying to compete with one another. First: samfree, one of the first producers to use Gumi, releasing a song on the day she was released: Megu Megu Fire Endless Night. A crazy dance fever of a song, reminiscent of Japanese Eurobeat music from the late 90s to early 2000s. It entered the Hall of Legends and became one of samfree’s, and Gumi’s, most iconic songs. A year later, Deco, rising in the music scene, released a fan favourite and his first song featuring Gumi: Coward Mont Blanc. A song filled with a calm and nostalgic tune, yet hidden in the lyrics is a saddening tale of a girl who is unable to convey her true feelings. This song, though a bit late to the party, helped blow up Gumi’s (and Deco’s) popularity, reaching 100,000 views in just 4 days, which was staggeringly fast during that time. Hachi would later join the party in 2010 with Matryoshka, a fast-paced, catchy, messy, meaningless song that would take niconico by storm. After the release of Matryoshka, Deco would go on to send out Mozaik Role, one of the most famous Vocaloid songs. This rock song would be accompanied with a fantastically animated MV to create one hell of a banger. A year later, Vocaloid 3 would be on the doorstep of the Vocaloid community and bringing along with it would be Gumi V3. The first Gumi V3 would be a package containing Adult, Sweet, Whisper and Power. Adult was a mature version of Gumi whilst sweet, contrasting with adult, strived for a more childish and youthful version. Power was designed to make the consonants more clear and whisper made everything more sorrowful. All these different voicebanks nicely complemented and contrasted with each other, making the V3 Megpoid Complete Pack fantastic. Ironically, Gumi’s Native voicebank, her one and only V2, was the last Japanese V3 to launch. Due to the introduction of Vocaloid 3 in 2011, Gumi would see a rise in popularity and use all the way till 2015. For anyone who’s been with Vocaloid for a while, they would know that this was around the time when Vocaloid started to plateau. Hachi would go on to release a few more songs with Gumi like Panda Hero and, much later, Donut Hole in 2013 before moving on to being Kenshi Yonezu. wowaka, a leader in the scene though not really involved with Gumi, would also leave in 2012 to do hitorie. DECO*27 was essentially the only of the massive producers around and he stopped using Gumi entirely by 2014. Even then, during that time, there were a number of popular producers like cosMo, Honeyworks and Kairiki Bear who kept using Gumi. A few famous songs popped up, like R.I.P. in the Gossip Sea, A Fake, Fake, Psychotropic, and Confession Rival Declaration. Compared to the rest of Vocaloid, Gumi was doing fine. One notable inclusion during this time was Gumi V3 English. In 2013, Gumi received an English voicebank, opening Gumi to a much wider audience. Gumi English is actually a pretty good English voicebank, well at least better than Hatsune Miku’s English. Crusher and Circus were the two popular international producers who often used Gumi English, making Gumi popular within the English community. Both producers would work together and make ECHO, the second most viewed Vocaloid song ever with almost 79 million views, sung by Gumi English. Vocaloid 4 released in 2014. Gumi V4 would only be released in late 2015. However, 2016 was a different story. Because Deco single-handedly dragged Vocaloid back to the stage with Ghost Rule, Vocaloid ended up getting some recognition from both old and new fans. This brought Gumi even more spotlight. cosMo’s more recent songs, like The Real Disappearance of Hatsune Miku released just a few months before Ghost Rule, would start gaining traction. On top of that, new, ambitious producers like Kira would start creating music. Moreover, new viewers just entering the scene were learning about older songs, making it all the more popular. Everything was going smoothly. This would continue on till around 2018 where the number of GUMI songs with over a million views dropped significantly. To this day, GUMI is no longer as popular as she once was, despite the occasional songs made by producers like otetsu and YurryCanon. Some people might point out that Kanaria is doing very well with GUMI but it doesn’t change the fact that GUMI isn’t as widespread as she used to be. This may be due to a variety of factors, such as people’s and producer’s tastes moving on, lack of updates and other new -loids to check out from CeVIO and SynthV. Initially, when she was first released, she was considered as nothing special but was quick to gain popularity. Before we knew it, she was around the same level as the Crypton gang. This would remain relatively the same throughout the years. By 2015, despite things going downhill, the ratio stayed around the same level, with GUMI claiming 3rd spot in the highest number of video uploads, though still far behind Miku With people’s reception of GUMI, of course it’s impossible to quantify so I just asked some people for their opinions. First, the quality of her voicebank. Most people regard her voice to be of high quality, even when they don’t like it themselves. This is of no surprise because Gumi was designed to be professional and of high quality, with her voice provider being a professional singer. Plus, when Internet created Gumi, their intention was to create something realistic, making it more natural-sounding compared to other Vocaloids. When asked on how many Gumi songs they listen to nowadays, all mentioned that they only listen to very few, if at all. Despite her high quality voicebanks, producers don’t use her very often. Because of this, songs with Gumi are not really listened to nowadays and there is definitely a decline in popularity because of this, as mentioned previously. Nonetheless, GUMI’s future is bright. After 7 years of no new developments from Internet, the creators of GUMI, they recently released GUMI TALK with future plans for a GUMI singing voicebank. GUMI Talk uses its own proprietary software unrelated to Vocaloid, CeVIO, SynthV or anything else. Instead, it uses A.I. Voice, a piece of software sort-of similar to the aforementioned platforms. If you’re wondering why there was so much radio silence from Internet about GUMi and how there was no V5 GUMI, Murakami explains. He simply stated that there wasn’t any point to do so. V4’s voicebanks could be used on V5 and they were just waiting on V6, which still hasn't been announced nor released to this day. Okay, unexpectedly, after recording everything already, Vocaloid 6 was announced and along with it was AI Megpoid, the first Vocaloid 6 developed by a 3rd party. Surprisingly, they did it without prior notice and decided to announce and release at the same time so I’ll cover it now. First, some history. Internet had actually planned for a new V6 GUMI since autumn of 2021 where they repeatedly contacted Yamaha regarding a new Vocaloid version but there was no progress. Soon after, they received a proposal from A.I. Voice to develop GUMI Talk which is what they did. When they started development with Talk, they told Yamaha that if they didn’t release a new Vocaloid version by 2022, they might switch to a different company like CeVIO or SynthV. During the recording of Talk, Yamaha gave them an offer and the rest is history. They stuck with Vocaloid mainly because of its long history. Murakami didn’t want to switch companies because they had worked with Yamaha for so long and wanted to support Vocaloid. Before we tackle AI Megpoid, we need to tackle V6 itself first. Vocaloid 6 is the newest release of Vocaloid. In order to compete with SynthV and CeVIO AI, they have implemented AI into this new software. Alongside that, V6 has a new feature where you can mix voicebanks of different languages into one, allowing users to work with both Japanese and English in the same editor. AI Megpoid, colloquially known as GUMI V6, is the newest version of GUMI using Vocaloid 6’s new AI synthesis. It’s just one voicebank but taking advantage of V6’s multilingual feature, AI Megpoid has both Japanese and English. With AI Megpoid comes a bunch of Styles such as Megpoid Whisper but they are not different voicebanks, they’re just presets with different audio effects and breaths. Okay, that’s cool and all but is it good? Again, that’s depending on your preference. People have pointed out that V6’s AI isn’t as good as SynthV’s, affecting GUMI’s AI quality. Personally, after listening to a bunch of new GUMI V6 songs, I think it sounds fantastic. I believe the shift away from trying to be as realistic as possible into a GUMI that’s more flexible in the way the producer wishes to use it was a good change. Other than that though, because it’s so new, there isn’t much else to say. If you want to get GUMI, you can buy AI Megpoid and A.I. Voice GUMI, available for digital purchase on the Vocaloid website and Internet’s website for the prices shown on screen. All in all, GUMI is a generally well-liked voicebank and character. Though she’s seen a decrease in popularity, it’s important to note the impact she had on today’s producers. Now, Her future stands bright with a new V6 and TALK voicebank and, hopefully, she’ll once again become a rising star.