Introducing Vai—an artist who effortlessly blends Vocaloid beats with a spectrum of creative disciplines. Beyond the captivating melodies lies a creative powerhouse delving into graphic design, animation, and illustration, seamlessly blending diverse artistic disciplines.

In this interview, Vai shares insights into the unique intersection of Vocaloid technology and personal expression, offering a glimpse into the challenges and joys of creating music that defies convention.

INTERVIEW

As a Vocaloid producer, your music occupies a unique space in the industry. How did you discover and decide to work with Vocaloid technology, and what do you find most exciting or challenging about creating music in this format?

- Before making music as Vai I had kinda known about Vocaloid for a long long time, hell I think 3-4 years prior I tried to pick up Utauloid (a similar free software) but gave up with it due to the interface being abysmall to use haha. I always liked the kinda un-human aspect of the vocals that Vocaloid produces, like it can be good enough to trick people into thinking its just heavily processed vocals (I've had other Vocaloid producers not realize I use Vocaloid) but there's always that aspect that isn't quite human - and I think taking advantage of that is fun. When I finally got Vocaloid's software to work on my laptop, it kinda clicked instantly for me in a way my real vocals weren't, and it was just a lot more fun to do.

I'd say the most exciting part about making music with it is the way you write vocals - it's the same as writing a piano melody in midi or similar and makes things like changing the vocals or doing things that you couldn't even record so much easier than with real vocals. It's fun just to mess around and make crazy melodies, something I couldn't really do with my voice.

The worst part / most challenging thing is by far the software itself - I've gotten better with backups and my laptop has been upgraded massively since when I started, so it's less of an issue nowadays, but Vocaloid has a tendency to crash/break randomly and that can be painful, especially losing long parts of vocalwork i've made. The worst is when the entire file corrupts so you don't even have a previous version available. Some of my biggest songs the vocals were actually redone in spite due to the original crashing and deleting itself haha - not fun! Also, Vocaloid tends to be very very time-consuming, with you needing to wait for extended periods of time for each little change to notes and/or lyrics, ever-growing the bigger your song gets - hence why lots of my earlier songs consisted of 1 repeating chorus and maybe 1 bridge/verse part.

Another hard part is getting vocals that the lyrics are audible enough for. To me, I can hear everything I write perfectly, but of course, I've heard it 1000000 times while making it and know the lyrics. I've kinda approached this in two ways. I don't feel that lyrics are that important to a song as long as the melodies stick in your head and you vibe with it - I don't really listen to lyrics in music all too often, even from my favorite albums. Hell, most hyperpop you can't hear the lyrics anyway, and the music still bangs. I think if you complain that the lyrics are incomprehensible then you're approaching my music and well that style of music in general from the wrong angle. Being said, with my new work, as a kind of contradiction, the lyrics are a VERY important part of the songs, so I've been trying my best to make them more audible while still sticking to my morals that the melody needs to be the most apparent part of the track. For this, I include the lyrics in the description and 100% recommend reading along with the song. I also aim to put out more lyric videos, as I think that kinda solves the problem almost completely. In my experience, reading the lyrics even once with the song kinda gets the sounds stuck in your head and associated with the words, and you end up hearing it on repeat playthroughs, you just need that first push. I always try to improve my vocal clarity (without making it sound too human, which I'll address later!) but at the end of the day, for the most part, I don't really care if you can't fully understand the lyrics - I don't think that it's needed for the songs to emotionally click, even if they may more so if you do take the time to read my writing.

Your creative talents extend beyond music, encompassing areas like GFX, VFX, animation, and illustration. How do these different artistic disciplines inform and influence your music, and how do you approach integrating them into a cohesive artistic vision?

I've always been a fan of just trying things - if there's something I want to do the best way to get it done is to try to learn it, thats my approach to art in general. I've been an artist in terms of illustration and more loosely animation for a way longer time than I've been making (at least decent) music, and I feel like integrating what I make into my music makes my projects feel more personal, and makes me prouder of the final product. I think many people disregard the importance of image, brand, and artwork in their releases - the song's art and accompanying work like animation or video promotion are sometimes just as important as the song itself and can make or break a song's first impression, even before hearing it. Hell, even I disregarded that myself - with the music I used to make before my pivot into Vocaloid I had no care for the brand at all and just put out song after song wondering why nobody seemed to notice - learning that I could supplement my music with other aspects and mediums was a great help as having a strong image and artistic vision brings the most out of both the music and the project as a whole, and I can't imagine dropping that aspect now.

"sensory," your latest full-length effort, presents a visually and sonically rich experience. Can you share the inspiration behind this collaboration and how the visual elements contribute to the narrative of the music?

I'm not gonna lie, sensory was a mess! My aim for the project was just to make an album that I'd want to listen to - meaning sounds, features, artwork, and overall vibes that I enjoyed (at least at that time), something that my younger self would've been hooked on. There was no real inspiration outside of "I want to make something better" when compared to my previous work, NEURA BURST!, as once that project was finished I already could notice how much I'd grown and how much much much more I could've improved on that sound. As I finish the majority of a project months before it actually releases, there's always this drive to push for something better than what I just put out, and at the time I had just graduated high school and had a LOT of free time to try delve into just creating whatever I wanted. Seeing others on Twitter and elsewhere use things like videos and websites and the like made me wonder why wasn't I doing similar. So starting with sensory, a name I chose way before even my first album release, I really tried pushing my video and visual skills a lot more in the project promotion.

That being said, the signs of it being my first time attempting such are still present - the overall style of visuals is consistent at first but 100% changes and evolves while I made the album, and I feel I did announce/start the rollout with visuals elements way too early. If you go back and watch my announcement video for the album, back from December 2022 (5 months before the album's actual release!) you can spot a LOT of changes to the tracklist teased, personally a mistake on my end being too excited to just share what I was making.

Tackling 'sonically rich' - this was a coincidence that shaped around the album name by accident haha! As mentioned, I aimed for it to be me taking the sound of my first album further, which for simplification's sake was literally just digicore - not really any variation or anything, similar beats similar sounds, maybe ONE or two tracks that deviated, and if then those were likely the remixes. Sensory was just gonna be that again - digicore through and through. Looking back on it now though, that's boring! And I'm glad that (while I still consider it a Digicore album) Sensory became kinda a mesh of a lot of sounds - while the majority is still more of that Digicore kinda sound from NEURA BURST, a lot of the unique songs and sounds wound up in the project by pure chance and timing. Nujioh approaching me to work on a song ended up with “beatofmyheart”, a more j-rock-ish vibe that I had never tried before. Similarly, nuji sending me the beat that became “gestalt” was also a very different vibe from everything else on the project but I think ended up making a good variation. There were also elements of rock on the song with Jauntsen, wisp added some crazy production to the end of icarus iv and the remix of that song is basically "Dariacore" thanks to xaev's work.

That being said, it's kinda clear in hindsight while a vision was there for the album, it was ultimately just cobbled together as it went - a big indication other than the sound is the vocals themselves. I switched up how I did my vocal processing completely during this album, and while some songs got updated, songs like "don't care!", "call" and even "beatofmyheart" still use that old processing from NEURA BURST! - it makes sense as all three of these songs were being made if not completed before the release of NEURA BURST, back in September of 2022 if not earlier. I kinda view sensory as a transitional album - moving on from my, personally speaking, mediocre debut and evolving myself in real-time as the album unrolled, culminating in the project's release in April. It also marks the general end of that style for me.

Creating a brand new world for your music is a fascinating aspect of your artistic approach. How do you conceptualize and develop these worlds, and what role do they play in enhancing the overall listening experience for your audience?

Worlds are usually forgotten about once the song/project in question is released, and leaves behind a shell of an idea that while fun to look into before a project release, building hype for said project, kinda loses a lot of what makes it special once said project is out. I feel wallsocket is a good example of this view - lore and world play a very important part in the album and its artistic approach, but at least personally a lot of that lore is lost outside of the core super fan audience, and even more so once the album was released. I feel this when thinking up narratives and lore about my music - there isn't really a connected story, characters, or world to what I make, but I think narrative is still very important when it comes to music. With sensory, many of the songs were written in a way that they weren't about anyone in specific, and didn't attach to any stories. Some elements were vaguely from my own life but I tried to make the project something that you could project yourself onto and imagine I'm singing about someone you know, from your perspective. I want my world to be the listeners' world in that regard, I want them to feel my music and feel like it's not about some story from somewhere they've never gone to and can't relate to, but rather it's feelings they may have had before, places emotionally speaking they may relate to and connect with.

Moving past sensory, I did try to take some different approaches to this, especially seen with the song Control, where I built up a very micro ARG and storyline for the single. I wanted the song to be about a particular theme and present an idea, and I felt this arg-approach leading up to the song would really complement the song itself and make it hit harder. I feel if you played with my website a bit and were there for the arg elements for Control, hearing the song afterward has a greater impact - although it isn't something I'd plan to do again, as I'm sure the majority of my audience never got an opportunity to experience that world.

With my most recent work, my upcoming project, i'm going a completely different approach with worldbuilding. "vai" as a character has nothing to do with it - she isn't even on any of the artwork. I'm still presenting the stories, but to me, each song is its own world and explores its own feelings, story, heartbreak, and scenario within its runtime. Some of these tie together a little, but I feel for my upcoming album that each song is like a chapter in a collection of short stories. You don't need any context to understand them (even though I write them with subtle contexts that people might recognize) but you should still feel the weight of the character and the world through the sounds and lyrics.

Features seem to be a significant part of your collaborative process. How do you choose artists to collaborate with, and how do their contributions shape the direction of your music?

This is a really interesting question to me, especially with the current direction I'm taking! I wouldn't consider features as a significant part of my music, even though at least currently it certainly presents that way - sensory had a total of 26 collaborators! This mainly came down to how I kinda approached sensory, as said, an album that I want to listen to. And if I'm making an album that I wanna hear, I wanna get the artists I wanna hear on it! I'm pretty glad with how that ended up with sensory, as many many of the artists I listened to a TON back in 2020-2022 (and still now of course) ended up on it, both friends and people I looked up to.

When it comes down to deciding who to ask for a feature, I try to make it unique. Like, I could've asked Sebii to hop on the song with vvspipes production - but that's boring! He's got an entire album of that stuff! Having Sebii on a sound that you wouldn't usually hear him on was fun, and I kinda tried doing that when I could for other songs too. Saoirse Dream on mental's production, dylazy on a really pop/trap-y digicore beat? I was creating sounds that you wouldn't expect, and of course, having Vocaloid vocals along with that, something that basically all of the artists on the album never really had before. To me, a lot of the digicore scene at the time of sensory’s creation was kinda starting to sound similar - same vocal processing on a ripsquadd/white-armor type beat - and using Vocaloid with unexpected guest appearances was my attempt at deviating from that.

That being said, and this is important, being viewed as just someone who solely works with others on songs isn't my aim at all. 11 of the 16 tracks on sensory have at least 1 feature, and none of the tracks were produced by me at all. It was a very collaborative project - and while at the time I enjoyed that, I kinda feel it also detriments me too, cause if I'm always seen as working with these prods and feats - how good am I myself really? Maybe it's imposter syndrome, but I definitely felt like I wasn't seen as good enough because of how collaborative my work was. I aim to put that to rest with what I'm working on now.

Your art styles are described as eye-catching and expressive. Can you elaborate on your visual aesthetic and how it intertwines with the themes or emotions conveyed in your music?

My art style has evolved significantly over the last year and a bit I've been creating - but yes I've generally stuck to a visual aesthetic - it's branding, it represents me. I feel I can best answer how it intertwines with themes/emotions when relating to my newest work, so before I approach that I'll talk about the styles themselves and how I've kinda changed haha.

Vai's design was a collaborative effort itself - the original character design was not by me but it evolved as we sent iterations back and forth over different artworks - by the time of my first real release (johto, July 21st, 2022) there had already been 6 months of character design changes and work haha - but from the get-go visual style and look was very important to me to get right. Literally, look back on the art for all my 2022 singles - I wanted to get my brand and name out there, so each artwork had the same cohesive "ANGEL RADIO" banner on the left, a similar visual element, and a bright, usually pink, artwork including the art of vai + sometimes the feature.

Since then I've gotten a lot more open with my art, with the style and look varying per release - I feel I don't need to make a name for myself nearly as much anymore, so some art includes no characters or text or anything! I also commission a lot more art now than I used to. A good example of this evolution is with sensorys album art actually! (I'll attach it here) - the original album art had that ANGEL RADIO banner and style, being made at the same time NEURA BURST was releasing. The second one, still by me, only had the album name + a lot cleaner artwork and represented the sound at the time it was made. I ended up using this for the vinyl art. The final artwork I commissioned, and I feel best represents the final work. It's a really beautiful artwork, and it's just Vai standing in a field, no text no labels nothing. Fun fact, it almost wasn't the final art, as I received it a mere 3 days before the album's release! That was scary LOL.

original sensory art (mid-2022) -> new art (early 2023) -> final art (quarter 2 2023)

For my music now, when it comes to songs in the same vein as sensory (like synthetic, and an upcoming digicore single) I usually get art commissioned, but takes a long time looking for the perfect, and usually less known, artist to work on the art. I've got some amazing works that really fit with my style I feel and I appreciate every artist that's drawn for me. (I've attached a recent artwork I've gotten that will probs be used for a song that I really love).

A reason I pivoted towards that look for my artwork is the feeling that it's kinda missing from the scene. Even though I am slowly moving away from the pinks and bright colors haha (although I promise to have some releases with them still!) I kinda looked at the scene and felt that cutesy, bubbly, and happy art was just missing. Even if my music with that more pop-y cutesy art is still pretty sad lyrically LOL! I don't think I've ever really written a happy song... Nonetheless, all I saw art-wise, and sorry 2 call people out but STILL see artwise in the digicore and scene sphere is just:

- "edgy", dark, digital covers: ie think quinns old music’s artwork, funeral's stuff, stuff from like Afflicted (love Afflicted btw shoutout all of those ppl, great music) with the darker and more "internet" kinda aesthetic

- The "I make serious guitar music" cover - a picture of a place or thing with a dirt texture applied to it - is a famous example of this cover art style being frailty, but it's quite prevalent in the scene to just use pictures/photography. I feel people try to do this to look professional but honestly, it doesn't hit the same for me as a painting/artwork does! (minus frailty, that's like iconic for me - probs fishmonger too. Wallsocket tried this too but didn't really hit the same sparks)

- "aesthetic" covers - either metalheart or 3d renders (WHICH I LOVE! I DO THIS TOO!) or just like that very inspired look you've seen on like Pinterest or Tumblr kinda vibe. Or just screenshots from shows or video games, but that's mostly the 'Dariacore' scene because of Jane haha.

These all have their merits of course, but it's generally ALL I'd see, and I wanted to try to introduce something new, a little more cute even haha, to the scene as a whole. Since then though I've def seen a lot more variation and creativity which is awesome - for example, shout out riptony, riptony's cover arts are usually super colourful and the 3d animation work is awesome - drama trial, I'm not a huge fan of AI art but the visual aesthetic REALLY works and is so unique, plus couldnt be done without AI haha, and nujioh too who is an amazing artist in their own right but commissions some sick and visually unique art too.

Finally answering the main question (SORRY!) I feel my new work really tries to delve into capturing the emotions of the music and approach the art as less of just branding (like it was for NEURA BURST) but truly be an irreplaceable part of the song/album itself. Many of the new projects artworks I work on for weeks, and usually scrap and redo them at least twice. For example, the artwork for “deaths just a step away” is really important to me and I think represents the song as best I could. It's not the style you'd expect from me - even with the recent use of metalheart render stuff - and it totally isn't the colours I'd usually use (no pink on my new stuff!) but I feel if you listen to the song the art really works emotionally with it, and that’s all I want. The project’s more important than just 10 thousand billion streams, and I don't mind sacrificing that to get an end product that really emotionally hits for me.

art I drew for 'deaths just a step away. One of my favorites, despite its simplicity.

Vocaloid technology offers a wide range of vocal expressions. How do you decide on the tone and style of the Vocaloid voices you use, and how does this choice impact the overall mood of your compositions?

I'm going to come right out of the bat and say I kinda hate Vocaloid music. Sorry! It's not that I don't enjoy Vocaloid itself (otherwise I wouldn't use it!), but I feel like many, many Vocaloid artists just don't know how to mix vocals and make Vocaloid sound actually like a part of a song. I (try my best) to rectify that by the way I style my sound and use of Vocaloid. I mix my vocals as if I were mixing my real vocals, of course, accounting for the fact it still is Vocaloid, but other than that it's no different to the mixing I'd do if I sang the lyrics myself. I feel that's a big part of what makes my music unique to other Vocaloid musicians. There's a massive disconnect in the voice and the rest of the song for them, and things just feel off. I never listen to other Vocaloid music, I used to a little but just flat out don't anymore. Hell, I hate being labeled AS a Vocaloid producer! I'm just a producer/singer who uses Vocaloid as one of my tools. I rarely ever mention the fact that I use Vocaloid anymore, even people like Niz had no idea until super recently. When talking about my music the Vocaloid should never be a focus I feel.

When it comes to expression, I purposely have a voice bank that isn't overly human. Many modern banks sound close to human vocals to a staggering degree - but I feel it's still just not the point. You always get the "Woah! This sounds sooo realistic!" when people use those modern voices, but like, you'll never truly get the same level of emotion with Vocaloid in that aspect, so at that point, it just feels more like a bad and emotionless recording by a human rather than a good recording by a robot. So I try to lean into that robotic side - my vocal bank I've set to purposely use very little humanization, I've even reduced it over time. It's like if you cranked autotune to max and then some - same kinda idea as why people do that for hyperpop songs! I feel like that non-human aspect shouldn't be a flaw of Vocaloid, trying to make it sound "better" by being more realistic - I think it's something I can take advantage of to craft my music and sound uniquely. I also feel it makes me be more creative with how I portray emotion. It's hard getting emotion through with Vocaloid. Very hard. I try my best to, but the most emotional parts of songs I feel are where I compliment the Vocaloid to the production work. My new music is some of my most emotional, as the production itself speaks for me, it's a second voice alongside the Vocaloid that screams and cries just as much as I would if I sang.

Vocaloid is just another instrument, but one that can say the words in my mind. Think of a piano whose notes are the words you want to sing - and that instrument nowadays to me has an equal weight to the others in any composition. It plays its part in getting across things the other instruments can't, like lyrics, but works with them to deliver the emotions and vision I want.

I also feel the overall mood definitely is shaped by the voice, it's unique and has a much softer tone than most in the scene. There also aren't many people with really super feminine vocals in this scene I've noticed (shout out people such as Blissom though! love her voice, and feel she's one of the most similar in vocal tone to my own work to!) and I feel my vocals fit that tone more, filling another gap in the scene.

Lastly, I only use one voice. Many Vocaloid prods use multiple, I don't like that at all - really drives home that the vocals aren't YOU, and with Vai, the vocals are me. So since day one, even though I've 100% changed how I process things, it's been the same voice bank and I don't think that's going to change. Sure, that voice is and has been used by others, hell even famously, but to me the way I present the voice and vocals is ME - that's my voice, it's unique to me and it's not 'Vocaloid production' to me. It's just me.

Multifaceted creativity often involves juggling different projects. How do you manage your time and creative energy across music, graphics, animation, and more, ensuring each aspect receives the attention it deserves?

I'm in a spot right now I'm really grateful for - music, though my various projects and work over the years provide enough for me to fund both the projects I want to create, as well as let me live comfortably in everyday life, meaning at least at the moment I don't have to worry about getting a solid job while I study. This gives me a lot more time to focus on creating and projects. I also, unashamedly, often skip uni classes haha. I've never been that focused on school. I started this in high school (I'm in my first year of uni), and while the first few years of high school I really focused on studies, being in a very competitive environment, I kinda realized I was wasting my time and needed to focus more on what made me happy. Compared to my peers I started slacking off a lot more academically, but it was well worth it as I would never have grown artistically in the direction I was going beforehand.

I never thought of myself as like an "outstanding achiever", but I'm grateful I have the ability to be able to handle multiple things at once pretty well. I as of writing just passed my first year of university, and admittedly gave it very very little time or effort as I focused on my creative endeavors. I'm lucky in that I'm studying graphic design and marketing at uni so that can shine through in what I create, but for me, I need to be creative and whatever is most interesting to me I go for with a passion.

I'm basically an organized mess haha - If I wanna do something, I do it as best I can. Think an animation would look cool with a song? I'll spend an afternoon forgetting about other projects and just spend hours drawing and learning and improving, hopefully creating something cool. Every time I do this I improve my skills in different ways, and get faster too. I'm not amazing at drawing - or music, or graphics, and def not animation. But, I try it all and learn and use the strengths from each I gain to help pull up the other aspects.

Being said, music of course is the main focus. All the work you do see too all released together is a little bit of a facade too haha! Songs are finished or mostly finished (allowing for modification to polish it up to snuff later) weeks to months prior to release. I usually have 3-to-5 different things in progress so I always have something I can pick up and work on - not in the mood for vocals? I have a song that needs some production! Don't wanna produce? Well, why not remake that artwork for that other song, and make it better? Ooh, what if I add some video to that - maybe do a promo vid? Hell sometimes I say stuff it all and just throw everything to the side and just make something fun, and it ends up as something I might release or just helps me relax. (see my phiome side project!)

Whatever I'm most passionate about gets the most attention. Usually why I take ages with features... I get lost in my own world a lot. I get to everything eventually but if it's interesting to me, it comes first haha. I also don't really do much else outside of my creative stuff. I've been playing some games a little more recently just cause I have extra time now due to uni break, but usually, I'd throw out things like games or watching shows, etc to work on music. I have a constant drive to be productive, and even when I'm doing things like watching YouTube I feel off if I'm not like, making something in Photoshop or doing things for other projects at the same time. Most of the work you see for things like promo, physical items, graphics for others and labels, etc comes from my "relax" time, where I'm watching videos or something and need something to do.

What advice do you have for aspiring Vocaloid producers or artists looking to integrate various creative disciplines into their work? Are there specific challenges you've encountered that you'd like to share insights on?

Stop using Vocaloid, do something else - make something cooler. In all seriousness, just experiment really. Mess around until you find something that clicks with you and run with it - but also keep on experimenting too so it doesn't get stale over time. Don't feel bad about branching out in directions you didn't expect, and 100% expect plans to change.

Don't announce things way in advance. I see people announce or plan out these 6 album-long projects, or show a full tracklist of track names when they've made maybe 1. I've been there. You got ambitions and big ideas! But the best thing is to remember your own ability and scope and work around that. Rushing into things too early always leads to making a mess of yourself when plans change, things happen or things get scrapped. It's embarrassing and could be avoided by just waiting a little -seeing how things go. That being said, that's hard as hell LOL! There are so many songs I just wanna boom put out there right now or talk about but I know it's best I wait until things are final. I also hate jinxing things like, "GUYS [artist] IS HOPPING ON MY SONG!!" and then they drop the song later and you're kinda left in a mess.. it happens and isn't fun, and that is why I'd say just to keep some things secret until you're 100% certain it's gonna drop exactly how you envision. I feel this fits into the "challenges" aspect too cause, goddamn, holding stuff back IS a challenge.

Also don't use Vocaloid. LOL

Looking ahead, what excites you the most about the future of your artistic journey, and are there specific projects or collaborations you're eager to explore?

Something I really haven't been given an opportunity to talk about is my upcoming project so I'm going to take the liberty of doing so here. It isn't really announced yet - I've alluded to the album on socials, but for reasons stated in the previous question, plus with just what I want out of this project, I've kept quiet for the most part.

I'm really excited about this album. It's my best work, hands down. And it's like nothing else in my portfolio too, new sounds I've spent ages crafting. Most importantly to me, it's my most emotional and personal work, and at least to me, it proves something to myself.

My album has no collaborations. At all. The vocals are by me, the production is completely by me, and the art, promotion, videos, writing, mixing mastering - it's all by me and just me. I want people to understand what I can do and I want to also prove, more to myself, that not only do I not need big collabs or flashy songs to get people's attention, but that I can create true works of art that MEAN something by myself. It's the same reason why all the singles on SoundCloud don't show their stats either - the kinda point isn't the numbers or reception so I turned the play counts off. I want you to connect with the song itself and fall in love the same way I love what I've made so far. That being said, I'm really grateful that, while you can't see it from the outside, this new music has been performing on par if not BETTER than my usual more collaborative and digicore songs. It really kinda shows me that people care, and I hope with the bottom of my heart that people will care and understand what I'm doing when my album finally comes out, whenever that will be.

I'd say it's 75% done - the singles (deconstructing the Human Ego, deaths just a step away, aerith and the world ends with you) are all out now and there's gonna be a while before the rest of the project releases (at LEAST a few months, no more singles either) and I'm really excited to present it. I feel it culminates my best writing ever with sounds that are way past digicore and are more unique to me.

Inspiration for the project is funny in a way, stemming from the burnout of that digicore sound. I still love Digicore and still will be releasing the same collab work Digicore stuff (like my recent song with Sebii, and I have another hopefully before the end of the year with someone really cool on it), but that is more of a compliment now I make for fun. After sensory was finished, I felt, probably unjustly, that people probs felt that I couldn't produce. So I decided to try to make more production, and that led to my side project, phiome, and that LP "system BIOS" which is fully production work from me with no Vocaloid vocals. It taught me a lot, as I was learning with every song I made I just messed around with new techniques and things in the DAW which really helped me get a ton better with production, to the point where I'm at now where I feel my production on my upcoming album is a major major part of what makes it special, at least to me. I also can't forget the others who helped me get there too, the one moment I remember vividly is elwood making transfertool from system BIOS with me in VC - I learned so much just from that one call alone, including techniques and styles I still use heavily in my new production work and that appear a lot on my album. By the time this interview comes out, my next phiome one and first one since the project is probs out by now too - reshiram - which once again is just me playing with production for a little fun, trying stuff out while I work on my album.

Comparing my album to system BIOS, you could see it as an evolution of that sound - but with a different tonal palette, using my Vocaloid vocals (that's what makes vai music vai) and not being reliant on sampling like system BIOS was - the main you could say gimmick of each song was it stated from a sample of a 3ds music sound, ie the home menu song or the eshop theme, and was built on and built on until the final song sounded how it does. I also used a lot of vocal samples from friends, and soundscapes / soundfonts from old DS and 3DS systems and games to add to that vibe. My new album doesn't really have that, but still does use similar techniques and does call back to some of that at points.

I'm really excited for this album - moreso than any project or song I've made so far. To me, it's 10x more important than my other work - if I had to choose between releasing this project versus my song with Sebii or other big collabs, I'd scrap those collabs in a heartbeat. I really hope you keep an eye on it and it hits the way I want when it comes out. It means the world to me and I want people to see that. I don't want to reveal more about my album than I should right now (I've got a name, tons of art, and unreleased songs) but when I'm ready to reveal more, don't disregard it!

That being said, I'm not done with Digicore or collabs or the like - hell even my album, while being fully solo, I've got some plans for a few collaborative songs in that style to come out after the album (with some really cool friends!) and like I said, digicore is still just pure fun. That type of pop-y energy is still needed and while my album takes a big turn away from that look and sound I won't disregard those roots and still want to create songs that are just energy. I'd love to make some more unique or interesting things in that sphere though, with people you wouldn't expect. For example, I think a Digicore-ish song with wubz on it would be INSANE, cause like - me and wubz are the epitome of like opposite vocal delivery haha. Cutesy high-pitched pop vocals + low-pitched pitch-heavy sounds from wubz would go so crazy in my opinion. I'm always looking for people to work with who could create something interesting - good reception is always a good byproduct, but it's gotta be unique and unexpected! Put me on a goreset-type beat by 31sentinel w/Vaeo or something, or like even something with country flair like geez louise by underscores. I love experimentation!

Thank you sm for the opportunity for this interview, I appreciate your time with this (and I'm so sorry for writing a college thesis in terms of response LOL - I'd appreciate it if you could include as much as you can, to me it's all important, but yeah I did write a TON haha)

Much love to nefarious supply, and all yall do for the community.

~