Dreamy Theater 2nd - The Winner Takes It All by ABBA ft Megurine Luka

The Winner Takes It All by ABBA feat. Megurine Luka as Agnetha Fältskog

This project was a total experiment to see how well a non-vocaloid song works using the Project Diva characters and graphics engine. It's an idea that came to me as I lay on my bed listening to ABBA with the images of Luka doing "Dancer in the Dark" still fresh in my mind. The two merged and the results are this video.

Merging non-vocaloid songs with vocaloid characters is nothing new. There are plenty of examples all over youtube. To me, most of them don't seem to work too well. Too often the real voice dubbed over the vocaloid's is a character mis-match and watching/hearing it feels like scratching nails on a chalkboard. Vocaloids have a definitive voice. It's what defines them as a vocaloid character. To replace this voice with another is in essence replacing the heart and soul of the character. So if the voice were to be replaced, it would have to be with one that would still portray the vocaloids character and personality in order for it to work and be at least somewhat believable. When I first tried it, I was even a little concerned about it's believability. But the more I worked with it, the more it grew on me. The final determination is up to the observer as to whether it works or not. For some this particular attempt will work and for others, well, I'll try to remove my nails from the chalkboard. :D

Luka was always my first choice for the role of Agnetha Fältskog, the lead singer of ABBA. Out of curiosity I tried Miku and Rin. But they seemed too cute and happy-go-lucky to fit with such a mature and developed voice. Luka's demeanor and personality, to me, worked much better. I noticed even some of the animations on the PSP give Luka a slightly more developed feel. For example, Miku and Rin's eyes when tightly shut are bolded greater/less than signs (sorry youtube won't allow those symbols to be displayed in the description!) and look very cartoony, whereas Luka's keeps the eye shape and look much more natural. It appears even SEGA is trying to speak to the difference in the characters' personalities as defined by Crypton.

A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into the making of this video. Countless hours at home and even during breaks at work were spent in the Project Diva 2nd editor. I thought "Dancer in the Dark" was a chore...boy, was I mistaken! It amazes me that some of these master PJD editors crank out their PV's in a week. I don't know how they do it, because these take me at least several weeks to a month to do. And that's putting in a good 20-30 hours a week. Maybe I'm just slow, old, and dense.

If you're a vocaloid purist who believes that a vocaloid's voice should never be tampered with or replaced or you don't like ABBA or don't care for their music, then this rendition of Dreamy Theater will most likely not appeal to you. But I tried to give the utmost respect with this presentation to both vocaloid and ABBA fans alike. I'm a huge fan of both so the merging of these two genres, when done right, works well in my mind. I hear a lot of ABBA's root style in today's vocaloid music so I believe a lot of vocaloid lovers would at least appreciate ABBA's music.

And because of that I'm hoping that most of you who view this video will enjoy it!

Please feel free to share your points of view in the comments.

xtokashx

Hardware:
PSP
PS3
Hauppauge Colossus Video Capture Card
PC Intel i7 980 Hex-Core

Software:
Hatsune Miku Project Diva 2nd for PSP (English mod v2.8, translated by Einishi)
Dreamy Theater 2nd for PS3
Sony Vegas v10 (titles, video editing, masking, rendering)
Audacity 1.3.13-beta