VocaDB is a free to use database for discography information about Vocaloid and related voice synthesizers such as UTAU. The main goal of the site is to have accurate, translated entries for as many artists, their albums and songs as possible. At the same time, we try to promote the Vocaloid artists by making their works more widely known, and if available, offer ways to purchase those. Anyone is able to contribute and correct existing information by creating an account. Vocaloid artists are encouraged to add their own information, thus providing a way to promote themselves. Registered users may add lyrics and PVs to songs. Entries may be tagged with specific genres and other meta-information. Popular doujin events such as The Vocaloid M@ster may also be tracked. The site is designed so that it would be comfortable to use by fans around the world, including both western and Japanese users.
We specialize in Vocaloid and UTAU content, both Japanese and overseas, so the site includes multiple features designed with that in mind. For that reason, the site supports embedding media, such as PVs from Niconico, YouTube and piapro (among other sites), that are popular among the community. Users can choose to view titles in the original language or see translated names instead.
VocaDB is not a music sharing site. Illegal album downloads are not allowed. However, we are eager to promote artists who are sharing their music for free. Whenever possible, album entries contain links to websites where you can purchase the albums.
As an unregistered user, you can browse and search for Vocaloid songs, producers, circles, PVs and song lyrics.
A free registration is required in order to
If you encounter incorrect or missing information, you can let us know by using the report feature, or better yet, create an account and correct it yourself. Please read the guidelines first, though, and familiarize yourself with the conventions of this site by examining old entries. If you have a technical problem with the site, please contact us.
Are you a producer, illustrator, animator, or some other content creator working with Vocaloid/UTAU music or videos? If you have published any songs/videos on services like Niconico, YouTube or SoundCloud, we welcome you to add an entry for yourself (and your circle) to our database. First, make sure that your entry hasn't already been added by someone else. After your entry has been added, you can submit an account verification request, which allows you to be marked as the legitimate owner of that entry.
Do you have a site or service that concerns Vocaloid/UTAU discography? We'd be happy to help you, and we're prepared to share the information on our site with other similar services. Currently, we have a limited public API for basic queries, supporting XML and JSON, and it's possible to expand it as needed.
We're offering our own embeddable VocaDB player. VocaDB embeddable player can be used on any website, just like you'd embed YouTube or NND. With VocaDB's embeddable player, you'll get translations for the song title and artist name, and the user can switch between video services. There's also a link to VocaDB for additional information. The embeddable player supports OEmbed.
Finally, we have a tooltip library that can be used to add informational tooltips to VocaDB links on your site.
Please contact us for more details and requests.
VocaDB's contents are considered open data. You're free to use the information from this website in the way you see fit. However, we ask that when directly copying information from VocaDB you'd include a note stating that you got that information from VocaDB. Generally, when downloading data from VocaDB to your site, it's a much better idea to use the programmatic APIs rather than copying by hand. This also ensures the data stays up to date.
Scraping a large number of pages using an automated bot is forbidden without an explicit permission and may lead to banning your IP from accessing the site. Please contact us if you wish to download all entries from the site. We can provide an XML dump of the complete contents of the site upon request.
VocaDB respects the privacy of its users. We will not share your personal details with third parties in any case.
Email addresses, IP addresses and passwords are considered sensitive information and will never be exposed through the APIs.
Users' passwords are stored in the database as encrypted and salted.
VocaDB offers some privacy options: for example, all edits made by the users are public, but users are able to restrict whether their name should appear on the front page.
In order to prevent abuse, we log the IP addresses of the users accessing the site, but this information is strictly available to moderators only. We do not use cookies to track user activity. However,
cookies are used to store certain user-related settings such as the display language. We use Google Analytics to track the number of users accessing the site, but
Google Analytics will never identify individual users. For avatars, we use Gravatar, which retrieves a user's profile picture based on their email address. The original email address
is never revealed - only the hash.
A big thank you to our major contributors: digited, Zakudono, salanos, kyllakivi, Goship, mi.chan, gaminat, Wiktor, Shiroizu, Ota-kun, Hissori, nebulasresolution, megaki11, faerimagic and others.
Japanese translation by Japanese Ninja No.1.
Vocaloid is a unique subculture of user-created content (music, illustrations, videos, software, games, cosplay, events) based on voice synthesizers and their mascots.
Vocaloid synthesizer software is a digital musical instrument to create human vocals, allowing anyone to have their personal virtual singer.
The first Vocaloid "singers," Leon and Lola, were released in 2004 in the English language, but weren't successful. Vocaloid technology became popular in 2007 in Japan with the Japanese voicebank "Hatsune Miku" (first for the VOCALOID2 engine in Japan, second in the world after Sweet Ann).
Being a great and fresh combination of a decent V2 voicebank and a snazzy boxart illustration, Hatsune Miku gained unexpected, unprecedented and massive success and became the symbol of all Vocaloid technology and subculture.
Japan happened to be the best country for a popularity breakthrough of the Vocaloid technology.
Promotional Videos are being used to attract listeners to Vocaloid songs, becoming part of the songs, the form of art by itself and a part of Vocaloid subculture.
Japanese flash video streaming service Niconico (originally called Nico Nico Douga or NND) greatly helped in the popularization of Vocaloid in Japan and is used for uploading new Japanese Vocaloid songs and videos, live streaming of concerts, presentations and other events.
NND videos have various sound quality - from MP3 CBR 64 kbps in "economy" mode to AAC VBR ~370 kpbs, but generally it is higher than on YouTube, that has AAC VBR ~128 kbps in most videos (same for all video resolutions).
MikuMikuDance (MMD for short) is a free, popular and powerful 3D animation software made by Yu Higuchi (HiguchiM) for Vocaloid Promotional Videos.
MMD is a part of the success of Hatsune Miku and is also a subculture itself, having MMD Cup championships and being used to produce animation for memes, Touhou, IDOLM@STER, etc.
"Producer" is the term used for any person that produces Vocaloid-related audiovisual material, generally original music or fanmade PVs.
Dōjinshi circle is a group of authors of self-published works that may act as a label for dōjin events (Comiket or Vocaloid M@ster).
Record label is a company that provides professional studio services (instruments, recording, mastering), production of CDs, various promotion and copyright protection. The most well known Vocaloid label is KarenT, created by Crypton Future Media.
The official language of the site is English. Please prefer using English for all non-translateable information.
For example, when adding external links, the descriptions of those links should be in English. Discussions and tags should also be mainly in English.
Other languages are allowed with a good reason, for example, if a specific piece of information cannot be properly translated into English.
We're looking into the possibility of allowing other languages in the future, at least for descriptions and discussions.
Register and use links in main navigation panel or buttons in producer, album and song list pages.
All names should primarily be written in the original language, which usually means Japanese, but it can also be English or Korean, for example. The system supports 4 language options:
If the original language is English, the name should be written in the English language field. Otherwise, it's written to the "Non-English" language field.
If those names have commonly used romanizations or English translations, those can be entered as well to make it easier for the international audience to find
and understand those names. Other names, for example translations to other languages, should be marked as "Unspecified" according to current rules.
Sometimes, an entry may have multiple names in one language, for example a producer's real name and artist name.
In this case, the additional names can be marked as "Unspecified" so that they won't be used as display names regardless of the entry's display option.
Sometimes, the Romanization or English name of the artist is always used, even though the artist also has a name in Japanese. In this case, the Japanese
name should be marked as Unspecified so that it won't be used as a display name.
For more guidelines regarding Romanization, check the wiki article.
If the entry has multiple names in one language and it's not clear which one of those should be the primary one, you should refer to official information,
such as product packaging. If the name in the album's cover doesn't conflict with the other rules on the site, that name should be preferred as the primary one.
However, keep in mind that sometimes the official information contains the same name in multiple languages combined into one. In this case you should enter
the name separately for each language. For example, if the song is uploaded to Niconico with the name 秘密警察 - Himitsu Keisatsu, you should
enter both names separately: 秘密警察 in the Non-English field and Himitsu Keisatsu in the Romanized field.
Registered users can set their display language so that they will always see the names in that language, if available. Unregistered users and users who haven't set their display language will see the original names, which may be either English or something else. For example, if the non-English name of an artist is ナナホシ, the romanized name is nanahoshi, and the default language option is set to "Original", then by default, users will see ナナホシ unless they have chosen to prefer romanized names instead.
Generally, there is no need to add composite names, and those names should be broken into separate fields.
is incorrect: every field should contain only one name.
Entries that are marked as drafts have missing or incomplete information. The draft status is indicated on the entry's page.
All entries should meet certain requirements before they can be marked as finished/completed. For now, these requirements are only suggestions, but
in the future, they may be enforced more strictly. Of course, when editing an entry that meets these requirements,
you can still mark it as draft if you feel that the entry needs further attention.
After the entry has been finished, it can be approved by a trusted user or staff member. Most properties of approved entries cannot be edited by users with
normal permissions. Tags can still be edited by anyone and comments can be added. Trusted users are also able to change the status back from Approved to Finished or even Draft.
A note for trusted users regarding entry approval: You're encouraged to mark the entry as Approved when you've checked that all the necessary information is provided and
it's correct. However, songs shouldn't be marked as approved until they have lyrics. When approving albums, make sure that ALL the artists have been added.
Every artist has a classification which also determines the artist's default roles. Roles can be overridden per album and per song-basis, but in many cases the artist is involved only in one role.
When adding pictures to artists, keep in mind all the pictures should be related to the artist himself, not his works. Do not upload album covers for artist entries.
That said, there is no common rule for choosing the main picture of an artist. Photos of the artist himself as well as official logos are preferred.
You may upload any number of these pictures as additional pictures for the artist, provided that they're relevant enough.
Copyrighted pictures or pictures of artists may be taken down if the copyright holder requests it.
If no better picture is provided, any picture found on one of the artist's official profiles, for example on Twitter, is acceptable as well.
Many Vocaloid artists have a personal band/circle through which they publish their albums. Often there are no other members in this circle. In this case, it's not necessary to create a separate entry for that personal circle, but it's not wrong either, and might be a good idea if the artist has separate websites/blogs for himself and his circle. If there is no separate entry for the circle, the circle name can be included as an alias for that artist. In that case, it would be advisable to mention this in the notes.
To assign producers and vocalists to songs in an album, add artists to the album first and then click on each added song in the song list to show a quick selection dialog.
Please note that the album must have at least one song with synthesized vocals (Vocaloid, UTAU and other voice synthesizers all count). Cover albums consisting only of human-sung covers of Vocaloid songs are unfortunately not allowed. Consider checking UtaiteDB. Unrelated albums may be deleted from VocaDB.
Unofficial, fanmade compilation albums (bootlegs) where the authors don't have permissions to use the songs are generally not allowed. There can be some exceptions if the albums are widely known, for example the Hatsune Miku 1st Song Album. In any case, the staff members reserve the right to remove these entries should they deem it necessary.
When linking artists to albums, at the very least you should add the responsible circle (usually there's only one) and vocalists.
Individual producers and the associated record label (if any) can be added as well. At the moment, all artist types may be linked to albums.
Always enter artists individually. Artists such as "producer feat. vocalist", meaning "cosMo feat. Hatsune Miku", are not needed.
The system will produce these "artists strings" automatically.
Sometimes, it's necessary to credit people that aren't in the database, and it doesn't make sense to add an entry for them.
For example, if the song in the database is a remix/cover and the original isn't a Vocaloid song, the original composer doesn't need to be added to the database,
but should be credited nevertheless.
These "extra artists" can then be assigned into roles just like artists that are in the database. However, for all Vocaloid-related artists,
it's necessary to create an entry for that artist.
These are only suggestions; use common sense when determining album type. For example, an album with a single song that by itself is as long as a regular album (the definition on Wikipedia says over 25 minutes) can be counted as "original album" instead of single. If unsure of which type to use, try to find out how the artists themselves call the album. For more elaborate descriptions, please refer to Wikipedia, Discogs or Musicbrainz.
Song entries contain information about authors and vocalists (see "Artists" tab), PVs and lyrics.
is incorrect: all additional info (vocalists, authors, PV) should be added to appropriate fields. A song title should contain nothing more than the name itself.
Most Vocaloid songs have one producer and one or more vocalists (i.e. Vocaloids). Circles, labels and other groups are generally NOT credited for individual songs, unless it's clear that the whole group worked on that song. Always prefer adding individual people to songs over adding circles or groups if possible. Note that different sources may swap producer and group names.
When tagging Vocaloids, you should use the information provided by the artist, not guess yourself. If the artist says the singer is Hatsune Miku, you should add Miku's original voicebank, even if you think the singer is actually an Append. Sometimes, the artist says the singer is Append, but doesn't specify which Append. In this case, you should choose Append (unknown). Do not guess unless you are sure.
In the case of a remix or cover, the original composer/lyricist of the song does not need to be credited if the
original song is in the database.
If the original is a Vocaloid song, or a song featuring another voice synthesizer, add the original song to the database and link the original to the derived version,
or if the original is not a Vocaloid song, add the composer as an "extra artist" (see album guide for more information).
Remember to set this artist's role properly to Composer/Lyricist.
The most important distinction is between Original and others. Original always means that the song is a completely original production. If the song uses material from existing sources, it's a derived work and not original.
For instrumental songs, you should use the original song type if the instrumental version is the original. In this case, you should indicate that the song is an instrumental by tagging it with the instrumental tag. The instrumental song type is for instrumental versions of original songs. Usually, if the song is an original work and not a derivative, it should be marked as original. One exception to this rule is drama PVs. Because drama PVs are not songs, they should be separated from songs by using the Drama PV song type, even if the PV is a completely original production, like drama PVs usually are.
Songs may contain any number of embedded media files, such as Promotional Videos (PVs) on Niconico (NND), YouTube, Bilibili or Vimeo, or audio streams on Piapro or SoundCloud.
All embeds should have the same version of the song, meaning the audio should be the same. Shortened versions are sometimes accepted. Do not add karaoke versions as embeds to
the original song: either add the karaoke version as a link or create a new entry. Remixes should always be separate entries.
Very often, Vocaloid artists themselves upload their songs to NND, and sometimes to YouTube or SoundCloud as well, in which case these uploads are called "original".
Original uploads, if available, are highly preferred to any others.
If a PV made for a song is remarkable or well-known in some way, you're encouraged to create a separate entry for that PV and link it to the original song.
Important note about raw file embeds: VocaDB supports embedding raw links to .mp3 files. For security reasons, the usage of this feature is limited to trusted users only.
Only mp3 files are supported for now because it's the most widely supported format, but in the future we might allow other audio and video files as well.
To do that (assuming, you're a trusted user), simply input a URL pointing to a .mp3 file.
The file must be publicly accessible and authorized by the artist - we do not support illegal distribution.
If possible, try to make sure the artist has allowed embedding the file on other sites.
Whenever adding a raw file as media, be sure to include a link to the official webpage where the link is from. If there is no such webpage, it's better not to add the media.
Finally, raw file embeds should mostly be used as fallback when the song isn't available on any other service. Especially if the song is officially on YouTube or SoundCloud, raw file embeds
should not be added. Services like YouTube and SoundCloud have worldwide content delivery networks (CDNs) that most likely offer better performance
than the artist's own server hosting the file.
Tags are free-form metadata that can be added to all entry types. Tags allow users to link entries together by any properties they can come up with, not being limited to the options provided by the system. Examples of tags are genres, presentation, languages and themes. Tags can be edited more freely than other properties and some of them may even be considered subjective. Therefore, tags are based on voting. Any user may add tags to an entry and vote on existing tags. Only the most popular tags will be displayed for that entry.
Generally, you should avoid tagging with information that is already provided by more specialized fields. For example, albums or songs with artist names is redundant because the artists list already handles this better. Likewise, tagging cover songs with "cover" is useless if the song classification is already cover. Of course, albums have no such classification, so that tag might be relevant for an album (or artist, if that artist is known for making covers).
Most tags should be objective, meaning their validity isn't based on the listener's subjective opinion. For example, "beautiful" is a poor tag because beauty is highly subjective. "Calm" is a slightly better tag, since that can be defined by some objective characteristics, although it's still mostly subjective. Please prefer creating private song lists for highly subjective properties.
Trusted users are able to create public songlists called pools. Pools can be used for largely the same purpose as tags, grouping songs together based on some common theme. There are a few differences between tags and songlists.