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*All information below was written by the moderator, known as fascinates, of the ofurotaimu community which is a Vocaloid and 歌ってみた-centric community (although leaning more towards the Utattemita side). I do not claim it as my own work. Its just the easiest way to give a brief introduction because I believe that Vocaloid and Utattemita is closely intertwined. After this post I will post a few samples of an Utaite's works.

I. "UTATTEMITA"

Utattemita (歌ってみた） is a subcategory of the Yattemita （やってみた） section in Nico Nico Douga. Utattemita literally means "tried to sing", that is why you will see that most of the uploads under this category have the "[song name]を歌ってみた" title (or variations of such). To be precise, the utattemita category is where amateur singers upload covers of various songs.

* Yattemita (tried to do) is a section of Nico Nico Douga where people upload videos of them "trying to do things". There are currently five subcategories in this section: utattemita (tried to sing), odottemita (tried to dance), egaitemita (tried to draw), ensoushitemita (tried to do a musical performance), and nico nico gijutsu-bu (arts and technology department).

* Utattemita (歌ってみた）is different from Awasetemita (合わせてみた). The latter means a mashup of two or more renditions of a song. Therefore it is not an original upload of the singer. Rather, someone took a few singers' covers and mashed them up to make a chorus-like version.


II. "UTAITE"

→ A person who uploads his/her cover in the utattemita section is called an utaite (歌い手) or 'singer'. You cannot call a person 'utattemita' since it refers to the place or section, not the person. Most utaite exclusively cover songs and upload under the utattemita section, but some of them have doujin circles and release original music/drama CDs during events like Comic Market and Vocaloid Master. A few utaite also have become partly or wholly professional singers and have released/will release their albums under official labels. Recently, utaite appearing in concerts and live events have also become popular and have become more prolific and public.

Here are some utaite who are part of doujin circles/who have released original CDs in events.
• Aerogel - Soy-SOUTH
• Hanatan - Cordelia
• Pokota - Egamyer
• Panyo - Romaria Crusade
• Usa, Yamai - Usa Colony
* As this is a part of the fandom I am not completely familiar with, I'll leave it to you guys to explore this part more, especially the Touhou section of this ^^;

Here are some utaite who have partially/officially gone pro and have released original albums under labels.
• Gazelle (now YanagiNagi) - part of supercell
• halyosy and that - part of absorb; have released singles under Crown Records
• Piko - to release "Story" under Sony Music Entertainment
• Clear - to release "Dearest" under avex trax
• Valshe - to release her second album "Storyteller" under Geneon Entertainment

→ An utaite/singer's wonderful covers are attributed not only because of his/her beautiful rendition but also because of the dexterous mixing and encoding of the song so it sounds high-quality. Sometimes, singers themselves mix their own songs, although some rely on mixers to perfect their songs.

Examples of singers who are also mixers (mixes their own songs or other people's songs)
• Wotamin (has mixed for clear, valshe, dasoku etc.)
• Asamaru (has mixed for Choucho, Jack, Keisen, etc.)

Examples of some popular mixers are:
• HYBRID SENSE
• madamxx
• PUPI
• AtarimeP
*AtarimeP and PUPI also upload their own covers, but they mostly mix for other people

→ If you are into Vocaloid, you know of Vocaloid producers, who are people involved in composing original songs or tuning Vocaloids to cover existing songs. Some of these people also sing and upload their covers under the utattemita category. The most famous (so far) producer who also sings is Tourai (minato/RyuuseiP). You can refer to this list for more producers who have also taken a liking to covering songs. You can find covers by producers in Nico Nico Douga under the tag "歌うPシリーズ" which literally means "singing producers series".


III. COVERS

At present, most of the covers uploaded in the utattemita category are Vocaloid covers. However, they're not the only ones composing the section. Earliest covers in the category are of songs from anime, musicals, sentai series, J-pop and even English songs. But since Vocaloid is the most prolific and probably one of the most popular community in Nico Nico Douga, most singers cover songs from there.

Here are examples of anime/jpop songs covered by popular utaite:
• Shangri-La (Piko) - original by Angela; from Soukyuu no Fafner
• Northern Cross (clear) - original by May'n; from Macross Frontier
• Karma (Jack) - original by Bump of Chicken; from Tales of the Abyss
• In My Dream (wotamin) - from Brain Powered
• Daybreak's Bell (Beeeeige) - original by L'arc~en~Ciel; from Gundam 00
• Laughmaker (Asamaru) - original by Bump of Chicken

Here are examples of songs from Tenimyu covered by utaite:
• Hand in Hand (Enari) - original by Aiba Hiroki
• Do Your Best (crack version) (Akito) - original from Imperial Match Hyoutei

Intresting stuff. Piko is now my second favorite ^^ His voice is so clear and smooth.. His voice was deprived from an actual pop star in japan. heart

Yeah. Alice is like my second favorite song from her. >.<

You threw me for a loop for a while there. The Piko in Utattemita is an actual person, who apparently supplied his voice for Utatane Piko, with the vocaloid's name actually meaning "sound of singer Piko".

Hanatan, Choucho, Tourai and Valshe are my favourites. Yamai has a really great voice too.

Utattemitas!!! I actually cover songs myself for fun. I'm also part of the YTC (Youtube Chorus) community in the forums biggrin I say my favorite singer is clear! He's amazing （＾−＾）ノ