THE GROUP OF ARP VIRTUAL SINGERS

FURTHER IN JAPAN

A video game studio has created a virtual boys-band, a first!

Composed of four virtual boys, the ARP group already fills the rooms during live concerts without playback, and sometimes with improvisation.

On January 5 and 6, 2019, about 5,000 people hurried to the Cultural Gymnasium in Yokohama City, Japan, to applaud their new stars.

Since the group has already organized about twenty concerts and released no less than four albums.

What is fabulous is that the band is able to interact with the audience, just as real artists would.

Behind the scenes of the virtual boys-band

The ARP group owes its existence to a 3DCG technology created by Yuke's studio and called ALiS Zero. The latter allows the diffusion of 3D images and sound in real time. Behind the scenes, teams of perfectly coordinated puppeteers lead the movements of the band members, while four very human singers lend their voices to interpret the songs.

Success is already showing up, ARP has yet to progress to supplant Hatsune Miku, another virtual singer of J-pop become a real icon created in 2007 for marketing needs.

She looks like a 16-year-old girl. Since its inception, this virtual singer has become a huge star on YouTube, and provides live performances in the form of a projected avatar in 2D. A few months ago, a 35-year-old Japanese man went so far as to get married with a representation of Hatsune Miku stuffed!

The ARP (Augmented Reality Performers) band seems straight out of a manga and is bound by a contract to a record company (Avex) that has produced successful pop singers in the flesh.