Vocaloid

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Vocaloid
Developed by	Yamaha Corporation
Initial release	January 2004
Latest release	Vocaloid2
Genre	Musical Synthesizer Application
Website	http://www.vocaloid.com/en/index.html

Vocaloid is a singing synthesizer application software developed by the Yamaha Corporation that enables users to synthesize singing by just typing in lyrics and melody.

1 Development history
2 Products based on Vocaloid
- 2.1 Vocaloid
- 2.2 Vocaloid 2
3 Character Vocal Series
- 3.1 Hatsune Miku
- 3.2 Kagamine Rin and Len
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Development history

Yamaha announced its development in 2003 and in January 2004 the first application software product was launched. It was not released as a Yamaha product, but a software package of Vocaloid Singer Libraries was developed by third party licensees which included Yamaha's Vocaloid software. Leon, Lola, and Miriam have been released from Zero-G Limited, UK, while Meiko and Kaito have been released from Crypton Future Media, Japan.

In January 2007, Yamaha announced a new version of the software engine, Vocaloid2, with various major improvements in usability and synthesis quality. Zero-G and others have announced plans to release products powered by the new software engine in 2007. PowerFX have released the first English package that is powered by Vocaloid2 named Sweet Ann. Prima was released in the UK. Crypton has followed and announced a series of character Vocaloid2 packages to be released, the first being Hatsune Miku. The second package Kagamine Rin/Len was released on December 27, 2007, while a third will be sometime in 2008.

[edit] Products based on Vocaloid

[edit] Vocaloid

Leon: English male
Lola: English female
Miriam: English female
Meiko: Japanese female
Kaito: Japanese male

[edit] Vocaloid 2

Character Vocal Series: Japanese voices

Hatsune Miku: Female
Kagamine Rin/Len: Female (Rin), male (Len)

Sweet Ann: English female
Prima: English female
Big-Al: English male

[edit] Character Vocal Series

The Character Vocal Series is a computer music program that synthesizes singing in Japanese. Developed by Crypton Future Media, it utilizes Yamaha's Vocaloid2 technology with specially recorded vocals of voice actors. To create a song, the user must input the melody and lyrics. A piano roll type interface is used to input the melody and the lyrics can be entered on each note. The software can change the stress of the pronunciations, add effects such as vibrato, or change the dynamics and tone of the voice.

The series is intended for professional musicians as well as light computer music users. The programmed vocals are designed to sound like an idol singer from the future. According to Crypton, because professional singers refused to provide singing data, in fear that the software might create their singing voice's clones, Crypton changed their focus from imitating certain singers to creating characteristic vocals. This change of focus led to sampling vocals of voice actors.^[1]

Each vocal is given an anime-type character with specifications on age, height, weight, and musical forte (as in the type of music, range and tempo). The characters of the first two installments of the series are created by illustrator Kei.

Any rights or obligations arising from the vocals created by the software belong to the software user. Just like any music synthesizer, the software is treated as a musical instrument and the vocals as sound. Under the term of license, the Character Vocal Series software can be used to create vocals for commercial or non commercial use, as long as the vocals do not offend public policy. In other words, the user is bound under the term of license with Crypton not to synthesize derogatory or disturbing lyrics. On the other hand, copyrights to the mascot image and name belong to Crypton. Under the term of license, a user cannot commercially distribute a vocal as a song sung by the character, nor use the mascot image on commercial products, without Crypton's consent.

[edit] Hatsune Miku

The cover of the first release.

Hatsune Miku (初音ミク, Hatsune Miku^?) is the first installment in the Vocaloid Character Vocal Series released on August 31, 2007. The name of the title and the character of the software was chosen by combining Hatsu (初, First^?), Ne (音, Sound^?), and Miku (未来, Future^?).^[2] The data for the voice was created by actually sampling the voice of Saki Fujita, a Japanese voice actress. Unlike general purpose speech synthesizers, the software is tuned to create J-pop songs commonly heard in anime, but it is possible to create songs from other genres.

Nico Nico Douga played a fundamental role in the recognition and popularity of the software. Soon after the release of the software, users of Nico Nico Douga started posting videos with songs created by the software. According to Crypton, a popular video with a comically altered software mascot holding a leek, singing Ievan Polkka, presented multifarious possibilities of applying the software in multimedia content creation.^[3] As the recognition and popularity of the software grew, Nico Nico Douga became a place for collaborate content creation. Popular original songs written by a user would generate illustrations, animation in 2D and 3D, and remixes by other users. Other creators would show their unfinished work and ask for ideas.^[4]

On October 18, 2007, an Internet BBS website reported Hatsune Miku was suspected to be victim of censorship by Google and Yahoo!, since images of Miku did not show up on the image searches.^[5] Google and Yahoo denied any censorship on their part, blaming the missing images on a bug that does not only affect "Hatsune Miku" but other search keywords as well. Both companies expressed a willingness to fix the problem as soon as possible.^[6] Images of Miku were relisted on Yahoo on October 19.

A Hatsune Miku manga called Maker Hikōshiki Hatsune Mix began serialization in the Japanese manga magazine Comic Rush on November 26, 2007, published by Jive. The manga is drawn by Kei, the original character designer for Hatsune Miku. A second manga called Hachune Miku no Nichijō Roipara! drawn by Ontama began serialization in the manga magazine Comp Ace on December 26, 2007, published by Kadokawa Shoten.

Her first appearance in an anime is in (Zoku) Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei. For online multi-player games, the Japanese version of PangYa started a campaign with Hatsune Miku on May 22, 2008 in which she is included as one of the characters.^[7]^[8]. Her first appearance in a video game is in 13-sai no Hello Work DS (13歳のハローワークDS, 13-sai no Hello Work DS^?) for the Nintendo DS where she is included as one of the characters.^[9]^[10]

[edit] Kagamine Rin and Len

Released on December 27, 2007, Kagamine Rin/Len (鏡音リン・レン, Kagamine Rin/Len^?) is the second installment of the Vocaloid Character Vocal Series, a brother (Len) and sister (Rin) twin pair. Their family name was chosen by combining Kagami (鏡, Mirror^?), Ne (音, Sound^?), with the first syllables of their given names a pun on "Left" and "Right". According to Vocaloid's official blog, the package includes two voice banks: one for Rin and another for Len, both provided by the seiyū Asami Shimoda. Despite the double voice banks, the package still sells at the same price as Hatsune Miku.^[11]