Vocaloid (ボーカロイド, Bōkaroido) is a
singing synthesizer application, with its signal processing part developed through a joint research project between the
Pompeu Fabra University in
Spain and
Yamaha Corporation, who backed the development financially—and later developed the software into the commercial product "Vocaloid".
The software enables users to synthesize singing by typing in
lyrics and
melody. It uses synthesizing technology with specially recorded vocals of voice actors or singers. 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. Each Vocaloid is sold as "a singer in a box" designed to act as a replacement for an actual singer. The software is available in
English and
Japanese, although a Chinese version was produced for Sonika.
The software is intended for professional musicians as well as light computer music users and has so far sold on the idea that the only limits are the users' own skills.
Japanese musical groups
Livetune of
Victor Entertainment and
Supercell of
Sony Music Entertainment Japan have released their songs
featuring Vocaloid as vocals. Japanese record label Exit Tunes of
Quake Inc. also have released
compilation albums featuring Vocaloids.
Artists such as
Mike Oldfield have also used Vocaloids within their work for back up singer vocals and sound samples.
Software history
Vocaloid
Yamaha started development of Vocaloid in March 2000
and announced it for the first time at the
German fair
Musikmesse on March 5-9, 2003.
The first Vocaloids, Leon and Lola, were released by the studio
Zero-G on March 3, 2004, both of which were sold as a "Virtual
Soul Vocalist". Leon and Lola made their first appearance at the
NAMM Show on January 15, 2004.
Leon and Lola were also demonstrated at the Zero-G Limited booth during
Wired Nextfestand won the 2005 Electronic Musician Editor's Choice Award.
Zero-G later released Miriam, with her voice provided by
Miriam Stockley, in July 2004. Later that year,
Crypton Future Media also released their first Vocaloid Meiko. In June 2005, Yamaha upgraded the engine version to 1.1.
A patch was later released to update all Vocaloid engines to Vocaloid 1.1.2, adding new features to the software, although there were differences between the output results of the engine.
A total of five Vocaloid products were released from 2004 to 2006. Vocaloid had no previous rival technology to contend with at the time of its release, with the English version only having to face the later release of VirSyn's
Cantor software during its original run.
Vocaloid 2
Vocaloid 2 was announced in 2007. The synthesis engine and the user interface were completely revamped. New features such as note auditioning, transparent control track, toggling between playback and rendering, and expression control were implemented.
One's breath noise and husky voice can be recorded into the library to make realistic sounds.
This version is not
backward compatible and its editor cannot load a library built for the previous version. Aside from the PC software. NetVocaloid services are offered.
Yamaha announced a version of the Vocaloid 2 software for the
iPhone and
iPad, which exhibited at the Y2 Autumn 2010 Digital Content Expo in Japan.
[23][24] Later, this version of the software was released using the voice of Yamaha's own Vocaloid called VY1.
As of 2011, there are seven studios involved with the production and distribution of Vocaloids with two involved solely in English, four solely in Japanese and one in both languages for which the software is developed.
Vocaloid 3
The release of Vocaloid 3 is expected in September 2011. Several studios are providing updates to allow Vocaloid 2 vocal libraries to come over to Vocaloid 3. It will also include the software "Vocalistener", which adjusts parameters iteratively from a user's singing to create natural synthesized singing.
It will support additional languages including
Chinese,
Korean, and
Spanish. It will also be able to use plug-ins for the software itself and switch between normal and "classic" mode for less realistic vocal results. Unlike previous versions, the vocal libraries and main editing software will be sold as two separate items. The vocal libraries themselves will only contain a "tiny" version of the Vocaloid 3 editing software. Yamaha will also be granting the licensing of plug-ins and use of the Vocaloid software for additional mediums such as
video games.
Featured music
It is difficult to know how many songs and albums are using the Vocaloid software since song writers must ask permission before being allowed to state specifically they are using a Vocaloid in their songs. However, the albums mentioned here only represent a fraction of the albums produced using the software and many more are found on Crypton's KarenT label website. The earliest use of Vocaloid related software used prototypes of Kaito and Meiko and were featured on the album
History of Logic System by
Hideki Matsutake released on July 24, 2003, and sang the song "Ano Subarashii Ai o Mō Ichido". The first album to be released using a full commercial Vocaloid was
A Place in the Sun, which used Leon's voice for the vocals singing in both Russian and English. Miriam has also been featured in two albums,
Light + Shade and
Continua. Japanese electropop-artist
Susumu Hirasawa used Vocaloid Lola in the original soundtrack of
Paprika by
Satoshi Kon. The softwares biggest asset is its ability to see continued usage even long after its initial release date. Leon was featured in the album
32bit Love by Muzehack and Lola in
Operator's Manual by anaROBIK; both were featured in these albums six years after they were released. Even early on in the software's history, the music making progress proved to be a valuable asset to the Vocaloid development as it not only opened up the possibilities of how the software may be applied in practice, but led to the creation of further Vocaloids to fill in the missing roles the software had yet to cover. The album
A Place in the Sun was noted to have songs that were designed for a male voice with a rougher timbre then the Vocaloid Leon could provide; this later led to the development of Big Al to fulfill this particular role.
Some of the most popular albums are a part of the
Exit Tunes series, featuring the works of Vocaloid producers in Japan. One of the Vocaloid compilations,
Exit Tunes Presents Vocalogenesis feat. Hatsune Miku, debuted at No. 1 on the Japanese weekly
Oricon albums chart in May 2010, becoming the first Vocaloid album ever to top the charts. The album sold 23,000 copies in its first week and eventually sold 86,000 copies. The following released album,
Exit Tunes Presents Vocalonexus feat. Hatsune Miku, became the second Vocaloid album to top the weekly charts in January 2011. Another album,
Supercell, by the group Supercell also features a number of songs using Vocaloids. Upon its release in North America, it became ranked as the second highest album on Amazon's bestselling MP3 album in the international category in the United States and topped the store's bestselling chart for world music on iTunes. Other albums, such as 19's Sound Factory's
First Sound Story and
Livetune's
Re:Repackage, and
Re:Mikus also feature Miku's voice. Other uses of Miku include the albums
Sakura no Ame (桜ノ雨) by Absorb and
Miku no Kanzume (みくのかんづめ) by OSTER-project. Kagamine Len and Rin's songs were
covered by
Asami Shimoda in the album
Prism credited to "Kagamine Rin/Len feat. Asami Shimoda".
The compilation album
Vocarock Collection 2 feat. Hatsune Miku was released by Farm Records on December 15, 2010, and was later featured on the Cool Japan Music
iPhone app in February 2011. The record label Balloom became the first label to focus solely on Vocaloid-related works and their first release was
Unhappy Refrain by the Vocaloid producer Wowaka.
[157][158] Hatsune Miku's North American debut song "World is Mine" ranked at No. 7 in the iTunes world singles ranking in the week of its release. Singer Gackt also challenged Gackpoid users to create a song, with the prize being 10 million yen, stating if the song was to his liking he would sing and include it in his next album. The winning song "Episode 0" and runner up song "Paranoid Doll" are set to be released by Gackt on July 13, 2011.
In the month prior to her release, SF-A2 Miki was featured in the album
Vocaloids X'mas: Shiroi Yoru wa Seijaku o Mamotteru as part of her promotion. The album featured the Vocaloid singing
Christmas songs. Miki was also featured singing the introduction of the game
Hello Kitty to Issho! Block Crash 123!!. A young female prototype used for the "project if..." series was used in
Sound Horizon's musical work "Ido e Itaru Mori e Itaru Ido", labeled as the "prologue maxi". The prototype sang alongside Miku for their music and is known only by the name "Junger März_Prototype β". For Yamaha's VY1 Vocaloid, an album featuring VY1 was created. The album was released with the deluxe version of the program. It includes various well known producers from Nico Nico Douga and YouTube and includes covers of various popular and well known Vocaloid songs using the VY1 product. The first press edition of Nekomura Iroha was released with a CD containing her two sample songs "Tsubasa" and "Abbey Fly", and the
install disc also contained VSQ files of the two songs for use with her program. A number of Vocaloid related music, including songs starring Hatsune Miku, were featured in the arcade game
Music Gun Gun! 2.
Vocaloid Characters
Vocaloid2
This Vocaloid voice shynetizing is the most popular among Vocaloid1 neither Vocaloid3.
This is the list of Vocaloid2 Characters:
Hatsune Miku
Original Voice: Saki Fujita
Release Date : August 31, 2007
Kagamine Rin and Len
Original Voice: Asami Shimoda
Release Date : December 27, 2007
Megurine Luka
Release Date: January 30, 2009
Kamui Gakupo
Original Voice: Gackt
Release Date : July 31, 2008
Gumi Megpoid
Original Voice: Megumi Nakajima
Release Date : June 25, 2009
SF-A2 Miki
Voice Original: Miki Furukawa
Release Date : December 4, 2009
