Anime blog parts: October 2008

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.

Development history

Yamaha announced its development in 2003 and on January 15, 2004, Leon and Lola, the first application software product, were 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 (Miriam using the voice of Miriam Stockley) have been released from Zero-G Limited,UK, while Meiko (released on October 5, 2004 and using vocal samples from the Japanese singer Meiko Haigo) 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. 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 and the updated edition "act2" was released in July 2008. A third package will be released in late 2008. Prima was introduced at NAMM Show 2008; she was released on January 14, 2008 in the UK and February 22, 2008 in Japan.

Products based on Vocaloid

Vocaloid

Leon: English male (March 3, 2004)
Lola: English female (March 3, 2004)
Miriam: English female (July 26, 2004)
Meiko: Japanese female (November 5, 2004)
Kaito: Japanese male (February 17, 2006)

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
Kamui Gakupo: Japanese male

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.

Each Japanese Vocaloid 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.

Hatsune Miku

Hatsune Miku (初音ミク) is the first installment in the Vocaloid2 Character Vocal Series released on August 31, 2007. The name of the title and the character of the software was chosen by combini

ng Hatsu (初 First), Ne (音 Sound), and Miku (未来 Future). 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 Miku holding a leek, singing Ievan Polkka, presented multifarious possibilities of applying the software in multimedia content creation.As the recogni

tion 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.

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. 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. 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 Kadok

awa Shoten.

Her first appearance in an anime is in (Zoku) Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei, where she (and various other people and characters) try out to be the voice of Meru Otonashi. 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. 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.Hatsune Miku will be given a PlayStation Portable game called Hatsune Miku: Project Diva to be released in 2009 by Sega.Hatsune Miku made a cameo appearance in the Lucky Star OVA in the form of Kagami's cosplay in her dream.

Hatsune Miku's color scheme and image was used by a BMW Z4 from Studie (a tuning shop for BMW), which participated in the GT300 class of the 2008 Super GT season. The car was named "Hatsune Miku Studie Glad BMW Z4" and had its debut in round six in the Suzuka Circuit. Hatsune Miku received the 2008 Seiun Aw

ard in the free category.

On August 27, 2008, Victor Entertainment released the album Re:package which contains a collection of songs performed by Hatsune Miku and composed by dōjin artist Livetune. The album sold over 20,000 copies in its first week and successfully broke into Oricon's charts by placing fifth for the week. A song created with Hatsune Miku, "Stargazer", is featured in the soundtrack of FIFA 09.

Kagamine Rin and Len

Released on December 27, 20 07, Kagamine Rin/Len (鏡音リン・レン) is the second installment of th e Vocaloid Character Vocal Series, a brother (Len) and a sis ter (Rin).

Their family name was chosen by combining Kagami (鏡 Mirror), Ne (音 Sound) , with the first syllables of their gi ven names a pun on "Left" and "Right". According to Vocaloid's official blog, the package includes tw o 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.Their only cameo appearance in an anime is in (Zoku) Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei, where the two and Miku (and various other people and characters) try out to be the voice of Meru Otonashi.

On June 12, 2008, Crypton announced the updated edition, named "act2", will be released in early July 2008. Users who had bought the old version will get an expansion disc free of charge. On June 18, 2008, beta demonstration songs using the new version were released on the company's official blog.The expansion disc is an entirely different software and does not affect the original Kagamine Rin/Len installation in any way, giving the user options to either use the old or new voice sets exclusively or combine their usage.

Kamui Gakupo

Musician and actor Gackt l

ent his voice and stage name for the creation of the newest Vocaloid, Kamui Gakupo (神威がくぽ). Yamaha wanted to utilize the voice of a musician but felt it would be difficult to acquire cooperation. They consulted Dwango (new owner of Vocaloid publisher Internet Co. Ltd.), who suggested Gackt, as Gackt had previously provided his voice for Dwango's cell phone services.Referred to alternately as Gakupoid or Gackpoid, the most recent release includes a new program, OPUS Express, for mixing vocal parts with accompaniment and phoneme data. The new software will be available for download for users with registered copies of previous Vocaloids. Besides the new program, Gackpoid will include two of Gackt's songs and three example songs.

The product was originally intended to be released in June 2008, but although Gackt existed as a model for the Vocaloid, it lacked an illustrated avatar to match the previous Vocaloids. Popular manga author Kentarō Miura, famous for his dark fantasy epic Berserk, was approached. Due to Miura's affection for Nico Nico Douga, he agreed to offer his services as character designer for free. As a fan of Berserk, Gackt was more than happy with this arrangement, and requested Miura's sketches be faxed to him as well as the developers, even though he was on location for the filming of Guy Moshe's Bunraku. Gackpoid was released on July 31, 2008.