kaito

Other names	カイト (katakana) かいと (hiragana) 海人 [1](chinese)
Developer	Crypton Future Media
Release date	February 17, 2006
Gender	Male
Character Item	Ice cream
Product Code	27720
Reduced Number	CRV2
JAN Code	4511820069543

KAITO is a Japanese male Vocaloid created by Crypton Future Media. He utilizes the older Vocaloid engine developed by YAMAHA. He claims the spot of first male Japanese vocal release for Vocaloid and the last vocal to be released for the Vocaloid engine. The voice was supplied by a Japanese male singer Fuuga Naoto (風雅 なおと). The illustration was done by Takashi Kawasaki. The product's name was invited from the public, and "KAITO" was selected from among applicants, which was the idea of Shu-tP.
Kaito was created as a counterpart of Meiko and developed together. One of the reasons why his name "KAITO" was selected was that it would be easy for non-Japanese speakers to pronounce, and another reasons was that it looked fitting to the name "MEIKO" when they were put next to one another  On 24th July, 2003, an CCCD album "HISTORY OF LOGIC SYSTEM", which included a song using Japanese vocaloids commercially for the first time, was released. It was a duet song of "Ano Subarashii Ai wo Mou Ichido (That Wonderful Love Once More)" and it was covered by prototype version of Meiko and Kaito before their release. Meiko was released 1 year after this and Kaito followed her 2 years later
Also in 2003, Yamaha gave out his first demo song, "Kimi no Uwasa (Rumor of Yours)" 3 years before his release.
Crypton did not set his character and profile except his package design, as well as Meiko, for not having a concept of giving a certain character to an synthesizer application software. It was carried over to the following vocaloids to encourage creative activities by free individuals and expanding the characters based on each user's individual needs. 

Later Rediscovery

Kaito sold only 500 packages in the initial distribution and Crypton deemed it as a failure. On September 16th, 2007, Tatsunami uploaded a parody of the song in Higurashi no naku koro ni, "A Request From Hatsune" onto NicoNicoDouga. During this time, Miku was extremely popular on NicoNicoDouga, yet almost nobody knew of Kaito let alone produced songs using him. The video begins with the words "please sometimes recall [KAITO]," as well as Miku saying "where are you and what are you doing now?" which is from the song Dear You.

• Nico broadcast / Nicozon broadcast 初音ミクからのお願い。

About four hours later, "An Answer To Hatsune Miku" was posted by Ice-P. In this video, Kaito responds with, "yes? I was eating an ice cream," and then proceeds to sing a cover of The Ice Cream Song (originally sung by Saeko Shuu in 1960). Kaito's last dialogue in this video is "Miku, let's eat it together next time." It just so happened that Ice-P was producing the cover when he saw the video Tatsunami uploaded.
After the rediscovery, Kaito was sold well and also he won the second best seller of the year in Nico Nico Market in 2008.

Append - the Future of Kaito

Crypton announced on twitter that they are developing a new production of Kaito named "Kaito Append". Recording of Naoto Fuuga's voice started on December 9, 2010. Several voicebanks of different expressions like the Appends have been produced for the product. There are four appends empirically under development; temporarily "Mellow", "Sweet", "Solid" and "Power". 
Crypton announced that Kaito's muffler in his silhouette version was going to be transparent. However, they have since reconsidered this due to the fan outcry. On February 17th, 2011, Crypton released a temporary silhouette of Kaito's Append. They said that it has not been decided whether he will have a transparent muffler or not.
There is a Piapro demo song contest for Len's Power Append. The prize is a package present of information on KAITO Append dates and when it is commercialized.  According to the Piapro blog entry following the contest's results, the winners don't -- or don't just -- recieve information on KAITO Append, they get to participate in the production of KAITO Append. It's been guessed they will be given a beta version to work with.
On the 13th April, 2011, it was confirmed 6 vocal expressions had been recorded, two of which were dropped and the remaining were being brought forward with one having reached a completed alpha stage already. The Character Vocal (Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin/Len and Megurine Luka) series Appends had been created from vocal performance of their voice providers. The new Kaito Appends were created by adding echo, force and tension to the samples.

Usage for Music

Both Kaito and Meiko form the Vocaloid "series", following a different design intention to the series of Vocaloids that followed them by Crypton Future media. Kaito is the male designed to be the counterpart to Meiko within their series. Both Vocaloids are designed to be professional vocals for professional muscians.
Kaito's vocal engine has been updated several times. ^[17][18] He can utilize two kind of Vocaloid editors, VOCALOID 1.0 and VOCALOID 1.1, and they have different functions and features. There are many differences between ver1.0 and 1.1, and they sound differently even if they are edited in the same way. (Comparison of ver 1.0 and ver 1.1 without further editing Nico broadcast, Nicozon broadcast). The main differences are Singing Style and Portamento Timing. 
To use his 1.0 version, users who are NOT using 1.1.2 version need to patch Vocaloid Ver1.1.2 update file for Kaito distributed on Crypton’s official page first before they use VOCALOID 1.0 editor. Without patching, an critical error will occur. 
He is fit to sing anything from hymns and children's songs to R&B and pop, though the style that he is best used for is singing pop ballads.

Append

Kaito's Append were created from a different process compared to the Character Vocal series of Vocaloids. There are 4 Appends confirmed for him.