VOCALOID ?

Vocaloid (ボーカロイド?) adalah perangkat lunak produksi Yamaha Corporation yang menghasilkan suara nyanyian manusia. Komposisi musik dan lirik dimasukkan di layar penyunting sesuai nyanyian dan iringan musik yang diingini. Suara nyanyian diambil dari "pustaka suara" yang berisi sampling rekaman suara dari penyanyi sebenarnya. Lirik lagu dinyanyikan dalam bahasa Inggris atau bahasa Jepang.

Yamaha tidak menjual Vocaloid secara terpisah, melainkan dibundel dengan pustaka suara produksi perusahaan pustaka suara yang mendapat lisensi Yamaha. Vocaloid berasal dari kata "vocal" dan "android".

Perangkat lunak ini pertama kali dirilis Yamaha pada 26 Februari 2003. Teknik yang dipakai adalah Penyambung dan Pembentuk Artikulasi Nyanyian dengan Domain Frekuensi (Frequency-Domain Singing Articulation Splicing and Shaping). Sampling rekaman suara penyanyi profesional diolah dengan metode domain frekuensi. Hasilnya dimasukkan ke dalam basis data "artikulasi nyanyian" yang berisi potongan suara dan teknik bernyany

Sabtu, 07 Mei 2011

yowane haku


Creator














CAFFEIN (カフェイン)
Release date November 21, 2007
Gender Female
Age Undisclosed (widely believed to be 25+)
Height 5'3" ft (163cm)
Weight 103.6 lbs (47 kg)
Character Item Sake bottle

Haku Yowane (弱音ハク Yowane Haku) is the name of a derivative from Japan. Her name is taken from Yowane meaning negative sayings/thoughts and Haku roughly translated as utter. Her first name and last name make a play on words "yowane-(wo)-haku" (弱音(を)吐く), meaning to say negative thoughts or to show white feather. Her white hair is from ハク, which has the same pronunciation with 白 (white).

History

Haku was orginally made as a represent songs that use Hatsune Miku but ended up sounding awful. In such cases, the makers of that music would then proceed to whine about how their work never recieved attention and later moved on to whine when critism stated their work as dull and boring, or was posted quite late when few people were on Nico Nico Douga. She became popular and her creator Caffein later established other characters following the same procedures, each representing a slightly different aspect of failure within the Vocaloids.

Acceptance into Vocaloids

Haku is one of the Vocaloid derivatives that became officially recognized by Crypton Future Media, the publisher of the Character Vocal Series for Vocaloid 2. The other derivatives bearing this distinction is Miku Hachune, Neru Akita, Meiko Sakine, and Tako Luka.

Voice Configuration

Haku is previously marked as badly-done Miku Hatsune songs, and in earlier times, are downpitched Miku songs. However some have tried to give her an actual voice. The following is one example of an actual configuration that produces an approximate voice for Haku, as a mature-sounding Miku.


VOICE CONFIGURATION
BREATHINESS (BRE) 0 BRIGHTNESS (BRI) 20 CLEARNESS (CLE) 15
GENDER FACTOR (GEN) 26 OPENING (OPE) 10
SPECIAL NOTES:
Other than the configuration, Haku's voice sounds better in lower octaves. No other adjustments are needed unless necessary. This configuration could be used with the Miku Dark or CV_Dark_Early database to give "Haku" a more depressed sound, though theoretically, the config can work with any Miku Append voicebanks. This configuration, using Miku's voicebank, is written and commonly used by Orochi Herman. Crediting for this configuration, while preferred, is not mandatory.

Another configuration suggests a manipulation of MEIKO's voicebank to produce Haku's voice, but such configuration is not yet publicly available.


Notable Works

While Haku is regarded to sing any song that is a "failure" song of Miku, since she can have a voice config, it is possible for her to have an individual song dedicated to her.

あなたのVOYAKILOID / Anata no VOYAKILOID (Your VOYAKILOID)

Originally sung by Miku Hatsune Original music and lyrics by Azuma/Boku-P
Haku's cover and lyrics arranged by Bonjin-P
"Your VOYAKILOID" is a parody of Miku's original song "Your Diva." Basically, it's Haku telling whoever bought her that she from now on is their VOYAKILOID. She talks about being considered horrible, and she constantly brings sake and drinking into the song. In all honesty, she wants to tell everyone her feelings through songs, but she chooses to be worthless because she will forever only be a singing robot and have the voice of a singing robot. She then explains though that she's fine the way she is. After all, the one who installed her is her "drinking buddy." She finally states that she will keep drinking because she is (your) VOYAKILOID.

白ノ娘 / Shiro no Musume (The Daughter of White)

Music and lyrics by Akuno-P (mothy)
Illustrations by Ichika, Yuurin, Suzunosuke, Satsu (Painter Brioche)
The final song in the "Evil Series" started by Rin and Len Kagamine. Haku is a girl living in the green country and is ridiculed and looked down upon by everyone because her hair is white. Despondent and alone, Haku makes a trip to the an old tree where she prays for a friend. She later finds an unconscious green-haired girl and nurses her back to health. The girl, Miku, is beautiful and sweet, and loved by the village, and yet she befriends Haku.
Together the girls run off to the city to live there, and while they have hardships working as maids for a wealthy merchant women, they live happily because they are together. One day, however, the king of the blue kingdom across the sea sees Miku and falls in love with her - so much in love that he denies the marriage offer from the Daughter of Evil. Angry, the Daughter of Evil makes an order to kill all of the green-haired women. As Haku sees all of the green-haired women dead, she cries and wishes that she could have died in Miku's stead.
Hearing rumors that the Daughter of Evil was finally killed in the revolution, Haku decides to start over and live at a church in a port town. Soon, she finds a girl near the church and nurses her back to health. Haku and the girl, Rin, become friends in the same way Miku and Haku did. However, Haku overhears a confession Rin is making in the confession box and finds that Rin is actually the Daughter of Evil. Enraged, Haku sneaks up on Rin while she is mulling near a harbor and seeks to kill Rin with a knife but realizes that Rin is a lonely girl like Haku used to be; simultaneously Haku sees a phantom boy at the shore and wonders who he is (It seems that his appearance triggers Haku's understanding that Rin has had equally great sorrow in her life.). Haku apologizes to Miku, as if in a prayer, that she did not avenge her death and goes on to teach Rin to do work and notices that her cooking has improved.
The song makes references to the song "Regret Message" and it seems to confirm that "Regret Message" and the Evil Series are related. It also made #1 in the Weekly Vocaloid Ranking, 119.

ツマンネ / Tsumanne 

Haku reflects on the Nico users' view of her as boring/useless (tsumanne) and drinks to soothe her sorrows. In a similar vein to "Turkish March Owata" Haku finds herself late to a meeting with Neru, who yells at her over the phone for oversleeping. As the two finally meet up after a series of mishaps, they remember they were supposed to meet the next week.

Lily


Developer
















Avex Management Co., Ltd
Yamaha
Distributor INTERNET Co.,Ltd
Release date August 25, 2010
Gender Female
Optimum tempo 90BPM ~ 180BPM
Optimum range D2 ~ D4

Lily (リリィ Ririi) is an official character of a singing synthesizer application software powered by Yamaha's Vocaloid2. Her basic databanks were jointly-developed by Yamaha and Avex Management Co., Ltd.
INTERNET Co.,Ltd is the distributor and also provide her effective support for the users. This was also announced by t-kimura(Takashi Kimura), once a member and now a music producer of m.o.v.e, on his twitter. Lily was published on August 25, 2010 and her design is by KEI. The data for the voice was created by sampling the voice of Yuri Masuda (益田 祐里, Masuda Yuri), a Japanese vocalist of the Japanese musical group m.o.v.e. 

History

Originally Lily appeared on the cover of the CD "anim.o.v.e. 01" released on Aug 19, 2009 before the announcement of its Vocaloid development. Lily was introduced as "Code Name: Lily" on DTM MAGAZINE published in May, 2010.The voice source is the lead vocalist of m.o.v.e., Yuri Masuda. The idea of the developing a vocaloid based on Yuri's voice was occurred, as one of the member was a user of vocaloid. Two official demos, "SUPER SONIC DANCE Lily Ver. With G" and "Gamble Rumble Lily Ver With G" have been released and also Gakupo Kamui is used in them. "SUPER SONIC DANCE" is one of the songs released by m.o.v.e.[6][7]
Her trial version was given out free online before her release, but is no longer available. Her contests are closed and songs are now being released onto Youtube and Nico Nico Douga using the 30 day trial. Also, "anim.o.v.e. 02", m.o.v.e album which comes along with her anime movie, was released On Aug 25, 2010. Prizes for her contest were Lily-related promotional goods, also a copy of Internet Co. Ltd.'s Singer Song Writer 9 Professional software. Judges included DJ Lily and MOSH from anim.o.v.e, Masashi Kamibayashi and Kenichiro Yorozu of DTM MAGAZINE, and Hideki Kenmochi of YAMAHA.

She saw heavy promotion with many merchandise released both prior and after her software was released. Lily recieved a figure released in November, 2010 becoming the first non-Crypton Vocaloid to recieve a figurine. A digicomic movie(anime MV) titled "Schwarzgazer", which shows the world where Lily is, has been produced and it will be released with the album "anim.o.v.e 02". The song was sung by m.o.v.e., not by Vocaloids. Its short version has been officially uploaded on Nicovideo and Youtube. (Nico broadcast, Youtube broadcast) This short movie is unique in approach, as it provides an official English language version side by side with the Japanese version, hinting acknowledgment of the existence of overseas fans by the company. It depicts Lily and companion "Mosh" as fighters against a virus, equipped with music as their weapon.A manga of the same name, which is written by Kei, was released together.

Taiwan release

On Dec 11th, 2010, the president of Internet Co. announced that Gakupo Kamui, Gumi and Lily will be distributed in Taiwan.

Lily on Twitter

On march 4th 2011, a twitter account was set up for Lily and she also received her own website. She is the second Vocaloid to have an official Twitter account.

Usage for Music

Lily has a mature sounding female voicebank. And much of her early usage was owed to having the Vocaloid's voicebank being given out for free in various mediums
Lily has a husky voice and she can sing in a low or mid voice better than in a high voice. Also she can pronounce clearly, however, she is not good at pronouncing a consonant sound alone.

Demo

Some users reported Lily's demo voicenbank had pronunciation problem that she could not carry the "i"s over two notes. Her "o"s could get distorted if followed by "n". Another reported problem was that her consonants could not be pronounced if left on the end. There were reported differences between full and trial version vocal results

kamui gakupo


Other names
  • Camui Gackpo
  • Gakupo Kamui
    (western order)
  • Gackpoid
    (formal product name)
Developer INTERNET Co.,Ltd
Release date 31 July 2008
Gender Male
Optimum tempo 60BPM - 150BPM
Optimum range A1 - C4
Character Item Eggplant


Kamui Gakupo (神威がくぽ) is an official mascot character of Gackpoid (がくっぽいど / Gakuppoido) which is a singing synthesizer application software powered by Yamaha's Vocaloid2 and was published by INTERNET Co.,Ltd.[1]
The naming about this product is very confusing. The Vocaloid software itself is under the official name Gackpoid, and Kamui Gakupo or Gackpo is the avatar character of the software drawn by the illustrator Kentaro Miura (三浦健太郎 Miura Kentaro).

History

Internet Co. wanted to utilize the voice of a singer for the creation of Vocaloid but felt it would be difficult to get a singer to agree. They consulted Dwango Co.,Ltd. who managed Nico Nico Douga, and Dwango suggested Gackt (神威 楽斗 Camui Gackt), a singer and actor, as he had previously provided his voice for Dwango's cell phone services . He lent his voice and named the Vocaloid, Gackpoid. The product was originally intended to be released in June 2008, but though Gackt existed as a model for the Vocaloid, its illustrated avatar was yet to be determined. Finally a popular manga author, Kentaro Miura, famous for his dark fantasy epic Berserk, was asked to do the illustration . Due to Miura's affection for Nico Nico Douga, he agreed to offer his services as a character designer for free. Gackpoid was released on July 31, 2008. Two of Gackt's songs and three other songs are also included as samples.
An update with Gackpoid includes a new program, OPUS Express, for mixing vocal parts with accompaniment and phoneme data. There are 10 demo songs on the official site.
In 2009, Gackt also challenged users of Vocaloid into a competition using Gakupo with the best song not only winning 10 million yen, but Gackt would also sing the song and include it on one of his next albums if he liked it enough.

Taiwan release

On Dec 11th, 2010, the president of Internet Co. announced that Gakupo, Gumi and Lily will be distributed in Taiwan.

King Run Anison Red and White Concert

Gumi and Gakupo made special appearances in the 2010 new year celebration event known as King Run Anison Red and White.
The songs they covered were;
  • アニソン紅白2010 M-32[Love Letter]神威がくぽ(がくっぽいど) "Love Letter" covered by Gackupo originally from "Mobile Suit Z Gundam", which had originally been sung by Gackt
  • アニソン紅白2010 M-33[星間飛行]GUMI(メグッポイド) "Interstellar Flight" covered by Gumi from "Macross Frontier", which had originally been sung by Megumi Nakajima.
Their appearance was strictly a one off event.

Extend- the Future of Gakupo

Internet co., Ltd have not announced if Gakupo will be extended like Gumi, however, they have confirmed if there is a demand for it they will consider producing one for him.

Usage for Musi

Gakupo has one of the most quality voices in the Vocaloid 2 era voicebanks and one of the biggest depth ranges amongst the males. His popularity has led to a number of songs in different genres including Pop, heavy metal/rock, and disco. His pronounications are overall smoother then most other Vocaloids and he was the only Japanese male vocal that could produce a low vocal tone until VY2's release.
As is often the case with native Japanese speakers, Gackpoid does not have the phoneme "z" and "Z" in the phonetic system and they are replaced by "dz" and "dZ" as well as Megpoid

meiko


Other names
  • メイコ
    (katakana)
  • めいこ
    (hiragana)
Developer Crypton Future Media
Release date November 5, 2004
Gender Female
Optimum genre Vocal / Choir
Character Item One Cup Ozeki (Sake)
Product Code 25220
Reduced Number CRV1
JAN Code 4511820065941

MEIKO is a Vocaloid DTM (Desktop Music) software created by Crypton Future Media. She is the first Japanese vocaloid and first Japanese female Vocaloid, she utilizes the Vocaloid engine developed by YAMAHA. Her voice is based on a Japanese female singer Haigō Meiko (拝郷 メイコ). The illustration was done by Shogo Washizu, who is often called わっしー(Wasshi) and was once a member of Crypto
On July 24, 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.
Crypton placed this product on the market with a box art which depicted Meiko in anime form. This character had nothing to do with the singer's image, but her appearance appealed to the mainstream audience and the software sold well. The success of this marketing strategy influenced the development and art style of other Vocaloids such as Kaito and Miku Hatsune.

Append - the future of Meiko?

Both Kaito and Meiko were confirmed to have Appends on the way, however, no details have been released yet on Meiko's Append.

Usage for Music

Both Kaito and Meiko form a part of the Vocaloid "series", following a different design intention to the series of Vocaloids that followed them by Crypton Future Media. Kaito is her counterpart in the series. Both Vocaloids are designed to be professional vocals for professional muscians.
Her voice is noted to be steady, straightforward, and suitable for any musical genre. She is fit to sing anything from pop, rock, jazz, R&B to children's songs. Vocaloid digital sound is still heard in her voicebank and editing may be needed. Her overall tone of voice is more fluid and gives her a large vocal range.
Meiko had VOCALOID 1.0 editor when she was released. Users using VOCALOID 1.0 editor can update them by patching update file for Meiko There are many differences between ver1.0 and 1.1, and they sound differently even if they are edited in the same way. The main differences are Singing Style and Portamento Timing.

The Japanese fandom has taken great measures to push her voice to its limits. This is demonstrated by the fanmade derivative "Sakine Meiko" which was part of a product of Japanese producers pushing the limits of Meiko's capabilities to produce a much younger sounding voice. Since Vocaloid has some functions that Vocaloid 2 do not have, such as Resonance. Different users can utilize the voicebanks offered very differently and she can produce a wide range of different results from the same few voicebanks with further editing by using several Resonances and other functions. 
Though this involves heavy investment of time to make such a big adjustment of her vocals, it does highlight the overall potential of the Vocaloid era voicebanks as the same techniques have also from time to time been applied to others of her era with the same levels of results.

Append

Meiko is confirmed to be due for Append, however, no information has been yet released on what the Appends will be like.

megurine luka


Other names
  • Luka Megurine
    (western order)
  • 巡音流歌
  • 巡音流香
    (chinese)
Developer Crypton Future Media
Release date 30 January 2009
Gender Female
Age 20
Height 162 cm (5'4")
Weight 45 kg (99 pounds)
Optimum genre Latin-jazz-pop ESUNO / house-dance electronica
Optimum tempo 65 ~ 145BPM
Optimum range D3 ~ D5
Character Item Frozen tuna, whip

Megurine Luka (巡音ルカ) was the third Japanese Vocaloid2 from Crypton and released on January 30, 2009. Her surname combines Meguri (巡, circulate or around) and Ne (音, sound), while the name Luka invokes the homonymous Japanese words of "nagare" (流, flow) and "ka" (歌, song) or "ka" (香, scent); thus making "songs to all around the world as scent spreads." Yū Asakawa (浅川 悠) provided the voice for the "cool, somewhat mysterious" character

Append - the Future of Luka

Luka is the next member of the character Vocal series to be Append, however Crypton has not confirmed if she will have Append just yet.[5]

Usage for Music

The Vocal Character series were designed to be a set of vocals with particular charistics about them. Due to her bilingual coding, her "moody yet husky female voice" carries over into both languages and was designed to handle moodier genres like Jazz. Overall, Luka serves to bridge the gap between both languages and has proven to be her appeal as a vocaloid. She serves as an ideal vocaloid for English speaking users planning to use Japanese vocaloids and vice versa for users who are not so used to speaking English and planning on using English Vocaloids. She is often regarded as overall the best Vocaloid to buy for those seeking to use Japanese Vocaloids for the first time; if one cannot use her Japanese voicebank, access to her English voicebank still means a English user can still work with her. Since she speaks both languages, Luka is able to partner with both Japanese and English vocaloids respectfully. Both voicebanks can be used in conjunction with each other, allowing users to switch between the languages as needed.
Main article: Phoneme List
When installing Luka, it is important to pay attention to the release dates of Vocaloids you plan to install after her. Older and newer versions of the Vocaloid 2 software engine can occasionally cause conflicts. Luka has both language engines, so she can cause conflicts between Vocaloids of either language. A user can fix this problem if it occurs simply by installing the Vocaloids in release date order, Luka is noted to be the most likely Vocaloid to produce this conflict.
Note as well that when installed, she will be set on her Japanese voicebank by default, users will have to switch from "Luka_JPN" to "Luka_ENG" in the vocal selection menu. This catches many new Vocaloid users out who have never experienced using the Vocaloid software before or have never had to switch between more then one voicebank.

Japanese

Luka is one of the more smoother Vocaloid2 voicebanks and is not as choppy sounding as her predecessors in the CV series Luka's Japanese dictionary is extensive and on par with previous Japanese Vocaloids and there are no known problems with that part of her program. Also, as a Japanese vocaloid, she has all of the phonemes that are often missing from English vocaloids such as the 5 breathing phonemes ([br1]-[br5]). It is reported that she may produce a lisp-like sound on some notes however, she still maintains a more mature tone then previous Character Vocal Vocaloid 2 era voicebanks, and is much softer then Miku and the Kagamine Vocaloids.
The overall downside of Luka is that she is considered to be low in versatility, having a more limiting voicebank then the other Character Vocal series before her. Because of this, she is considered an advanced Vocaloid, partly because you need some experience in being able to tune the Vocaloid software to make it more flexiable then it is, although this is only half the reason for her being considered an advanced Vocaloid.

EnglishEdit English section

She has all the English phonemes that English vocaloids have in her voice databank . However, despite the inclusion of english she was not intended for a world wide release and was aimed mostly at the Japanese users, a number of reported problems have been noted by western English speakers. It has been reported that she does not seem to have many distinct vowel related diphongs in her sample library in her English voicebank, making her voice less smooth then other English capable Vocaloids when some phonetics are used together. In other cases, she may not have enough distinction between the phonetic sounds in her samples that she does have to distinguish one pronunciation from anothe. She also has only the main/common words in her dictionary, so users not used to more complicated English words may have some difficulty when they come across them, however, an extra data library of English words for her English dictionary is available. 
Her voicebank may be considered "sub-standard" to other English capable Vocaloids and her overall results will depend on the user. She is not unusable and still can be used for English songs just the same as any other English capable Vocaloid. There are also no major report glitches with her voicebank as some of the other English capable Vocaloids and her sample quality is considered good despite her flaws. As a bilingual Vocaloid, she has superior capability of the English language than the Japanese only vocaloids. If need be, less than confident users can use an another English capable vocaloid to aid in fixing her dictionary flaws or help to harmonise her results so she appears smoother.
Because of the fact she came with English, Japanese users wanting to use her for her fullest potential also need to know how to know a certain level of english to begin with otherwise they will only ever be able to use her Japanese voicebank. This is the other reason for her being considered for advanced users of Vocaloid.[7] As of a note, most of the songs produced using her voicebanks are primary done in using her Japanese voicebank and the most common usage within the Japanese fandom of her English voicebank is for short English insertions in Japanese songs.

Reception

She is often given a sexier approach than previous vocaloids. This is owed to both her age and having the body of an adult. In the Japanese fandom she was well recieved. Only a few days after her release, many songs were produced. On the 70th Weekly Vocaloid Ranking (February 2, 2009), many of Luka's songs appeared in the Top 30, knocking the very popular "Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru" and songs produced by ryo (with the exception of "Melt") right out of the Top 30. "RIP=RELEASE" had taken the #1 spot, and had earned a total of 843,233 points, making it the song with the highest one-week score.
In the Western fandom, much of the interest towards her is owed to her inclusion of an English voicebank and in some cases may even take the slot in popularity polls on "most popular" Vocaloid overall even beating Hatsune Miku. Despite its flaws, a number of Vocaloid users still like her results from the English voicebank as it is still relatively easy voicebank to work with, though it requires much experience to perfect the overall results to bring them up to higher standard. On youtube her English is often regarded as "better then the Engloids", despite that this is arguable on how well her voicebank fairs against other English capable Vocaloids.

kagamine rin and len



Kagamine Rin
Other names
  • Rin Kagamine
    (western order)
  • 鏡音鈴
    [1](chinese)
Gender Female
Age 14
Height 152 cm (5'0")
Weight 43 kg (94.79 lbs)
Optimum genre Electro-pop, rock, pop - Enka
Optimum Tempo 85~175BPM
Optimum Range F # 3 ~ C # 5
Character Items Roadroller and mikan (Japanese table orange)
Kagamine Len
Other Names
  • Len Kagamine
    (western order)
  • 鏡音連
    [2](chinese)
Gender Male
Age 14
Height 156 cm (5'1.4")
weight 47 kg (103 lbs)
Optimum genre Pop, dance, rock - Enka
Optimum tempo 70~160BPM
Optimum range D 3 ~ C # 5
Character Items Roadroller and banana




































Kagamine Rin & Len (鏡音リン ・レン) is the second product released on December 27, 2007, they are Vocaloid2 Character Vocal Series developed by Crypton Future Media Ltd. (CFM), male voice (Len) and female voice (Rin). Their family name was from the developing code combining Kagami (鏡, mirror) and Ne (音, sound).

Crypton Future Media intended to project a Vocaloid with low-teen girl's voice at first following Miku Hatsune, but there was a demand for a boy's voice, so Crypton Future Media hired a voice actress who can produce both sounds. The package included two voice banks: one for Rin and another for Len, both provided by the seiyū Asami Shimoda (下田 麻美 Shimoda Asami). Despite the double voice banks, the package was priced at the same price as Miku Hatsune.
At the time of recording in 2007, their names had not yet been decided. Their given names of Rin and Len were said to be based on "right" and "left" according to Asami Shimoda. She later confirmed in a interview after the Append release, the name itself was based on the names of Ken and Rin from Hokuto no Ken, the names were deprived from a discussion about names that were familiar from her childhood. According to Asami Shimoda, Len's voice was achieved by singing within her chest, while Rin's at the top of her head
As they were under development, Crypton had the concept of making a pair of male and female voicebanks. The first idea of the concept was twin voices of a girl and her mirror image of opposite gender, just like twins. 
CFM had an intention to distribute them as twins, but this was not adopted either. After seeing many works that depict their relationships differently, Crypton announced on a magazine interview that those would meet their ideal. Crypton did not decide to announce they are siblings nor lovers, as they did not want to tie down each user's free creative activities. 
KEI was given the concept Crypton intended, their approximate ages, an image of mirror, and an image of androids, but was not given any other directions when he was asked to illustrate Rin and Len by Crypton, as Kei had already illustrated Miku before. Rin was the first one to be illustrated and Len was made to match her, following Crypton's concept. Their leg parts are designed to mimic speakers.
Their Append design and the Official Illustration of those ones were made by オサム (osamu) .

Act 2Edit Act 2 sectionEdit

On June 12, 2008, Crypton announced that the updated edition, named "Act2", would be released in early July 2008. Users who had bought the old version got 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. On July 18, 2008, act2 was released. The new version was released to address issues with the original voicebanks that affected their ability to sing clearly. It acted as an independent installation, coexisting with the initial software. The original version of the software is now retired from sale by Crypton Future Media themselves and it is now no longer possible to buy the software from them.

Append - the Future of Rin/Len

After Miku Append began, Rin and Len was confirmed to have appends being worked on. Len Append was in the process of production first and demos of its voice have been given out; . The append was officially released on December 27, 2010. The total number of voicebanks for each one is 6. There are 3 voicebanks being assigned to each Kagamine. Sample demo songs have been given out on  and their official Youtube channel online. Rin's appends are "power", "warm", and "sweet". Len's appends are "power", "cold", and "serious".
The Vocal Character series were designed to be a set of vocals with particular characteristics about them. For the Kagamines, two Vocaloids with contrasting vocals for a very different result despite having the same voice provider. Since they are based on the same voice provider, both successfully harmonize with each other and therefore are often used in duets together. They also share a similar range to their predecessor Miku and can be used in together with Miku successfully.
Though they are voiced by the same provider, they have different pronunciations of words. Even by retuning the voice of either Kagamine to sound like the other, results are never identical, and only veteran Vocaloid fans can tell who is actually voicing the song. The reason is owed to the fact Len has a lisp-sound in his singing results that Rin does not. Len is the first male of the Vocaloid 2 era and the first male vocaloid able to hit high pitched notes. He lacks the ability to hit the lower notes less than Kaito, since he was produced as a young boy singer. Of the two voicebanks however, Len is often considered more difficult to work with than his counterpart, Rin.  A particular noted weakness of Len's voicebank is that he cannot produce a satisfactory low masculine vocal tone.
Originally Rin/Len Kagamine were regarded as a product for experienced users. Unlike Miku, they were not easy to utilize for beginners and were criticized that some voices in the original voicebanks were not clear and had pronunciation problems of the Japanese language. Their vowel sounds are choppy and overall lacked smoothness with a number of vowel related sounds being absent.

Act 2

Act 2 was released to solve the Kagamine's pronunciation problems. 
Act 2 is a separate installation. For users with both versions, they have a choice between four voicebanks overall: the newer voicebanks or the older voicebanks both with slightly different results. For having clearer pronunciations and milder voices, Act 2 can sing smoother without skilled pre-settings and advanced editing for beginners. However, it is less vivid and flexible and does not allow delicate settings or editing which gives a wider range of expression to experienced users. Users that own both versions enjoy choosing them in accordance with the intended use as each version has different features, just like having four different voicebanks; comparison of Act 1 and Act 2 edited in the same way
Act 2 also presents a new set of problems. They cannot pronounce the h\ phonetic data and are missing other phonetic pronunciations in addition to what was missing from their original software release. Despite improvements, the remaining missing data still makes the Act 2 voicebanks sound choppy in comparison to other Vocaloid voicebanks.

Append

Like Miku, their Append adds a further 6 voicebanks on top of the original voicebanks, bringing the grand total of Voicebanks sold for the Kagamines to a total of 10, the most of any Vocaloid. Their Append was done differently to Miku's in that the 6 voicebanks were split up and 3 recorded in two different scales for each Kagamine accordingly. This also means there are 5 voicebanks for both Rin and Len each if you include past versions, although most will ultimately have access to only 4 for each of the Kagamines due to the original voicebanks removal from sale. Len is also currently the only male with Appends assigned to him.
The Appends are as follows
There is some debate as to if Appends are really needed. While they make it easier to find the right tone for a song, it is possible to recreate similar results to the Append tones without actually buying the software with just the basic voicebanks. There is, however, some pronunciation differences between the voicebanks as each Append uses its own set of vocal samples. For those that lack editing skills, Appends are a useful tool for adding these tones to a song. For those who are familar with the vocals, they offer a way of expanding the Vocaloid's capabilities by offering new vocal ranges and possibilities.
The Append release also gave older Kagamine users the chance to update the Vocaloid2 engine to a newer version, as the Append had the latest engine version. Users also need the Act2 voicebanks to be able to install and use the Append voicebanks. The voicebanks' different pronunciations may be smoother and/or more clear than the others. The Appends themselves were overall much smoother and of a higher quality than the original voicebanks.

HATSUNE MIKU XD



Other names
  • Miku Hatsune
    (western order)
  • 初音未来
    [1](chinese)
Developer Crypton Future Media
Release date August, 31 2007
Gender Female
Age 16
Height 158 cm (5'3")
Weight 42 kg (92.4 lbs)
Optimum genre Pop idol, pop dance
Optimum tempo 70 ~ 150 BPM
Optimum range A # 3 ~ E # 5
Character Item Spring onion</ref>







Hatsune Miku (初音ミク) is the first Japanese Vocaloid2 in the Vocaloid2 Character Vocal Series created by Crypton Future Media. It is considered as the most popular and well known Vocaloid. 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) thus meaning "the first sound from the future." a Japanese voice actress. The data for the voice was created by sampling the voice of Saki Fujita (藤田 咲, Fujita Saki).[2][3]


History

Vocaloid Avatar

Crypton had the idea to release Miku as "an android diva in the near-future world where songs are lost."[4][5] When KEI illustrated Miku he was asked to Miku as an android and her colours (based on YAMAHA synthesizer's signature blue-green color). Also Crypton gave him her detailed concepts, however, Crypton says it was not easy to explain what "Vocaloid" is like to KEI and KEI says he could not have an image of "singing computer" at first as he did not even know what "synthesizer" is, and it took more than a month.  The digital design on Miku's skirt and boots are based off synthesizer program colours and the bars represent the actual bars within the program, following Crypton's idea. Miku was originally intended to have a different hairstyle, but KEI stuck to pigtails after trying them out.

The First Vocaloid "Diva"

Before Miku was released, Vocaloid was not much more than an obscure program. Nico Nico Douga played a fundamental role in the recognition and popularity of the software today. Soon after its release, 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 spring/Welsh onion, singing levan Polkka, presented multifarious possibilities of applying the software in multimedia content creation. As recognition and popularity 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.
The initial sales of Hatsune Miku were so high that Crypton could not keep up with the demand. In the first 12 days of sale, nearly 3,000 sales reservations were made. This was around one sale in 250 in the music software industry, quoted as "an impossible number" by Wataru Sasaki—the person in charge of the planning and production company 'surprise'. Amazon.co.jp stated on September 12, 2007 that they had sales of Hatsune Miku totaling 57,500,001 yen, making her the number one selling software of that time.
On October 18, 2007, an Internet BBS website reported that she 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" and related keywords but other search keywords as well. Both companies expressed a willingness to fix the problem as soon as possible. Images of Hatsune Miku were re-listed on Yahoo on October 19.

Cultural Impact Spreads

A 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 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. Miku sometimes wears glasses in the manga, and Rin and Len call her "onee-chan" (big sister). A yonkoma webcomic made by artist Minami called Chibi Miku-san can be found on his webpage, as well as on third party sites. [8][9]
At CEATEC Japan 2009, Boffin, in joint with Yamaha had the robot model HRP-4C react to the Vocaloid software for demonstrational purposes. She was dressed up to look like Hatsune Miku for the demo. Miku was one of 3 voicebanks HRP-4C was set up to react to, the other two were Gumi and Crypton's CV-4Cβ. [10][11][12][13][14]
Miku's first appearance in an anime is in episode 5 and 13 of Zoku Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei in which she (and other Vocaloids) auditioned to dub Otonashi Meru's voice.

For online multiplayer 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 Hellowork DS (Job Placement for the Age of 13) for the Nintendo DS where she is included as one of the characters. Miku Hatsune also stars in a video game of her own, Hatsune Miku - Project Diva on the Playstation Portable (PSP) in Japan. In Tales of Graces (Wii), she is a downloadable costume for one of the characters. In Phantasy Star Portable 2 (PSP), her hairstyle is available for female characters, and her costume as well as multiple weapons themed after leeks are unlockable by inputting certain passwords.
In late November 2009, a petition was launched in order to get a custom made Hatsune Miku aluminum plate (8 cm x 12 cm, 3.1" x 4.7") made that would be used as a balancing weight for the Japanese Venus spacecraft explorer Akatsuki. Started by Hatsune Miku fan Sumio Morioka that goes by chodenzi-P, this project has received the backing of Dr. Seiichi Sakamoto of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. On December 22, 2009, the petition exceeded the needed 10,000 signatures necessary to have the plates made. An original deadline of December 20, 2009 had been set to send in the petition, but due to a couple of delays in the Akatsuki project, a new deadline of January 6, 2010 was set; by this deadline, over 14,000 signatures had been received. On May 21, 2010 at 06:58:22 (JST), Akatsuki was launched, having three plates depicting Hatsune Miku.[16][17]
Miku was also the subject of one of the most controversial uses of the legal agreements of any Vocaloid producing studio was from the Democratic Party of Japan, whose running candidate, Kenzo Fujisue, attempted to secure the use of Miku's image in the Japanese House of Councillors election of July 11, 2010. The hope was that the party could use her image to appeal to younger voters. Although Crypton Future Media rejected the party's use of her image or name for political purposes, Fujisue released the song "We Are the One" using her voice on Youtube, by only replacing her image with the party's character in the music video.

Concerts

Miku and other Vocaloids began to appear in concerts in Japan 2009, since then she has made appearances outside of Japan. Hatsune Miku performed her first "live" concert like a virtual idol on a projection screen during Animelo Summer Live at the Saitama Super Arena on August 22, 2009. At the "MikuFes '09 (Summer)" event on August 31, 2009, her image was screened by rear projection on a mostly-transparent screen. Miku also performed her first overseas live concert on November 21, 2009, during Anime Festival Asia (AFA) in Singapore. On March 9, 2010, Miku's first solo live performance titled "Miku no Hi Kanshasai 39's Giving Day" was opened at the Zepp Tokyo in Odaiba, Tokyo. The tour was run as part of promotions for Sega's Hatsune Miku: Project Diva video game in March 2010.The success and possibility of these tours is owed to the popularity of Hatsune Miku and so far Crypton is the only studio to have established a world tour of their Vocaloids.
Later, the CEO of Crypton Future Media appeared in San Francisco at the start of the San Francisco tour where the first Hatsune Miku concert was hosted in North America on September 18, 2010, featuring songs provided by the Miku software voice. A second screening of the concert was on October 11, 2010 in the San Francisco Viz Cinema. A screening of the concert was also shown in New York City in the city's New York Anime Festival. Hiroyuki Ito, and planner/producer, Wataru Sasaki, who were responsible for Miku's creation, attended an event on October 8, 2010 at the festival. Videos of her performance are due to be released worldwide

Append - the Future of Miku

On April 30, 2010, Miku Append, a data library which consisted of six new Miku voicebanks, was released. Both the Miku product and the Append product exist and are sold separately, and the voicebanks of Miku Append are different from the voicebank the original Miku has. All the new voicebanks were voiced by Saki Fujita: Soft, Sweet, Dark, Vivid, Solid, Light. Crypton announced that this is an append disk (an addition which offers extension to computer softwares and is similar to expansion packs in English) and users need the original Miku to utilize Miku Append. It costs collectively slightly under the original Miku price While they had been announced on Miku's second birthday, they were released over eight months later. The different appends are meant to capture the "moods".
The original appends planned had been "soft", "very small", "dark-prototype", "vivid", and "solid". However, "very small" was replaced with "sweet", "dark-prototype" became "dark", and "light" was added. Prior to the release, demos had constantly been put on Crypton's website. These included productions by various Vocaloid producers from Nico Nico Douga. Ryo's "Black Rock Shooter" 2M mix had also been done with one of the beta voicebanks. In December 2009, demo software versions of "soft" and "dark" were released. They did not allow VSQ saving, but did allow .wav rendering, which led to a stream of videos released on Nico Nico Douga.
Despite the success of Miku herself, her Append did not sell as many units. Following the Kagamine Append release, both the Kagamine and their Append software pushed Miku's Append software into 6th place on Crypton's sales page.

Potential English bank

On October 8, 2010, at the New York Comic-Con, Ito Hiroyuki (Crypton's CEO) announced that if Miku's facebook page hits 39,390 "likes", an English bank will be developed. The project was termed "Project MIKUCASH".
Miku's page has reached more than 39,390 "likes" on her Facebook page (run by Crypton staff). It has been confirmed that there will be more released on this soon. Samples have already been made and demos are said to be in the process of preparations. A Tweet from Crypton on Twitter confirms that they are not sure if English Miku will be Vocaloid2 or Vocaloid3.
The alpha stage of development went under review the weekend of the 19th of March 2011. By then it was still far from the beta stage, Crypton reported they would their fans keep up to date with its development and were aiming for a good qualified English voicebank. Crypton also report that they would like to do Miku English Appends in the future, however they have no specific plans right now.



The Vocal Character series were designed to be a set of vocals with particular charistics about them; her voice allows for manipulation in a variety of ways while maintaining a cute sounding voice as a result of this approach. There was 22,000 original works reported in July 2010 on Karen-T alone, several times more then any other Vocaloid, with songs in just about every genre.

Japanese

Miku's Japanese voicebank is considered one of the easiest voicebanks to use and is the most common voicebank bought by new Japanese users wanting to learn how to use Vocaloid as well as the most used overall. Users who could not use Miku, often did not buy another Vocaloid. Miku has a great amount of help within the Vocaloid fandom to make improve her usage as well as a vast array of different songs made by other Vocaloid 2 users as examples. Some songs have undergone a large amount of voice editing to be able to make Miku fit the genre style she was being used for. Even though she is amongst the easiest to use, Miku is also one of the more dated voicebanks for Vocaloid 2 and is not as smooth as later Vocaloids that followed, being either choppy or slurry on many of her vowel sounds, although she is still held in high standard over several newer Vocaloids released after her despite this.

Append

The Append voicebanks exist side by side with the original voicebank, giving Miku a total of 7 possible voicebanks to choose from for users with both plug-ins.

The Appends are as follows;
  • MIKU Append SWEET : French Pop, Ballard, Electronica
  • MIKU Append DARK : Ballad, Jazz, Falk, Ambient
  • MIKU Append SOFT : Soft Rock, Ballad, Falk, Ambient
  • MIKU Append LIGHT : Pop, Rock, Dance, Techno Pop
  • MIKU Append VIVID : Pop, Techno Pop, Trad
  • MIKU Append SOLID : Pop, Rock, Dance, Electro
There is some debate as to if Appends are really needed. While they make it easier to find the right to tone for a song, it is possible to recreate similar results to the Append tones without actually buying the software with just the basic voicebank. However, pronunciations between the voicebanks do vary per sample because each Append has its own set of vocal samples. For less experienced or skilled users, the Appends are a useful tool to add tone to a song, for experienced users they act as a method of extending the vocals of one voice even further then it already can go
The Append release also gave older Miku users the chance to update the Vocaloid2 engine to a newer version, as the Append had the lastest engine version. Users must also own the original Hatsune Miku voicebank to be able to install and use the Append voicebanks. The Appends themselves were also overall much smoother and of a higher quality then the original voicebank. However, not all of the Append voicebanks share the same pronounication quality overall as each other with some of the voicebanks being smoother and/or clearer then others.

English

As she is a Japanese Vocaloid and is not predicated on singing in English as well as any other Japanese only Vocaloids, she does not have voicebanks for English pronunciations. This is why she often has a very strong Japanese accent when she is singing in English. Although it is not impossible to make Miku sing in English but using Japanese pronunciation rules, even an experienced "Japanese to English" user may take many hours to use her for an English song, especially if quality is required. 
The English voicebank will add a 8th voicebank to her list of possible voicebanks. According to the official reports from Crypton Future Media, her voice will be "cute". The extent of the English capabilities are largely unknown. The English voicebank for Miku is aiming to be of a good standard, since she is being aimed at a wider consumer market, though it is unknown if she will have better pronunciations than Luka who had previously not been aimed at a more global release. There are currently no plans for a English version of the Appends, however, Crypton reported they are considering it for the future