People Have Had the Thought About Virtual Voices and Instruments but Have Not Yet Accomplished

VOCALOID

People have had the thought about virtual voices and instruments but have not yet accomplished it successfully until Vocaloid came. What is Vocaloid?Vocaloid(Vocal + android = Vocaloid) is a singing synthesizer applicationwhere they take a human singer as a source. They changed the voice to make it sound like a voice that never existed in this world. The software lets users to input melody and lyrics in order to synthesize singing. They even made characters for the voices for visual appeal. Vocaloid will sing any words you like but the Vocaloids who are mainly Japanese would sound better in Japanese. Their voices simulates perfectly with the rhythm of human speech including small things like whispers and breaths.

Vocaloid must have an origin, where did it come from? It came from a little company called Zero-g in England. The company started in 1990 and provides music sampling, virtual instruments and sound effects. It was the company that made the first Vocaloid Leon including the first female Vocaloid Lola and Miriam. Yamaha developed and enhanced Vocaloid to make it sound better and realistic. Crypton future media.inc then made the Japanese Vocaloids including the very popular HatsuneMiku, KagamineRin/Len and Megurine Luka. Other companies created their own Vocaloid like SingerSongWriterInternet.co.ltd;Fluitv kids Yamaha Corporations, Avexmanagment.inc, heartfast.inc and much more.

Though all of these companies created them, they first need to know how to make the voices. They recorded voices from an actual human and put it in a Singer Library data. In order for the voice to sound more realistic, dynamics, vibratos, breaths and other are added to the library. Since 2007, the voices then had characters with their own profile. With Yamahas technological advancements, it will be much easier to use and more fun. Vocaloid-flex is a synthesis engine to give detail to the voice while singing and talking. They try to improve the pronunciation of the voices to sound more human.

The characters and their voice have an interesting background. Leon is an English male singer powered by Yamaha singing synthesizer technology and is the first Vocaloid. Since Leonis by a UK company his voice has a British accent. Lola is an English female singer also powered by Yamaha singing synthesizer technology and is the first female Vocaloid. Both are avatar less Vocaloids. Miriam is an English female singer and has an avatar for the cover which is a woman which silver platinum blonde hair.

These are the Vocaloids Zero-G made and are also in VOCALOID1. Two other Vocaloids in Vocaloid1 are Kaito and Meiko whom are still popular today. Kaitois a male singer in Vocaloid1. He was released in Febuary 2006. He’s about 20 to 24 years old. Now, they developed Kaito to KAITOV3 or anAppend. Append is a library added sound pack to make the voice have more emotion.They changed his voice according to the emotion sound in the library. Kaito straight voice has no hesitation and a natural voice with tension. Kaito soft makes you feel the peace in his voice. Kaito whisper has a quiet whisper sweet voice. Kaitowas originally a Japanese singer but now can sing in English with fluent pronunciation.

MEIKO is a female singer in Vocaloid 1. She was released in November 2004. She’s about 20 to 26 years old. She doesn’t have an Append but is still popular as Kaito

.

Now we move to VOCALOID2. It’s the most popular one because it includes HatsuneMiku.It gives the users the ability to type words or lyrics select a melody and hear the results.

Her Character is a 16 year old girl with long turquoise hair. Her height is 158 cm and she weighs 42 kg. She has a cute and pitched voice. Her voice is based on a singer named Fujita Saki. Her released was in August 2007 and ever since then everything has been going off the roof.

HatsuneMiku has the first Append. There are six different kinds of voices sweet, soft, light, vivid, solid and dark. Sweet has a lot of breath component and sweet whispers. Soft is a demeanor overall, a very ladylike voice. Vivid has the clarity of the synovial tongue and an unhesitating voice. Dark is a calm melancholy voice. Light is a bright and breezy voice. Solid is the voice quality and the tension.

But HatsuneMiku isn’t the first one. SweetAnnis the first Vocaloid using the Vocaloid2 software.

The second most popular is KagamineRinand KagamineLen. They are 14 years old and officially are just mirrored images of each other, hence ‘kagami’ means mirror. But people want to think of them as twins or lovers. Their voices are based on ShimodaAsami. Rins voice is similar to Miku but younger and less high pitched. Rins height is 152 cm and her weigh is 43 kg. Lens voice sound more like a young boy. Lens height is 156 and his weigh is 47 kg. People most often would have them sing a duet.

KagamineRin and Len also have their own append. KagamineRins Power voice has a pure strength to feel the strong will; her voice has a lot of intensity. Rin warm give off a tinged low-grade fever voice making it sound warm. Rin sweet includes sighs and sweet whispers to give that cute and warm effect. Kagamine Lens Power has high pitched tones. Lens cold voice is causing a pensive brittle with soft pronunciation. Lens serious voice has a tone full of emotion with whispers.

The third popular is MegurineLuka. She is 20 years old. Her height is 162 cm and her weigh is 45 kg. Her voice is based on AsakawaYuu. However, she does not have an Append but from the looks of her popularity, they might be working on her right now. She is capable of singing both English and Japanese.

There are much more Vocaloids in VOCALOID2 like Gumi,KamuiGakupo, Lily, Miki, HiyamaKiyoteru,VY1,VY2and a few more that are not so popular. They also have VOCALOID3 which consist Aoki Lapis, IA, Yuzuki Yukari, Mayu, Mew, SeeU and LuoTianyi. Another thing, some of these Vocaloids are not only from Japan and England. LuoTianyi as you read it is a Chinese Vocaloid and SeeU is a Korean Vocaloid.

Some people are okay with these virtual singers roaming around the world. Some think that robots will take over the place and others just love them like squealing fans. Since Vocaloid has become popular, they made a bunch of merchandises, CDs, DVDs, figurines, hats, and accessories. They also made game from Vocaloid. Their most popular game is Project DIVA and a recent one ProjectDiva-f. Their games are mostly played in PS3, PSVita or an arcade. They also have an app called Miku Flick. They haveconventions and anime festivalsfor fans to enjoy themselves to cosplay as regular characters in anime or games including Vocaloid.

They even made live concerts for the fans to enjoy and get more profit. The singers are basically a hologram with real musician playing the songs. They provide green, blue, red, yellow and pink glow sticks to enjoy the show with their Idols. The fans have even made a lot of fanart and doujinshi (manga/comics made by fans). This made sales rise and the fans wild (like me).They even made alternative characters like opposite gender of HatsuneMiku or Yuki Miku (snow miku).

You should be wondering, why do they need to create characters for the voices? There are two kinds of people “people who love making music” and “people who love art and stories”. Usually they don’t really collide unless it’s an anime. Now that Vocaloid exist, people can now create amazing songs with amazing videos and stories. The artist can draw, illustrate and with the help of characters, stirring up their imagination. They can even help with the lyrics. The musicians can think of the tunes for the song that goes with the story, remixing and can work with the voices. They can do whatever genre they want and whatever story they want with the characters. When done, they can publish in a special website called Nico video. They also have these singers called NicoNico singers where they sing a cover of the song or do a chorus of one song.Some artists/song writers have even made a story through their songs. Telling us their stories while singing which means the songs can connect with another song. Example a song series called ‘Evillious Chronicles’. Created by a person named Akuno-P this series consist of about more than four albums and is still continuing.

Vocaloid should be a very creative thing. They did something that no one can accomplish successfully. Vocaloid could change the future of music. Not as in ‘take over the world’, there should still be real living singers in the world but they should appreciate Vocaloid and the people who made it. We all should appreciate technology and how much we improved it. Also because of everything they provide us with the software and characters, people can express them and make more music with it and if they manage to make their pronunciation more clear when talking, they will sound just like a regular human. Not only is Vocaloid itself creative but the people who made the songs are creative. Vocaloid increases our imagination in both music and art.Vocaloid is indeed creative in many ways.

*I drew this because I’m a fan myself.

Links to their voices:

NicoNicoSingers, Gumi,KamuiGakupo, Lily, Miki, HiyamaKiyoteru,VY1,VY2 Aoki Lapis, IA, Yuzuki Yukari, MAYU, Mew, SeeU, LuoTianyi, KagamineDuet, SweetAnn, Leon,Lola,Miriam

Citation:

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