Is Miku a Vocaloid?
Hatsune Miku
Hatsune Miku was the first Vocaloid developed by Crypton Future Media after they handled the release of the Yamaha vocal Meiko and Kaito. The name of "Hatsune Miku" was conceived soon after the Vocaloid 2 announcements, when an English and Japanese vocal were developed for the character. The intended design was delayed and later used for Megurine Luka instead. Miku was intended to be the first of a series of Vocaloids called the ""Character Vocal Series"", which included Kagamine Rin/Len and Megurine Luka. Each had a particular concept and vocal direction.
Vocaloid 3
In addition to the software, a small keyboard-like device known as "Pocket Miku" saw commercial release containing this voice. Originally the device was set to hold the VY1 voice, but was changed for Miku before the developers felt that only her voice would do.
Vocaloid
The software became very popular in Japan upon the release of Crypton Future Media's Hatsune Miku Vocaloid 2 software and her success has led to the popularity of the Vocaloid software in general. Japanese video sharing website Niconico played a fundamental role in the recognition and popularity of the software. A user of Hatsune Miku and an illustrator released a much-viewed video, in which "Hachune Miku", a super deformed Miku, held a Welsh onion ("Negi" in Japanese), which resembles a leek, and sang the Finnish song "Ievan Polkka" like the flash animation "Loituma Girl", on Nico Nico Douga. According to Crypton, they knew that users of Nico Nico Douga had started posting videos with songs created by the software before Hatsune Miku, but the video presented multifarious possibilities of applying the software in multimedia content creation—notably the "dōjin" culture. As the recognition and popularity of the software grew, Nico Nico Douga became a place for collaborative 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 software has also been used to tell stories using song and verse and the "Story of Evil" series has become so popular that a manga, six books, and two theatre works were produced by the series creator. Another theater production based on "Cantarella", a song sung by Kaito and produced by Kurousa-P, was also set to hit the stage and will run Shibuya's Space Zero theater in Tokyo from August 3 to August 7, 2011. The website has become so influential that studios often post demos on Nico Nico Douga, as well as other websites such as YouTube, as part of the promotional effort of their Vocaloid products. The important role Nico Nico Douga has played in promoting the Vocaloids also sparked interest in the software and Kentaro Miura, the artist of Gakupo's mascot design, had offered his services for free because of his love for the website.
Monkey Typhoon
The main character. He is a 1st generation asobot. His mission is to find the 49 Keys of the Apocalypse (actually he just wants to find the treasure where the key is located). He is accompanied with Suzie, Sanzo, Tongo, Joe and later with Meeyon and Shiyon. Goku looks mostly human, but he has a face that resembles a monkey, and he gets angry when they call him monkey. He has a robot horse called Skywalker and a magic metal weapon he calls a 'joystick' which lengthens or contracts to his will. Sanzo put a curse on him that will make him weak to all women and children. After he collected 6 keys, his appearance changed and acquired new abilities such as the improved "Easter Wind" and "Fire Vortex Revolution". He likes to chase pretty girls every time he arrives in town, which leads him to get a punch out of the air. In the end, Sanzo took off the curse from Goku and chose to go back in past, since Professor D's feather flew in a worm hole to the past, accompanied by his gang. His name, Goku, is made up of the Chinese characters for five and nine.
The one who forced Goku on the quest, he said he can only remove the curse when they arrive to the last city. He woke up after 1000 years of cold sleep, to stop the world's destruction by collecting the 49 keys. He has a magical harmonica that affects asobots, but not the ones who were infected by the Destruction Virus. He sometimes uses it to heal asobots or power up Goku's attacks. Like Goku, he collected 6 keys, which later on, changed the appearance of his harmonica and can heal asobots even with the virus. He serves as a big brother to Suzie. He is also the former lover of Rhea, the mother of all asobots. At the last part of the series, he fought off Ryutaro Demon along with Goku, Yazu and friends. After the all the keys has been collected, all asobots that have been affected by the Destruction Virus have been cured. His last words (the last words in the series) are "The real treasure is none other than the treasure of the journey."
Suzie lost her dad in an attack of some infected Asobots did to her city. When she was young, her father was telling her the legend, which leads her to join Goku and his friends to witness it. Although she doesn't have any abilities, she has a flying vehicle. Later she finds a bow which can produce a sound which affects asobots. Only Suzie can use it. At the last part of the series, Suzie is the last person who finished Ryutaro Demon by using the bow of sun to rest Ryutaro Demon's soul in peace. It is because she is the only one who understands what Ryutaro Demon feels. In the end, she, along with the gang, choose to go back with Goku in the past.
A worker asobot, but his mouth is never seen because he has it covered ninja style. He needs lots of water to survive or he could die. Goku himself said he is invincible when battling underwater. His weapon is called 'Feather Sword'. Later, like Goku, he collected 6 keys which can change his appearance and which can also change his weapon into 'Feather Blade'. He came back to past along with Goku and friends, since the bandit should never abandon each other.
A nurse asobot who looks like a fat cat that likes to eat. His weapon is called 'Chain Hammer'. Later, like Goku and Jo, he collected 6 keys, which can change his appearance and his weapon, making it the 'Megaton Hammer'. At the last part of the series, he fought off Ryutaro Demon along with Goku, Yazu and friends. He came back to past along with Goku and friends, since the bandit should never abandon each other.
An asobot who looks almost like a human. Later, she joined Goku. Sanzo stated that Meeyon has similarities with Rhea. She has a little sister named Shiyon. She has a pet named Saati that can transform itself into a hoverboard which she uses to travel. Most of her attacks are candy based (bubblegum bomb, choco men, etc.). Later in the series, after collecting 6 keys, she gets a magical umbrella that she can be used to fly, used as a shield, or used to hypnotize somebody (she did this to escape Goku once but never used it again). At the last part of the series, she and Shiyon were the ones who found Ryutaro Demon's weakness. She and Shiyon came to the past with Goku and friends to find treasures.
Meeyon's little sister. Like Meeyon, she is an asobot and one of Ryutaro Demon's quartet. During her time as part of the quartet she used a Sitar played like a cello. She joined Goku so she can spy them in their journey. After she died due to the Destruction Virus, Sanzo revived her after his harmonica is changed by the 6 keys. She can transform or change into a pretty lady who looks like Meeyon, only with blue hair. She has a pet parrot that can transform into a walkie-talkie.
He is a 3rd generation asobot. He is one of Ryutaro Demon's quartet. He dies but later gets revived in episode 33. Yazu is also armed with an elegantly designed scythe. He sacrificed himself for the group when he disagreed with Ryutaro Demon's plans in the last part of the series.
The mother of all asobots and former lover of Sanzo 1000 years before the series started. According to Sanzo, she has similarities with Meeyon but Sanzo stated that he can see Rei more on Goku than on Meeyon.
The main villain. He is the rival of . Like Sanzo, he wants to find the keys for his sinister plans.
Vocaloid
The Vocaloid software has also had a great influence on the character Black Rock Shooter, which looks like Hatsune Miku but is not linked to her by design. The character was made famous by the song "Black Rock Shooter", and a number of figurines have been made. An original video animation made by Ordet was streamed for free as part of a promotional campaign running from June 25 to August 31, 2010. The virtual idols "Meaw" have also been released aimed at the Vocaloid culture. The twin Thai virtual idols released two singles, "Meaw Left ver." and "Meaw Right ver.", sung in Japanese.
Hiyama Kiyoteru
Silhouettes for the AH-Software Vocaloid 2 vocals were revealed on a poster on November 6, 2014; however, it was unconfirmed what they were for at the time. On November 20, it was confirmed in the livestream for Vocaloid 4 that they all, with the exception of Tohoku Zunko, would receive updated vocals for the new engine. Kiyoteru's new vocals were recorded from scratch to improve his upper and lower ranges. Kiyoteru was confirmed to receive a "Natural" and "Rock" vocal for his Vocaloid release, allowing him to make use of the cross-synthesis feature in Vocaloid 4.
Vocaloid 3
Based on the voice of Satomi Sato she is a Japanese vocal released on June 5, 2014. She was designed to promote the Tōhoku region after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami disaster. Tōhoku region based companies can use her for advertisements and dōjin works. She was originally released as a Voiceroid product, her Vocaloid vocal was developed following a successful crowd funding campaign was held to raise ¥5,000,000 by July 20, 2013.
Chipspeech
In August 2016, Chipspeech topped the virtual instrument top 25 rankings at Sonicwire, owned by Crypton Future Media, beating their Vocaloids products such as Hatsune Miku which normally dominated their rankings.
Supercell (band)
Ryo chose to distribute his music on Nico Nico Douga because he liked the website along with its response system, which enables user's comments to appear overlaid on the video screen. Ryo did not originally intend to use Hatsune Miku as the vocalist for his songs, and most members of Supercell did not even know of Miku until after "Melt" gained popularity. Since Ryo did not know any singers, he was recommended by his friends to use Miku, which he thought was a good idea since videos using Miku were already widely being distributed on Nico Nico Douga at the time.
Miz
After graduating from high school, she moved to Tokyo. Soon afterward, she was signed under "Universal Victor" and, under her real name, released "I WILL"(TX TV show "Renai Slot Kuru Kuru V" 's ending theme song), her first single. Five months later, she released a second single called "Ambition"(PlayStation game "Kouklo Theatro" 's theme song). Neither single charted in the top 100 singles and she was not asked to release anything else after that. Both singles are now out of print in most Japanese CD stores. Mizrock wrote the lyrics to all four of the songs on these singles.
Minoru Miki
Miki was born in Tokushima in 1930, and his first musical experiences were connected with the traditional music of his region. He had no formal music education before he moved to Okayama for high school, where he first contacted with European classical music. From there he moved to Tokyo, graduating from Tokyo University of the Arts in 1964.
Immediately in that year Miki founded Pro musica Nipponia (日本音楽集団), an orchestra of traditional Japanese instruments for which he would compose a large number of works. He also began cooperation with koto virtuoso Keiko Nosaka, developing the 20-string koto and reviving the instrument's repertoire with many new works in a variety of genres and combinations, including five concertos for koto and orchestra.
Miki composed his first opera, "Shunkinsho" (based on Tanizaki's eponymous novel), in 1975. Interest by members of the English Music Theatre Company in Japanese traditional music led to contacts with Miki which resulted in the commission of the opera "Ada, An Actor's Revenge", to an English libretto by James Kirkup. "Ada" premiered in London in 1979 and was one of the last works commissioned and performed by the EMTC before its ultimate dismemberment in 1980. During this period Miki developed a relationship with director Colin Graham that was to last until the latter's death in 2007. The most notable result of this cooperation was the opera "Jōruri", commissioned by Graham for the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (where he had moved following the disbandment of the EMTC) and premiered there in 1985.
Vocaloid
Vocaloids have also been promoted at events such as the NAMM show and the Musikmesse fair. In fact, it was the promotion of Zero-G's Lola and Leon at the NAMM trade show that would later introduce PowerFX to the Vocaloid program. These events have also become an opportunity for announcing new Vocaloids with Prima being announced at the NAMM event in 2007 and Tonio having been announced at the NAMM event in 2009. A customized, Chinese version of Sonika was released at the Fancy Frontier Develop Animation Festival, as well as with promotional versions with stickers and posters. Sanrio held a booth at Comiket 78 featuring the voice of an unreleased Vocaloid. AH Software in cooperation with Sanrio shared a booth and the event was used to advertise both the "Hello Kitty" game and AH Software's new Vocaloid. At the Nico Nico Douga Daikaigi 2010 Summer: Egao no Chikara event, Internet Co., Ltd. announced their latest Vocaloid "Gachapoid" based on popular children's character Gachapin.
Vocaloid 3
A package containing 3 Japanese male vocals, Yuu, Kyo, Wil voiced by Minorun (Yuu), Nanox (Kyo) and Maui (Wil). They were released on June 20, 2013. Zola Project Neo was released on September 19, 2013. Yoshitaka Amano who previously had been an artist for the Final Fantasy series had been chosen as the illustrator for the package. The trio was designed to give producers a tool for creating songs that had been inaccessible up until that point. Zola Project were designed to offer the highest quality vocal possible and be accessible for both new and experienced Vocaloid users. Zola Project offered supporting roles for trio and duos, as well as harmonies. The boxart was designed as an "image illustration" and not "character designs" like the boxart for other Vocaloid releases. The voice providers who were sampled were given a different script to read from other vocals recorded and in addition received a half a years worth of vocal training before being recorded. The 3 providers who were chosen for the project were picked from 40 possible candidates. The product also came with a special plug-in for Vocaloid 3 called ""ZOLA_Unison" which is designed to help them sing together.
AH-Software
AHS released their first Vocaloids on December 4, 2009, named SF-A2 Miki, Kaai Yuki, and Hiyama Kiyoteru. Kaai Yuki became the first Vocaloid to use a child's voice. AHS also published a "Hello Kitty"-based Vocaloid, "Nekomura Iroha", based on the Kittyler featured in the game "Hello Kitty to Issho! Block Crash 123!!" in cooperation with Sanrio. AHS are also heading the first project led by producers working with the software.
An Cafe
In wake of the hiatus, several members are now involved in other projects. Kanon is heading a mobile phone game called Pinky☆Distortion, which is to be released in July 2010. He will also be a guest at Otakon 2010 as a panelist and a guest DJ, as well as pairing up with Kanon Wakeshima to form a duo act called kanonxkanon. Miku is serving as the vocalist for the new visual-kei band, Lc5, which started in June 2010. Teruki is playing as a support drummer for the band Dog in the Parallel World Orchestra.
Vocaloid
The CEO of Crypton Future Media noted the lack of interest in Vocaloids overall was put down to the lack of response in the initial Vocaloid software. With regard to the development of the English version of the software specifically, many studios when approached by Crypton Future Media for recommendations towards developing the English Vocaloids had no interest in the software initially, with one particular company representative calling it a "toy". A level of failure was put on Leon and Lola for lack of sales in the United States, putting the blame on their British accents. Crypton praised the value of the English Vocaloids and what they offered to the Japanese users for their capability of offering the English language to them, when it would otherwise be off limits. As Hatsune Miku was responsible for making the software famous, her voice has become the most commonly associated with the Vocaloid software and divides opinions of critics both overseas and within Japan on their opinions towards her and the software. Crypton blamed a fear of robots on part of the lack of response on the sale of the software overseas and expressed that there was also a general "anti-Vocaloid" point of view amongst some cultures and communities, although he also noted that he hoped in the future this would change as the software continued to be developed. Prior to the release of the Hatsune Miku product, Crypton Future Media had also noted there was some criticism at choosing to release the original Vocaloid engine as a commercial licensing product, although felt that the choice was for the better of the engine. Furthermore, it was noted that the original Vocaloid engine felt more like a prototype for future engine versions.
Vocaloid
Some of the most popular albums are on the "Exit Tunes" label, 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 by Absorb and 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. 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" were later released by Gackt on July 13, 2011. In relation to the Good Smiling racing promotions that Crypton Future Media Vocaloids had played part in, the album "Hatsune Miku GT Project Theme Song Collection" was released in August 2011 as part of a collaboration.
Vocaloid 2
VY1 was developed under the codename of "Mizki" as a professional Japanese female vocal with no mascot, designed to fulfill any role and head any Yamaha Vocaloid product. It was released on September 1, 2010 by Bplats and designed to act as a "Standard" vocal of noted quality for the Vocaloid software. It was released on September 1, 2010. It handled samples differently to previous Japanese vocaloids. It sold with a standard and a "deluxe" version, the deluxe version came with a CD called ""feat.VY1"". The CD featured various songs and producer made content and was designed to display the creative freedom that VY1 brought. This was due to it having no official set mascot, leaving her appearance, age and even gender be up to the producer.
Clover Club Cocktail
Vocaloid Hatsune Miku has a song named after this cocktail, "Clover Club", in which she describes the recipe.
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA X
Live Quest Mode involves the player completing quests by playing songs. In between missions, short interactions and visual novel style dialogues may play out between the player and Vocaloids. The mode consists of two main types of quests - Area Quests and Event Quests. Area quests simply require a song to be completed while gaining a certain score. Later quests throw in other challenges (such as the "cool" pop up randomly changing to "miss" and "sad"). Event quests have special requirements such as requiring the player to play a "special live" consisting of 3 songs in a row. The game also features new "medley" songs, which are fully playable compilations of popular returning and new tracks. The full versions of the songs comprising the medleys cannot be played in full.
Ichirou Mizuki
In addition to his vocalist career, Mizuki has been cast in several roles as both a voice actor and a live-action actor. As a voice actor, he played the roles of Yoldo in the first episode of the OVA Dangaioh, Rat Hector in "Coral no Tanken", and the villain Keisar Ephes in the video game "Super Robot Wars Alpha 3". His live-action roles include Dr. Ben in "Jikuu Senshi Spielban" and (most notably) Voicelugger Gold in "Voicelugger", a Tokusatsu show based on the last concept written by Shotaro Ishinomori before his death. He also performed as a guest appearance in the Japanese Television Comedy show, Gaki No Tsukai. He voiced the title character Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo in the first PlayStation 2 game of the series, as well as singing the theme song. In 2010, he had a role in an episode of arc of "Kamen Rider W" along with fellow musicians Aya Kamiki and TAKUYA. In 2012, he starred in one of the episodes in "Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters" as well as singing "Li-Oh! Kenzan Champion!" which is a theme song for the new robot introduced in the episode. His voice is also used as the voice for the robot's control system.
Crypton Future Media
On April 30, 2010, an updated version of Miku called Hatsune Miku Append was released containing a package of six different tones of Miku's voice: Soft (gentle, delicate voice), Sweet (young, chibi voice), Dark (mature, heartbroken-like voice), Vivid (bright, cheerful voice), Solid (loud, clear voice), and Light (innocent, heavenly voice). Crypton Future Media also released Kagamine Rin/Len Append on December 27, 2010.According to Crypton, a petition started on Facebook exceeded the needed 39,390 members in November 2010 to join Hatsune Miku's account for an English version to be released; Crypton announced that they are working on an English Miku and was planned to be released in 2013. Hatsune Miku English has been released on August 31, 2013. Hatsune Miku V3 was released September 26, 2013.
Vocaloid
The software is intended for professional musicians as well as light computer music users. Japanese musical groups such as Livetune of Toy's Factory 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.
List of Daughter of Smoke and Bone characters
Mik: Mikolas Vavra, more commonly known as just Mik, is a talented Prague violinist and Zuzana's boyfriend. He helps Zuzana to find Karou in "Days of Blood and Starlight" and then stays with them for a short period of time before they are sent back. His violin amuses the chimaera. When Zuzana thinks that Mik will ask her to marry him, he tells her that there are still two tasks he must perform before that can happen. He first appears in "Daughter of Smoke and Bone", but plays a larger part in "Days of Blood and Starlight".
Yankee (album)
A week after his second single's release, Yonezu released his first Vocaloid song in two and a half years, called using Gumi vocals. It was the first time he used a live band on a Vocaloid song. This song became a part of "Yankee", with vocals recorded by Yonezu himself. followed by the first series of concerts in his career.
Vocaloid 3
SeeU was released as the first Korean vocal for the Vocaloid 3 software, being one of the four release date vocals released when the Vocaloid3 software launched on October 21, 2011. She is capable of Korean and Japanese and released by SBS Artech based on the voice of Kim Dahee (Glam).
Myka 9
Michael Troy, better known by his stage name Myka 9, is a rapper and producer from Los Angeles, California. He is a member of Freestyle Fellowship, Haiku D'Etat and Magic Heart Genies. Known for years as Mikah Nine, he changed the spelling to Myka Nyne with the release of "A Work in Progress" in 2003. Since Magic Heart Genies' album "Heartifact" in 2008, he has been credited as Myka 9.
Ievan Polkka
The Finnish folk song was also given popular covers by several Japanese Vocaloid singers, such as Megurine Luka, Kagamine Rin, and Kagamine Len. The most popular vocaloid cover belonged to that of Hatsune Miku, garnering more than 40 million views on her official YouTube music video as of December 2017. Its popularity has lent itself to being used in the Vocaloid rhythm game "" as the tutorial music. It has also been used in a commercial promoting the LG G5 smartphone.
Miki Furukawa
In 2006 Furukawa released her first solo album, "Mirrors", featuring a mixture of guitar-based rock songs and electronic dance-pop. "Bondage Heart" (2008) pointed in a new direction, with heavy influences from post-punk, psychedelic rock and noise, whereas "Very" (2010) was a mostly electropop-oriented record. In December 2009, software developer AH Software used voice samples from Furukawa to create the Vocaloid voice library SF-A2 Miki. In 2011, Miki Furukawa and former Supercar bandmate Nakamura Koji formed the band called Lama. Lama jump-started their formation with a single entitled "Spell", which has been used as an opening theme for the anime "No. 6". The single "Fantasy" was used as the ending theme for the anime "Un-Go".
Hatsune Miku
Hatsune Miku received an update for Yamaha's Vocaloid 4 engine under the name of "Hatsune Miku V4x". It makes use of the new EVEC system for Piapro Studio, a VSTi plugin used as an alternative to the traditional Vocaloid Editor. EVEC consists of recorded vowels. Along with the consonant, a different vocal tone can be achieved. Two vocal tones are included in the EVEC system: "Power" and "Soft". Along with the new EVEC system, phoneme errors found in Miku's V2 and V3 voicebanks would be fixed allowing for easier manipulation of her voice. , Hatsune Miku V4X/V4 English was released.
Vocaloid 4
Crypton Future Media's download website "Sonicwire" reported that the Megurine Luka V4X product had the number 1 position in Vocaloid sales. This would later be overtaken by the Hatsune Miku V4X Bundle.
Minoru Miki
His vast catalogue, where aforementioned traditional instruments figure profusely either solo or in various types of ensemble with or without Western instruments, demonstrates large stylistic and formal diversity. It includes operas and several types of stage music as well as orchestral, concerto, chamber and solo music, and music for films. Miki was probably the second best known Japanese composer overseas after Tōru Takemitsu.
Vocaloid 2
Gackpoid is a male vocal developed by Internet Co., Ltd. His voice was sampled from the Japanese singer and actor Gackt. The mascot of the software is called Camui Gackpo, after Gackt's alias name. Gackpo is sometimes referred to as Gackpo Camui or Gakupo Kamui, and usually referred to as Kamui Gakupo.
Megurine Luka
Despite the inclusion of English, Megurine Luka was not aimed at a worldwide audience, instead focused primarily at Japanese producers. In 2010, Luka was ranked as the 3rd most popular Vocaloid product Crypton has sold. In October 2013, Luka's Vocaloid 2 software disappeared off the top 10 products charts as the Hatsune Miku V3 and its bundle package disrupted the chart rankings. Luka had already fallen to 6th place during the 2013 period as a result of the KAITO V3 release, but this was the first time Luka had disappeared from the charts. After the charts began to settle down again, Luka began to occupy the same spot on the charts that the Vocaloid 1 KAITO package previously occupied (6th-8th place), putting the popularity of the product on par with the older product. After the MEIKO V3 release, Luka became the only member of the Vocaloid 2 Character Vocal Series vocals to have a product on the charts, leaving her in 5th place. However, Vocaloid 2 vocals were mostly absent from the rankings in April 2014. By mid-2014, both she and the Vocaloid 2 Kagamine Rin\Len package no longer held constant places in the rankings and were constantly on and off Crypton Future Media sales charts. In March 2015, the Megurine Luka V4x package got the no.1 spot for the sales of all digital instruments on Big Fish Audio. Soon after the V4x package release, she grabbed the Crypton top sales rankings and remained there for April 2015. On May 1, the site updated to reveal the package now in 3rd place behind Hatsune Miku V3.
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA
As the game is a rhythm game, players are allowed to choose from a wide variety of Vocaloid songs, original songs sung by Vocaloids, including songs sung by Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin and Len. Players also can choose which character they wish to play in the game. Known as modules, these modules can be completely different characters or simply different costumes for the same characters. These modules, though not directly controlled by the player, will be the ones appearing in the music videos throughout the game including their specific costumes. For example, if the player chooses Kagamine Rin for their first character and Hatsune Miku for their second character, during solo songs only Kagamine Rin appears in the video but for duets both Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Rin will appear in the video. Each of the songs have their own difficulties which are Easy, Normal, Hard and Extreme. Initially both the Easy and Normal difficulties of a song are unlocked, upon clearing the Normal difficulty, the Hard difficulty will be unlocked and so forth. Players progress through the game by completing songs and unlocking more new songs until they eventually unlock all songs.
The game's gameplay is similar to that of other rhythm games in which players must press a series of buttons according to the sequence on the screen. The game primarily makes use of the 4 main symbols, X, circle, square and triangle, which are the face buttons for the PlayStation Portable. Various floating gray buttons of those symbols will appear on the screen, and the colored version of those symbols will begin to float in from the various sides of the screen. The player is required to press the face button once the colored symbol lands on its grayed version and based on the player's timing their accuracy is rated. Accuracy is described with a word displayed in the bottom right corner of the screen, ranging from "Cool" to "Miss". The game is scored on accuracy and the player is awarded with a rank ranging from "Perfect" to "Dropout" (denoted by "DropXOut"). It also includes a chance mode whereby the combo system compounds points earned, for example one perfect note gives the player 100 points, if they have a combo of 34 notes, the 34th note alone gives them an additional 3400 points.
Vocaloid
Two unofficial manga were also produced for the series, "Maker Unofficial: Hatsune Mix" being the most well known of the two, which was released by Jive in their "Comic Rush" magazine; this series is drawn by Vocaloid artist Kei. The series features the Crypton Vocaloids in various scenarios, a different one each week. The series focuses on the Crypton Vocaloids, although Internet Co., Ltd.'s Gackpoid Vocaloid makes a guest appearance in two chapters. The series also saw guest cameos of Vocaloid variants such as Hachune Miku, Yowane Haku, Akita Neru and the Utauloid Kasane Teto. The series comprises the original 28 chapters serialized in "Comic Rush" and a collection of the first 10 chapters in a single "tankōbon" volume. A manga was produced for Lily by Kei, who also drew the mascot. An anime music video titled "Schwarzgazer", which shows the world where Lily is, was produced and it was released with the album "anim.o.v.e 02", however the song is sung by Move, not by Vocaloids. A yonkoma manga based on Hatsune Miku and drawn by Kentaro Hayashi, "Shūkan Hajimete no Hatsune Miku!", began serialization in "Weekly Young Jump" on September 2, 2010. Hatsune Miku appeared in "Weekly Playboy" magazine. However, Crypton Future Media confirmed they will not be producing an anime based on their Vocaloids as it would limit the creativity of their user base, preferring to let their user base to have freedom to create PV's without restrictions.
Hatsune Miku
Pharrell Williams made a remix of Livetune's song "Last Night, Goodnight" featuring Hatsune Miku. On October 8, 2014, Miku made her American network television debut as she performed "Sharing the World" on the "Late Show with David Letterman" on CBS. Hatsune Miku is featured in "B Who I Want 2 B" produced by Sophie from Namie Amuro's album "Genic". The 2016 Hatsune Miku Expo tour featured American electronic band Anamanaguchi as an opening act; to commemorate the tour, the band recorded a single track titled "Miku", which they performed live on the tour with Miku as an encore song. Big Boi (of Outkast) sampled Aura Qualic's song "DATA 2.0", featuring Hatsune Miku for his 2017 single "Kill Jill", also appearing in the song's music video.
Utau
Later, the UTAU software would have its own impact on Vocaloid and other vocal synthesizers, with a number of vocals either referencing UTAU or being produced for the engine to begin with. For example, Megurine Luka V4x was influenced by the UTAU vocal "Gahata Meiji". Wat from Crypton Future Media also spoke to someone very familiar with UTAU and said that the conversation was "very interesting". Macne Nana of the Macne series later would become both a UTAU voice and a Vocaloid voice. The voice provider of English Vocaloid Ruby, Misha, had previously produced a Japanese-language UTAU named Makune Hachi (MAKU音ハチ). In addition the vocalist for Dex, Kenji-B, created for UTAU and AkiGlancy, the vocalist behind Dex's partner Daina, gave her voice to a UTAU called . After the release of Vocaloid 3 vocal Tohoku Zunko, her two sisters Tohoku Itako and Tohoku Kiritan received UTAU vocals, Kiritan would later go on to have a campaign for her to become a Voiceroid.
Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari
During the production of the 2009 anime series "Bakemonogatari", Supercell was asked to compose what would later become the ending theme song "Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari". It was already decided that Supercell would release their debut album "Supercell" in March 2009, which used the Vocaloid singing synthesizer Hatsune Miku as the vocalist. In place of Miku, Supercell employed the singer Nagi Yanagi, a vocalist who had previously submitted cover versions of songs to the Nico Nico Douga video sharing website under the name Gazelle. "Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari" was the first release by Supercell to not use Miku as the vocalist. Yanagi was chosen for "Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari" by Ryo, who had been a fan of her voice even before uploading his own songs to Nico Nico Douga in late 2007. Roughly the next day after Ryo uploaded Supercell's first song "Melt" onto Nico Nico Douga in December 2007, Yanagi uploaded a cover of her singing the song. Yanagi, who was herself a fan of Ryo's music, contacted him and the two talked about someday collaborating.
Vocaloid
For illustrations of the characters, Crypton Future Media licensed "original illustrations of Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin, Kagamine Len, Megurine Luka, Meiko and Kaito" under Creative Commons-Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported ("CC BY-NC"), allowing for artists to use the characters in noncommercial adaptations and derivations with attribution.
Miku Sawai
She released her first album "Sentimental" on June 5, 2013. She then released the single , whose title track was used as the first ending theme to the 2013 anime television series "Kill la Kill"; the single peaked at 37 on the Oricon weekly charts. She released the single on August 13, 2014, whose title track is used as the first ending theme to the anime television series "Akame ga Kill!". She released the single on January 28, 2015; the title track is used as the ending theme to the anime television series "".
Miku Flick/02
Unlike its predecessor, the game featured vocaloids other than Hatsune Miku, including Kagamine Len, Kagamine Rin and Megurine Luka as well as duet songs whereby two vocaloids would sing together for a song. The game also included a new "Extreme" difficulty mode, which provided players with a difficulty between that of the "Hard" and "Break the Limit" modes, retained from the original. The game also provided additional Downloadable Content via the In-App Purchases system that would include new songs and seasonal costumes. The additional "Replay Mode" was later added, allowing players to save a replay of their performance and share it with friends.
Hatsune Miku
It was mentioned that a 7th "Append" voicebank, a falsetto voice, had been recorded; however, since the developers didn't think it would be useful on its own, no plans were made for an independent release. During the Kagamine Append development, a "darkish Whisper/Sweet" append was being considered. Miku's English vocal was also due for a Vocaloid 2 release, but it was not released in the engine due to low quality.
Vocaloid 2
VY2 was the second addition to the "VY" series, after VY1 and was designed to compliment the VY1 voice, its codename is "Yūma". The voice of VY2 is masculine and sings in Japanese. It was released on April 25, 2011. VY1 it also was designed to be unbound by having no set avatar allowing it to take any appearance, sex or age. Effort was made to disassociate VY2 with anything personal, bares a sword on the boxart because they felt items such as clothing would be too personal but chose its codename to help direct producers to the direction the voice was heading for of a handsome young male. A producer working with the VY2 found when he wrote a song that VY2 was the only male Japanese vocal that could produce a quality of vocal good enough for the song and he labelled the vocal as the best Japanese male. When producing this vocal, the developers had compare it also with other masculine vocals within the series (excluding Ryuto and Kagamine Len, both of which are voiced by female vocalists), with only the Gackpoid software coming close to VY2.
Micachu
Mica Levi (; born February 1987), also known by her stage name Micachu, is an English singer, songwriter, composer and producer. She is classically trained and since 2008 has released experimental pop music with her band Micachu and the Shapes, including their critically praised debut album "Jewellery" in 2009.
Hatsune Miku
Miku's clothes appear as a costume for a playable character in the Japanese version of "PangYa" and was the back-up vocal for the game's season four trailer, as a downloadable costume for Sophie in "Tales of Graces" and is seen during a stage in the game "13-sai no Hellowork DS". Miku's clothes also appear in "Phantasy Star Portable 2" as a costume for the player's female character, as well as her hairstyle and leek-themed weapons. Miku appears in the PlayStation 3 version of "The Idolm@ster 2" as downloadable content. In the video game "Skullgirls", one of Filia's alternative colors is based on Miku. Miku has appeared as downloadable content using the game engine M.U.G.E.N. Hatsune Miku's attire has also appeared in "Phantasy Star Online 2" as a female character's costume, along with "Miku Dayō" as a Mag Design. She also makes an appearance in the game "Brave Frontier".
Vocaloid 2
Crypton Future Media had produced vocals for this version of the software Renders of the beta vocals could be heard in various mediums. Meiko was used in the song on the album . Originally, the song used Meiko's original Vocaloid vocal. Luka's Append vocal was used on the album for the song "Hoshizora to Yuki no Butōkai (Zeal mix)". The promotional album "Vocalo Append" used a beta of Luka's "Soft" Append. Miku's English vocal in particular was low quality and was not released in the engine for this reason. The vocals were announced to have been dropped in favor of Vocaloid 3 productions on December 1, 2011. Songs using the beta versions also featured in "".
Zoome
zoome's popularity boomed via Hatsune Miku at the end of 2007. Nico Nico Douga, the fostering site of the voice synthesis software, became involved in a scandal which caused some of its members to move to zoome. Dwango, the owner of Nico Nico Douga, had registered the copyright of a Hatsune Miku song to the copyright management group JASRAC under the name "Dwango", without permission from the song's author, sparking outrage among Vocaloid fans. Sometime before the scandal broke out, ACCA had opened a Vocaloid video hosting circle , which was officially recognized by Hatsune Miku's developer, Crypton Future Media. The scandal on Nico Nico Douga and the official recognition in zoome lured many members away from Nico Nico Douga to zoome. As a result, Hatsune Miku videos became one of the mainstays of zoome, and zoome became a leading competitor able to challenge Nico Nico Douga's monopoly of the video hosting service industry in Japan.
Hatsune Miku: Unofficial Hatsune Mix
Each chapter in "Hatsune Miku: Unofficial Hatsune Mix" is a self contained story and there is often little to connect two chapters together. Despite this, they still form a rough chronological order, taking into account the first appearances of the different characters. The series is set in Sapporo, Japan. The characters share personality traits that were influenced by the Vocaloid fan community. Items and food associated with the Vocaloids are also depicted. Kasane Teto also makes several guest appearances within the series.The characters who appear in the manga are used differently in every storyline and their personalities are subject to change. For example in "Mermaid Mix", Miku appears as a mermaid trying to win the affection of a Prince (Kaito) was kidnapped by a temptress (Meiko).
Loituma Girl
In September 2007, a cover of "Ievan Polkka" was made, sung by Vocaloid Hatsune Miku. It was accompanied by an animation of a chibi version of Hatsune Miku waving a Welsh onion. To date, the video has over 12 million views on Nico Nico Douga and YouTube combined, and as a result, Miku's fame for the Welsh onion-twirling outshone Orihime's.
Kizuna AI
Kizuna is able to livestream and record videos in a virtual environment; this is generally considered to rely on the free software MikuMikuDance. After the production crew designs a 3D model, they manually control the model to make certain movements. Then, they hire a voice actor to give the animation a voice. MikuMikuDance has often been used in the videos of Vocaloid pop music, allowing users to import and control the 3D models of virtual characters such as Hatsune Miku.
MikuMikuDance
The software itself comes with a small number of models of well-known Vocaloids and an invisible grid, to which particle effects can be attached to in MME, a stage, some accessories, and two samples of what MMD can do, in the form of .pmm files; the file type that MMD projects are saved as. The software was originally only released in Japanese; however an English version was released at a later date. Videos using the software are regularly seen on sites such as Nico Nico Douga and YouTube and are popular among Vocaloid fans and users alike. A magazine which hands out exclusive models with every issue was also produced owing to this popularity. Some models for Vocaloid may also be used for Vocaloid music, going on to be used by studios working with the Vocaloid software.
Hatsune Miku
The Vocaloid software has also had a great influence on the character Black Rock Shooter, who looks like Hatsune Miku but is not linked to her by design. The character was made famous by the song "Black Rock Shooter", and a number of figurines have been made. An original video animation made by Ordet was streamed for free as part of a promotional campaign running from June 25 to August 31, 2010. A televised anime series aired in February 2012.
J-Subculture
As the main shop mascot, J-Subculture has chosen a deformed style of Hatsune Miku, the main character of the singing voice synthesizer of the Vocaloid. Besides the character of Marisa Kirisame, another sub-mascot, the female characters by the names of Ami, Nami and Mami appear alongside Hatsune Miku as shop representatives. The three students, animated characters designed by the company’s in-house artist Honda, come each with characteristics linked to the shop departments.
SF-A2 Miki
SF-A2 was released the same day as Kaai Yuki and Hiyama Kiyoteru as the 3rd Ah Software Vocaloid. SF-A2 miki's direction is very different from Kaai Yuki and Hiyama Kiyoteru as she was a professional artist vocal. Much of her planning and development was handled by HEARTFAST.
Hatsune Miku
An English voicebank for Hatsune Miku was announced in 2011 and was to be released by the end of 2012. However, the decision to move to Vocaloid 3 and issues with English pronunciation delayed the release. It was finally released on August 31, 2013 via digital distribution.
Miku
Miku may refer to:
Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari
This single was the first release by Supercell which did not use the Vocaloid singing synthesizer Hatsune Miku as the vocalist, as they had done for their debut album "Supercell" (2009). Instead, Supercell employed the singer Nagi Yanagi, a vocalist who had previously submitted cover versions of songs to the Nico Nico Douga video sharing website under the name Gazelle. The single peaked at No. 5 on Japan's weekly Oricon singles chart, and in February 2010 was awarded a Gold Disc by the Recording Industry Association of Japan for having exceeded 100,000 copies shipped in a single year.
Megurine Luka
Megurine Luka was originally designed to be the first Vocaloid of the "Character Vocal Series" that Crypton Future Media would release and was going to be called "Hatsune Miku", designed to be capable of singing both English and Japanese vocals. However, the concept was put on hold and the name was used for another character, making Luka the 3rd vocal of the "Character Vocal Series" to be released instead.
Vocaloid (software)
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 Nextfest and 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 the first Japanese Vocaloid Meiko who, along with Kaito, was developed by Yamaha. 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 was also noted for its huskier results then later engine versions.
Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai 2
Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai 2 is a rhythm game created by Sega and Crypton Future Media for the Nintendo 3DS and the sequel to "". The game is also a spin-off of the "" series of Vocaloid rhythm games and was first released on November 28, 2013 in Japan with no international release until September 2015. Like the original, the game primarily makes use of Vocaloids, a series of singing synthesizer software and the songs created using these vocaloids most notably the virtual-diva Vocaloid Hatsune Miku. It is also the second game to include a Vocaloid made by Internet Co., Ltd., Gumi. An updated version of the game was released in 2015, first in Japan as Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai Deluxe, then in North America and Europe under the title of Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX.
Vocaloid 4
A Japanese Vocaloid voiced by the Japanese voice actress Aimi Tanaka. She comes with a "sweet" type vocal called "SUGAR" and a "powerful" type called "SPICY".
Crypton Future Media
Due to the success of placing a character on the box art of Meiko, the concept was carried over to her successor Kaito and later Vocaloids to encourage creativity, however neither Vocaloid's box art originally had the intention to represent that Vocaloid. Though Meiko experienced good sales, Kaito was the only one who initially failed commercially, causing less demand for male voices for a while after Kaito's initial release. However, sales eventually picked up and Kaito later won the Nico Nico Douga second best seller award of 2008. Meiko and Kaito are reported to be in discussion for an update. Several updated vocal expressions have already been recorded for Kaito.
In April 2011, it was confirmed six vocal expressions had been recorded for Kaito, two of which were dropped and the remaining four were being brought forward with one having reached alpha stage already. The Character Vocal (Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin/Len and Megurine Luka) series Appends had been created from vocal performances of their voice providers, however the new Kaito Appends were created by adding echo, force and tension to the samples.
Vocaloid
During the events of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, a number of Vocaloid related donation drives were produced. Crypton Future Media joined several other companies in a donation drive, with money spent on the sales of music from Crypton Future Media's KarenT label being donated to the Japanese Red Cross. In addition, a special Nendoroid of Hatsune Miku, Nendoroid Hatsune Miku: Support ver., was announced with a donation of 1,000 yen per sale to the Japanese Red Cross.
Miku (footballer)
Celtic
Vocaloid Keyboard
In December a special event was held in which the first major appearance of the Vocaloid Keyboard was used. In the event a green version was shown with the Megpoid vocal used as the voice within the instrument. At the "Think MIDI 2015" event, a demo of the keyboard was seen. Later in December, a purple Yuzuki Yukari version began development.
Megpoid
By 2010, Gumi's popularity was on par with Crypton Future Media's Vocaloids and had out sold her predecessor Camui Gackpo, becoming the most popular and well known non-Crypton Vocaloid. In 2011, her usage grew and in a number of weeks she would have even more songs in the top 100 rankings than some of the Crypton Future Media vocalists. In January 2015, a popularity poll was released, confirming Gumi was the second most popular Vocaloid of 2015 on Niconico.
Crypton Future Media
Also under the Piapro brand is Crypton's Piapro Studio, a Vocaloid vocal editor implemented as a VST/AU plugin bundled with all of their full V3 Vocaloid products (Miku V3, Miku V3 English, Miku V3 Bundle, Meiko V3, Kaito V3). This allows for full vocal editing functionality nearly identical in feature support to Yamaha's full Vocaloid 3 Editor software, which is available as either a standalone application or a plugin for Cubase. All Vocaloid 3 voice libraries include the Tiny Vocaloid 3 Editor for free, however this is quite severely limited in functionality compared to the full V3 editor, being limited to just 17 bars of output, along with some other limitations - serving mainly as a beginner's taste of Vocaloid editing or a way to easily test out a new vocal library. Piapro Studio was created to allow owners of Crypton's V3 products to have a fully featured vocal editor with a modernized and streamlined interface bundled free of charge. It also allows for the loading of 3rd-party, non-Crypton Vocaloid 3 voicebanks - as well as V2's that have been imported into the full V3 editor beforehand. Being a VST plugin, it allows the user to operate entirely within their DAW of choice, in contrast to the tiny or full V3 editors which are standalone applications and the user must export a wav to import into their DAW each time a change or update is needed - or export an updated wav file from their DAW as the background music to import into the V3 editor. This integration of the vocal editing within the DAW as a VST instrument plugin allows for convenient editing and a smoother workflow. Currently Piapro Studio is lacking some features of the full V3 editor, but most of these are not needed to work with the vocal composition and tuning of the Vocaloid, instead currently some convenience and expansion features such as WAV import and Vocaloid 3's Job Plugins (a scripting system), are absent from Piapro Studio. Crypton has however has mentioned they would like to implement something similar to Job Plugins at some point in the future. Piapro Studio is also regularly updated every few months with new features and bug fixes. Vocaloid 3 Editor updates appear much less frequently, generally only around the time of release of a new Vocaloid. Piapro Studio also features some Piapro social designed singer icons and vocal preview samples, added in an update in the Summer of 2014.
Utau
Though the software is very popular in Japan, its origins and cultural impact are owed to the already established popularity of the Vocaloid software. UTAU itself was first made famous when the creator of Kasane Teto released the character posing as a Vocaloid character as part of an April Fool's joke in 2008. The influence of the Vocaloid software also led to both programs commonly being used side by side. Often popular UTAU mascots like Kasane Teto appear in VOCALOID-based media such as "Maker Hikōshiki Hatsune Mix".
Holography
Crypton Future Media, a music software company that produced Hatsune Miku, one of many Vocaloid singing synthesizer applications, has produced concerts that have Miku, along with other Crypton Vocaloids, performing on stage as "holographic" characters. These concerts use rear projection onto a semi-transparent DILAD screen to achieve its "holographic" effect.
SeeU
SeeU () is a female Korean vocal created for the Vocaloid 3 software by SBS A&T (formerly SBS Artech) and was the only Korean vocal released for that version of the software. As well as a Korean vocal, she possessed a Japanese vocal. The voice behind her is Dahee Kim from the band GLAM.
Exit Tunes, Inc.
The company's label Exit Tunes was responsible for the release of the trance album series "Exit Trance". Exit Tunes has also released albums featuring Vocaloid music. In 2010, the compilation album "Exit Tunes Presents Vocalogenesis feat. Hatsune Miku" topped Japan's Oricon weekly album charts, becoming the first Vocaloid album to top the charts in its history. The following released album, "Exit Tunes Presents Vocalonexus feat. Hatsune Miku", became the second Vocaloid album to top the weekly charts in January 2011.
SF-A2 Miki
Her design was unique among the VOCALOIDs. She had no references to YAMAHA based musical instruments like other VOCALOIDs and was designed to look cybernetic, giving her a more sci-fi look than most other Vocaloids at the time. According to information that came from the 2012 redesign, miki was designed to look like she was made out of an inorganic material and was conceptualized as an android. Her body is designed to look like that of a child, but also give her the overall appearance of a young teenage female. Though she is an android, she is covered in muscles made from various materials such as carbon nanotubes, but were made loose to give a mild deformed look about them. Having an immature-looking body allowed her to appear younger than she looks, similar to how Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Rin could do the same.
Vocaloid
Despite its growing popularity as a franchise, by December 2015, Vocaloid was still struggling to make an impact in the west; Hatsune Miku also did not make as much of an impact. Concerns were mostly focused on Vocaloid itself at this point. It was also reported that more Japanese companies were growing protective of their properties, with "", which was released at the time, being the center of one such conflict of copyright interest. The market for such games was described as a "niche audience in the west".
Kentaro Miura
Miura provided the design for the Vocaloid Kamui Gakupo, whose voice is taken from the Japanese singer and actor Gackt.
Vocaloid
Though developed by Yamaha, the marketing of each Vocaloid is left to the respective studios. Yamaha themselves do maintain a degree of promotional efforts in the actual Vocaloid software, as seen when the humanoid robot model HRP-4C of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) was set up to react to three Vocaloids—Hatsune Miku, Megpoid and Crypton's noncommercial Vocaloid software "CV-4Cβ"—as part of promotions for both Yamaha and AIST at CEATEC in 2009. The prototype voice CV-4Cβ was created by sampling a Japanese voice actress, Eriko Nakamura.
Virtual band
The members of virtual groups are depicted as animated characters, with their own personality, voice, history, and playing style. For example, Alvin, the leader of the Chipmunks, is considered mischievous, and Skeleton Staff's Guitarist Stanton is a party-going underachiever, furthermore, Freen in Green's bassist Sparky is sluggish and has been described as egotistical and pretentious, while Murdoc of Gorillaz is a middle-aged satanic bass player. Another example is Hatsune Miku who does not have a definite personality; because her way of being depends on the fans, her personality changes in each song made by the users of Vocaloid.
Never Give Up!
Kanou and Riku
Miku (footballer)
Bengaluru
Hatsune Miku
Crypton released Hatsune Miku on August 31, 2007. Crypton had the idea to release Miku as "an android diva in the near-future world where songs are lost." Hatsune Miku was released for Vocaloid 3 on August 31, 2013, including an English vocal library. She was the first Vocaloid to be developed by the company, following their commercial release handle of Yamaha Corporation developed vocals "Meiko" and "Kaito", making her the third Vocaloid to be sold commercially by the company.
V Flower
The Vocaloid is a female vocal with a powerful, androgynous voice designed to specialize in rock music. v flower has some distinctive traits within the vocal not found in many past VOCALOIDs. The vocal allows her to have the reserved female tone needed for slow rock songs yet have the heavy sound needed for faster and more upbeat rock. She debuted in HoneyWorks' song "Inokori Sensei," which was uploaded on April 17, 2014.
Wagakki Band
A video for the first song recorded by all eight current members of Wagakki Band, "Six Trillion Years and Overnight Story" (六兆年と一夜物語), was released in April 2013. In August of that year they played their first live concert at Nico Nico Music Master 2. The music video for "Tengaku" (天樂) was released in October 2013; this video marked the first time guitarist Machiya revealed his face. They then performed at the 10th Tokyo International Music Market (TIMM) for three nights in October. At THE VOC@LOID M@STER 27, a Vocaloid convention in November 2013, the band released "Joshou" (序章), a mini album featuring Vocaloid covers.
Vocaloid 2
Megurine Luka was the third and final member of the Character Voice series. She was noteworthy for being the first vocal capable of both English and Japanese speech. She was released on January 30, 2009, and was codenamed "CV03" prior to release. Her English vocal initially did not have a full library and was capable of only 2,200 words, though she was later updated to fix the problem. It is notable that her package was originally going to be called "Hatsune Miku", designed when Vocaloid 2 was first announced to be a bilingual English and Japanese vocal, being the first planned member of the Character Voice series. Her provider is Yū Asakawa.
Out Run
"Magical Sound Shower", one of the game's songs, was given official lyrics that were sung by the virtual-diva Vocaloid Hatsune Miku. The song was featured in the games "" and "Miku Flick". The game "Crackin' DJ" features a slowed-down remix of the song as its bonus stage.
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F
The game appeared at Sony's E3 2012 booth in June 2012 under the name "Hatsune Miku" so as to gauge interest for the game. Like the original the game primarily makes use of Vocaloids, a series of singing synthesizer software, and the songs created using these vocaloids, most notably the virtual-diva Hatsune Miku. "Project DIVA F" is the first game in the series to be multi-platform, with it being developed simultaneously for the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 3, though there is some differences with regards to control schemes. A sequel, titled "", was released for PS3 and Vita on March 27, 2014 in Japan and released in November 2014 in North America and Europe.
Minoru Miki
From 1992 with "Wakahime", Miki turned to a pan-Asian perspective, incorporating music and instruments from a number of Asian countries in his compositions and collaborating with a number of Asian artists. Some of Miki's operas from then on – and notably "Wakahime" and "Aien" – also increasingly tend to deal with episodes of Japan's presence and interaction with its Asian neighbouring countries, often incorporating the use on stage and within the plot of such countries' traditional instruments.
Vocaloid 3
Throughout pre-Vocaloid 3 release promotions, SBS stood by a claim that you can recreate English with SeeU's Korean voicebank, and in Dec 2011 even went so far to say SeeU is actually "trilingual", although the comment seemed odd as SeeU had only two voicebanks. In Feb 2012 they stated that they were working on a full English voicebank. In August 2012, SBS reported that the recordings for the voicebank had been completed and was now going through a tuning process. Her English VB will be similar to an append and her design slightly adjusted. On February 4, 2013, in response to a Korean fan's question about the progress of English Voicebank, SBS posted a reply that the development of English Voicebank is on hold. Due to Dahee being incarcerated in 2015, SeeU English is not expected for a long time.
Nyan Cat
The original version of the song "Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!" was uploaded by user "daniwell" to the Japanese video site Niconico on July 25, 2010. The song features the Vocaloid Hatsune Miku. The Japanese word "nya" is onomatopoeic, imitating the call of a cat (equivalent to English "meow").
Vocaloid 3
Hatsune Miku had two releases for the Vocaloid 3 software. The first was a new English vocal released on August 31, 2013. The second release was an update on the Vocaloid 2 vocal, it contained 5 vocals, 4 of which were updated versions of 4 of the 6 Hatsune Miku append package vocals ("sweet", "dark", "solid", "soft"). There were two versions of the software released, one with and one without the English version included. It was released on September 26, 2013. Like Kaito before her, she also came with Piapro Studio.
The missing vocals from the Append package ("light" and "vivid") were originally offered for free as part of an early promo for those who had the Vocaloid 2 version and the Vocaloid 3 version of the Hatsune Miku vocals. They were later sold separately on the Japanese version of the on-line store Sonicwire.
Takuu language
Takuu has eleven consonants: f, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, and h. Moyle states that the consonants containing stops consist of the letters, p, t and k. The consonants named fricatives are, f/v, s and h. The nasal consonants are m and n, the lateral consonant is, l, and the approximant is r. The labial consonants consist of p, f/v and m. The apical consonants consist of, t, s, n, l and r. The velar consonant is k and the glottal is h (Moyle 2011). According to Moyle, “there is a length distinction in the vowels and between single and geminate consonants that is phonemic and important for correct pronunciation.” Moyle states that these distinctions affect not only the vowel length but also the stress patterns when saying different words. Moyle says that very often will you find people who pronounce the same words with a vowel between those consonants. There are also expanded forms of different words when used in songs.
Microsoft Theater
Vocaloid character Hatsune Miku made her U.S. debut at the Microsoft Theater on July 2, 2011, as part of Anime Expo. She returned to the venue on October 11–12, 2014 as part of Miku Expo LA 2014. Both concerts were sold out. Hatsune Miku returned for another performance on May 6, 2016, as part of her first North American tour. She once again returned to the Microsoft Theater as part of her second tour of North America on June 29th, 2018. The 28th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions were held at the Microsoft Theater on April 18, 2013.
Kagamine Rin/Len
They received mixed results from producers because compared to Hatsune Miku, they were considered much harder vocals to use. Asami Shimoda noted that she often received comments from Vocaloid fans that Rin's voice echoes within their head and makes them feel dizzy, while Len's higher ranges were not favored by those not fond of the pair entirely.
Shin-ichiro Miki
As well as voicing Kojirō in the Japanese language version of "Pokémon", Miki, like most of the Japanese voice actors, including Mika Kanai, Satomi Kōrogi, and Unshō Ishizuka, also appears in the Japanese and English language versions, where he plays Misty's Staryu, Brock's Zubat/Golbat/Crobat, and also Ash's Charizard.
Troll (EP)
Hatsune Miku is used as a vocalist on several tracks, notably being the first time Ferraro's music has had strictly female vocals.
Exist Trace
In 2013, Exist Trace introduced their 'new world' musical direction, where long-time main lyricist/composer miko would officially be taking a dual-vocal position with Jyou. The twin vocal style was emphasized on 2013's single "Diamond". In 2014's "Spiral Daisakusen", the pair again share front billing and the center spot on the music video. The first album to fully incorporate the twin vocal style, "World Maker" (2014), revealed an improved duet system, where vocals are typically heavier towards Jyou in allocation, but making good use of miko's sweeter counterbalance. After an album gap of 1.5 years, the band released the "This Is Now" mini-album, an energetic offering with more of a metal feel than previous releases (including a return to growling from Jyou and backup snarls from Omi and Naoto), as well as re-recorded versions of the singles "Twin Wings" and "Shout Out". In Japan, the EP sold out within a day, across such stores as ZEAL LINK, Disk Union and BRAND-X.
Michou (band)
Michou was started by singer-songwriter Mike Hargreaves as a solo project. In 2007 he joined multi-instrumentalist Ryan Ard, keyboardist/trumpeter Sasha Appler, bassist Ryan Frith and drummer Stefan Cvetkovic to create a full band. Michou's first release was 2007's EP, Medea. Their first studio album Myshkin was released 2008 in Canada, and produced a music video for the single "Control" that was aired on MuchMusic and MTV.
Hatsune Miku
Nico Nico Douga, a Japanese website similar to YouTube, played a fundamental role in the recognition and popularity of the software. Soon after Miku's release, Nico Nico Douga users started posting videos of songs created using her sound bank. According to Crypton, a popular video featuring Miku's super-deformed alter ego Hachune Miku singing and dancing to "Ievan Polkka" while spinning a Welsh onion in homage to Loituma Girl's original video (which led to Miku also being commonly associated with spring onions) demonstrated the potential of the software in multimedia content creation. As Miku's recognition and popularity grew, Nico Nico Douga became a place for collaborative content creation. Popular original songs written by a user would inspire illustrations, animations in 2D and 3D, and remixes by other users. Some creators would show their unfinished work and ask for ideas.
Metal Fighter Miku
In the year 2061 A.D., Neo Pro-Wrestling, a form of wrestling that allows for armour and other enhancements, is rapidly growing in popularity. In this, Miku, a young flighty girl is set to join her friends as the tag team known as the Pretty Four. However, the competition is fierce and their opponents are ready to do whatever it takes to win. Against this, the Four manage to obtain the services of an eccentric coach who trained their hero, Aquamarine. With his guidance, the four start on their fight for the top as they must train within almost inhuman discipline while their matches become more and more challenging as their opponents rise in the ranks.
Mimikyu
Mimikyu is a small Pokémon, standing at eight inches tall, and is hidden almost entirely underneath a disguise. It has beady black eyes which can be seen through its disguise, and a vague semblance of a foot or lower body can be seen at the hem of its disguise. It will occasionally extend a black appendage from beneath the disguise, which has black eyes, red cheeks, a squiggly black mouth, a lightning bolt-shaped stick that resembles a tail, and ears that are colored black on the top. According to the official Pokémon website, Mimikyu is "dreadfully lonely", and in an effort to emulate the popularity of Pikachu, wears the Pikachu-like costume in order to make friends. Mimikyu is drawn to dark or dimly lit areas, and its health will decline if exposed to sunlight.
MikuMikuDance
The software was released as freeware. The models of the Vocaloid mascot series provided with the software are subject to the PiaPro Character License, and are not allowed to be used without permission for commercial reasons. Although the software is distributed freely, models released independently of the software may not be — original produced models, motion data, and landscapes may be subject to their creator's own rules. The program does not standardly include all of the Vocaloid characters, but it includes Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin, Kagamine Len, Kaito, Meiko, and Megurine Luka; and although Yowane Haku and Akita Neru are not official Vocaloids, they became so popular that Crypton officially licensed and added them to .
Spica
Spica is a Vocaloid song sung by Hatsune Miku.