Randomness Thing

I find that this disgustingly adorable image will suffice for an opener. Especially seeing as how it showcases the most popular 5 Vocaloids. But on to the facts.

Vocaloid and Vocaloid2 are voice synthesizing programs, primarily in Japanese, released by Yamaha sometimes in 2004. The original 4 feature 3 English voices and 1 Japanese voices that were taken from other singers. The most well known of these is Meiko. The other three were named Leon, Lola, and Miriam who were released from Zero-G Limited. I’ve never heard them myself though they were featured in the original release.

In 2007 Yamaha announced development of Vocaloid2 which featured greater usability and synthesizer quality. Zero-G and others announced other products based on the Vocaloid2 engine and PowerFX released an English package some time later by the name of Sweet Ann. Crypton announced a release of several more voices, the first one being the ever popular pop sensation Hatsune Miku, and the second one being Rin and Len Kagamine. A third one was released a short while later of another male by the name of Gakupo Kamui that utilized the voice of J-Rock singer Gackt. Another one named Prima (English) was released later on in 2008, as was Kaito.

There was several others that have been recently released, such as Kaai Yuki, Miki, and a few others, and others are still in the process of being worked on and released.

Other popular Vocaloids include Megurine Luka, Gumi, and others.

Theres was also a fan series released called VOYAKILOID, which was dedicated to people who had difficulties using the Vocaloid program and made some horrible sounding tracks. Popular VOYAKILOIDS, who are deemed as failures and have no real voice, are Yowane Haku (my personal favorite), Dell Honne (who is Haku’s male half, but is depicted as her older brother), and Guma (who is a failed verson of Gumi). All VOYAKILOIDS have gray or silver hair and are based off of other Vocaloids that people had trouble using. Haku is a failed Miku, for example.

There’s another category of Vocaloids called Utauloids, which are completely fan made. The two most popular are are Kasane Teto and Akita Neru. The only one to be given an official voice is Teto, who is actually 30 years old, but because she is a “chimera” she is only 15. Others include Defoko, Momone Momo, and Yokune Ruko. I don’t believe the rest of them have been given voices.

Some bands or groups have actually used the Vocaloid program for commercial usage. Possibly the most popular of these is a group by the name of Supercell. They’ve done such works for some popular animes, mostly Bakemonogatari, which they actually did the main themes for. Their leader or composer, whichever, is a person by the name of Ryo who, in my opinion, is a modern musical genius. I’ll do another post involving him later.

Because this post was so long and drawn out I figured I’d gift you with another fancy image. I couldn’t afford to leave much of anything out and even then I didn’t include nearly everything. A lot of effort went into this. But, here you go:

Tomorrow will be the ever popular Hatsune Miku and her variants.