Vocaloid

Vocaloid
Developer	Yamaha
Publisher	Yamaha
Platforms	iOS, macOS, Windows
Released	January 15, 2004
Added to Museum	Not yet

Vocaloid is singing synthesizer software created by Yamaha.

Several voicebanks were released to create songs using the Vocaloid software. The most well-known of these is Hatsune Miku by Crypton Future Media.

History

Vocaloid began development with a team led by Kenmochi Hideki at Pompeu Fabra University in Spain in March 2000. Yamaha revealed the Vocaloid software at the Musikmesse fair in Germany, which was held from March 5 to March 9, 2003.

On July 24, 2003, the first album that contained a song with Vocaloid voicebanks, History of Logic System by Hideki Matsutake, was released. The song, "Ano Subarashii Ai Mou Ichido" (あの素晴らしい愛をもう一度, "Let Me Feel That Splendid Love Once More") was created using prototypes of the Kaito and Meiko voicebanks.

The working title of Vocaloid was Daisy, after the song "Daisy Bell", which has been used in computer voice synthesis since Bell Labs programmed an IBM 7094 to sing the song in 1964. To avoid copyright issues, the title Vocaloid was used when the software was released.

Versions

Vocaloid

The original version of the Vocaloid engine was 1.0, which was released on January 15, 2004. It could create songs in both English and Japanese. The first Vocaloids released were the male Vocaloid Leon and the female Vocaloid Lola, which had English voicebanks created by unrevealed vocalists. Zero-G released them on March 3, 2004, and they were marketed as virtual soul vocalists. Zero-G also released a female Vocaloid named Miriam, with an English voicebank provided by Miriam Stockley, in July 2004.

An updated version of the Vocaloid software, 1.1, was released in June 2005.

The first two Japanese voicebanks were the female Vocaloids Meiko and the male Vocaloid Kaito, which were both created by Yamaha and were marketed by Crypton Future Media. Meiko, with a voice bank provided by Haigō Meiko, was released on November 5, 2004. Kaito, with a voice bank provided by Naoto Fūga, was released on February 17, 2006.