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Friend of the blog, José Lastras, also known as MasterVocaloid or Giuseppe-P has recorded and sequenced a new Vocaloid prototype named “Lucía”. Describing her as “sweet” and “pretty” he released a this playlist to showcase the voicebank’s capabilities. For art end he commissioned two character design concepts from artists Aki Glancy and Riisago respectively.

In the Facebook announcement revealing the project he said he has been in contact with the various companies that are licensed to publish voicebanks (Power-FX, Zero-G, and VoctroLabs) but for the moment they didn’t seem interested in selling it at the moment with Yamaha’s licencing costs being cited as the main limiting factor.

He is asking for feedback and for fans to help spread the word about “Lucía”. Hopefully in the future we will see this Vocaloid on sale. You can read and comment on the full release @ Giuseppe-Ps original Spanish-language Facebook post.

Source: Vocaloid Lucía Created, MasterVocaloid Seeking Publisher

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As a followup to nostraightanswer (Kenji-B)’s YouTube reveal covered in New Zero-G Vocaloid 4 “Dex” and “Daina” Revealed in Live Stream & Convention Panel AkiGlancy took to livestream to take questions from the community regarding Zero-G’s upcoming Vocaloid 4.

For those of you that missed it, or arrived in time but did not make it before the room capped out at 50 viewers, don't worry Engloids.Info has you covered.

Table of Contents

The Introduction

Kemonomimi Story

Their Current State

Release & Yamaha Approval

A Look Behind the Curtain

Couldn’t Be Answered

Tidbits Not Yet Covered

TL;DR – Things to Take Away

Editors Note: This is a ‘summary’ of a +2.5 hour event. This post is quite long as a lot was discussed, but I believe I covered all the important parts. This report is not chronological, related details have been condensed into common headings.

Continue reading “AkiGlancy’s Dex and Daina Livestream Summary & Recap” »

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The new Zero-G Vocaloid 4s “Dex” and “Daina” had their global reveal in a simultaneous live stream and convention panel. The panel was at Anime Mid Atlantic hosted by AkiGlancy (Empath-P) and the live stream on YouTube hosted by nostraightanswer (Kenji-B).

The official art, voicebank names, summer release date, and three demos were all debuted. While we were not able to attend the AMA panel hosted by Kenji-B we were able to attend the online YouTube livestream and noted the following details.

Continue reading “New Zero-G Vocaloid 4 “Dex” and “Daina” Revealed in Live Stream & Convention Panel, “Summer” Release Date Planned” »

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.MOE REGISTRY OPERATOR TO HOST “IDOLOID” VOCALOID & UTAU CONTEST

Interlink Co., Ltd., the registry operator for the “.moe” gTLD generic top-level domain is hosting an “Idoloid” contest for UTAU & Vocaloid voicebanks. With a grand prize of 200,000 JPY (approx $1,850 USD) and five runner up prizes of 10,000 JPY (approx $90 USD) the contest challenges users to create music for Moe-tan the domain registry’s mascot.

Interlink has provided three sets of pre-written lyrics for entrants to write their music around with Lyric A being titled “0.2mm no kyoukaisen”, Lyric B as “dot moe”, and the shortest Lyric C being “rairuto nijito moerusekai”. An important thing of note is that all entries must be made with either a Vocaloid, UTAU, or other similar synthesizer vocal.

Continue reading “.Moe Registry Operator to Host "Idoloid" Vocaloid & UTAU Contest” »

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With the new year around the corner and new Vocaloid 3s on the horizon I am sad to announce that Zero-G will officially be discontinuing all VOCALOID, first generation Vocaloid 1s. The English LEON, LOLA, and MIRIAM from Zero-G will no longer be available for download purchase after December 31, 2013 with physical copies limited to whatever quantity already in stock.

In an email statement sent to customers who have purchased Vocaloid products from their Download Store Zero-G stated the following:

Until the end of December 2013, you can still buy any of the three Vocaloid 1 download products LEON, LOLA and MIRIAM. However, on 1 January they will finally be ‘retired’ to that great Vocaloid playground in the sky…

Unlike the Vocaloid 2 products Prima Sonika and Tonio, or the Vocaloid 3 product Avanna, these Vocaloid 1 products Leon Lola and Miriam only support Windows XP officially, though many users have reported they do work well on Windows 7.

This announcement coincides with the recent Microsoft notice that they will be discontinuing support for Windows XP, the only OS officially supported by VOCALOID. After 10 years of VOCALOID I doubt this is the last we will see of LEON, LOLA, or MIRIAM. Producers who have them will still be able to use the software but new purchases going forward will be impossible.

LEON @ Zero-G Download Shop

LOLA @ Zero-G Download Shop

MIRIAM @ Zero-G Download Shop

Fear not however as along with the discontinuation notice Zero-G is also putting them on sale at 60% off with all V1 downloads being priced at $39.99. Get them while you still can! The full Zero-G notification is embedded after the break.

Continue reading “English VOCALOID to be Discontinued, Zero-G Last Chance Sale” »

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Vocaloid: Discovery Interactive

Convention: Anime Los Angeles Date: Saturday, January 11, 2014 Location: Room LP4 (MARQUIS III) Time: 11:45AM – 12:15PM Synopsis: Vocaloid Discovery Interactive is a two-part panel on Vocaloid and other ‘singthesisers’. In ‘Discovery’ we will explore the history of vocal synthesizers, overview some of the ones out today, before finally doing an in-depth analysis of the Vocaloid software in particular. We will demonstrate how the software works, introduce common workflows of a producer, before finally taking a look at Vocaloid’s applications, possibilities, and future. In ‘Interactive’ producer Kodakami will ask you to apply some of the lessons learned earlier in the panel to help him create a song. Koda-P will demonstrate the entire (abridged) workflow of Vocaloid song creation and you can be with him from beginning to end as we create music together!

Engloids.Info is proud to announce our very first Vocaloid panel/workshop. We covered Anime Los Angeles extensively back in 2012 when VocalektVisions held Vocaloid concert there that featured the Engloid Sweet Ann. I also did a writeup (complete with video) on the year’s Vocaloid panel Vocaloid: The Fan Phenomenon. Sadly, last year’s Vocaloid panel was sadly lackluster and, though we enjoyed the con very much, there wasn’t much relevant to the blog worth reporting.

After the poor Vocaloid showing last year, and having attending the “How to Host a Panel” Panel giving tips on how you too could host your own panel at a convention fellow Engloids.Info staffer and Vocaloid producer Koda-P and I decided that we should host one of our own but instead of examining Vocaloid as a ‘Fan Phenomenon’ take a look at it from a producer’s perspective, and provide some unique insight not only on Vocaloid’s history and culture, but also the software, how it works, and maybe even a sneak peek at a producers workflow.

Too make sure that the audience doesn’t get bored, and to make sure they were paying attention during the first part of the presentation we decided to make the panel “interactive” and invite the audience to take part and see their input being applied to the production of a Vocaloid original, live on stage. We got quite the panel lined up for you all and we hope to see you all there. If not hopefully we can get some video to share with all you that couldn’t make it.

Speaking of ‘making it’ if you are interested in attending Anime Los Angeles and seeing our panel the convention is January 10-12 2014 at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott. The convention is limited to 4,000 badges this year and as of December 25, 2013 (11:25pm) there are only only 575 spots left. If you are interested in attending check out the Registration Page for latest updates on badges and availability.

Anime Los Angeles Registration

Convention Pocket Program Guide

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From the staff here at Engloids.Info season greetings! We are proud to spread the good tidings with news of a new holiday themed Vocaloid & UTAU album titled “Synthetic Yuletide” featuring (but is not limited to) Prima, Tonio, Oliver, and Avanna. All in all the album features some 20+ vocal singthesizers from the likes of Hatsune Miku & Gumi to UTAU like Ritsu Namine & VIBE.

This is the collab group’s first release with ☆ASDR☆, AssembleSynthesizeDirectRelay, with many of its members being familiar to anyone following the Western singthesizer scene. The album includes the following songs and producers:

Track List

GuitarHeroPianoZero – Christmas Spirit 04:28

~mw~ – Coventry Carol (Arrangement) 01:55

aval!a – Song of the Winter Snow 02:58

9etH – It’s That Time 04:03

Fko – Ma’oz Tzur (Arrangement) 01:52

VocaPeach – Electro Santa 05:34

~mw~ – Il est né le divin enfant (Arrangement) 03:22

LukeCat – The Twelve Days of Synthmas (Parody Cover) 03:44

baggagelizard – Miku Miku Kurisimasu 03:50

nostraightanswer (Kenji-B) – Wintertime Passing 04:28

Gra-P – By Your Side 03:17

nostraightanswer (Kenji-B) – Warmth -Outro- 00:53

The album is for free on Bandcamp under the name your price model where listeners can listen to the album in its entirety online, with downloads available at any price, including free.

Album Official Website Download @ Bandcamp

For free download instructions and the official press release ‘continue reading’ after the jump.

Continue reading “Vocaloid & UTAU Holiday Themed Collab Album Releases” »

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Synthesized Reality Productions covered previously in Fan Group Seeks to Crowdfund Convention Concert reached their funding goal with more than 2 weeks left on their campaign.

With their Kickstarter fully funded and their much needed projector now secured, the details for their upcoming Los Angeles concert have been release and tickets are now available. Space at the concert hall is limited so seating will be reserved and tickets, though free, will be required and seats are going fast.

SRP’s Kickstarter still has more than two weeks left on their project. Tickets to the concert are free but if you would like to support their efforts stretch goals on their campaign include an improved projector, and additional stage gear including lighting and sound equipment. Check out their campaign page for more on their goals and rewards tiers.

Beyond opening event registration Pacific Media Expo also released the event program detailing the full track listing what we can expect to see as part of SRP’s upcoming show. It includes songs licenced from producers like Mitchie M, Daniwell, GaGain, Seibin JesusP, kagomeP, FeiP, and Vocalekt Visions featuring the likes of Gumi, Miku, SeeU, Lily, CUL, Rin and Len.

PMX Registration

Concert Event Page

Kickstarter Campaign

Synthesized Reality Productions

The program’s full track listing is available after the jump.

Continue reading “Pacific Media Expo Concert Detailed, Tickets Available Now!” »

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A fan group calling themselves Synthesized Reality Productions (SRP) has launched a Kickstarter in hopes to crowdfund an upcoming convention concert at Pacific Media Expo in Los Angles, California this coming November. They are backed by Internet Co. with their official GUMI from Megpoid giving them an official endorsement earlier today.

Members of SRP include staff from the Vocalekt Visions 3D Concert Group, whose 2012 concert tour included fan concerts at Anime Los Angles, Pacific Media Expo, and Anime on Display. Previous concerts were held using rental gear which were challenging for both the concert staff, who is unable to practice, test, and optimize for the hardware they will be using, and the conventions that host them, many lacking hardware themselves.

This Kickstarter follows an unsuccessful bid earlier in the year to raise $50,000 for a full professional setup that included new projectors, screens, and light rigging. SRP seems to have lowered the bar from Vocalekt’s first attempt and set their primary goal as a new projector, with the rest of the equipment and associated costs being relegated to stretch goals.

Rewards tiers include social media shoutouts, phone charms of the group’s mascot, and of course DVDs of the concert. Additional rewards tier include CDs and/or artwork from the likes of MystSaphyr, NeutrinoP, Wolf Neve, and EmpathP, Avanna’s designer and producer of Fables of Farewell.

The highest tiers include all of the above as well as original song commissions where you can help craft a song to be featured in the concert. Check out the Kickstarter page for full details.

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Kodakami's Review of Yohioloid

So, the time has finally come! VocaTone’s second Vocaloid voicebank, Yohioloid, is released to much applause. Personally, I feel it’s a major milestone for the Western community, because this is the first bilingual English/Japanese voicebank to have both very good quality English and Japanese. While his English is indeed accented (Swedish-Japanese I think?), the voicebank still lends itself remarkably to small tweaks and tricks to achieve respectable results. All in all, I’m very happy to have gotten to work with the voicebank and even contribute a few (very small) suggestions.

“Pros and cons”, you ask? I only got to play with his English bank, so I commentary is limited to half of the package.

On the downside, as I mentioned, ‘Hio is clearly not a native English speaker. The good news is, with only a few vowel replacements, I was surprised to hear a big difference. I’d rank his receptiveness to phoneme-tweaking on the same level as Big Al’s or Avanna’s. With such an easy-to-fix problem as number one, I think it speaks volumes for this quality voicebank.

As for the second disadvantage, along the same lines, some of his English phonemes don’t play nicely together. I noticed “eI and “N” (“ang”) don’t have a smooth transition, which is a fairly common combination in American accents. I substitute “e N” (a more British or perhaps non-regional version), but it’s not quite what I want. In the end though, I did manage to quickly find an alternative phoneme combination, so I suppose it’s not that big an issue.

Somewhere in the middle of a pro and a con is the formant in his voice. For you non-music-speakers, that’s the same as Vocaloid Editor’s “gender” value. While ‘Hio sounds distinctly male in his natural pitch-range, once you get above a certain point on the piano roll his voice takes on a more feminine tone until it’s hard to hear him as the same singer anymore. This could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your preferences, but I find it not so much a “good” or “bad” thing as just a “thing”.

On the other end of the discussion, I think ‘Hio’s voice is great in a wide variety of musical genres. Because of his higher range, he’s great at sailing over the top of the sea of thick musical textures you might find in trance or in metal. As a producer, I like writing songs where the instrumental lines can be enjoyed even without the singer, which often makes it difficult to add a singer on top of them. I don’t have this problem at all when mixing Yohioloid in, and I’d call that a definite plus.

As a final compliment to this product, I’d like to refer back to my first point: Yohioloid is one of only a few bilingual Vocaloids on the market today. More than anything else, I appreciate the opportunities this provides for more cross-over between those Vocaloid producers who write in Japanese, and those who write in English. It’s a great chance to try writing music in a different language, without the investment of buying a different voicebank that you might end up regretting. In plain English that means you’d be buying two separate, remarkable voicebanks for the price of a single, modestly-priced one.

To put it all together, Yohioloid ended up surprising me. When I expected a bilingual voicebank to have low-quality English, VocaTone delivered a respectable musical instrument that I’d be glad to add to my growing collection. While I don’t think this particular Vocaloid will be the one to bring balance to the Force, nor the Vocaloid movement to the West, I do think that it has the great potential to turn the world’s (and even the kuudere Japanese community’s) glance in our direction.

This post original appeared on "Kodakami's Review of Yohioloid" on Engloids.Info. For additional Yohioloid coverage click here.

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The wait is finally over! For those that have been waiting for it PowerFX/VocaTone’s newest bi-lingual Vocaloid is finally released. Right Hio can only be purchased as a digital downloads but Bil Bryant of PowerFX assures us that the physical DVD edition should be in stock for international shipping some time next week.

Yohioloid’s bi-lingual nature hasn’t seemed to have affected his pricing with his digital download price comparable to Oliver on release at $129. The physical edition is expect to be priced at $149, but no word as of yet if an Yohioloid + Editor DVD combo pack will be made available. For those interested in just the DVD of the Vocaloid 3 Editor it is available for purchase here.

Purchase Yohioloid Digital Download – $129 Retail Boxed – $149* * – Estimated price. Available late September.

The last batch of demos before his launch include Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me a River” as covered by Giuseppe and a Japanese demo of Kiroro’s “Mirai E” as covered by Alberto. You can find the two demos embedded after the break. Expect an in-depth column on Hio later this week as Kodakami gets some hands-on time with PowerFX’s latest Vocaloid.

Continue reading “Yohioloid on Sale Now! Additional Demos Debuted” »

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Hi! I’m Kodakami, and this is a Kolumn.

Looks like we have another Yohioloid demo, this time from the well-known and respected Giuseppe-P! If his credentials aren’t already established by the quality of his covers, then you’ll surely know him for being the first business card on every English Singthesis company’s Rolodex. It seems like every English voicebank earns a Giuseppe-P cover demo, and well they should. It’s legendary, Giuseppe’s ability to pick a song that precisely compliments a given singer’s voice, and then to bring it with finer execution than most Western cover-producers’ today.

This time around, we have Yohioloid (I’ll call him Hio) singing a cover of pop artist Robbie Williams’ single,  ”Bodies” from the album Reality Killed the Video Star. To me, the choice of this 2009 single is a breath of fresh air – both a relief from the endless EDM and modern Billboard Hot 100 titles that pervade the Engloid cover scene, and from the classical and folk songs that people often force on Vocaloid only to sound “different”. The choice of “Bodies” also impresses the producer in me for it’s bold goal of tackling a high-charting pop song that many Vocaloid fans might still not have heard (it charted highly in Europe, but not on Oricon).

Even with the bar set as that high, Giuseppe still manages to deliver. From its faithful, true-to-the-original mixing, to its use of the original harmony lines to fill out Vocaloid’s inherent weakness of vocal sterility, I feel like great care was put into the details here. After all, he wants to show us how passionate he really is about this new Engloid.

Now then, let’s talk about Yohioloid. Is he a good or bad voice? Should we really be calling him an “Engloid”, and not an “Engroid”? Since we can’t put him up to the Kit-Kat Challenge just yet, we can only figure based on demos as they are released. After hearing Hio’s cover of “Bodies”, I believe I can safely say I’m positive he’ll pass with flying colors. With this demo alone, I can confidently say that Yohioloid, while being more heavily accented than almost any other Engloid, has such fidelity of recordings as to be more understandable than almost any other Engloid. This suggests to me that, which a little tampering around and the discovery of a few new phoneme-workarounds, Hio might just be the answer to what the majority of the Western community has been crying out for: A Japanese-English bilingual voicebank.

I’m not here to sell a product, of course, but if you ask me “Would you buy Yohioloid and use him?”, I’d have to admit that, though I tend to be against heavily-accented banks, I would jump on a chance to have this bank.

I’d classify Hio as a high-risk-high-reward Vocaloid, not for people who are content with slapping a 4-year-old VSQ on a karaoke track and saying “I make good music”. No, I think Hio is for people who really do care about vocal quality and are willing to work hard to make something beautiful with the best-quality tools.

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Earlier today, Giuseppe-P, in association with VocaloidMaster and VocaTone, released a new demo with our first official look at Yohioloid’s English voicebank. The song is a cover of ‘Bodies’ by Robbie Williams.

In a commentary concerning the demo, Giuseppe states that he felt that Yohioloid had a lot in common with Robbie Williams’ style. He comments that both their voices are very versatile, and that finds the timbre of their voices very lovely.

He goes on to say that Yohioloid has some very similar qualities to Sweet Ann in that they both, when used properly, can be used for almost any kind of song. He states that his initial views changed radically after getting some hands-on time with the voicebank, asserting that it 'would be a great Vocaloid'.

Beyond that, Giuseppe comments on some of the technical aspects of the voicebank and its recording process. He shares how difficult it is to record a voicebank, and how some Vocaloid sometimes end with less-than-stellar results because of that.

He adds that Yohio seemed differently-recorded than any Vocaloid he has previously worked with, with samples of better quality than any Vocaloid (English or Japanese) that he has ever worked with before.

Giuseppe goes on to explain some of technical challenges he faced creating this particular demo and how he wanted it to sound as “natural and real as possible” before finally ending his message with the following teaser:

The voicebank is coming soon[™]. There are more demos on their way, with some due as soon as next week, and he can’t wait to see what his fellow Producers do with this amazing Vocaloid. Editors Note: This article is adapted from a Spanish language post made by Giuseppe that due to extenuating circumstances is no longer available. Some editorial licence has been made in this translation.

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In response to our previous article Yohio Vocaloid’s Art & Voice Samples Leak Bil Bryant, CEO of PowerFX Systems AB has released this statement concerning the Yohioloid.

In the statement he apologizes on how VocaTone has handled the contest, confirms that the vocal sample was indeed Yohioloid, albeit in an unfinished work-in-progress form, goes over how the winning art was selected, and talks about YOHIO’s latest happenings including how he recently placed second in the Melodifestivalen Eurovision song contest.

You can find Bil Bryan’t full statement here, as a response to the article we published, and quoted in full below after the jump...

Continue reading “PowerFX Responds, Statement from Bil Bryant” »

With this release we finally have some insight into how the contest was conducted, how the winners were selected, and what the root cause of the delays were. As stated in our original article Bil emphasized that all details are subject to change as Yohioloid is a Vocaloid still under active development.

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Before we begin let this be clear. Everything in the following news post are ‘leaked’ and come from un-official sources. After further investigation the Engloids.Info staff felt that the news was to groundbreaking as not to make public. So thus we share it with you under the caveat that everything you see and hear below are subject to change, as a public debut of Yohioloid has not yet been made.

For the uninformed “Yohioloid” is the upcoming Vocaloid from VocaTone/PowerFX said to be voiced by the Swedish born Kevin Johio Lucas Rehn Eires, but performing under the stage name ‘YOHIO’. The upcoming voice-bank is expected to be a bi-lingual with support for both English and Japanese. You can view our previous coverage on Yohioloid’s announcement at VocaTone/PowerFX’s Upcoming Bilingual Vocaloid Announed.

The Artwork

The Vocal Sample

Subject to Change

Continue reading “Yohio Vocaloid’s Art & Voice Samples Leak” »