Vocaloid Basics

By Bookworm2

What is Vocaloid?

• Vocaloid is a vocal synthesizer developed by the Yamaha corporation, as an alternative to paying by the hour for a human singer.
• Vocaloid started as a software for karaoke that would change your voice to sound like the original singer, but changed to true vocal synthesis due to the original idea requiring a recording for every song in the karaoke book.
• Vocaloid 1 was first released in 2004, but did not become well-known until Vocaloid 2. New versions are still being released to this day, with the most recent being Vocaloid 6 in 2022.

How do you use Vocaloid?

• Using Vocaloid (the basics) is very simple. First, using the pen tool, you draw out a section where you would like to place notes.
• Next, use the same pen tool to draw out notes on the piano roll for how long they should be and what note to be.
• Once the notes are on the piano roll, you click twice on a note to edit its lyrics or phonemes.
• Once finished, click the space bar or the play button at the top to start playback of the notes and words you just put in.
• To edit how the notes sound, you can use one of the parameters to fine tune things like dynamics, where the pitch is, and how clear the voice is.

Is Vocaloid A.I?

• For the most part, no. AI technology is not used in the creation of Vocaloid voicebanks nor the creation of songs.
• In Vocaloid 6, Vocaloid does use AI learning algorithms, but only for the purpose of making singing sound more realistic and offer support for otherwise unsupported languages.
• No generative AI is used in (almost) every vocal synthesizer currently on the market.

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Vocaloid Characters

• For marketing purposes, most Vocaloid voicebanks come with a character to represent the voice and appeal to many people.
• Not all voicebanks have one, however. The very first voicebanks, LEON, LOLA, and MIRIAM have no official character, and neither do VY1 or VY2.
• The most popular banks all have characters, such as Hatsune Miku or Kagamine Rin and Len.

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Signature Sounds

• Because of the many parameters that can be edited, most Vocaloids do not sound the same across different songs. For example, some producers like to pitch Miku higher for a more “cutesy” tone, while some prefer a lower pitched Miku for a more emotional sounding tone.
• Another example is how realistic it is. Some producers prefer the signature robotic sound of Vocaloid, and some like Vocaloids to sound extremely realistic and almost indistinguishable from human voices.
• Many producers also chose to heavily edit vocals so they barely sound like the original voice.

Terminology

• Voice Provider or VP: The person who record samples for the Vocaloid’s voice.
• Append: An extra voicebank that changes the tone of the voice, such as making it stronger or giving extra singable languages.
• Character Items: An item that represents a character, given by the fans. Has long since died out in terms of giving them, though.
• Engloid: Vocaloid that natively sings in English. Does not apply to other language Vocaloids with an English Append.
• V1, V2, V3 etc. Shorthand for “Vocaloid #”.

Crypton Future Media

What is Crypton Future Media?

• Crypton Future Media is the company that has produced the most popular Vocaloids: Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin and Len, Megurine Luka, MEIKO and KAITO.
• They are collectively known as “The Crypton Six” or “The Cryptonloids”

Hatsune Miku

• The most popular Vocaloid of all time, being the unofficial mascot of Vocaloid as a whole.
• Miku has a very cutesy and young sounding voice, designed to appeal to fans of anime and the culture surrounding it.
• Character Item: Green Spring Onion.
• Miku has a total of 27 voicebanks including repeats and appends, for V2, V3, V4, V6, and Piapro Studio NT.
• VP: Saki Fujita, a popular voice actress and singer
• Fun Fact: There was a collaboration between Domino’s Pizza and Miku in March of 2013, with a special app made for the collab.
• Most popular songs: Melt, Ghost Rule, and World is Mine, which was #3 on Japanese billboards for a few weeks.

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Vocaloid 2 (original)

Melt

Kagamine Rin

• Another cutesy young female voice, but Rin sounds younger than Miku, to appeal to those who want a young, sweet voice. Rin has a very strong power append, and it is used a lot.
• Rin is a twin vocal to Len, and they have the same VP, Asami Shimoda. Rin was created first, with Len coming later as a twin vocal. They are not officially twins, but many interpretate it as that.
• Rin and Len both technically have 2 V2 voicebanks. The first one, called Act 1, had severe issues with quality and was quickly replaced with Act 2.
• Character Item: Orange fruit
• Fun Fact: Rin’s official colour is orange, despite having yellow hair. Rin is the only Vocaloid to have this.
• Most popular songs: Meltdown, Tokyo Teddy Bear, and Daughter of Evil.

Vocaloid 2 (original)

Tokyo Teddy Bear

Kagamine Len

• Young preteen sounding vocal, with good range. Len does have some issues with low ranges, as his VP is not male. Len’s Power append is widely considered one of the easiest voicebanks for newcomers
• Len is a twin vocal to Rin, and they have the same VP, Asami Shimoda. twin vocal to Len, and they have the same VP, Asami Shimoda. Rin was created first, with Len coming later as a twin vocal. They are not officially twins, but many interpretate it as that.
• Rin and Len both technically have 2 V2 voicebanks. The first one, called Act 1, had severe issues with quality and was quickly replaced with Act 2.
• Fun Fact: Len’s character item is a banana, which comes from one song which is just about how much he loves bananas.
• Most popular songs: Butterfly on Your Right Shoulder, Plus Boy, and Servant of Evil

Vocaloid 2 (original)

Butterfly On Your Right Shoulder

Megurine Luka

• A mature sounding female vocal. Luka has a soft voice, very well suited for ballads and softer pop songs. She can sing in both English and Japanese well, as her VP is fluent in both languages. Both Luka V2 and V4x came with an English voicebank for no extra cost
• VP: Yu Akasawa
• Luka V4x had a different tone than V2, because for V2 it was more voice-acted and for V4x the focus was much more on accurately replicating Akasawa’s natural voice.
• Character Item: Tuna fish and Koshu wine
• Fun Fact: Luka is the first bilingual Vocaloid ever, being released with a Japanese voicebanks and an incomplete English one missing quite a few phonemes, which was finished later via an update.
• Most popular songs: Double Lariat, Luka Luka★Night Fever, and Leia.

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Vocaloid 2 (original

Double Lariat

MEIKO

• The original mature-sounding female vocal. MEIKO has a VERY strong voice and has a surprisingly good high and low range. MEIKO V3 also comes with an English voicebank for no extra cost.
• MEIKO has 6 voicebanks, with no repeats and a few appends.
• VP: Meiko Haigo
• Character Item: Sake (Japanese rice wine) and a Red Rose.
• Fun Fact: MEIKO is the first Japanese Vocaloid ever released, in 2004 for Vocaloid 1.
• Most popular songs: Nostalogic, Change Me, and Piano x Forte x Scandal.

Vocaloid 3

Nostalogic

KAITO

• The very first mature male vocal. KAITO has a softer voice like Luka, but can be edited to be VERY strong. Kaito V3 comes with an English voicebank for no extra cost.
• VP: Naoto Fūga (real name unknown)
• KAITO’s VP really like KAITO, having dubbed KAITO “his son” and owning a lot of merch with KAITO on it. He also has cosplayed as KAITO multiple times and frequently covers original KAITO songs with his own voice.
• Character Item: Ice Cream
• Fun Fact: On release for Vocaloid 1, KAITO was considered a commercial failure, selling only 500 units in the first year.
• Most popular songs: Shanti, A Thousand Year Solo, and Electric Weekend Zone.

Vocaloid 3

A Thousand-Year Solo

Other Vocaloids

Gumi/Megpoid

• Softer adult female voice that works well with most genres of music. Gumi has a surprisingly good low range, but works much better on higher notes. Gumi also was and still is widely considered a very high quality voicebank, especially for V2 standards.
• Despite being a natively Japanese voicebank, Gumi’s English voicebank is one of the most popular ones available.
• Gumi was developed by the company Internet Co and was their 2^nd voicebank.
• VP: Megumi Nakajima, a voice actress and singer.
• Fun Fact: Gumi has the most voicebanks out of any Vocaloid, with a total of 23 voicebanks across 5 engines.
• Most popular songs: Copycat, King, and Matryoshka.

Vocaloid 2 (original)

Copycat

v flower

• Very strong androgynous voice designed for rock music. flower has a very good high range; however, flower’s pronunciation is not very clear sometimes and this gets worse the higher you go.
• Despite a more masculine or androgynous appearance and voice, flower is a girl.
• flower was developed by the company Gynoid Co and was their first voicebank.
• VP has not been revealed to the public.
• Fun Fact: The song Goodbye Declaration using v4 flower has the most views of any Vocaloid song ever, at currently 144 Million views on YouTube.
• Most popular songs: Goodbye Declaration, Abnormality Dancing Girl, and Casino.

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Vocaloid 4

Goodbye Declaration

Kaai Yuki

• Soft and sweet female child voice suited best for soft songs but can easily be used for stronger songs with minimal work. Kaai Yuki has a surprisingly good high range, though pronunciation gets distorted the higher you go.
• Kaai Yuki was the first voicebank to based off a child’s voice and therefore has some issues with tone when edited too much.
• Kaai Yuki was developed by the company AHS Software and was part of first trio of voicebanks.
• Yuki’s VP has not been revealed to the public, due to her VP being 9 when the samples were recorded
• Fun Fact: When being updated to V4, there were some issues with recording new phoneme samples and growl samples, due to the VP’s voice changing with time.
• Most popular songs: Lagtrain, Kyoufuu All Back, and Lost Umbrella.

Vocaloid 2 (original)

Lagtrain

Oliver

• Soft male child vocal suited best for choir music and ballads. Oliver sings in English, but many times the words are not very clear, and will sound muffled without editing. Oliver has a good high range, but struggles with low notes due to a young VP.
• Oliver was the first widely popular Engloid, and because of that was often labeled incorrectly as “the first English Vocaloid”.
• Oliver was developed by the company Power FX and was their 3^rd voicebank.
• Oliver’s VP has not been revealed to the public because they were 13 when the samples were recorded.
• Fun Fact: Oliver was the voice of Puppycat in the show “Bee and Puppycat”
• Most popular song: Amygdala’s Rag Doll (TW: trypophobia), Secrets Of Wysteria (MASSIVE TW: child molestation, rape, cannibalism.

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Vocaloid 3 (original)

Miriam

• The ORIGINAL soft adult female voice. Being one of the V1 voicebanks, her range is not particularly impressive and tends to have issues with pronunciation much earlier than normal. Miriam is much higher quality than Leon or Lola, though.
• Miriam notably suffers from many of the same issues as the other V1 voicebanks such as lack of clarity in consonants, missing phonemes causing slurring, and a bad UI.
• Miriam was developed by the company Zero-G and was their third voicebank.
• As the box says, her VP is singer Miriam Stockley.
• Fun Fact: Miriam is the first and only V1 product to be completely unobtainable, as Leon and Lola can be bought and downloaded via Zero-G’s support, and MEIKO and KAITO can be bought physically off Amazon and by Crypton’s old website.
• Most popular songs: Snowglobe City, Loveless Last Dance, and Last Stop.

Loveless Last Dance