Three of my life’s passions are anime, music, and technology. I started watching anime over a decade ago and, according to my most recent estimate, have watched over a month’s worth of anime shows, movies, and specials. As for music, aside from being a fan of almost every genre of music, I have been in bands, choirs, and produced music as a DJ. Obviously, technology is my job and I got into the field because of my love for it. In recent years an industry has evolved that has incorporated all three of these passions into one. The word for it is Vocaloid.
At the core Vocaloids are virtual voice synthesizers. There are several voice synthesizer software packages out there, but the craze was made famous and gets its name sake from the VOCALOID software from Yamaha. This software basically allows a musician to put lyrics into the program, assign notes, adjust pitches and vocal effects and create a human sounding voice singing the lyrics. Several packages exist to fit certain voice styles. These voices are molded after actual singers and voice actors using samplings of their voices. The majority of these voices are Japanese and can only poorly sing in English (it does sound like a Japanese person speaking English, so at least it’s accurate for that).
These voice packages have a digital persona to accompany them. That’s where the term Vocaloid begins to apply. The most popular of Vocaloids is Hatsune Miku. Miku is a teenage girl with long turquoise hair and matching black and turquoise outfits. Her voice is high and youthful. This is where the technology and music marry with anime. The Vocaloid community has created the Miku Miku Dance studio which animates Miku as well as other Vocaloids to create dance videos to coincide with the songs made by that Vocaloid. Some users have even created a tie-in for Microsft Kinect to allow real dancers to directly input moves for the Vocaloids to execute.
The most interesting thing about Vocaloids, to me, is that the songs they sing are community projects. One person may write the lyrics, another write the score, another will create the music video, and someone else will encode the English translations. The end product will have been an indirect collaboration between various people. Some of them may be well known musicians and producers some may be armatures. The band Supercell is one famous collaboration that has created many of Miku’s most popular songs including “World is Mine” and “Heartbreaker.”
Vocaloids have now taken a step out of the computer screen and onto the performance stage. Miku and friends have performed at several concerts in Japan. This past Independence Day weekend the Vocaloids took stage at the Anime Expo 2011 in Las Angeles, California. I was sadly unable to attend, but it was an event much anticipated by Vocaloid fans across the continent. At these concerts, the Vocaloids sing and dance in a projected holograph-like form on stage to the music of a live band. The video at the end of this post shows some highlights from the concert.
My favorite Vocaloid is Megurine Luka. Her voice is a bit lower and more mature than Miku’s and she sports long pink hair. Her voice sounds more natural, in my opinion, but she is not as popular as Miku and has fewer songs using her voice. My personal favorite Luka song is “Just Be Friends.”
I find this technology to be fascinating and entertaining. I think it allows the creativity to flow directly from the creative minds to the desiring ears without the need to hunt down a skilled singer. I personally don’t think Vocaloids could ever completely replace the human voice. There are times in Vocaloid songs where the Uncanny Valley is breeched and can make one feel a bit repulsed. The technology is improving and Yamaha has announced the upcoming release of VOCALOID 3.

-Mark Kraus, Senior Systems Admin