Vocaloid

Hatsune Miku

Hatsune Miku (初音ミク?) is a singing synthesizer application with a female persona, developed by Crypton Future Media. It uses Yamaha Corporation's Vocaloid 2 synthesizing technology. The name of the character comes from a fusion of the Japanese for first (初 hatsu?), sound (音 ne?) and future (Miku (ミク?) sounds like a nanori reading of future, 未来, normally read as "mirai"[1]),referring to her position as the first of Crypton's "Character Vocal Series". She was the second Vocaloid to be sold using the Vocaloid 2 engine and the first Japanese Vocaloid to use the Japanese version of the Vocaloid 2 engine. Her voice is sampled from Japanese voice actress, Saki Fujita. Hatsune Miku has performed at her concerts onstage as an animated projection.[2]

Development

Afteracquiring the Vocaloid 2 speech synthesis engine from Yamaha, Crypton Future Media began to develop their third Vocaloid. Hatsune Miku's voice was created by taking vocal samples from voice actress Saki Fujita at a controlled pitch and tone. These different samples all contained a single Japanese phonic which, when strung together, would create full words and phrases. The pitch of the samples was to bealtered by the synthesizer engine itself, and was constructed into a keyboard style instrument within the Vocaloid 2 program.[citation needed]
Crypton released the first of their "Character Vocal Series", Hatsune Miku, on August 31, 2007. Crypton had the idea to release Miku as "An android diva in the near-future world where songs are lost."[3]

Marketing

Though developed by Yamaha, themarketing of each Vocaloid is left to the respective studios. Yamaha themselves do maintain a degree of promotional efforts in the actual Vocaloid software, as seen when the humanoid robot model HRP-4C was set up to react to three Vocaloids—Hatsune Miku, Megpoid and Crypton's noncommercial Vocaloid software "CV-4Cβ"—as part of promotions for both Yamaha and HRP-4C at CEATEC in 2009.[4][5] Japanesemagazines such as DTM magazine are responsible for the promotion and introduction for many of the Japanese Vocaloids to Japanese Vocaloid fans. It has featured Vocaloids such as Miku, Kagamine Rin and Len, and Megurine Luka, printing some of the sketches by artist Kei and reporting the latest news on the Vocaloids.
Crypton has been involved with the marketing of their Character Vocal Series,particularly Hatsune Miku, which has been actively involved in the GT300 class of the Super GT since 2008 with the support of Good Smile Racing (a branch of Good Smile Company, mainly in charge of car-related products, especially itasha (cars featuring illustrations of anime-styled characters) stickers. Although Good Smile Company was not the first to bring the anime and manga culture to Super GT, itdeparts from others by featuring itasha directly rather than colorings onto vehicles.
Since the 2008 season, three different teams received their sponsorship under Good Smile Racing, and turned their cars to Vocaloid-related artwork:
• Studie, which participated in the 2008 and 2009 seasons using a BMW Z4 E86. Their car was painted in official Hatsune Miku art, and fan-derivative versions ofHatsune Miku in some races in the 2009 season.[6][7]
• Team MOLA, using a Nissan 350Z, and they received sponsors on the final race in Fuji in the 2008 season. Images of Kagamine Rin and Len was added on their original colorings. The Fuji round, in fact, is still the only FIA race to feature two unique itasha cars competing in a single race.
• Team COX, participating in the 2010 season,which uses a Porsche 996 GT3 RSR (and will use a Porsche 997 GT3-R). Their car uses Racing Miku (an official Hatsune Miku derivative, wearing an orange race queen suit) as their image.
As well as involvements with the GT series, Crypton also established the website Piapro.[8] Crypton has also started to star Miku in commercials for the Toyota Corolla.[9] During the 2011[10] and 2012[11] Sapporo...