Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that can help answer the question.
Query: Is Miku a Vocaloid?
Hatsune Miku(Japanese:初音 ミク), sometimes referred to as Miku Hatsune, is the name of a Vocaloid software voicebank developed by Crypton Future Media and its official moe anthropomorph, a 16-year-old girl with long, turquoise twintails. She uses Yamaha Corporation's Vocaloid 2, Vocaloid 3, and Vocaloid 4 singing synthesizing technologies. She also uses Crypton Future Media's Piapro Studio, a singing synthesizer VSTi Plugin. She was the second Vocaloid sold using the Vocaloid 2 engine and the first Japanese Vocaloid to use the Japanese version of the Vocaloid 2 engine. Her voice is modeled from Japanese voice actress Saki Fujita. Miku's personification has been marketed as a virtual idol and has performed at concerts onstage as an animated projection (rear cast projection on a specially coated glass screen).[1]
A series of rhythm games starting from Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA were produced by Sega under license using Hatsune Miku and other Crypton Vocaloids, as well as "fan-made" Vocaloids like Akita Neru. TinierMe also made attire that looks like Miku's for their services, allowing users to make their avatar resemble her.[62][63] The series has sold 6million copies.[64] Hatsune Miku and Future Stars: Project Mirai was developed for the Nintendo 3DS. Miku's appearance in this game is based on the Nendoroid series of figures.[65] Hatsune Miku is also briefly referenced in the game Recettear, where a young man stargazing sees "The Green-Onion Girl" constellation. Also, in 2013, Saki Fujita voices Fei-Yen HD, a character based on one of Hatsune Miku's modules, in Super Robot Wars UX; this appearance does not use Miku's vocal library.
The Vocaloid 2 software was an instant success in Japan upon the release of the Hatsune Miku product. Bil Byrant of PowerFX, in an interview after the release of Big Al, noted that when they released Sweet Ann that they expected the electronica based music producers to use Vocaloid and were surprised that they were reluctant to embrace the software. At this point, a large Japanese producer base had formed and a large number of videos were being posted on YouTube. Hatsune Miku's success at selling 60,000 copies was also a noteworthy number, as at the time of Miku's release selling 1,000 copies of a software synthesizer was considered "a commercial success".
The next live concert was set for Tokyo on March 9, 2011. Other events included the Vocarock Festival 2011 on January 11, 2011 and the Vocaloid Festa which was held on February 12, 2011. The Vocaloid Festa had also hosted a competition officially endorsed by Pixiv, with the winner seeing their creation unveiled at Vocafes2 on May 29, 2011. The first Vocaloid concert in North America was held in Los Angeles on July 2, 2011 at the Nokia Theater during Anime Expo; the concert was identical to the March 9, 2010 event except for a few improvements and new songs. Another concert was held in Sapporo on August 16 and 17, 2011. Hatsune Miku also had a concert in Singapore on November 11, 2011. Since then, there have been multiple concerts every year featuring Miku in various concert series, such as Magical Mirai, and Miku Expo.
One of the Vocaloid compilations, Exit Tunes Presents Vocalogenesis feat. Hatsune Miku, debuted at number-one on the Japanese weekly Oricon album charts dated May 31, 2010, becoming the first Vocaloid album ever to top the charts.[75] Another album, Supercell, by the group Supercell[76][77] also features a number of songs using Vocaloids. Other albums, such as 19's Sound Factory's First Sound Story[78] and Livetune's Re:package, and Re:Mikus[79][80] also feature Miku's voice. Other uses of Miku include the albums Sakura no Ame(桜ノ雨) by Absorb and Miku no Kanzume(みくのかんづめ) by OSTER-project. She had sung the original Nyan Cat called "Nyanyanyanyan!" by daniwell-P. Kagamine Len and Rin's songs were covered by Asami Shimoda in the album Prism credited to "Kagamine Rin/Len feat. Asami Shimoda".[81] Another song original sung by Miku, "Color", was covered by Maria, and featured as the opening theme of the 2011 anime series Freezing.
The CEO of Crypton Future Media noted the lack of interest in Vocaloids overall was put down to the lack of response in the initial Vocaloid software. With regard to the development of the English version of the software specifically, many studios when approached by Crypton Future Media for recommendations towards developing the English Vocaloids had no interest in the software initially, with one particular company representative calling it a "toy". A level of failure was put on Leon and Lola for lack of sales in the United States, putting the blame on their British accents. Crypton praised the value of the English Vocaloids and what they offered to the Japanese users for their capability of offering the English language to them, when it would otherwise be off limits. As Hatsune Miku was responsible for making the software famous, her voice has become the most commonly associated with the Vocaloid software and divides opinions of critics both overseas and within Japan on their opinions towards her and the software. Crypton blamed a fear of robots on part of the lack of response on the sale of the software overseas and expressed that there was also a general "anti-Vocaloid" point of view amongst some cultures and communities, although he also noted that he hoped in the future this would change as the software continued to be developed. Prior to the release of the Hatsune Miku product, Crypton Future Media had also noted there was some criticism at choosing to release the original Vocaloid engine as a commercial licensing product, although felt that the choice was for the better of the engine. Furthermore, it was noted that the original Vocaloid engine felt more like a prototype for future engine versions.
Vocaloid 2 is a singing voice synthesizer and the successor to the Vocaloid voice synthesizer application by Yamaha. Unlike the first engine, Vocaloid 2 based its output on vocal samples, rather than voice analysis. The synthesis engine and the user interface were completely revamped, with Japanese Vocaloids possessing a Japanese interface, as opposed to the previous version, which used English for both versions. It is noteworthy for introducing the popular character Hatsune Miku.
Two unofficial manga were also produced for the series, "Maker Unofficial: Hatsune Mix" being the most well known of the two, which was released by Jive in their "Comic Rush" magazine; this series is drawn by Vocaloid artist Kei. The series features the Crypton Vocaloids in various scenarios, a different one each week. The series focuses on the Crypton Vocaloids, although Internet Co., Ltd.'s Gackpoid Vocaloid makes a guest appearance in two chapters. The series also saw guest cameos of Vocaloid variants such as Hachune Miku, Yowane Haku, Akita Neru and the Utauloid Kasane Teto. The series comprises the original 28 chapters serialized in "Comic Rush" and a collection of the first 10 chapters in a single "tankōbon" volume. A manga was produced for Lily by Kei, who also drew the mascot. An anime music video titled "Schwarzgazer", which shows the world where Lily is, was produced and it was released with the album "anim.o.v.e 02", however the song is sung by Move, not by Vocaloids. A yonkoma manga based on Hatsune Miku and drawn by Kentaro Hayashi, "Shūkan Hajimete no Hatsune Miku!", began serialization in "Weekly Young Jump" on September 2, 2010. Hatsune Miku appeared in "Weekly Playboy" magazine. However, Crypton Future Media confirmed they will not be producing an anime based on their Vocaloids as it would limit the creativity of their user base, preferring to let their user base to have freedom to create PV's without restrictions.
A cafe for one day only was opened in Tokyo based on Hatsune Miku on August 31, 2010. A second event was arranged for all Japanese Vocaloids. "Snow Miku" was also featured on an event as a part of the 62nd Sapporo Snow Festival in February 2011. A Vocaloid-themed TV show on the Japanese Vocaloids called "Vocalo Revolution" began airing on Kyoto Broadcasting System on January 3, 2011. The show is part of a bid to make the Vocaloid culture more widely accepted and features a mascot known as "Cul", also mascot of the "Cul Project". The show's first success story is a joint collaboration between Vocalo Revolution and the school fashion line "Cecil McBee" "Music x Fashion x Dance". Piapro also held a competition with famous fashion brands with the winners seeing their Lolita-based designs reproduced for sale by the company Putumayo. A radio station set up a 1-hour program containing nothing but Vocaloid-based music.
Crypton is best known for production and sales of speech synthesis software for computer music. Its products uses the Vocaloid singing synthesis engine developed by Yamaha Corporation; they were also charged with finding and contacting English Studios in order to gain recommendations for the English version of the Vocaloid software. The company released Meiko in 2004 and Kaito in 2006, who were originally developed by Yamaha leaving the commercial release to Crypton Future Media. The company then releases the first Vocaloid developed by them, and member of the official Character Vocal Series, Hatsune Miku, which uses the upgraded engine Vocaloid 2. The success of the Hatsune Miku Voicebank in Japan (and later in other countries) greatly raised Crypton's profile. The second Character Vocal Series are Kagamine Rin and Len and the third Megurine Luka. Because the popularity of these Vocaloids grew, Crypton launched the website Piapro to upload fan-made content and its own music label KarenT to sell Vocaloid songs.
Since the success of her Vocaloid 2 package led to an expansion of marketing possibilities, most of the mass marketing has come after her initial release as a response to her popularity and has been on going since 2008. Even with the addition of other Character Vocals, Miku's name continues to be used as the primary source of marketing for Crypton Future Media, to the point where most products for their Vocaloid related products will usually only feature Hatsune Miku's name. In March 2012, the Nomura Research Institute estimated that the sales of all Hatsune Miku brand goods added up into the region of ¥10 billion since her release in 2007.[21] Her name is easily the most recognizable of all Vocaloids.[22]
Hatsune Miku had two releases for the Vocaloid 3 software. The first was a new English vocal released on August 31, 2013. The second release was an update on the Vocaloid 2 vocal, it contained 5 vocals, 4 of which were updated versions of 4 of the 6 Hatsune Miku append package vocals ("sweet", "dark", "solid", "soft"). There were two versions of the software released, one with and one without the English version included. It was released on September 26, 2013. Like Kaito before her, she also came with Piapro Studio.
The missing vocals from the Append package ("light" and "vivid") were originally offered for free as part of an early promo for those who had the Vocaloid 2 version and the Vocaloid 3 version of the Hatsune Miku vocals. They were later sold separately on the Japanese version of the on-line store Sonicwire.
The Hatsune Miku Vocaloid 3 Japanese vocal library was released on September 26, 2013. It contained updates to all previous Vocaloid 2 vocals except Vivid and Light. These were later released separately, though they were initially offered to anyone who already owned Hatsune Miku, Hatsune Miku Append, and Hatsune Miku V3. Once imported into Vocaloid4, all Vocaloid3 Hatsune Miku vocals could use the new Cross-Synthesis system (XSY) built for the new engine. The voice was also imported into a device called Pocket Miku, released on April 3, 2014.[15]
The vocal was also developed for the "YAMAHA VOCALOID LSI "NSX-1" based Singing Keyboard" under the name of "eVY1". The first eVocaloid product released was the "Pocket Miku", which was originally planned to house the eVY1 chip but was changed because the developers felt that only Hatsune Miku's voice would be appropriate. The chip would go onto demonstrate the non-commercial product the "Vocaloid Keyboard", a Keytar with the eVocaloid chip inserted in.
The company's label Exit Tunes was responsible for the release of the trance album series "Exit Trance". Exit Tunes has also released albums featuring Vocaloid music. In 2010, the compilation album "Exit Tunes Presents Vocalogenesis feat. Hatsune Miku" topped Japan's Oricon weekly album charts, becoming the first Vocaloid album to top the charts in its history. The following released album, "Exit Tunes Presents Vocalonexus feat. Hatsune Miku", became the second Vocaloid album to top the weekly charts in January 2011.
Vocaloid was sold as a product for professional musicians, and although there were many producers using the software within Japan by 2011, a report was released detailing the true reflections of the Vocaloid craze. It was conducted independently by fans of the Vocaloid software and detailed the popularity of certain Vocaloids over others. Most Vocaloid related videos struggled to get over 5,000 views and the most popular producers gaining the most interest over lesser popular producers. In order of the most video uploads were Hatsune Miku (first), Kagamine Rin (second), Gumi (third), Megurine Luka (fourth), Kagamine Len (fifth) and Kaito (sixth) had the most videos uploaded related to them, while all other Vocaloids had less than 1,000 uploads related to them. This was not true for all the calculations they ran to determine the popularity, including average and mean views and mylists. In the end, only Gumi and the Kagamine software packages managed to stay on the top six lists of all their calculations, with popular Vocaloid Hatsune Miku failing to make it on the mean average top six list calculations for the study period. In 2013, it was estimated that about 30% of all videos updated each month on Niconico were Vocaloid related.
Crypton released 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."[4] Hatsune Miku was released for Vocaloid 3 on August 31, 2013, including an English vocal library.[5] She was the first Vocaloid to be developed by the company, following their commercial release handle of Yamaha Corporation developed vocals "Meiko" and "Kaito", making her the third Vocaloid to be sold commercially by the company.[6]
Hatsune Miku was the first Vocaloid developed by Crypton Future Media after they handled the release of the Yamaha vocal Meiko and Kaito. The name of "Hatsune Miku" was conceived soon after the Vocaloid 2 announcements, when an English and Japanese vocal were developed for the character. The intended design was delayed and later used for Megurine Luka instead. Miku was intended to be the first of a series of Vocaloids called the "Character Vocal Series", which included Kagamine Rin/Len and Megurine Luka. Each had a particular concept and vocal direction.[3]
For creating songs, Yonezu uses music software Cakewalk Sonar. When he started to create Vocaloid music, he used Vocaloid 2 software, and Hatsune Miku vocals exclusively. However, in 2010, Yonezu began using Megurine Luka and Gumi in his songs as well. His album "Hanataba to Suisō" features Hatsune Miku only, whereas "Official Orange" features Hatsune Miku, Megurine Luka, Gumi, as well as his own vocals on the song .
Originally, Hiroyuki Ito—President of Crypton Future Media—claimed that Hatsune Miku was not a virtual idol but a kind of the Virtual Studio Technology instrument. However, Hatsune Miku performed her first "live" concert like a virtual idol on a projection screen during Animelo Summer Live at the Saitama Super Arena on August 22, 2009. At the "MikuFes '09 (Summer)" event on August 31, 2009, her image was screened by rear projection on a mostly-transparent screen. Miku also performed her first overseas live concert on November 21, 2009, during Anime Festival Asia (AFA) in Singapore. On March 9, 2010, Miku's first solo live performance titled "Miku no Hi Kanshasai 39's Giving Day" was opened at the Zepp Tokyo in Odaiba, Tokyo. The tour was run as part of promotions for Sega's "Hatsune Miku: Project Diva" video game in March 2010. The success and possibility of these tours is owed to the popularity of Hatsune Miku and so far Crypton is the only studio to have established a world tour of their Vocaloids.
Hatsune Miku picked up second place in a 2010 Japanese Yahoo! poll on Japanese gamers' favorite characters, owed to her starring role in "". CNN's website CNNGo declared Hatsune Miku as one of Japan's best in their "Tokyo best and worst of 2010", listing her as the "Best new virtual singer for the otaku generation". "Clash" magazine labeled Hatsune Miku and the Vocaloid software as the future of music.
In 2007, Crypton Future Media and Yamaha launched Vocaloid 2, with the voice bank of Hatsune Miku. In 2009, Hatsune Miku had her first concert, Other Vocaloids include Kagamine Rin/Len, Megurine Luka, and Kaito.
Some of the most popular albums are on the "Exit Tunes" label, featuring the works of Vocaloid producers in Japan. One of the Vocaloid compilations, "Exit Tunes Presents Vocalogenesis feat. Hatsune Miku", debuted at No. 1 on the Japanese weekly Oricon albums chart in May 2010, becoming the first Vocaloid album ever to top the charts. The album sold 23,000 copies in its first week and eventually sold 86,000 copies. The following released album, "Exit Tunes Presents Vocalonexus feat. Hatsune Miku", became the second Vocaloid album to top the weekly charts in January 2011. Another album, "Supercell", by the group Supercell also features a number of songs using Vocaloids. Upon its release in North America, it became ranked as the second highest album on Amazon's bestselling MP3 album in the international category in the United States and topped the store's bestselling chart for world music on iTunes. Other albums, such as 19's Sound Factory's "First Sound Story" and Livetune's "Re:Repackage", and "Re:Mikus" also feature Miku's voice. Other uses of Miku include the albums by Absorb and by OSTER-project. Kagamine Len and Rin's songs were covered by Asami Shimoda in the album "Prism" credited to "Kagamine Rin/Len feat. Asami Shimoda". The compilation album "Vocarock Collection 2 feat. Hatsune Miku" was released by Farm Records on December 15, 2010, and was later featured on the Cool Japan Music iPhone app in February 2011. The record label Balloom became the first label to focus solely on Vocaloid-related works and their first release was "Unhappy Refrain" by the Vocaloid producer Wowaka. Hatsune Miku's North American debut song "World is Mine" ranked at No. 7 in the iTunes world singles ranking in the week of its release. Singer Gackt also challenged Gackpoid users to create a song, with the prize being 10 million yen, stating if the song was to his liking he would sing and include it in his next album. The winning song "Episode 0" and runner up song "Paranoid Doll" were later released by Gackt on July 13, 2011. In relation to the Good Smiling racing promotions that Crypton Future Media Vocaloids had played part in, the album "Hatsune Miku GT Project Theme Song Collection" was released in August 2011 as part of a collaboration.
Hatsune Miku received an update for Yamaha's Vocaloid 4 engine under the name of Hatsune Miku V4x.[16] It makes use of the new EVEC system for Piapro Studio, a VSTi plugin used as an alternative to the traditional Vocaloid Editor. EVEC consists of recorded vowels. Along with the consonant, a different vocal tone can be achieved. Two vocal tones are included in the EVEC system: Power and Soft. Along with the new EVEC system, phoneme errors found in Miku's V2 and V3 voicebanks would be fixed allowing for easier manipulation of her voice. As of August31,2016, Hatsune Miku V4X/V4 English was released.
Hatsune Miku remained the most popular vocal for the software. Upon release she overloaded the yamaha server as users made activation requests. As well as this, a backlog of 10,000 copies of her software was reported at one stage as supplies failed to meet the demand. The Hatsune Miku v3 product was credited for an increase of Vocaloid related sales by 19.7% in 2014.