VOCALOID2

Vocaloid2 (often shortened to just "V2" in Vocaloid communities) was the successor to the original Vocaloid engine.

History
Vocaloid2 was released in 2007 and was released after an overall successful response to the Vocaloid1 software. Its first voicebanks were Sweet Ann for English and Hatsune Miku for Japanese. However, as noted by Crypton Future Media at the time of Miku's release the original version of the Vocaloid2 software was released without public beta testing, unlike in the Vocaloid1 era. Instead Yamaha had opted to update the software as users reported the errors. Unlike Vocaloid1 the engine Vocaloid2 was an immediate success in Japan forwarding a Vocaloid phenomenon over the internet with more then 3,000 pre-release orders placed for the software of Miku Hatsune alone. Though the overseas English Vocaloids were much slower to catch on, the Japanese Vocaloids saw many additional voicebanks released and a number of new Japanese studios join in the production of "Vocaloids".

Approaches to the engine were diferent across the studios. Amongst the Japanese Vocaloids, Crypton Future Media's early Character Vocal series (CV) Vocaloid were not trying to sound realisitc at all, but later Vocaloid such as Gakupo and Gumi by Internet vco., Ltd took on a more realisitc approach. The engine was constantly updated with each new batch of Vocaloids, although the most major change to Vocalid came with the production of the VY series by Bplats. This saw both how the library was organised (VY1) and the first Vocaloid with a faint breath element (VY2). Some Voicebanks sold well enough to warrent additional installations, as seen in the case of Miku Hatsune and the Kagamine software packages who received "Append" voicebanks.

Zero-G continued its specialist Vocaloid releases with the focus of this engine being opera based. Newcomers Power FX tried for a more character based approach, which became more apparent after the update to Big Al then with Sweet Ann. English Vocaloid studios also experimented with attempts to increase their own profile and attempts to establish a fandom, like the Japanese Vocaloids had secured, went with mixed progress. The English engine was more popular later in the Vocaloid2 era then it was in the first half, mostly due to the popularity of the Japanese version. However, while it never reached the same several of popularity as the Japanese version, it was overall more successful then the previous English Vocaloid voicebanks.

Updates
Updates were mainly supplied with the Vocaloids with the latest released Vocaloid having the latest version of the engine. Therefore when the updates were done to the engine, they were were much harder to track. Packages like the Appends served as both expansion packs and methods of updating the software for older Vocaloid users. Some companies updated the software as new versions were released, while others did not. Crypton Future Media did offer patches via their home website, but this was for the Japanese user base.

The software became unsupported in late 2011 with the release of the Vocaloid3 software, VY2 housing the last version of the software.

Unreleased voicebanks
Some studios had expansion packs and updates intended for Vocaloid2 in developement at the time of the Vocaloid3 anouncement. The Vocaloid voicebanks known to have been effected by the newer engines release were a male vocal by Crypton Future Media, Gumi Megpoid's Extend, English Miku Hatsune, English Kaito, Luka Megurine's Append, Kaito Append and Meiko Append. However, these were announced to later be set for a Vocaloid3 release.

Despite several Spanish voicebanks being known to exist, the Spanish Vocaloids did not enter licensing during this version of the software.

Requirements

 * Windows XP/Vista 32 bit (Windows 7 is not officially supported; 64 bit is NOT SUPPORTED)
 * Pentium 4 2 GHz/ Athlon XP 2000
 * 512 MB RAM (1GB of RAM recommended) (2 GB or more recommended when using VSTi realtime)·
 * Approx 4 GB Free Hard Disk Space / DVD Drive

Additional Notes
The interface and engine were overhauled between Vocaloid1 and Vocaloid2 with one of the improvements being various improvements to pronounciations. For example, the word "Now" as spoken by English Vocaloids sounds much smoother, whereas Vocaloid would break it up and sound it out as "No-ow". The new additions and cleaner engine make Vocaloid2 overall the superior to its predecessor. The voicebanks in Vocaloid however, had more editing options possible than Vocaloid2 and more varied voices could be achieved. Vocaloid 2, had a more realistic human tone then Vocaloid1. Vocaloid2 vocals were overall flatter then their provider's own vocals and slightly deeper at times their own providers vocals, although the deepness was not as notable as Vocaloid1 difference. Most vocals are much shaper sounding then Vocaloid1 vocals and rendered results are overall cleaner.

Japanese Vocaloids now have a Japanese interface to work with making usage easier for Japanese uses. However, while the software could work with either English or Japanese interface, it could still not switch interface manually. The Japanese language was controlled by additonal .dll files to forced the otherwise English interface to be Japanese. Since Japanese and English Vocaloids had been sold to different markets, there was no concerns with the different versions of the software. However, this did not stop users from trying use Vocaloids from both languages and by the time Megurine Luka was released, it was becoming more increasingly common for Producers to own both English and Japanese Vocaloids.

Luka Megurine presented the most major issue with this version of the software in regards to the language situation: Though her package contained an English voicebank, she did not have an English interface. Therefore getting the engine to work in the right language presented a difficulty in itself. Her English voicebank attracted potential native English users. Prior to the knowledge of alternative methods to gain access to the English interface, producers were often attracted to Sweet Ann or Prima to gain access to the English interface or installing a mod that would change it for them. If one deletes the Japanese .dll language files, the interface will switch back to English, though the voicebank will continue to only work in Japanese phonetics. However, with this note aside depending on what language is installed in a particular order will overall depend on what interface the Vocaloid2 software adopts naturally through the installation process.

Some Vocaloids will have conflicts if installed over a newer version of the engine. This issue was resolved with later versions of the software but caused conflicts with earlier versions, causing the editor to refuse to open. Re-installing the most current version will resolve the problem. The first Vocaloid2 released which encountered this problem was Prima, as previous Vocaloids before her had similair engine versions. This can also cause conflict with Vocaloids and the language situation, as a user can unintentionally install the Vocaloids in the wrong order while trying to get the software in the correct interface.

Unlike Vocaloid1 the interface did not offer a new recolouration for every voicebank and the standard Vocaloid2 interface remained the only appearance it could take.

In addition, due to the improvements between Vocaloid and Vocaloid2, the standard voicebank of Vocaloid2 is of better quality overall then Vocaloid1. Many improvements to quality were made during the engines life circle and later voicebanks were smoother then older ones overall, therefore some older Vocaloid2 voicebanks like Miku Hatsune, Gakupo Kamui (Gackpoid) or Sweet Ann, have trouble matching up to others like VY1, Big Al or Iroha Nekomura. However, the overall quality of many Vocaloid2 voicebanks varied greatly between them even in the later versions of the engine and a varity of issues contributed to the quality of one vocal over another. Furthermore, as of the development of the VY series Vocaloid VY1 and VY2, improvements were made to how the engine worked while still using just the Vocaloid 2 core.

In the case of the Miku Hatsune and Kagamine Appends, users will need the orginal voicebanks to be able to use the newer software.

Vocaloid 2 saves the files as .VSQ, allowing for more Vocaloid specific data to be saved, unlike the previous Vocaloid "VOCALOID midi" file type that only saved the standard industry data format. Vocaloid2 will import any midi related file into it, but has a more limited midi support then other music software packages released at its time of release. It will not save a file as a midi file format, however, data can be exported as in midi format, although cause the loss of the more complex Vocaloid2 data in the process. The softwares .VSQ files can also be imported into UTAU and converted to the UTAU's own vocal squence file format, however, the reverse is not possible and Vocaloid2 will not import UTAU's data squence file format. It will also not load Vocaloid3 .VSQX files.

The current version of Vocaloid2 has no reported problems with the current operating systems but is unsupported as of 2011. However, as of the release of Vocaloid3, Vocaloid2 engine voicebanks can now be imported into this newer engine. This improves both the smoothness and clarity the voicebanks. Vocaloid and Vocaloid2 are incompatible with each other. Users wishing to have a Vocaloid and Vocaloid 2 voicebanks sing together have to transfer via midi format between the two programs to have the singers sing the same song and then use an additional music/media program to organize the voicebanks into.

Vocaloid2 introduces several hidden Phonetics that are not announced by the help guide of the software. The vowel-to-vowel transaction (written as [-]) which carries a word across several notes smoothly, though only English Vocaloids can use it. breaths are introdcued and created by typeing in [br1] up to [br5] (depending on which of the 5 samples you want to use). This is an improvement over Vocaloid wherein you had to create a breath via [*in]. Exhauling ([*out]) capablities have been removed but were unneeded anyway. [Sil] and [ASP] are also new capablities and will increase a Vocaloid's capabilties greatly depending on the use. However, [sil] is more useful to English Vocaloid then Japanese, while the reverse is said for [asp].

Illegal versions of the software were also commonplace for Vocaloid2. The software was easy to crack by pirating teams and every voicebank was cracked at some point after release and most popular Keygens worked with it. There was very little service differences between the legal and illegal versions aside from a lack of technical support from studios, although the software ReWire function may not work as well as the legal version.

Some older versions of Vocaloid2 (those purchased pre-2009) do not work with some 64-bit systems, although newer versions (those purchased post 2009) do work with 64 bit systems. For users with older versions of this engine, this can prove problematic in getting them working on later 64-bit OS. Some studios such as Crypton Future Media updated their software versions for purchasable products, but others such as Zero-G did not update their products for sale. Otherwise the Vocaloid 2 software works relatively well on Windows 7 or other 64-bit OS though may encounter some minor running issues.

Marketing
Marketing was handled by each studio and it was not until the end of the Vocaloid2 era that Yamaha themselves began to promote the software. Crypton Future Media in particular enjoyed a successful marketing of their products owed to the popularity and success of their product of Miku Hatsune. Miku's image was used to promote the Vocaloid software and she became the face of Vocaloid. Crypton were able to set up their own websites. On November 29, 2010, Crypton started an independent music publication for seeking copyright royalties if songs are used for commercial purposes such as karaoke, because Vocaloid users hardly used the copyright collective Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC).

Part of the problem for newer studios entering the Vocaloid market at this stage was that they were entering into a user base that already had succumbed to Crypton's successful marketing ploy. Still despite this, due to Crypton Future Media's success many attempted to anyway. Other Japanese studios did not always adopt such marketing measures. For example Internet Co., Ltd did not heavily promote any of their Voclaoids in the same manner such Crypton at first and aside from Lily, whose marketing was mostly handled by Avex Management Co., Ltd, whose image was heavily promoted in the same manner as Miku Hatsune's was. However, Internet began promoting their Vocaloids from 2010 onwards more heavily, for example, Gumi and Gakupo made special appearances in the 2010 new year celebration event known as King Run Anison Red and White.

While AH-Software also attempted to make promotional efforts, it was on a smaller scale. Bplats also did smaller scale promotions for their VY series, though the difference was that their marketing was fixed on the quality of their Vocaloids voicebank rather then the image such as how other studios had promoted their Vocaloids. Aside from a demo of Piko Utatane, Sony did not put much promtional marketing effort into their Vocaloid.

While Japanese Vocaloid studios had enjoyed a strong fanbase to sell and market their products to, Zero-G and Power FX had to earn their fanbase from scratch since most of the focus was on Japanese Vocaloids. Though traditionally they had always sold to the professional market successfully, due to the increase interest in the Vocaloid software, they attempted to establish their own Voclaoid fandom. This meant making contact and continuing that contact with the Vocaloid fans, gaining their feed back and interests rather then isolating them from the software. Though this tactic did not always, succesfully work, they successfully broke the ice and later adopted Vocaloid Otaku forums as their main base for feed back and fan input. However, they were not able to fully gain as much support as the Japanese Vocaloid shad during the Vocaloid2 due to their much more limited market. Power FX for example was even quite late into the Vocaloid2 era, the smallest studio making Vocaloid and therefore did not have the money to invest heavily into their products.

Outside of this, the largest promotional event for Vocaloids was "The Voc@loid M@ster" (Vom@s) convention held four times a year in Tokyo or the neighboring Kanagawa Prefecture. The event brings producers and illustrators involved with the production of Vocaloid art and music together so they can sell their work to others. The original event was held in 2007 with 48 groups, or "circles", given permission to host stalls at the event for the selling of their goods. The event soon gained popularity and at the 14th event, nearly 500 groups had been chosen to have stalls. Additionally, Japanese companies involved with production of the software also have stalls at the events. Yamaha themselves began promotional events themselves in 2011 and events sucj as the VocaFes 2011 and the Vocafarre.

Crypton Future Media also began aiming to influence America with their own Vocaloids, during the 2010 period. In May 2011, Toyota used Miku Hatsune for two online adverts to promote the 2011 Toyota Corolla. She is also displayed on the official Toyota page. Toyota had been the ones who had approached Crypton for use of Miku. Since Crypton always sold Miku as a virtual instrument in Japan, they asked their Japanese fanbase if it was acceptable for them to sell her as a virtual singer to the new market audience. Miku's Los Angeles concert sold out on the 26th of May 2011. Not only was she the first singer to sell out but this was the only time AX, the company in charge of selling her tickets, had ever sold out. AX were forced to book more seats then they had initally done to meet demands.

One of the most controversial uses of the legal agreements of any Vocaloid producing studio was from the Democratic Party of Japan, whose running candidate, Kenzo Fujisue, attempted to secure the use of Miku's image in the Japanese House of Councillors election of July 11, 2010. The hope was that the party could use her image to appeal to younger voters. Although Crypton Future Media rejected the party's use of her image or name for political purposes, Fujisue released the song "We Are the One" using her voice on Youtube, by only replacing her image with the party's character in the music video.

Software support(tutorials and information) was much easier to find then with Vocaloid1 for both Japanese and English vocaloids. However, software support for Japanese Vocaloids did not start until mid-2008, when it was noted note how poorly the original Vocaloid1 engine was supported in regards to both Meiko and Kaito.

Cultural impact
According to Crypton, a popular video with "Hachune Miku", a super deformed Miku/Loituma Girl, holding a spring onion and singing "Ievan Polkka", presented multifarious possibilities of applying the software in multimedia content creation. As the recognition and popularity of the software grew, Nico Nico Douga became a place for collaborative content creation. Popular original songs written by a user would generate illustrations, animation in 2D computer graphics and 3D computer graphics, and remixes by other users. Other creators would show their unfinished work and ask for ideas. The website has become so influential that studios often post demos on Nico Nico Douga, as well as other websites such as YouTube, as part of the promotional effort of their Vocaloid products. The important role Nico Nico Douga has played in promoting the Vocaloids also sparked interest in the software and Kentaro Miura, the artist of Gakupo's mascot design, had offered his services for free because of his love for the website.

In September 2009, three figurines based on the derivative character "Hachune Miku" were launched in a rocket from the United States state of Nevada's Black Rock Desert, though it did not reach outer space. In late November 2009, a petition was launched in order to get a custom made Hatsune Miku aluminum plate (8 cm x 12 cm, 3.1" x 4.7") made that would be used as a balancing weight for the Japanese Venus space probe Akatsuki (Planet-C). Started by Miku Hatsune fan Sumio Morioka that goes by chodenzi-P, this project has received the backing of Dr. Seiichi Sakamoto of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). On December 22, 2009, the petition exceeded the needed 10,000 signatures necessary to have the plates made. An original deadline of December 20, 2009 had been set to send in the petition, but due to a couple of delays in the Akatsuki project, a new deadline of January 6, 2010 was set; by this deadline, over 14,000 signatures had been received. On May 21, 2010 at 06:58:22 (Japan Standard Time), Akatsuki was launched on the rocket H-IIA 202 Fright 17 from the Japanese spaceport Tanegashima Space Center, having three plates depicting Miku Hatsune.

The Vocaloid software has also had a great influence on the character Black Rock Shooter, which looks somewhat like Miku Hatsune but is not linked to her by design. The character was made famous by the song "Black Rock Shooter", and a number of figurines have been made. An original video animation made by Ordet was streamed for free as part of a promotional campaign running from June 25 to August 31, 2010.

Vocaloid2 opened the gateway for acceptance of synethised vocals in Japan, and other such software were able to be launched successfully such as UTAU and Voiceroid.

In late November 2009, a petition was launched in order to get a custom made aluminum plate of Miku Hatsune (8 cm x 12 cm, 3.1" x 4.7") that would be used as a balancing weight for the Japanese Venus spacecraft explorer Akatsuki. Started by Hatsune Miku fan Sumio Morioka that goes by chodenzi-P, this project has received the backing of Dr. Seiichi Sakamoto of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. On December 22, 2009, the petition exceeded the needed 10,000 signatures necessary to have the plates made. An original deadline of December 20, 2009 had been set to send in the petition, but due to a couple of delays in the Akatsuki project, a new deadline of January 6, 2010 was set; by this deadline, over 14,000 signatures had been received. On May 21, 2010 at 06:58:22 (JST), Akatsuki was launched, having three plates depicting Hatsune Miku.

On October 18, 2007, an Internet BBS website reported that she was suspected to be victim of censorship by Google and Yahoo!, since images of Miku did not show up on the image searches. Google and Yahoo denied any censorship on their part, blaming the missing images on a bug that does not only affect "Hatsune Miku" and related keywords but other search keywords as well. Both companies expressed a willingness to fix the problem as soon as possible. Images of Miku Hatsune were re-listed on Yahoo on October 19.

Criticism
The one thing that was noted through this version in comparison to Vocaloid1 was that it was used more by amateur musicains than by professionals. Due to the impact of Miku Hatsune, Vocaloid2 saw more departure from its original intention and it wasn't until midway through its life until late that it attempted to return to its professional routes. It became one of the negative points of the Vocaloid 2 and focus on voicebank turned in many cases to focusing on the character. Undesirable boxart was often mocked such as Power FX's Sweet Ann, who was often mocked for having what seemed to be a "demonic" boxart. VY1 and VY2's existence was an attempt to draw users away from this tendacey to prefer character over vocal, abandoning the character image altogether for a "avatarless" approach. Some Vocaloids of low quality were able to sell well against more higher quality voicebanks, as seen in the case of Lily and VY1. Regardless, this carried on into even early Vocaloid 3 voicebanks.

Criticism was also thrown at the engine as a reaction to Miku Hatsune, who had gained world wide fame. It was common for Vocaloid haters to presume that all Vocaloids "sounded like her and the other Crypton Future Media Vocaloids." However, despite this critism, the only Vocaloid actually capable of reaching her vocal range released during the Vocaloid 2 era was English Vocaloid Prima, with most vocals being much lower in tone and pitch then Miku was. Part of the problem in the otherseas fandom was at this point the knowledge on Japanese Vocaloids was limited to just the Crypton Vocaloids Meiko, Kaito, Miku Hatsune, Rin & Len Kagamine and Luka Megurine. Other Japanese Vocaloids often went unnoticed because of it even though they did not always always have the same high pitch vocals as Crypton's Vocaloids.

A target for criticism was the English version of the software, as some of the overseas fans of the Japanese Vocaloids felt they were not on par with their Japanese counterparts. Yet despite this, many Japanese users who used English Vocaloid had said the reverse, that English Vocaloids were better than Japanese contradicting this statement. Most of the criticism came from anime-based Vocaloid fans, who knew little information about the engine and its finer workings nor to a native speaker the Japanese Vocaloids sound just as unrealistic. As support for the English Vocaloids began to grow, some efforts were made to make Vocaloid fans in the overseas understand that overall there was very little difference between the two languages. One of the notes in regards to the reaction of the different Vocaloid fandoms is that English Vocaloids such as Sweet Ann and Prima were voiced by professional singers, resulting in a higher quality singing result. However, early Japanese voicebank libraries, such as Miku Hatsune and the Kagamines, based their vocals on maintaining a characteristic vocal with overall less quality singing results.

The route of the issue was simply a lack of information, for example Yamaha's Japanese Vocaloid website was kept fairly well updated on information in regadiance to this version, however, they did not maintain updates on their English website. This left English users with little information on the Vocaloid 2 software. With Japanese Vocaloids getting more promotion and attention, it was some time before information on Vocaloid 2 became more easily accessiable, with Zero-G and Power FX asking fans what they wanted from Vocaloid. In the Japanese fandom, few producers used the English language, despite Luka Megurine having it included in her software package, because few could understand enough English lyrics to work with this particular version of the software. So despite the popularity of the Vocaloid software overall in Japan, when they did appear English Vocaloids were often restricted to cover songs made by English singers or back up singers to Japanese Vocaloids. A few original songs were made despite this and formulas were released on how to make English Vocaloids a rough some level of Japanese to make them easier to use and vice versa.

A constant thought throughout the Vocaloid2 era was on how despite improvements from Vocaloid1 to Vocaloid2, Vocaloid2 was still far from perfect. Professional reviewers from Sound on Sound magazine, John Walden and Tom Flint both stressed that singer still do not fear losing their jobs, with Flint in particular stressing that in the time it takes to learn how to use the engine, it would be easier to hire a professional singer for half an hour for the same recording. However, praise was given to the Vocaloid2 engine for its improvements to the Vocaloid engine as well as the overhaul to the interface, which had been a criticism in the Vocaloid1 era. Latter reviews commented that anyone who wanted to know more on Vocaloid only had to type in the word "Vocaloid" into YouTube to see the many thousands of song titles, praising the fandom for its use of the software to push it to the limits.