YAMAHA Corporation

Yamaha Corporation is a Japanese leading musical instrument manufacturer based on Hamamatsu. This company covers a wide range of business in motorcycles, power sports equipment, and electronics.

About
Yamaha was established as early as 1887, about 20 years after the Tokugawa governing ended, by Torakusu Yamaha (山葉 寅楠 Yamaha Torakusu) as a reed organ manufacturer. In 1900 Torakusu began the piano production and his organ and piano were awarded an Honorary Grand Prize at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. This event has established the company's fame to this day.

In 1921 Yamaha began to produce propellers and internal combustion engines for warplanes, which became the foundation of its motorcycle and motorboat production. Soon the Second World War stalled the musical instrument production completely and the factories were attacked and damaged by the British naval gunfire.

After the war, Yamaha started to produce organs and pianos again. In 1959, it released a electric organ Electone and this model soon became the leading brand of electric organ worldwide, used in music halls, churches, and so on.

During 1970s and 80s Yamaha stretched its business to electronics feedbacking the technology of Electone. With five other companies it set the MIDI standard in 1981.

Vocaloid
Yamaha started the development of the Vocaloid engine in March 2000 and announced it in 2003. This is the sampling and re-editing of the real singing voice. Users set parameters such as clearness and vibrato as they like so they can create "a virtual singer of their own". The first Vocaloid product was Leon, released in March 2004 by Zero-G. Yet this first generation of Vocaloid had artificial sound and did not become popular. In Aug. 2007 Miku Hatsune, using the second generation Vocaloid2 platform, was released by Crypton Future Media. This product was supported widely with its natural singing and sparked the Vocaloid trend.

Main Article: Vocaloid

Yamaha had long been distributing the platform only. In 2010, they themselves began to develop their own Voicebanks for the Vocalid program, starting with a co-involvement on Lily. They then began their VY series with VY1.

Fan Involvement
During the promotions of VY1, a Youtube account called Vocaloid Store uploaded VY1's demos. The account states that it is a "Japan-based eCommerce store specialized for VOCALOID and related items. The store is operated by Bplats, Inc. under licensed by Yamaha Corporation."

Very recently, because of VY2 having been created, and officially released, Vocaloid Store has also uploaded demos of his voice.