VOCALOID3

Vocaloid 3 is the current successor to the Vocaloid 2 engine. The new Vocaloid engine was revealed on June 8th 2011 by YAMAHA via NicoNico Douga live stream. It can be purchased at the official Vocaloid Site.

History
Vocaloid 3 was first announced mid-2011 at a special invitation only event and was released following the popular Vocaloid 2 engine. The released date was set for September 2011, however it was held back on several occusions and eventually released on the 21st of October 2011. This particular version had much early promotion and there were almost as many new voicebanks for it as there were in the entire Vocaloid 2 range. Yamaha also showed great interest in promoting its well established Japanese Vocaloid producer fanbase while expanding the usage of Vocaloid itself.

New languages were prepared in Spanish, Korean, and Chinese along with the Japanese and English Vocaloid line up.

Updates
In the past, since the editor and voicebank were sold together to get the latest version of the software it involved purchase of a newer Vocaloid. As of Vocaloid 3, updates now come directly from Yamaha themselves because the editor and voicebank are sold seperate.


 * Ver.3.0.2.0: was released 2nd November 2011 and was a general glitch fix update that repired things that were making the editor crash.
 * Ver.3.0.3.0: was released on 21st December 2011 the fix reorgangised the libraries of Vocaloids into languages and fixed a few glitches.

Requirements

 * OS: Windows 7 / Vista / XP
 * CPU: Celeron Dual Core 2.1GHz or more
 * RAM: 1GB or more
 * HDD: 200MB free space or more

Releases

 * See Upcoming Vocaloids for future releases

Vocaloid-P data packs
As well as the engine, it is aso possible to buy the VSG files used for songs made by famous producers. The first of the Vocaloid-P Data Series packs was released with the Vocaloid 3 engine and can be purchased seperately. Previously, the majority of VSQ files had been recreated by fans and not the producers themselves.

Vol.2 of the series is due for release on the 16th of December 2011.

Additional notes
Because of improvements to the recording process, Vocaloid 3 voicebanks are better quality then Vocaloid 2 even if both are run on the Vocaloid 3 engine. The samples alone are slightly longer allowing more smoothness and clearity.

Also due to the new practices of Vocaloid 3 the standard of quality within this range is much higher then the previous Vocaloid 2 engine range. The engine itself is sold standalone or with additional voicebanks which in turn can also be bought as a stand alone software. This is a departure from Vocaloid and Vocaloid 2 who had the engine sold with the voicebank. This also cheapens the price of each voicebank greatly as the consumer is not paying for the engine with every purchase. This also means updates come directly from Yamaha themselves, whereas with Vocaloid 2 the only way to update the engine to a newer version was to buy a later Vocaloid 2 voicebank then the one the consumer already owned previously and install them over their current Vocaloids. Voicebanks come with a Lite version of the software that has one track and only 17 bars of music.

Vocaloid 3 is the first Vocaloid engine to feature backwards compatability with past Vocaloids. As such, importing Vocaloids from Vocaloid 2 into Vocaloid 3 is possible. Results from Vocaloid 2 will not be the same for Vocaloid 3. However, it does not allow backwards compactiablity with Vocaloid engine voicebanks.


 * Gackpoid; Vocaloid 2 and Vocaloid 3
 * Megpoid; Vocaloid 2 and Vocaloid 3
 * Lily; Vocaloid 2 and Vocaloid 3
 * Gachapoid; Vocaloid 2 and Vocaloid 3

Vocaloid 2 voicebanks of low quality will have more trouble matching up to Vocaloid 3 voicebanks. However, due to the improvements to the engine, Vocaloid 2 voicebanks appear to have much more clarity when imported into Vocaloid 3 and the results are much more natural sounding. So even the worst quality Vocaloid 2 voicebank will have noticable improvements over the original engine counterpart.

Vocaloid 3 does not have assign code for breaths and you can instead import various noises directly into Vocaloid. The engine itself is now localised so issues from Vocaloid 2 over language problems are absent such as that seen of Megurine Luka, who although had a English voicebank did not have the English interface because she was sold to the Japanese market.

Also, unlike previous versions of Vocaloid, Vocaloid 3 supports plug-in, although this is limited a slimited support. Additional plug-is can be bought directly from Yamaha's Vocaloid shop.

Marketing
To help the developement and promotion of Vocaloids within the Vocaloid 3 range, the Vocaloid store was opened up by Yamaha. Furthermore, Yamaha set up their own music publishing site much like Karen-T to promote Vocaloid music. Several events have also been arranged to showcase new vocals, such as the Vocafarre. Yamaha's approach to bring the Vocaloid software back into the professional realm through a more serious promotional tone.

Studios have continued to pronmote their Vocaloids. Internet Co., Ltd continued the heavier promotion of their Vocaloids with the launch of V3 Megpoid. Ah Software also has begun heavier promotions with Yuzuki Yukari having the widest vocal capablities offered on sale of any new Vocaloid. Bplats continued to focus on their VY series, by relaunching them under the "VYv3" market with improved vocals. Crypton Future Media, who had established much of the Vocaloid fandom via their Hatsune Miku Vocaloid in the Vocaloid 2 era, have opted to enter the Vocaloid 3 era in 2012 with their new line-up. They are still focused on selling their established Vocaloids to America, as well as re-launching the Vocaloid era Vocaloids in a newer engine.

Studio DEEN also focused on the fandom side of Vocaloid by holding a competition for a fan to become the voice of their first Vocaloid Aoki Lapis, they have done a number of small promotional ads for her. MoeJapan entered the Vocaloid market with Tone Rion, focusing on their marketing on the Vocaloid Otaku side of the Vocaloid fandom rather then the professionals. 1st PLACE have opted for a more stuble launch of their first Vocaloid and IA has been promoted as a more mysterious Vocaloid.

Yamaha at first did not support the English version of the software and did not launch a English writing version of the Vocaloid website until more towards Oliver's release. PowerFX decided to focus its marketing at the now establish English Vocaloid community and most promotions for their first Vocaloid Oliver were done through the forum Vocaloid Otaku. Zero-G are also late enteries, they have decided to continue aiming at professionals and though their Vocaloids new theme is known, the name is yet revealed.

SBS Artech managed to gain interest from outside of Japan with their first Vocaloid SeeU. They decided to sell SeeU's Korean voicebank by making a bold language claim on its capablities, claiming that she can do English with it as well as Korean. They also had included a Japanese voicebank so they could sell SeeU to the Japanese producers, although interest in her was more mixed then outside of Japan.

New company Voctro Labs faced a bumpy start because of a backlash at their first two Vocaloids artwork, despite this they were able to gain some ground via a artwork competition.

Cultural Impact
Vocaloid had become a more recognisable product by this point and most of the cultural impact had occured at the start of Vocaloid 2 with Hatsune Miku. Crypton had already focused on establish Hatsune Miku's image in real life by Vocaloid 3 launch. It is still too early to see the greater cultural impact at this point however.

Criticism
Some critism has come from users of oveseas engines and both Spanish and English voicebank has been left in the dark and face less promotional coverage then Japanese, Korean and Chinese voicebanks. This issue has been carried over from the success of the Japanese Vocaloids in Vocaloid 2 and the result is that English and Spanish Vocloids are currently being self promoted in their communties by their own fans. However, this is due to the fact Yamaha of America do not have the rights to market the English voicebanks as soundsonline were said to hold the rights to Vocaloid sales in America. It is unknown if this will change in the future.