Prima

Prima was Zero-G's first Vocaloid 2 product released January 14, 2008. Prima. The name "Prima" comes from the term "Prima Donna" meaning "first lady" is an Italian term used to describe the female with the leading role in a theatrical and opera production and the one with the most talent, who was usually a soprano singer.

History
According to Zero-G, they looked at what was missing and decided that there was a gap for a classical soprano voice. This voice type was decided during Miriam's release, along with a choir type of voice. Prima's voice provider was a singer who answered an ad put up on a music academy website. After some test samples in the Vocaloid software, they decided to go ahead and record her for the Vocaloid 2 software. Demos released for her included Lakme Flower duet Delibes amongst others.

Her software comes with VSQ files "Lakme Flower duet Delibes" and "New Voi Che Sapete edit".

Prima was the first English capable Vocaloid to gain satisfactory levels of popularity, even after Vocaloid became mostly obscure in the west, and saw heavier usage than previous English capable Vocaloids. After increased interest began to occur in vocaloids and demand rose, Zero-G began reselling Lola, Leon, and Miriam from their own website via their virtual shop. Prima was also included in the sale, but according to Zero-G, although the three older vocaloids may get a redesign in the future they feel Prima is fine the way she is and neither she nor Tonio will receive a make over.

Taiwan Release
Prima is due to be released into Taiwan by E-Capsule. She received a new boxart and was featured in a long and short version demo "Entrust".

Usage for Music
What makes Prima different from the Vocaloids before her is that her voice was modeled after a professional Soprano opera singer, this means she can hit high notes with accuracy and ease and is considered amongst one of the more professional aimed Vocaloids. She has one of the most powerful sounding of the Vocaloids and favors long drawn out notes. Prima can create the 5 breathing phonemes ([br1] - [br5]) making her the only current female of the English only voicebanks that can. Because opera involves languages that require a rolling tongue for pronunciation, the phoneme "R" had to be invented for Prima's voicebank. From Prima onwards, this became a prominent feature of all English capable Vocaloids.

However, she is noted to be harder to tweak into other styles in general despite having what is considered one of the clearest English speaking Vocaloid 2 voice banks, as her voice is one of the most stylistic of the Vocaloids. Despite difficulty, with adjustments Prima's voice can be made to suit the intended genres a user wishes her to sing in. This has resulted in her having one of the most extensive collection of songs with covers and original works in almost every genre possible despite being intended for just one style of music originally. In Japan, Prima became a common back up singer to other female Vocaloids and was one of the first English Vocaloids to see heavy usage by Japanese producers.

Her voicebank is also good as a atmospheric singer and able to maintain a clear and constant sound while other vocaloids sing over her voice. Since it is possible to achieve results with Prima with limited lyrics or none at all, she can be one of the easier English vocaloids to use by users who lack confidence in their English skills.

On rare occasions odd notes may produce a slight "plucking" sound on low grade computers which may have to be attended to using the parameters although she is not the Vocaloid most known for these sounds.

Tonio is intended to be Prima's partner product.

Prima may occasionally cause an installation error when installed. This is related to her engine version and may show up when installing her over an updated Vocaloid 2 like Big Al and Sonika. Help can be found within the fandom on fixing this. This can be fixed very easily, however, if a newer Vocaloid is installed after her installation, otherwise, reinstalling all Vocaloids in correct order will resolve this problem.

Allowance is also given by Zero-G for the addition of the Vocaloid's works onto Karen-T.

Currently there are no plans for an updated version of Prima. However, it has been confirmed that if there is demand, Prima will be updated to a newer engine version. Confirmation was also given from Anders, that if English Vocaloids become a lot more popular, Appends for existing Vocaloids is also a possibility.

Reception
Since her release, Prima has been praised for her singing capabilities and was prior to Big Al's release the most popular english Vocaloid, she still remains as one of the most popular English Vocaloids. Overall she is considered one of the better English capable Vocaloids. However, because she was meant for Opera, there has been a general lack overall of interest towards her, with more interest being displayed by producers. Her reputation as a stylistic vocal has also led to problems with users trying to find uses for her, when in reality she has quite a wide number of uses overall.

Trivia

 * Prima was the first English Vocaloid to be included in the Lipsync model series. The LipSync model portrayed Prima as an extremely pale girl wearing a dark red dress and a white flower in her short, wavy, black hair. Due to its popularity this particular look has become her common but unofficial appearance, this despite her rather low toned voice.


 * When people tried to illegally download vocaloids, such as Miku Hatsune and Kagamine Rin/Len, they had to download Prima to get the program in English. However the illegal downloads of Prima didn’t have proper confirmation codes, causing not only Prima to stop working but other Vocaloid programs as well. If one could not keep Prima using correct codes the other Vocaloids would in effect become unable to be used at all.


 * Some fans say that the Prima’s character item is wine, but because of her yandere nature (due to the way her illegal copies prevented other vocaloids from working) you’ll more likely see fanart of her holding a weapon rather than an alcoholic beverage.


 * Prima, Leon and Lola's release dates were celebrated in the "Zero-g Garnet Festival" (also referred to as "ZGF") on Nico Nico Douga. This event celebrates the release of these Vocaloids and songs were uploaded during this 3 day event.


 * While other Vocaloids from Zero-G are regarded as siblings by Sonika, Sonika refers to Prima as "auntie Prima".


 * Prima was the most expensive Vocaloid 2 voicebank to purchase upon her release.


 * Her boxart is from a stock image. The photographer was bg_knight(Ivan Grlic) who is a contributor on the website istockphoto. The original is here titled "beauty profile" File#: 1709473, there are other images based on the model currently on the second page, take notice of the eyebrow piercing.


 * Prima's Taiwan design is loosely based on the chinese opera house style of costumes. The costume itself is based on a theatrical representation of a animal, most likely a Kitsune based on the shape of the "tail" and ears.

Notable for...

 * First Vocaloid 2 Zero-G Vocaloid
 * First English Vocaloid 2 specialised Vocaloid.
 * First English Vocaloid to gain satisfactory levels of popularity
 * Most commonly used English Vocaloid2 by professional music makers