MIRIAM

MIRIAM is an English VOCALOID developed and distributed by Zero-G Limited, and was released in July 2004 for the first VOCALOID engine. She is Zero-G's third installment. MIRIAM is advertised as a "virtual female vocalist" modeled on the voice of the popular South African-born British singer and composer, Miriam Stockley, who is also the lead singer of the band Adiemus.

Etymology
MIRIAM's name was based off her voice provider, "Miriam Stockley".

The name "Miriam" is the Hebrew variant of the name "Mary", which itself has an uncertain origin. The name is often associated with things such as "a rebellious nature" or even more drastically, "bitterness" or "sea of bitterness." However, some other interpretations include "wished for child." The name probably originates from Egypt in the sense that "mry" could have been derived from its Egyptian meaning of "beloved".

Appearance
Much like the VOCALOIDs, LEON and LOLA, MIRIAM has no concept design. The boxart shows a picture of her voice provider created by british photographer Simon Fowler, with a blurry and cold effect applied to it.

Marketing
MIRIAM was sold as a more general voicebank rather than as a genre driven voicebank like LEON and LOLA, though she was still aimed at professionals. Unlike previous VOCALOIDs, MIRIAM was also released at the same time as Virsyn's Cantor software and comparisons between the two were noted. This put MIRIAM at a slight disadvantage during her original time of release, as LEON and LOLA did not have any competition and VOCALOID was not yet popular software. Cantor was considered a far greater synthesizing tool than VOCALOID and was able to do what MIRIAM could not offer; this impacted sales. She had been sold as any other software of the time and had no fandom to back her initial release. MIRIAM was the most well-known Zero-G VOCALOID while she was available and the most promoted of the voicebanks offered, though most promotions were carried out by the professional users of the software.

For a period she, along with LEON and LOLA, were not for sale due to the lack of interest in synthesized voices. This lack of interest was owed to the sudden change in indie music trends. After increased interest began to occur in VOCALOIDs and there was renewed demand, Zero-G began reselling LEON, LOLA, and MIRIAM from their own website via their virtual shop. According to a Zero-G interview in 2010, the three may also get a redesign in the future.

Concerts
The very first "live event" featuring a VOCALOID was with MIRIAM. This was held in Novosibirsk, Russia, on December 26, 2004. She performed one song, a cover of "Sad Mondays", with live musicians.

Trivia

 * She is the first of Zero-G VOCALOIDs whose voice provider is known. Zero-G does not normally name their voice providers for legal reasons.


 * LOLA, MIRIAM, and BIG AL were slated to be featured in the original soundtrack of freeware RPG "Ad Lucem". The project remains unfinished.