KAITO

KAITO is a Japanese male Vocaloid created by Crypton Future Media. He utilizes the older Vocaloid engine developed by YAMAHA. He claims the spot of the last vocal to be released for the Vocaloid engine. The voice was supplied by a Japanese male singer Fuuga Naoto (風雅 なおと). The illustration was done by Takashi Kawasaki. The product's name was invited from the public, and "KAITO" was selected from among applicants, which was the idea of Shu-tP.

History
Kaito was created as a counterpart of Meiko and developed together. One of the reasons why his name "KAITO" was selected was that it would be easy for non-Japanese speakers to pronounce, and that it looked fitting to the name "MEIKO" when they were put next to one another. On 24th July, 2003, an CCCD album "HISTORY OF LOGIC SYSTEM", which included a song using Japanese vocaloids commercially for the first time, was released. It was a duet song of "Ano Subarashii Ai wo Mou Ichido (That Wonderful Love Once More)" and it was covered by prototype version of Meiko and Kaito before their release. Meiko was released 1 year after this and Kaito followed her 2 years later.


 * Nico broadcast 【VOCALOID遺産】あの素晴らしい愛をもう一度
 * Nicozon broadcast【VOCALOID遺産】あの素晴らしい愛をもう一度

Also in 2003, Yamaha gave out his first demo song, "Kimi no Uwasa (Rumor of Yours)" 3 years before his release.
 * Nico broadcast 【プロトタイプ KAITO】 ヤマハが作ったデモソング『 君の噂 』(フル)
 * Youtube broadcast Yamaha vocaloid KAITO DEMO song "Kimi-no-uwasa" 君の噂

Crypton did not set his character and profile except his package design, as well as Meiko, for not having a concept of giving a certain character to an synthesizer application software. It was carried over to the following vocaloids to encourage creative activities by free individuals and expanding the characters based on each user's individual needs.

At the time of his original sale, Vocaloid was not yet a well known product and synthesizing software was only considered successful if it sold more then 1,000 units, however Kaito managed to sell just 500 units deeming him a commercial failure. Kaito's initial failure was one the main reasons why other male vocaloids have not been developed for a long time after his release. The male voicebanks had so little demand at that time. However, later interest in Kaito arose and Kaito sold well enough to later claim the second best seller of the year in Nico Nico Market in 2008.

Figurines
Kaito has had a few figurines based on him. Despite being older then the CV series Vocaloids, Kaito's merchandise tends to sell particular well. The Nendoroid Kaito figurine had a high demand, causing a second re-issue of the figurine.

Append - the Future of Kaito
A confirmation came that Yamaha were due to no longer support the Vocaloid engine Vocaloids as the software progressed onto Vocaloid 3. Rather then leave this at that, Crypton announced on twitter that they are developing a new production of Kaito named "Kaito Append" which was being developed for Vocaloid 2. Recording of Naoto Fuuga's voice started on December 9, 2010. Several voicebanks of different expressions like the Appends have been produced for the product. There are four appends empirically under development; temporarily "Mellow", "Sweet", "Solid" and "Power".

Crypton announced that Kaito's muffler in his silhouette version was going to be transparent. However, they have since reconsidered this due to the fan outcry. On February 17th, 2011, Crypton released a temporary silhouette of Kaito's Append. They said that it has not been decided whether he will have a transparent muffler or not.

There is a Piapro demo song contest for Len's Power Append. The prize is a package present of information on KAITO Append dates and when it is commercialized. According to the Piapro blog entry following the contest's results, the winners do not -- or do not just -- receive information on KAITO Append, they get to participate in the production of KAITO Append. It's been guessed they will be given a beta version to work with.

On the 13th April, 2011, it was confirmed 6 vocal expressions had been recorded, two of which were dropped and the remaining were being brought forward with one having reached a completed alpha stage already. The Character Vocal (Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin/Len and Megurine Luka) series Appends had been created from vocal performance of their voice providers. The new Kaito Appends were created by adding echo, force and tension to the samples. Kaito's new Vivid, Solid~power voicebanks were recorded with new high tech microphones through a series of trial and error instead of the standard U87ai. On the 11th of May 2011, Crypton went back to Yamaha to announce the current Kaito development, whose demos were at the time suspended, Crypton apologized for the slow development to their fanbase and enhancements to Kaito's Whisper Append were being made.

On the 28 of May 2011, demos of Kaito Append Whisper and Power along with Miku English were posted on Nico Nico Douga. It was also confirmed that the order of progress was Meiko, Megurine Luka and then Kaito. On the 3rd of June 2011 the demo からくり時計と恋の話 was released using an alpha version Kaito's soft Append. Crypton also finished recording Kaito's vocals after work was previously suspended for an interval. Crypton were in discussion with Fuuga, Kaito's provider on the image and vocal outputs. A classic Kaito Vocaloid style recording had also completed recording, one which will sound close to the vocal tone of the original voicebank that users were familiar with.

Theater Production: Cantarella
An adaptation of this song will run in Shibuya's Space Zero theater in Tokyo from August 3 to August 7 2011. Yukio Ueshima will direct the musical, Kentarō Kanesaki (Tenimyu's Genichirō Sanada) and Daisuke Watanabe (Tenimyu's Kunimitsu Tezuka) will star in the musical. The musical is also set to be streamed live on the Nico Nico Douga.

English Voicebank
Crypton has reacted to the possibility of an English voicebank, however have reported it as "complicated". They however are reported to be testing the waters and will be releasing a Kaito Append song into America to see the reaction. They have noted that they feel females will sell better then male voicebanks.

Usage for Music
Both Kaito and Meiko form the Vocaloid "series", following a different design intention to the series of Vocaloids that followed them by Crypton Future media. Kaito is the male designed to be the counterpart to Meiko within their series. Both Vocaloids are designed to be professional vocals for professional musicians. As Fuuga Naoto was a professional musician and vocal actor, Kaito's results were of a high quality. Fuuga Naoto's professional music style lay more in the Jazz area and Kaito's vocals lean towards this particular style of music because of it. However, before this was mentioned Kaito was already being used for many other genres such as R&B and pop, the style that he is best used for was considered pop ballads.

Kaito's vocal engine has been updated several times. He can utilize two kind of Vocaloid editors, VOCALOID 1.0 and VOCALOID 1.1, and they have different functions and features. There are many differences between ver1.0 and 1.1, and they sound differently even if they are edited in the same way. (Comparison of ver 1.0 and ver 1.1 without further editing Nico broadcast, Nicozon broadcast). The main differences are Singing Style and Portamento Timing.

To use his 1.0 version, users who are NOT using 1.1.2 version need to patch Vocaloid Ver1.1.2 update file for Kaito distributed on Crypton’s official page first before they use VOCALOID 1.0 editor. Without patching, an critical error will occur.


 * Comparison between the Vocaloid and voice provider

Because he is sold by Crypton, permission to add his songs to Karen-T is granted.

As of a note of confirmation in 2011, Vocaloid engines will no longer be supported by Yamaha and will be slowly fazed out, therefore it is no longer possible to clarify if any Vocaloid software package will work on systems newer then Windows 7 or 64 bit.

Append
Kaito's Append were created from a different process compared to the Character Vocal series of Vocaloids. There are 4 Appends confirmed for him. It is confirmed is that they do not use the Vocaloid engine and act as an update to bring Kaito into the newer engines. So far there is confirmed to be the vocal banks; Vivid, Solid~power, Soft and Whisper. A classical Vocaloid style Kaito voicebank has also completed production, this voicebank is similar to the vocals used previously (i.e. it will not literally sound like its using the Vocaloid engine).

It has already been confirmed that quality of the Appends may end up varying, this is due to the fact some were recorded with a higher quality microphone than others. However, due to the fact there was much trial and error involved with the new microphones it will be unclear if the quality of the voicebanks recorded using this will be equal to each other, this will only be known upon Kaito's append release. This has already been much the same for past Appends for the Vocaloid 2 Character Vocal series, where quality and pronunciations varied across the Append voicebanks and some were noted to be better in some areas than others. Kaito's "soft" Append was considered by Crypton as Kaito's most natural vocal and was noted to require little tuning to make it sound good. According to Crypton, lowering the gender factor on Kaito's Soft Append renders sounding like a female vocalist, which although was cute was considered a blunder on their part. Kaito's Whisper voicebank went through many processes even before it was completed and adjustments were constantly being made to improve it.

Kaito Append has been confirmed to use the Vocaloid 2 engine. Crypton Future Media have no plans to update their Vocaloid 2 engine Vocaloids to Vocaloid3, however allowance will be given for the converting of these vocals to the newer engine free of charge.

Reception
Kaito's raise to fame was only by fluke, Kaito was a commercial failure and few had any interest in him. Kaito is now amongst the most popular of the Vocaloids in both Japanese and Western fandoms, this despite that fact he is very dated in terms of engine and newer, better Vocaloids have been released.

The story of the sudden change in opinion on him occurred on September 16th, 2007, when Tatsunami uploaded a parody of the song in Higurashi no naku koro ni, "A Request From Hatsune" onto NicoNicoDouga. During this time, Miku was extremely popular on NicoNicoDouga, yet almost nobody knew of Kaito let alone produced songs using him. The video begins with the words "please sometimes recall [KAITO]," as well as Miku saying "where are you and what are you doing now?" which is from the song Dear You. About four hours later, "An Answer To Hatsune Miku" was posted by Ice-P. In this video, Kaito responds with, "yes? I was eating an ice cream," and then proceeds to sing a cover of The Ice Cream Song (originally sung by Saeko Shuu in 1960). Kaito's last dialogue in this video is "Miku, let's eat it together next time." It just so happened that Ice-P was producing the cover when he saw the video Tatsunami uploaded.
 * Nico broadcast / Nicozon broadcast 初音ミクからのお願い.
 * Nico broadcast / Nicozon broadcast 初音ミクへの回答

He is currently the only one of the two Vocaloid engine vocals to make it onto the Crypton top ten product ranking and stay there. Even if he disappears off the ranking, this is only very brief and returns later and usually hangs around the ranks 6-8th place. At some points he has even been more popular than the Vocaloid 2 engine Appends for Miku and the Kagamines. One older report also noted that due to the lack of interest in them, he was even more popular than the Kagamines.

Trivia

 * The story of his character item firmly established ice cream as KAITO's character item.


 * Kaito and Meiko are often referred to as "Nenchou-gumi" (年長組, The Seniors) compared to Japanese Vocaloid2s.


 * His age was never given officially. In Maker Hikōshiki Hatsune Mix he is usually portrayed as a middle aged man by KEI, however, what he depict in the comic is not official settings as he mentioned in a magazine interview.


 * A fan nickname for Kaito when it comes to teasing him and portraying him as an unintelligent character is BaKAITO ('バカイト' / 'idiot Kaito'). This comes up in various meme and artwork that usually consist of Kaito being beat up and yelled at by his fellow Crypton Vocaloids.


 * In Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei Kaito look-a-likes are seen in the waiting queue during the auditions of the role of Meru Meru, however they do not have Kaito's known colours.


 * Since Yamaha and Crypton printed different dates for Kaito's release (Yamaha; 14th, Crypton; 17th), some fans within the Japanese Vocaloid community celebrate Kaito's release date anniversary during all days between the different dates.


 * When it came to the Kaito update, the voicebanks went under much experimenting throughout the developing process. This was because although Crypton were veterans at producing Vocaloid voicebanks, they did not have so much experience with masculine toned vocals such as Fuuga Naoto's. This was due to the fact all of their other Vocaloids intended for the consumer market had come from female vocalists.

Notable for...

 * Was used in the oldest known Vocaloid related song ever released
 * First Japanese male vocal ever released
 * Only Vocaloid voicebank announced as a failure
 * Subject to a sudden opinion change around
 * Most popular Vocaloid voicebank
 * Last Vocaloid voicebank produced
 * First Vocaloid voicebank to be updated