LEON

Leon was the first male Vocaloid to be launched along with female Vocaloid, Lola, at the NAMM show on the 15th of January, 2004, and was eventually commercialized on the 3rd of March, 2004, at the price of 39,800 yen. He is a "virtual male soul vocalist modeled on a real professional singer" and was created for the English speaking community.

History
Leon was released along with fellow Vocaloid, Lola, by Zero-G Limited. They were one of the exhibits at the Zero-G Limited booth during Wired Nextfest and the Vocaloids won the 2005 Electronic Musician Editor’s Choice Award. Despite this, consumers complained that Leon sounded too muffled and almost like a woman's voice.

Leon did not become popular with the public until a relatively unknown Nico Nico Douga user posted a video of him singing "True to my Heart". This featured Leon in an unusual looking fan design which soon struck the funny bone of Nico Nico users and the video eventually received over 50,000 views.

While his populaurity has never been as great as other vocaloids, of the english speaking pre-Vocaloid 2 voicebanks, his has seen arguably the most usage. For a while, he and Kaito were the only male voices available and though Len was released, he lacked the deepth that both Leon and Kaito could reach. Furthermore, until Big-Al was released Leon was the only male English speaking vocaloid. After increased interest began to occur in vocaloids and high demand, Zero-G began reselling Lola, Leon and Miriam from their own website via their virtual shop. According to Zero-G, the 3 may also get a redesign in the future.

He was orginally sold using the Vocaloid 1.0 engine, but Zero-G provided a link to update the program on their website (via his product page) that would update the vocaloid program to Vocaloid 1.1.

Usage for Music
He is mostly used for techno, pop and digital music, but was sold as a soul singer. Leon can reach a similar notes to Kaito, but his voice favors more deeper notes then Kaito, although arguly most users aim for a higher pitch. Ultimately though, he tends to end up sound affeminate at times (just as how some describe Lola as sounding like a man), but this is simply due to the Vocaloid engine. A number of songs have been produced poking fun at his voice by users. Due to his dated voicebank, there is no escaping the robotic sound caused by the Vocaloid software engine and both he and Lola are guilty of having the worst robotic "twang" of the Vocaloid era voicebanks. Users accept that his and Lola's voicebanks digital sound, Leon's strongest aspect is that perfection is not necessary when creating a song using his voicebank. With much editing he can produce realistic sounding songs. Other users play on his robotic sounding voice, making no attempt to hide it. Leon also has been used in the most varied of ways amongst the Vocaloid era voicebanks and he has been shown to be a highly versitile Vocaloid. However, despite this his voice is overall flat and lacks depth.

A Place under the Sun
Leon is featured in this CD with 14 modern dance tracks. The lyrics are in both English and Russian.


 * Participants of the project:

Music and Russian lyrics - Alexei Ustinov Arrangement and recording - Alexei Kosolapov English lyrics - Alex Yakovlev Lead and back vocals - Leon Drums - Pavel Panfilov Sax - Nikolai Panchenko Bayan - Evgeny Zimin Mixing and mastering - Anton Ilyashenko and Vassili "b0zill" Antypkin

Notable Leon Songs

 * At least there are 900 videos on Nico Nico Douga and 600 videos on Youtube which are related LEON.
 * More than 20 of his songs were viewed over 8,000 times on Nico: Youtube Playlist

Under the Darkness
Covered by U-P


 * YouTube broadcast

Hoshi no Kakera/星のカケラ
Covered by Nagato Miku ruP


 * Nico broadcast
 * YouTube

Mask/仮面
Duet with Kaito Leon Covered by Leo-P Kaito Covered by Nya-P


 * Nico broadcast
 * YouTube broadcast

Monoke Hime/もののけ姫
Covered by Leo-P


 * Nico broadcast
 * YouTube broadcast

Magnet
Duet with Lola

Covered by Leo-P


 * Nico broadcast
 * YouTube broadcast
 * Youtube broadcast english version

Duet with Kaito

Covered by Leo-P


 * Nico broadcast
 * YouTube broadcast

Longest Time
Covered by 愛レオンP


 * Nico broadcast
 * YouTube broadcast

Video Killed the Radio Star
Trio with Lola and Miriam

Song by The Buggles

Cover by Daifuku-p


 * Nico broadcast
 * YouTube broadcast

Something About Us
Song by Daft Punk

Cover by BeginsWithTheEnd

FL Studio 9 used for some backing vocals.


 * YouTube broadcast

Every Little Thing She Does is Magic
Song by The Police

Cover by ChoiWARU-P


 * YouTube broadcast

Yest Tolko Mig
Song by Jasmine Music Technology

Song in Russian


 * YouTube broadcast

Love is War
Song by Ryo

Covered by aire


 * Nico broadcast (Japanese version)
 * Nico broadcast (English version)
 * YouTube broadcast (Japanese version)
 * YouTube broadcast (English version)

The Farthest End (Saihate)
Song by Kobayashi Onyx

Covered by Tsuyuri-P


 * Nico broadcast
 * YouTube broadcast

を歌わせてみた
Song from "Touhou"

Covered by Matrox_revo


 * Nico broadcast
 * YouTube broadcast

Sad Sundays
Song by Jasmine Music Technology


 * YouTube broadcast

Red Hair
Song by Jasmine Music Technology


 * YouTube broadcast

Every Breath You Take
Orginal song by The Police

Covered by TOMANDY


 * Nico broadcast
 * YouTube broadcast

Queen of the Night Aria
See article Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen


 * Nico broadcast
 * YouTube broadcast

This is note to his affeminate voice, as the song itself is sung by a female opera singer.

East
Song By Jasmine Music Technology


 * YouTube broadcast

Flying Girl
Song By Jasmine Music Technology


 * YouTube broadcast

Autumn in Central Park
Song by Jasmine Music Technology


 * YouTube

Summertime
Orginally sung by Indigo Girls

Covered by Jasmine Music Technology


 * YouTube broadcast

Fly me to the Moon
Orginally sung by Bart Howard

Covered by NoNeed4Vocaloid


 * YouTube broadcast

My Grandfather's Clock
Covered by Inabano


 * Nico broadcast
 * Youtube broadcast

Trivia

 * It was Lola and Leon's appearance at the NAMM trade show that would later introduce rival vocaloid studio PowerFX to the vocaloid program.
 * Because of the promotional video, "The Farthest End" (Saihate), Leon is often depicted with tulips which eventually became his character item.
 * Leon and Lola are often regarded as siblings by fans due to their similair names, boxart logo style and their release date and they are often regarded as the English Vocaloid equivalent of the Kagamine Vocaloids. At the time of their release, coverage of them also often called them (and later Miriam) "siblings".