MIRIAM

MIRIAM is the third Vocaloid installment from Zero-G. She was released on the 1st of July, 2004. Her voice is based off the popular British singer, Miriam Stockley, who is also the lead singer of the band Adiemus.

History
In July 2004, Zero-G limited launched Miriam, making her the third Vocaloid to be released. Miriam's programming surpassed her previous Vocaloid counterparts, Lola and Leon. Miriam Stockley offered to allow her voice to be added into the software engine, accepting that you cannot fight progress. Improved functionality was implemented into her, which lessened the time for a Vocaloid user to produce a more realistic sound. In addition, Yamaha mentioned on their website that Miriam's synthesis quality was much better.

Marketing
Miriam was sold as a more general voicebank rather then as a genre driven voicebank like Leon and Lola although was still aimed at professionals just the same. Unlike previous Vocaloids Leon and Lola, Miriam was also released at the same time as Virsyn's Cantor software and comparisons between the two software were noted. This put Miriam at the time at a slight disadvantage in her original time of release, as Leon and Lola did not have competition at the time and Vocaloid was not yet a popular software. Cantor was considered a far greater synthesizing tool than Vocaloid and was able to do what Miriam could not offer; this impacted Miriam's sales. She had been sold as any other software of the time and had no fandom to back her inital release up as it did not exist at the time. Miriam was the most well-known Zero-G Vocaloid at time of release 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, was not on 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 renewed 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.

Concerts
The very first "Live" concert done with Vocaloid was in 2004 with Miriam.

Miriam
Vocaloid Miriam and her Voice Provider Miriam Stockley

Miriam sings with a British accent. Overall though no engine adjustments were made for her release, her voice was much smoother than previous Vocaloids Leon and Lola. Miriam also had minor vocal related fixes that had been in previous Vocaloids. She had a larger phonetic sample base making her English skills better than Leon or Lola. In contrast to Lola, Miriam was a softer, lighter vocal due to its gentler tone and was more suited for pop songs and slow ballads as she favoured higher notes.

Miriam is the softest of the Vocaloid era voicebanks, and sometimes this works against her and she loses clarity. Miriam can sometimes be harder to hear clearly compared to Leon or Lola due to her soft voice. Problems with note pitching were reported by users.

Demo Version
Miriam's demo version gives users a chance to experience usage of the phonetic system for English. The demo lasts for 30 days. Greater manipulation of her voice is absent and users are limited to having her sound robotic.

Popularity
Miriam is often considered the most appealing vocal of the English Vocaloid engine and is normally the most popular with the overseas fandom.

Despite being the most popular English Vocaloid overseas, in Japan, it is Lola who often dominates over Miriam. In the Nico Nico Douga International Vocaloid ranking 2010, Miriam made the least amount of appearances in the top 30 most popular songs of 2010, with just 1 video appearance in the rankings, together Leon and Lola had a combined total of 9 appearances compared to Miriam.

A independant Vocaloid search on Nico Nico Douga revealed that most Vocaloids had less then 1,000 videos uploaded on Nico Nico Douga in between July 1 and December 15 with Miriam falling into that category as well.

Trivia

 * She is the only one of the Zero-G vocaloids whose voice provider is known, Zero-G does not normally name their voice providers for legal reasons.


 * Miriam, Lola and Big-Al were featured in the freeware RPG "AD Lucem".


 * It is unknown how many units were sold, but as Kaito was the only commercial Vocaloid failure reported, it is safe to say she sold at least 1,000 units.

Notable for...

 * First known voice provider for a commercial release
 * First Vocaloid based on a establish singer to be released
 * First Vocaloid to be named after the vocal provider
 * First Vocaloid to have a live concert
 * Most popular English Vocaloid release
 * Only English Vocaloid from Zero-G whose voice provider has been revealed