Yuezheng Longya (VOCALOID4)


 * This is an article about the Yuezheng Longya software for the VOCALOID4 engine.

2012
A contest titled "VOCALOID CHINA" was held to determine the design of the first Chinese VOCALOID which ended on January 3, 2012. On January 17, the winner was revealed to be Yayin Gongyu, the original version of Luo Tianyi, in Shanghai. She was the top ranked design of 5 winning entries for the contest, with one of them being Yayin who is now known as Yuezheng Longya. Their finalized designs were revealed on March 22. Since then, Longya was only used as a promotional character concept.

2013
Due to controversial issues occurring in 2013, Longya and the other supporting characters of VOCALOID CHINA were unable to become VOCALOIDs for the time being.

2014
In March 2014, Shanghai HENIAN repurchased the character rights for all of the VOCALOID CHINA cast members and relaunched the project as VOCANESE.

2015
On May 28, 2015, a VOCALOID named Stardust was revealed. On the same day, Shanghai HENIAN addressed the Chinese fans’ outcry about the lack of male VOCALOIDs and responded that the next would the first male. Whether it was a pre-existing Vsinger character or someone new was unknown. They heavily implied it may be Longya as they posted “Longya insisted that his sister would go first since he loves her so much”, however, it was not fully confirmed.

On May 29, during a Q/A session about Stardust, Shanghai HENIAN confirmed that all Vsinger characters are their main priority despite receiving commission works from small groups and other companies.

On July 23, in a response to a producer's question, Longya's production was leaked. He was officially announced on July 30 but under different circumstances. Vsinger noted that he was in their plans but stated that despite the desire to make a voicebank for him, their investors were questioning whether or not he would sell well, especially since he lacked fans and fanart. In order to make him a voicebank, Vsinger asked for at least 100,000 shares on his announcement post to measure his popularity.

On August 8, the Weibo post reached the goal and Shanghai HENIAN planned to meet their investors with this information. On August 14, Longya's production was approved and Shanghai HENIAN asked fans to recommend potential voice providers for him. It was noted that they would not be holding a voice provider contest like Yuezheng Ling and Zhanyin Lorra. Instead, they would take the recommendations into consideration, filter through them, and make the final decision themselves.

On September 18, it was announced that Shanghai HENIAN completed their "test recording stage", where they gathered a handful of voice providers, recorded their voices, and listened to each sample voicebank to decide who was the most suitable. This was similar to the contest for Ling and Lorra, however, fans were not involved in the final decision. It was emphasized that these tests were not part of the final voicebank and that more work would be needed to complete him. His voice provider was attending the CXC Nanjing International ACG Festival on October 2 and the other potential voice providers involved would not be revealed.

On October 2, Jie Zhang was announced to be Longya's voice provider. He performed three songs live at the event and spoke about his reaction to being recommended by fans. In response to a fan, Vsinger confirmed that Longya is expected to release in July 2016 if he progressed well.

On November 16, Vsinger confirmed that Jie Zhang already started recording for Longya during the month. Behind-the-scenes recording may be revealed at a later time. In addition, he would later voice act as Longya for fanartist pora's 2dlive animation. This was to give the fans an idea of how his voice would fit Longya's character and was done for fun.


 * pora's 2dlive animation feat. Jie Zhang (as Yuezheng Longya).

2016
On June 3, 2016, Vsinger announced that Longya would be using a new design for his VOCALOID4 release. They were accepting suggestions from fans via Weibo. He was also given an additional biography. On October 2, SHN confirmed that Longya's debut was nearing and apologized for the long wait. At this point in time, he was about to enter the final reviewing and packaging stage. On October 20, Renxingtu, one of the developers, showed a still image of a song that used Longya's voicebank but confirmed that it is not an official demo.

On November 3, Jie Zhang posted on Weibo that he finally had the chance to hear Longya's demo. He described it as strong and soft. He thought that the voicebank was so good that he wrote "he even sings better than me". In addition, SHN commented that Jie Zhang would be returning to the studio for further recording, pushing back Longya's release date.

On December 4, a livestream was held in Beijing to showcase Luo Tianyi's new line of merchandise and special guests made appearances, including Jie Zhang and Renxingtu. There was mention that Longya's production was completed. Jie Zhang sang "Molihua" again during the livestream and a version featuring Longya's voice was played afterwards for comparison. This was the first time Longya's voicebank was shown to the public. Jie Zhang also said that recording a VOCALOID voicebank was nothing like voiceacting for film or TV and it was a whole different experience for him.

During a conference on December 8, Longya was seen performing Pǔtōng DISCO along with Luo Tianyi, YANHE, and Yuezheng Ling. It was also confirmed that Longya would have more than one voicebank.

2017
On February 10, 2017, it was confirmed that one of Longya's voicebanks was called "淳" (Chún). When combined with "淳厚", it literally means "Pure" or "Simple". However, Longya's official Weibo account noted that the English translated name of the voicebank is called "Normal". A preview of his artwork was also shown. On February 12, another image was shown along with the label "雅" (Yā). The translated name was "Soft". His first original demo song, "In Your Breath", was planned to release on February 14.

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