KAITO

KAITO is a Vocaloid DTM (Desktop Music) software created by Crypton Future Media. He utilizes the older Vocaloid engine developed by YAMAHA, the predecessor of Vocaloid2. The voice was supplied by a Japanese male singer Naoto Fūga (風雅 なおと, Fūga Naoto). 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
He was created as a counterpart of Meiko and developed together. On 24th July, 2003, an CCCD album "HISTORY OF LOGIC SYSTEM", which included a song using Japanese vocaloids commecially 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 prototye version of Meiko and Kaito before their realease. Meiko was released 1 year after this and Kaito followed her 2 years later.


 * Nico broadcast
 * Youtube broadcast

Also in 2003, Yamaha gave out his first demo song, "Kimi no Uwasa (Rumor of Yours)" 3 years before his release.
 * Nico broadcast
 * Youtube broadcast

Kaito sold only 500 packages in the initial distribution and Crypton deemed it as a failure. 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.

Later Rediscovery
After Miku Hatsune was released, Kaito was re-evaluated. On September 16th, 2007, 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
 * Nico broadcast
 * Nicozon broadcast

Append - The Future of Kaito
Crypton Future Media posted via Twitter about the possibility of a "male-voice append" in December 2010. By the end of the week, they said that they intended to use the "Append" plural expression for Kaito's new product and have done experimental recordings for the "Kaito Append".

Usage for Music
Until Gackpoid was released, Kaito and Leon were the only male voice banks and although Len was released his voice did not hit the same notes that they did. Since overall there are far less male vocaloids and he is the only Crypton male vocaloid that can reach his notes, so Kaito is still used by many producers for songs. Compared to the earlier Vocaloid Leon, Kaito's voice has more "bounce" and hits notes with a lighter tone resulting in him sounding far less flat compared to Leon. Strong digital sound can still be heard, although it is less apparent to earlier Vocaloids and is arguably easier to hide then Leon's.

He is fit to sing anything from hymns and children's songs to R &amp; B and pop, though the style that he is best used for is singing pop ballads.

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 Vocaloid2s.


 * Kaito's inital failure has been blamed or used as an example when referring to the long lasting effect on male Vocaloids and the reason why their female counterparts out number them greatly.