ZOLA PROJECT (VOCALOID3)

History
The project was first hinted at early in Feb 2013, ZOLA PROJECT was announced in March 2013.

More information was published in an issue of “VOCALOID wo Tanoshimou” (Let’s Enjoy VOCALOID), which came out on March 11. The singers were picked out of 40 voices, two of the the vocals were picked fairly quickly. They were recorded in over 100 hours.

They are set for release on June 20th, 2013, along with a special live talk event on Nico Nico Douga.

In late April a special event was held which showed their final drawings and concepts, as well as voice samples.

In an interview on the YAMAHA Panel at niconico Chokaigi 2 (May 2013), Yuki Seto described three main features he believed ZOLA brings to VOCALOID :
 * The ability to create songs that haven't been possible until now.
 * The highest quality audio due to thorough quality checking.
 * Ease of use for beginners and experts alike.

To back up his first point, Seto mentioned that this was the first time a compound sound bank consisting of three male singers had been released, and that since the sound bank supported trios, duets, backing harmony and unison out of the box.

Regarding his second point on audio quality, Seto outlined the process for the creation of the sound bank. Previous sound banks were created by first picking a person and then recording his or her voice. However, this was no guarantee that the person’s voice would be suitable for Vocaloid. Keeping this in mind, YAMAHA started with a total of forty candidates in their teens and twenties, and recorded temporary sound banks for all of them to test the sound quality before deciding on who the final three people would be. For these three people, YAMAHA then made them undergo over a half-year’s worth of “training” in practicing to read the "incantations" from which the phonemes could be extracted. Seto noted that this was because these incantations were very different from what would normally be on a dialogue script, and that after training, the voicers would be able to essentially recite the whole thing. Finally, the staff at the YAMAHA Research and Development Center worked together to put the data together into a sound bank.

For the final point, Seto highlighted several features of the product that he believe make it easy for both beginners and experts to use the sound bank. First, it comes with a Job Plugin that makes it easier to make vocal data for groups of singers. Second, the sound bank is described as sounding good even without tuning, although further tuning can improve it further. Lastly, the software package comes with a how-to booklet as well as tutorial videos to assist people new to the software.

Throughout the creation of ZOLA, prolific people of their fields have featured in its creation; as well as Amano, the demo songs are expected in June, and they are to be composed by Daisuke Asakura (a prominant composer who has produced albums for famous acts such as T.M.Revolution) with lyrics by Yukinojo Mori (lyricist for CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA and also a prolific composer).

Voicebank Libraries
The vocal project is centered around 3 vocals, all of the them male. They are developed to harmonize with each other act as a chorus together. The three are being released as a limited/special release. The 3 vocals themselves are considered a high quality product and received much attention to detail during development to ensure a high level of quality was maintained.

What makes the ZOLA PROJECT product a first for VOCALOID™ is that the product offers 3 vocals from 3 different vocalists, whereas past multi-vocal packages were always based on just one vocalists' voice.


 * -|YUU =
 * -|KYO =
 * -|WIL =

Plug-in
Their package also comes with a special plug-in called "ZOLA_Unison" that allows for harmonization of vocals. This plug-in is designed to work specifically for the 3 ZOLA vocals themselves and is not designed for other VOCALOIDs.