Hide

hide was a voice credited in an album called "Co Gal" and was created using VOCALOID technology. It is the second known voice based on a deceased singer.

History
This voice was made in tribute to the singer Hideto Matsumoto, better known as "hide". He was a member of the band X Japan and died on May 2nd, 1998. Like the VOCALOID Ueki-loid, this vocal was an attempt to resurrect the voice of a singer who died. However, unlike Ueki-loid, this vocal did not use samples from relatives. Aside from the vocals, hide was also credited with producing the guitar and bass lines. The samples were extracted from his songs and the arrangement was done by musician INA, who was a close friend of hide, using breath sounds and various song cues to give the result a more realistic feeling. The result of their efforts left reviewers of the song review pre-release commenting on how the voice was "unmistakably" like hide's own.

The voice was used in the album Co Gal, which was released on December 10th, 2014.The album contains hide's "last song", he died just before the song went into production leaving behind only a audio demo and lyrics. Originally, the song "Co Gal", of which the album is named after, was due to be released on hide's solo album "Ja zoo". the now completed album was released on what would have been hide's 50th birthday.

Etymology
The name, "hide", has been traditionally used by X Japan to give credit to voice samples used on songs and albums that feature their deceased band member hide since his death in 1998. This was done as a form of respect to his passing. The tradition also extended to re-releases or re-mixes of songs he originally wrote prior to his death. This is why hide was credited as the voice singing despite the fact a VOCALOID based on his voice was singing and not hide himself. The actual name of the VOCALOID voicebank itself, however, is unknown.

Trivia

 * This is the first case of a commercial VOCALOID song of a deceased singer being released, the previous Ueki-loid album, Legend of VOCALOID, was not released for reasons unknown.