Megurine Luka V4X


 * This is an article about the Megurine Luka software for the VOCALOID3 engine.

History
Note; it is currently unknown how the final package of Luka's V3 update + Append vocals will be released; all information is currently being held here until further information is found.

Megurine Luka Append: 2010
Megurine Luka is the next member of the character Vocal series to receive an append.

Wat confirmed he was considering an "aggressive Whisper" vocal for her.

In December 2010, tests were run on Luka's alpha expression voice. However, it was not as sexy as Wat had hoped. Wat was also surveying the quality of the vocal.

Confirmation of production order was MEIKO > Megurine Luka >> Kaito.

The first commercial use of the Luka Append is on the album "VOCALOID民族調曲集", she sings the song "星空と雪の舞踏会 (Zeal mix) / このり". The VOCALO APPEND album later used beta voicebanks of Luka's Append.

Megurine Luka Append: 2011
In July, Wat reported that MEIKO's and Luka's progress was coming along quietly.

In a twitter on the 12th July 2011, Wat mentioned doing test in relation to a Luka "Soft" append.

Wat tweeted on the 1st Dec 2011, noting that all previous demos had originally been rendered with the VOCALOID2 engine, and things were being redone for the VOCALOID3 engine.

A video with samples from the VOCALO APPEND album was uploaded on December 17, 2011.

Megurine Luka Append: 2012
Crypton is going to add Japanese and English Voicebanks to her V3 append, although are still trying to work out how to make them cost effective.

Megurine Luka V3: 2013
Wat confirmed that Luka and MEIKO are planned for release on VOCALOID3, but no estimated release can be set at this moment.

In November 2013 it was confirmed that Luka's V3 version is in the process of being tuned. It is reported to sound the same as the VOCALOID2 vocal, but less painful to listen to.

Later in December, Wat continued to speak of Luka. He mentions the new standard vocal is calm, a second vocal has more of a flashy flare about it and a 3rd is a more breathy vocal intended to be sexy. Their focus was a vocalist with a varied tone.

On the 26th of December 2013, Wat mentioned having worked with Luka's recording and thanked Asakawa for her patience. The day before, Wat mentioned recording the sound "spell" (the 50 sounds needed for Japanese) using a customized list rather then the standard Yamaha "Spell". At the end of 2013, Wat mentioned he was currently working on the personality of each Kagamine and Megurine vocal. Wat also mentioned working on a feminine SOFT-like voice, but felt the bass was not good enough and it needed adjustments. Wat mentioned he had done some experimental recording on the second half of 2013.

Megurine Luka V3: 2014
In January, it was mentioned that a "POWER" vocal was being produced. Comparing Luka's new vocal, MEIKO Power and Rin's Power Append (VOCALOID2), Wat mentioned these forceful vocals always maintain a strong feeling, even compared to the reduced wavelength of Rin POWER's V2 vocal. Wat also mentioned there were annoyances with Luka's "elegant tone of voice" in the new vocal. After a week of editing Kagamine Rin's vocal, Wat mentioned it was time to go back to working on Luka.

Luka V3 was given a website in Jan. 2014, the only data contained within the page at the time was the 3 main features of the upcoming release. At the bottom of the page it mentioned that details were to be released soon. Wat mentioned on Luka's anniversary that there was a shift from α and that the β version was now under construction. The vocal was under experimental techniques and was being scrutinized during its development. The adjustments being made to Luka's V3 vocal gave her more expression within the vocal. Wat mentioned that in regards to to the "core" sound of Luka, that, the VOCALOID team (consisting of 3 producers, a sound engineer and project director) met up for discussion every 3 weeks for debate on the progress for further adjustments to be made to the product. They have been aiming to make the vocal more flexible.

Wat mentioned on the 31st of January that checking the characteristics of Luka's voice and the vowel/consonants was the focus being the #C5 range, mentioning the print outs of Luka's data were mounting up on his desk at the time. Wat also explained what he meant by increasing the expressiveness of Luka's voice, and that it did not refer to a falsetto vocal, but the allowance of extreme pitches. At the end of Jan, Wat mentioned that they were working on the things mentioned on her teaser site. They were considering the forms of past Appends and there were changes going on to the Databases of each vocal and that the forms that past Appends took may not be the best.

Wat had mentioned thickness of vocal was one of several focuses, bass, vocal range were all being worked upon while trying to keep them sounding natural. Crypton was working on a new method of recording the Luka vocal that was proving successful. It was mentioned that Luka, Rin and Len were all being worked upon at the same time. Later, Wat tweeted that Luka's new voice is maybe too thick.

In late March, both POWER and WHISPER vocals were mentioned as being checked upon.

On July 11, Asakawa tweeted that they are "Recording Luka in a very interesting way", and she said that she will be posting pictures of the recording process when the time comes.

On August 23, Wat tweeted that Luka's phonemes were entering final tuning. The next day, he tweeted that the design rough draft was nearly ready and he was progressing with the sound brushup.

It was mentioned that they had to work backwards with VOCALOID to bring out the characteristic sex-appeal of her provider's vocal.

Wat later mentioned that Luka was made mostly in-house with help from people in the US. He mentioned that the new Luka voice had been worked upon to fit in with Yamaha's sound system. It was mentioned that he had to constantly remodel the VOCALOID database.

On September 12, Wat tweets about recruiting people for Japanese and English VSQ data to show off Luka's high and low range. Information about Luka V3 will be made available at Miku Expo 2014 held in New York. On October 1, the band that would be featured at the MikuExpo practiced with Luka's voicebank using a popular Utaite,, lyrics.

Voicebank Libraries

 * -|Megurine Luka =

Individual vocals

 * -|Megurine Luka; Japanese =
 * -|Megurine Luka; English =