OLIVER

Oliver is an English Vocaloid developed by PowerFX and new VOCALOID company, VocaTone.

Oliver's voice provider was a 13 year old boy from Britain, who for legal reasons cannot be named. He is the first young male Vocaloid not to use an adult voice and the first Vocaloid 3 English voicebank.

Appearance
Keeping within the "monster" theme of PowerFX vocaloids, Oliver is also a creature similar to Frankenstein's monster, like Big Al and Sweet Ann. According to Lawlietlk, the illustrator of Oliver, she was originally only told that Oliver was a "classical" type of vocal. "James", Oliver's bird, was drawn from references; however, Oliver's design was done without any reference.

Oliver's design was not influenced by Oliver Twist, in spite of the similarities, which are regarded as coincidences. VocaTone did not realize the similarities until quite late in development.

According to Vocatone the reason he has bandages instead of stitches was because stitches did not suit him. The main inspiration for his outfit was the uniforms worn by the Vienna Boys Choir, and upper-class male clothing of the late 18th and early 19th century. He has a Dal Segno on his cloak.

Character Traits
According to VocaTone, his name was originally "Cody". It is unknown why "Oliver" was chosen.

Oliver's bird is an American Goldfinch.

Examples of Usage

 * -|Oliver =

Marketing
Oliver was mostly discussed at Vocaloid Otaku forums where news and updates of his pre-release were being spoken about. The success of Vocaloid Otaku forums led to a discount being offered to those who had signed up to the forum up 3 months prior to his release. Vocaloid Otaku was already being used by PowerFX and Zero-G as their fanbase forum for gaining feedback from the English Vocaloid fans; the feedback and reaction was better received overall than even in the past with other Vocaloids, making this approach one of the companies' most successful marketing attempts on any Vocaloid.

The art was also drawn in a sketch style, giving a less refined illustration than previous Vocaloids.

Tumblr
Oliver has a Tumblr Oliver Fanclub.

Facebook
Oliver also has a Facebook page. A poll was held for fans to vote on the type of merchandise they'd most like to see with Oliver.

Twitter
He has a Twitter account.

Taiwan Release
Oliver had a demo uploaded to youtube by Ecapsule called "Realm Beyond", though no official announcements have been made, it is likely he is due for a Taiwan release.

Competition
A competition for Oliver was run by VocaTone, the prize being Oliver himself. Details are found on the VocaTone website. An MMD model was supplied for the use of entries, though MMD is not required for entering the competition nor the use of these specific models. Those taking part must create a PV to accommodate the song "Birds". The competition expired on the 4th of December.

The overall winner was Porifra, with runners up Pikadude31451 and MagikSalem.

Popularity
Oliver was the best received English Vocaloid within the fandom at his time of release. At one stage he had more fanart on Pixiv prior to release than some of the Japanese Vocaloids for Vocaloid 3, who had been known for some time prior to Oliver's announcement. His forum topic at Vocaloid Otaku reached 100 pages (sorted 20 posts per page), arriving quicker than other topics about unreleased Vocaloids. Oliver's first two demos "Circus Monster" and "Scarborough Fair" also managed to get over 30,000+ views within their first month of upload, which was not seen by past English Vocaloids.

In April 2012, Oliver overtook Big Al in English Vocaloid popularity. Oliver is currently the most popular Vocaloid designed to sing only in English in the Vocaloid fandom both in Japan and overseas.

In late August 2012, his PV demo song "Dinky Dink" became the first demo for a English only built Vocaloid to reach 100,000+ views.

Trivia

 * A choir styled Vocal had been planned since the very first Vocaloids went on sale in 2004, however, originally Zero-G were the ones who had intended to release such a voice.


 * Since Oliver was the first English Vocaloid developed since the Hatsune Miku Facebook account had been set up, a number of less informed fans have been known to classify him as "the first English Vocaloid". This is not the case as the very first Vocaloids, Leon and Lola, were English and released in 2004. This is no fault of the fandom itself, but a long term issue that has been noted about some communities within the Vocaloid fandom that lack more experienced Vocaloid users.


 * Oliver's voice is used as the voice of "Puppycat" in Cartoon Hangover series "Bee and PuppyCat".  Part1 of the series was the first video featuring Oliver's voice to reach a total of 1,000,000+ views on youtube. PuppyCat's Fairy Tale from Bee and PuppyCat on Cartoon Hangover was uploaded August 20th.

Notable for...

 * First "young boy" Vocaloid actually voiced by a young boy
 * First English Vocaloid for Vocaloid 3
 * First male Vocaloid for Vocaloid 3
 * First PowerFX Vocaloid for Vocaloid 3
 * First VocaTone Vocaloid
 * First PowerFX Vocaloid with a Child's Voice

Gallery

 * -|Boxart =
 * -|Concept art =
 * -|Promotional art =

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