Crypton Future Media, Inc.

Crypton Future Media Inc. is an importer of sound devices in Sapporo, Japan. This company is also known as the developer of Miku Hatsune.

About
Crypton Future Media Inc. was established in 1995 as an importer and seller of music software in Sapporo, Japan. This company is a pioneer of using Yamaha's voice synthesis program Vocaloid. Crypton's first two Vocaloids were Meiko, released in 2004 and Kaito, released in 2006. According to Crypton themselves, they were charged with recommending English studios for the English version of the software and so far have managed to gain the recommendations for both Zero-G and later PowerFX.

It was not, however, until Miku Hatsune was released in Aug. 2007 that Crypton as well as Vocaloid became popular. When they began to use the vocaloid 2 engine, they created the "Character Vocal Series", which would later influence the use of 'avatars' or 'mascots' by other companies working on the Vocaloid program. This success in commercial strategy made Crypton the leading Vocaloid developer.

Acording to Crypton, because professional singers refused to provide singing data, in fear that the software might create their singing voice's clones, Crypton changed their focus from imitating certain singers to creating characteristic vocals. This change of focus led to sampling vocals of voice actors.

Any rights or obligations arising from the vocals created by the software belong to the software user. Just like any music synthesizer, the software is treated as a musical instrument and the vocals as sound. Under the term of license, the Character Vocal Series software can be used to create vocals for commercial or non commercial use, as long as the vocals do not offend public policy. In other words, the user is bound under the term of license with Crypton not to synthesize derogatory or disturbing lyrics. On the other hand, copyrights to the mascot image and name belong to Crypton. Under the term of license, a user cannot commercially distribute a vocal as a song sung by the character, nor use the mascot image on commercial products, without Crypton's consent.

Crypton has noted that their CV04 vocaloid will be the last of the Character Vocal Series.

Crypton has also produced several voicebanks that are still in a developmental stage, to date only CV-4Cβ and Junger März_PROTOTYPE β are known. These voicebanks are intended for demostrational and/or corporate purposes only so it is unknown how many such voicebanks Crypton has recorded or if these voicebanks will later become commerical Vocaloids.

At the 2010 New York Comic-Con, a US store was considered.

Involvement in Super GT Series
The Vocaloid series, particularly Hatsune Miku, has been actively involved in the GT300 class of the Super GT since 2008 Super GT seasonwith the support of Good Smile Racing (a branch of Good Smile company, mainly in charge of car-related products, especially itasha (cars featuring illustrations of anime-styled characters) stickers). Although Good Smile Company was not the first to bring the anime and manga culture to Super GT, it departs from others by featuring itasha directly rather than colorings onto vehicles.

Robot Miku
At CEATEC Japan 2009, Boffin, in joint with Yamaha had the robot model HRP-4C react to the Vocaloid software for demonstration purposes. She was dressed up to look like Hatsune Miku for the demo.

Piapro
Crypton set up Piapro to clear up some of the problems related to copyright issues. Under the Japanese law code, which strictly preserves the original creator's right, secondary fan arts may be interpreted as copyright violation. However, Vocaloid movement owed many to these fan creations so Crypton approved these productions by the license similar to Creative Commons (Note: Crypton is NOT a member of the association). Users are encouraged to post illustrations, music and lyrics onto Piapro. Piapro authorizes the use of these fan-made creations for the NON-COMMERCIAL purpose automatically when posted. This arrangement is for the products distributed by and the derivatives adopted by Crypton only. No other Vocaloid distributor has a plan like this currently.

Tinier Me
The avatar community Tinier Me has done a collaboration with Crypton Vocaloids, involving a special (virtual) dispenser machine called "Tinier Gacha". This machine dispenses random items for members to equip, they are limited edition and not available in the regular shops. It started July 20, 2010 and ended on November 30, 2010 with a full line up of all Crypton Vocaloids. The Vocaloids preformed songs on an outdoor stage and handed out album covers. Members were encouraged to listen to Vocaloid songs on KarenT, an online entertainment site, which gives musicians a place to feature their music.

With the success of the first release, additional gacha were released called the Persona Gacha Vol*, these gacha were based upon popular outfits seen in animated PVs and artwork. The promotion for them ended in December 2010.

Vocaloid

 * Meiko: Japanese female
 * Kaito: Japanese male

Vocaloid2
Character Vocal Series (CV)
 * Miku Hatsune (CV01): Japanese female
 * Append: Contains different voicebanks "Soft", "Sweet", "Dark", "Vivid", "Solid" and "Light".
 * Rin and Len Kagamine (CV02): Japanese female (Rin) and male (Len)
 * Act 2: Independant installation with updated voicebanks.
 * Luka Megurine (CV03): Japanese and English female

Vocaloid-flex

 * CV-4Cβ: Japanese female

Current Projects

 * Rin and Len Append (December 2010)
 * Unnamed Japanese male
 * : still there is no official announcement except it is in VOCALOID2 CV series, however, this is said to be the strongest candidate for CV04 among fans.
 * Unnamed Japanese male
 * : this is in "Project if..." series, a mysterious project involving a "child voice".  The young female Japanese vocaloid was used in a song, which was written by Sound Horizon, with Miku as a prototype Vocaloid named Junger März PROTOTYPE β. According to the Crypton's annoucement, Junger März is not an offcial name for the new vocaloid.