OLIVER


 * Information on page is subject to change at anytime, please use information with caution until more is revealed.
 * If any misinformation is found, it should be corrected and sourced by contributors.



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

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

History
Oliver was originally announced on a blog as having a release date set for October 1st 2011. Vocaloid 3 was not set for release until October 21st. Certain members of the Vocaloid community were leaked details about him by PowerFX, including to editors of the Vocaloid wikia, such as that their next Vocaloid was male and a Vocaloid 3. Meanwhile, members of the community, had secretly been aiding Anders in Oliver's fine tuning. As it was their first Vocaloid, PowerFX agreed to release the product for VocaTone, with Anders sorting out most of the legal issues and aiding the group with any issues they faced.

Finally, a fan announced that information had passed to them of Oliver's name and Anders' confirmed that their information was correct. The voice was revealed at an anime convention, Anime Banzai, but it will not be released as an official demo. His first demo (More of a teaser really) will be put up on YouTube and NicoNicoDouga sometime in the near future.

On Halloween 2011, a song featuring Oliver, Sweet Ann and Big Al singing was released on YouTube, the song was a parody of the Addams Family theme song ("The PowerFX family"). Oliver's official demo song was released on YouTube and is a cover of Circus Monster originally sung by Megurine Luka. A second demo Scarborough Fair was also released alongside it. The third demo is "Dinky Dink", composed by So-Pop and originally sung by Sonika, it focuses on his lower range and his English. His next demo, Going Home, focused more on his choir boy skills. Recently, his demo of Lonely Flight was reported by Vocatone as focusing on his lower octave. On December 20th, a Vocatone member reported that Oliver was to be released the next day and hinted that VocaloidOtaku forum members might get something "special".


 * Sample
 * The PowerFX Family YouTube broadcast
 * Demo
 * Circus Monster YouTube broadcast
 * Scarborough Fair (short) YouTube broadcast
 * Scarborough Fair (full) Youtube broadcast
 * Dinky Dink + PV Youtube broadcast
 * Going Home Youtube broadcast
 * Lonely Flight Youtube broadcast
 * Lonely Flight(Remastered) YouTube broadcast

It has been confirmed that Oliver will have a physical box product as well as be available for download online. Progress-wise he is said to be complete. Voice and art were completely finished, and there are activities planned for his reveal and release. According to VocaTones they are pushing for a 2011 release but the hold up is Yamaha. On December 6th, PowerFX's website was updated to include a product page for Oliver.

Finally the announcement of his release came a day before it was due. For members of Vocaloid Otaku forums, a 25% discount is offered to the downable version (offer will extend to boxed version in the upcoming future) of Oliverfor users who sign up to the forum. This offer ends on Jan the 31st 2012. Currently only the lite version can be bought from PowerFx, the Vocaloid 3 editor having to be bought from Yamaha themselves seperately, although this will change in the future according to Anders.

Marketing
Oliver is mostly being discussed at Vocaloid Otaku forums right now where news and updates of his pre-release are being spoken about.

Keeping within the "monster" theme of PowerFX vocaloids, Oliver is also a monster similar to Frankenstein's monster, like Big Al and Sweet Ann. According to Vocatone the reason he has bandages instead of stitches was because stitches did not suit him. The main inspirations for his outfit were the uniforms worn by the Vienna Boys Choir, and the type of clothing upper-class males wore in the late 18th and early 19th century. The art was also drawn in a sketch style, giving a less refined illustration then previous Vocaloids.

According to Lawlietlk, the illustrator of Oliver, she was only told Oliver was a "classical" type of vocal originally. "James", Oliver's bird, was drawn from references; however, Oliver's design was done without any references.

Tumblr
Oliver has an Tumblr Oliver Fanclub.

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

Twitter
He has a Twitter account.

Usage for Music
According to information, Oliver is confirmed to be a young male Vocal with a choir-type singing essence, though capable of singing other genres. He sings with a British accent.

Unlike Kagamine Len and Ryuto, which are also "young boy" voice types, he was voiced by a provider that actually was the same gender and intended age, thus is a more accurate match for that of a young male vocal. He is also the first English capable Vocaloid that does not fall into the "mature" vocal type category. Since Oliver's vocal type is "child-like" some listeners have incorrectly labelled his voicebank as sounding "effeminate". However, young children, boys and girls, have similar vocal ranges at certain stages of growth such as being 13 years of age, yet when a boys voice breaks during puberty it normally matures into a much deeper range then girls of the same age.

He also has several additional sniplets that can be imported into the Vocaloid 3 editior such as sighing, breathing and a "brr" sound.

Reception
Before his initial reveal, Oliver's first illustration was visually presented as a bird perching on a hat; VocaTone staff made it clear that Oliver was not the bird. The bird is a male American Goldfinch and was present because the artist felt it made the art look a little more balanced and complimented Oliver's, soon to be released, design. It is also a little nod to the fact that a lot of Americans worked on this project. While the bird doesn't have an official name, the staff of VocaTone left the naming up to the fandom, the name "James" has become favorable within the VocaloidOtaku forum.

The second illustration was a silhouette that revealed Oliver to be a young male wearing no shoes. There were questions on the silhouette that lead to the artist stating Oliver is barefoot because he looked "too girly with shoes"

Oliver's reception prior to release has mostly been positive. He has become the first English Vocaloid to be widely covered since Sweet Ann, even becoming the first "Engloid" to be reported by the Anime News website "Anime News Network". On Pixiv, he has had a large number of fanart compared to past English Vocaloids and has even out numbered several recent Japanese Vocaloids. VocaTones themselves are surprised by the response to Oliver and the interest that has surrounded him. Some fans have even viewed him in his pre-release state as a possible "Gateway" Vocaloid to strengthen the interest in English Vocaloids and introduce new fans on.

However, on a negative side, some have found the large interest in Oliver more annoying. A significant number of fans were seen to force a Kagamine Len and Oliver comparison upon him when the two Vocaloids have very different approaches. Others felt he was being over romanticised. However, the number of negative responses is overshadowed by the positive.

Trivia

 * According to Vocatone, his name was originally "Cody".


 * Oliver's design was not influenced by Oliver Twist, in spire of the similarities, and are regarded as a coincidence. VocaTone did not realize the similarities until quite late in development.
 * He has a Dal Segno on his cloak.


 * 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 and the very first Vocaloids Leon and Lola were English Vocaloids and were 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.

Notable for...

 * First "young boy" Vocaloid actually voiced by a young boy
 * First English Vocaloid for Vocaloid 3