LEON

LE♂N and L♀la were the first Vocaloids released for the Vocaloid engine. He is a "virtual male soul vocalist modeled on a real professional singer" and was created for English. As well as claiming the spot of first Vocaloid, Leon and Lola also are the first male and female Vocaloids for English and the Vocaloid engine itself.

History
Leon was released along with fellow Vocaloid, Lola, by Zero-G Limited. They were one of the exhibits at the Zero-G Limited booth during Wired Nextfest and the Vocaloids won the 2005 Electronic Musician Editor’s Choice Award. At the time of their release, Lola and Leon had no rival software to contend with and were the first Vocal synthesizers to be released of their nature. However, Leon and Lola failed to impact the American market due to their accents.

Marketing
Leon and Lola recieved standard advertisements for their day. They were advertised on the internet and in electronic magazines. At the time this was normal for software synethizers and there was no Vocaloid fandom to aid with their developement. They were aimed at professionals therefore and had no fan input in mind. Their boxart was standard for their day and rival software backage Cantor would later adopt the same boxart style.

For a period he, along with Lola and Miriam, was not on sale due to the lack of interest in synthesized voices. This lack of interest was owed to the sudden change in indie music trends. After increased interest began to occur in Vocaloid and demand was renewed, Zero-G began reselling Lola, Leon and Miriam from their own website via their virtual shop. According to Zero-G, the three may also get a redesign in the future.

Leon and Lola's boxarts are from a stock image. The photographer is unknown, but the image is on various stock photo sites. An example of the original is here titled "Profile of woman with finger next to lips" x13037575.

Vocaloid

 * Leon and Lola after heavy vocal cleaning

Leon is sold as a soul singer and is the counterpart to Lola. Leon's vocals were designed to compliment her own. He, like Lola, also sings with a British accent. His voice is light and thin compared to Lola, allowing him to hit higher notes easily. His vocals have a smooth R&amp;B feel to them in contrast to Lola's vocals.

Out of Lola and Leon, Lola was considered the better vocal of the two. Although Miriam shared the same engine version as Leon and Lola, there were bugs and glitches present in Leon and Lola that were later fixed in Miriam's release and they are not as smooth as she is. This means Leon is overall the weakest of the 3 English voicebanks for the Vocaloid era. However, his weakness is owed to the lightness of his vocals. He does not have much timbre which can limit the roles he is capable of singing, including the roles he offers within the Soul singer category that are expected from a male Soul singer. Leon does not have a character design and some users find it difficult to work without a singer to base their song around, though prior to Vocaloid 2 this was not an issue.

Popularity
As there was not much of a Vocaloid fandom to begin with, most fan responses are relatively late responses to the Vocaloid. Until Big Al in 2009, no other English capable male Vocaloid existed, so those wanting a male vocal in the English engine were forced to buy Leon. Leon did not become popular with the public until a relatively unknown Nico Nico Douga user posted a video of him singing "song True to my Heart". This featured Leon in an unusual looking fan design which soon struck the funny bone of Nico Nico users and the video eventually received over 50,000 views.

In the Nico Nico Douga International Vocaloid ranking 2010, Leon had the 3rd most notable number of appearances, with 4 appearances in the top 30 songs of 2010.

A independant Vocaloid search on Nico Nico Douga revealed that most Vocaloids had less then 1,000 videos uploaded on Nico Nico Douga in between July 1 and December 15 2011 with Leon falling into that category as well.

Trivia

 * It was Lola and Leon's appearance at the NAMM trade show that would later introduce rival vocaloid studio PowerFX to the vocaloid program.


 * Because of the promotional video, "The Farthest End" (Saihate), Leon is often depicted with tulips which eventually became his character item.


 * Prima, Leon and Lola's release dates were celebrated in the "Zero-G Garnet Festival" (also referred to as "ZGF") on Nico Nico Douga. This event celebrates the release of these Vocaloids and songs were uploaded during this 3 day event.


 * It is unknown how many units were sold, but as Kaito was the only commercial Vocaloid failure reported, it is safe to say he sold at least 1,000 units.

Notable for...

 * First Male vocal ever released
 * One of the two first English vocals ever released
 * One of the first two Vocaloid voicebanks ever released
 * Used in the first Vocaloid related album ever released commercially
 * One of the two first specialized vocals ever released
 * One of the two first Vocaloids ever released
 * One of the two first Zero-G Vocaloids released
 * One of the first two avatarless Vocaloids produced
 * Sole English capable male vocal for 6 years