LOLA

L♀LA was the first female Vocaloid ever released. She was released along with fellow Vocaloid Le♂n.

History
Lola was released along with fellow Vocaloid, Leon, by Zero-G Limited. She received much better reviews than her male counterpart, and they were exhibited at the Zero-G Limited booth during Wired Nextfest and the Vocaloids won the 2005 Electronic Musician Editor’s Choice Award, despite mixed reviews on both. 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.

A Japanese electropop-artist Susumu Hirasawa used Vocaloid Lola in the original soundtrack of "Paprika" by Satoshi Kon. Susumu Hirasawa announced that "If users can edit her perfectly, she can be a professional (singer). She can sing in soprano or whatever if they edit her overwhelmingly" on his blog. Since Susumu Hirasawa did not reveal which Vocaloid he used for a quite some time, except the fact it was a female vocaloid, many fans speculated it was Crypton's, Meiko. However, later he mentioned in a magazine interview that it was Lola.

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 she, along with Leon and Miriam, were 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 vocaloids and renewed demand, 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 boxart is 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.

Usage for Music
Unlike Leon, Lola has not been used as much, so information amongst fans is limited compared to many other vocaloids. She is mostly used for techno and digital music despite being sold as a soul singer. As with Leon some users do not attempt to hide her robotic voice and likewise also with Leon, perfection is not necessary to achieve results due to the acceptance of the dated voicebank. She however has a slight synchronization problem compared to Leon making her harder to use than he is, VSQ files used for other Vocaloid era voicebanks may need adjusting when uploaded into Lola. Her biggest advantage over other female vocaloids is her strong, raspy voice, resulting in her having the deepest of the current female voice banks and she sings in the contralto scale. 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. Out of her and Leon, Lola was praised as the better overall vocal when they were released by reviewer. Her versitility is noticable even to first time buyers and can be used with little tweaking, making her the more versitile of the 3 voicebanks offered by Zero-G Ltd for Vocaloid.

She was originally sold using the Vocaloid 1.0 engine but Zero-G provided a link to update the program on their website (via her product page) that would update the vocaloid program to Vocaloid 1.1.


 * Leon and Lola after heavy vocal cleaning

Allowance is also given by Zero-G for the addition of the Vocaloid's works onto Karen-T.

As of a note of confirmation in 2011, Vocaloid engines will no longer be supported by Yamaha and will be slowly fazed out, therefore it is no longer possible to clarify if any Vocaloid software package will work on systems newer then Windows 7 or 64 bit.Currently there are no plans for an updated version of Lola. However, it has been confirmed that if there is demand, Lola will be updated to a newer engine version, the factor in this. Confirmation was also given from Anders, that if English Vocaloids become a lot more popular, Appends for existing Vocaloids are also a possibility. Zero-G however confirmated that right now this process is far too expansive to undertake.

Reception
Due to the lack of fame, there is very little information on fan responses, and as there was not much of a Vocaloid fandom to begin with, most fan responses are relatively late responses to the Vocaloid. She is often commented to sound masculine (ironically, at times Leon can sound effeminate) because of how the vocaloid engine handles her voice as it tends to remove the greater extent of her feminine tone. And as noted, she also sings with a British accent.

The voice Lola is capable of potentially producing once editing has been applied has earned her a small fan following amongst Vocaloid users and fans. The voice she is capable of producing has a distinct firm and mature tone and while other female Vocaloids also carry a mature tone of voice, the tone Lola carries has remain exclusive this far to her voice only. While she does not hold the higher notes as well as Miriam, she in turn controls the lower notes much easier. However, most agree Lola is the hardest to use without the fore-mentioned editing and in its default state, is viewed as the least attractive sounding of the three English Vocaloid voicebanks, despite being considered the most prominent pronunciations of the trio.

In the Nico Nico Douga International Vocaloid ranking 2010, Lola held the second highest number appearances in the top 30 songs with 5 songs, 3 of which made it into the top 10, the top song of 2010 was also a song that used Lola. She was the only English Vocaloid besides Big Al to have a song where she was the sole English Vocaloid singing in the top 10.

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.


 * Miriam, Lola, and Big-Al were featured in the freeware RPG "AD Lucem".


 * Leon and Lola are often regarded as siblings by fans due to similar names, boxart logo style, release date and they are often regarded as the English Vocaloid equivalent of the Kagamine Vocaloids. At the time of their release, media coverage of them also often called them (and later Miriam) "siblings". Even those producing the studio software also often regard the pair as "siblings". Sonika also refers to Leon, Lola and Miriam as her older siblings


 * Lola users often recommend that it is best to set her gender factor at "56" for best results within her voice.


 * Though she is often depicted as a blonde like Leon, Lola herself has very little in the way of an establish fan depiction and the image used varies per fan. However, the most common have been a dark skinned woman with curly hair, and a light skinned young woman with black hair in a bob cut. A note is that soul music has its origins in African-American music, as very few Caucasian singers are actually labeled as soul singers.


 * 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 she sold at least 1,000 units.


 * Lola's voice provider can be heard here.


 * The song, *Beloved Tomboyish Girl* was covered by Lola and posted on Nico Nico Douga, March 3, 2004. This was the first Vocaloid song to be uploaded onto Nico Nico Douga.
 * Nico broadcast: [LOLA] *雪ちよちよ* also known as *雪ちゆちゆ
 * Youtube broadcast: [LOLA] *Yuki Chiyo Chiyo*

Notable for...

 * First female vocal ever released
 * One of the two first English vocals ever released
 * One of the first two Vocaloid voicebanks ever released
 * First noted Vocaloid to be used in a film
 * One of the two first specialised 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
 * Has the oldest Vocaloid related song on NND