Hiyama Kiyoteru

Hiyama Kiyoteru (氷山キヨテル) is a Japanese Vocaloid released in December 4, 2009. He is developed by AH-Software. Officially he teaches Kaai Yuki at school and is good at mathematics. He joins a rock band "Ice Mountain" as "Ice Mountain Teru" on weekends (note: this is a play on words as "Hiyama" (氷山) means "Ice Mountain").

History
Kiyoteru's voice was offered by a Japanese singer, Kiyoshi Hiyama. His name had been secret for a long time, however, Kiyoshi himself announced this on Nico Nico Live on August 12th, 2010.

Three demos have been released, named "Seichi Jerusalem", "Wings", and "I'll love you again".

Vocaloid 3; starter pack
Ah software are releasing their Vocaloid 2 era Vocaloid with Vocaloid 3 starter packs. However, there have been no updates for the 4 voicebanks and although they are sold with Vocaloid 3 they are all still Vocaloid 2 voicebanks.

Marketing
Kiyoteru is meant to be portrayed as a sensei (teacher). His tie clip is a motif of Yamaha's electric upright bass SLB100 and his glasses are ZS92001A by Zoff.

Until May 2011, all Ah-software Vocaloids were banned from Karen-T.

Book: "Ice Mountain"
A book is being released about Hiyama Kiyoteru's band "Ice Mountain Teru". The book lists information on the band "Ice Mountain".

Vocaloid 2

 * Improving vocals using Kiyoteru

Kaai Yuki and Kiyoteru were designed to be Vocaloids that had human-esque traits about them. His treble range is supposedly smooth, which allows for an easier usage of the higher octaves. He has the softest of the Vocaloid male voices within the Vocaloid 2 voicebanks. Also he has clear Japanese consonant sounds and stable voice.

He is not good at singing in a low voice as a male singer and the beginning consonant sounds get shorter as well as with other AH-S vocaloids. Because of this he is often said upon his inital release that he was not easy for beginners to use. A particular noted weakness of his voicebank is that he cannot produce a satisfactory low masculine vocal tone.

Demo
A 14 trial version of the Vocaloid 2 engine for this Vocaloid was made able to be downloaded in March 2012 from Ah Softwares website. This does not allow .VSQ saving but .Wav files can be saved.

Popularity
He was overall the least popular of the trio of Ah Software Vocaloids. Ah Software's Vocaloids took a while to gain popularity, leaving him as the least popular Japanese Vocaloid in Japan for a time.

An independent 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 Kiyoteru falling into that category as well.

Trivia

 * According to the book "Ice Mountain", the default configuration for his software package is Kiyoteru's vocals as a rookie singer.
 * Yuki and Kiyoteru's announcement came in November 2009. Interestingly enough, at the end of the previous month Crypton Future Media had just made their own announcement of a series called Project if… which was set in a elementry school setting.

Notable for...

 * One of the first 3 AH software Vocaloids
 * First male AH software Vocaloid
 * Once held the title of "least used Japanese Vocaloid"