ZOLA PROJECT (VOCALOID3)


 * This is an informative article about the ZOLA PROJECT software for the VOCALOID3 engine. ZOLA PROJECT consist of three vocal liberies, YUU, KYO, and WIL.

History
The project was first hinted at early in in the month of Feburary 2013, then officially announced in the following month of March that same year.

More information was published in an issue of “VOCALOID wo Tanoshimou” (Let’s Enjoy VOCALOID), which came out on March 11. The singers were picked out of 40 voices, two being picked fairly quickly. Over 100 hours was spent recording them.

ZOLA PROJECT was released on June 20, 2013, along with a special live-talk event on Nico Nico Douga.

In late April, a special event was held. The event was to present their final drawings and concepts, as well as voice samples.

In May 2013, there was an interview on the YAMAHA Panel at niconico Chokaigi 2. Yuki Seto described three main features he believed ZOLA brings to VOCALOID:
 * The ability to create songs that haven't been possible until now.
 * The highest quality audio due to thorough quality checking.
 * Ease of use for beginners and experts alike.

To back up his first point, Seto mentioned that this was the first time a compound sound bank consisting of three male singers had been released, and consequently the sound bank supported trios, duets, backing harmony, and unison out of the box.

Regarding his second point on audio quality, Seto outlined the process for the creation of the sound bank. Previous sound banks were created by first deciding on a person, and then recording his or her voice. However, this was no guarantee that the person’s voice would be suitable for VOCALOID. Keeping this in mind, YAMAHA started with a total of forty candidates in their teens and twenties, and recorded temporary sound banks for all of them to test the sound quality before deciding on who the final three people would be. For these three, YAMAHA made them undergo over a half-year’s worth of “training” in practising to read the "incantations" from which the phonemes could be extracted. Seto noted that this was because these incantations were very different from what would normally be on a dialogue script, but after training, the vocalists would be able to recite it all. The final stage of the process was that the staff at the YAMAHA Research and Development Center worked to put the data together into a sound bank.

For the final point, Seto highlighted several features of the product that he believed made it easy for both beginners and experts to use. First, it comes with a "Job Plugin" that makes it easier to make vocal data for groups of singers. Second, the sound bank is described as sounding good even without tuning, although further tuning improves it even further. Finally, the software package comes with a how-to booklet, as well as tutorial videos to assist people who are new to the software.

Prolific people of their fields have featured in ZOLA's creation, as well as famous illustrator Amano. The demo songs released in June were composed by Daisuke Asakura (a prominent composer who has produced albums for famous bands such as T.M.Revolution) with lyrics by Yukinojo Mori (lyricist for CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA and also a prolific composer).

Mac Update
In 2013, a Mac version of VY1v3 called "Zola Project NEO" was released. This used the new VOCALOID NEO engine to work on Mac computers.

Recommended

 * Correspondence OS: Windows8 (32/64bit) / Windows7 (32/64bit) / Vista (32bit) / XP (32bit)
 * Works in 32bit compatibility mode (WOW64) in 64bit version Windows 7.
 * CPU: Celeron Dual Core 2.1 GHz or more
 * Memory: 1GB or more
 * HDD: 2GB or more

Voicebank Libraries
''Their package also comes with a special plug-in called "ZOLA_Unison" that allows for harmonization of vocals. This plug-in is designed to work specifically for the 3 ZOLA vocals themselves and is not designed for other VOCALOIDs. ''

Individual Vocals

 * -|YUU =
 * -|KYO =
 * -|WIL =