LEON

LE♂N and L♀la were the first Vocaloids released, being 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, 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
Leon is mostly used for techno, pop and digital music, but was sold as a soul singer. He tends to end up sounding effeminate at times (just as how some describe Lola as sounding masculine) because of how the engine removes the greater extent of his masculine tone. He, like Lola, also sings with a British accent.

Due to his dated voicebank, he often has a noticeably robotic sound. Users accept his and Lola's voicebanks digital sound, Leon's strongest aspect is that perfection is not necessary when creating a song using his voicebank. With much editing he can produce realistic sounding songs. Other users play on his robotic sounding voice, making no attempt to hide it. Leon also has been used in the most varied of ways amongst the English Vocaloid era voicebanks and he has been shown to be a highly versatile Vocaloid. 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.

He was originally sold using the Vocaloid 1.0 engine, but Zero-G provided a link to update the program on their website (via his 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 Leon. However, it has been confirmed that if there is demand, Leon will be updated to a newer engine version. 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. Western Fans criticized the lack of a mascot for Leon and Lola, however, their boxart reflected the time they were release during. As a note Cantor, the rival to English Vocaloid also displayed the same concept as Leon and Lola in its own boxart.

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.

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.


 * Leon and Lola are often regarded as siblings by fans due to their similar names, boxart logo style and their 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.


 * The most famous fan depiction of Leon is of a young blond haired man with a deep blue shirt. This image has become so popular that Leon is now almost always depicted as a blond or fair haired young man, despite soul music having its origins in African-American music, as very few Caucasian singers are actually labeled as soul singers.


 * A comical depiction of Leon is as Italian entertainer Girolamo Panzetta, wearing an outfit similar to Parco Folgore from Konjiki no Gash!! (See) Youtube: 「チチをもげ」 feat LEON


 * 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.


 * Until Big-Al's release 6 years later, Leon was the only male English speaking Vocaloid. This meant for English users the choice of male Vocals were much more limited for a very long time compared to their Japanese counterparts.
 * This also led to a minor joke about how lucky Leon was compared to Kaito, having a "harem" of Vocaloid females to himself; including Lola and Luka, there were 6 female English capable Vocaloids released between his and Al's release.


 * 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