Tonio

Tonio follows on from the success of Vocaloid PRIMA, Zero-G announced a release date of February 2010 for Vocaloid TONIO, a brand-new plug-in virtual singer modeled on the voice of a professional male classical singer, and powered by Yamaha VOCALOID2 Singing Synthesis Technology.

History
Tonio was first announced at the NAMM trade show and was set to be released back in early February 2010 Zero-G's website. According to Sonika, he apparently had a sore throat and a date of June 2010 was then confirmed. However, by the end of June Zero-G released a note that he was complete but the final touches were being made to his program and would be delayed another week. Demos would follow soon, possibly a week after the extended delay was announced.

When he was first mentioned by Zero-G, they noted that they were planning to redesign their older vocaloids, but neither he nor Prima would get a new look as they felt they were fine the way they are.

A demo was released on the 8th of July 2010, he is forecast for release within the next "few days" and was eventually released on the 14th of July 2010. He had several demo songs including Una furtiva lagrima, La Donna e Mobile Demo, a duet of Big Al and him singing Tu vuo fa l' americano and a duet of him and Prima singing Cinque Dieci Demo.

His software comes with the VSQ file for "Una furtiva lagrima".

Taiwan Release
Tonio is due to be released into Taiwan by E-Capsule. He received a new boxart and was featured in a 40 second demo. The full version of this song "Treasure" was later released, in this video Tonio was referred to as "Baron Tonio".

Usage for Music
According to an interview with Dom Keefe, Tonio has a range from baritone to Tenor and is intended to be a partner to Prima. He shares many properties with Prima as a result so many of the techniques that are used for Prima will also be possible or needed for Tonio. The difference between them is that Prima favors higher octaves, whereas Tonio favors the lower octaves. Like Prima he is also considered amongst one of the more professional aimed Vocaloids.

His demos show him singing in languages such as Italian and Spanish, however he is an English Vocaloid and to make him sing in other languages like all Vocaloids means spending time working with the phonetic system. As seen in his demos, due to his style of voice Tonio also is able to use the rolling note effect R on the Phonetic system to the greatest advantage of all the Vocaloids. However, Tonio does not have the breathing phonetics [br1]-[br5], despite Prima having these within her voicebanks.

On rare occasions, odd notes may produce a slight "plucking" sound on low grade computers which may have to be attended to using the parameters although he is not the Vocaloid most known for these sounds. He does not produce these sounds as often as Sonika, although more often than Prima. Unlike Sonika, the sound is not always as noticeable. Pronunciations related to the letter "r" in the english alphabet may not sound well for Tonio, as he tends to be flat. However, he is able to hold notes relatively well, some notes may also be muffled so its best to pay attention to his phonetics when users have him sing. He does not have nearly as many issues as Sonika does and has more clarity. In comparison to his partner Prima, however, Tonio is regarded as not as natural sounding, lacks her smoothness in his raw "out of the box" state and needs more editing than she does.

Tonio currently holds the most up to date Vocaloid 2 engine version on sale for the English Vocaloids.

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

Currently there are no plans for an updated version of Tonio. However, it has been confirmed that if there is demand, Tonio 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.

Reception
Since he followed Big Al and was also late, Tonio was the source of many pre-release jokes within the Western fandom. His boxart won many fangirls hearts before he was even heard and he was praised upon his first demos. However, this was short lived and he has not gained as much popularity as previous male English Vocaloid Big Al. Part of the problem is that many are unable to simply enjoy his vocals, stating his more deeper voice is "scary". Very few have uses for him and the first set of cover songs seen on youtube were Lady Gaga covers. In both the Western and Japanese fandom he is amongst the least seen in use of the English capable Vocaloids on Nico Nico Douga and Youtube.

He did not receive the same impact as Prima did and to top it off, his release came at an awkward time when focus was on the new stream of Japanese Vocaloids like Lily. Ironically, had he come out when he was first proposed (early 2010), he would have had no competition from any other Vocaloid and would have had more focus. Another problem was that Big Al had also been well received, for lacking some clarity and being more specialized for professional users, Tonio to a degree could not compete. However, despite the bland reaction from much of the fandom, there are some who praise him, as when used correctly he is regarded as quite a remarkable Vocaloid and has won the respect of a number of fans.

Trivia

 * Since he follows Big-Al, who also had a late release a joke within the fandom notes how the male English vocaloid always seem to be late arriving (also often joked as "suffering from Big Al syndrome"). Even within the Japanese fandom, jokes are made about Tonio and Sonika being nearly obscure due to their bad timing, the former being more obvious.


 * His fan item has already been discussed and some view the Martini as his proposed character item (because Prima's is said to be wine). Sonika later twittered about Tonio being unable to go swimming on their holiday since he was suspicious of any liquid not at least partly Martini based.


 * His boxart is from a stock image. The photographer was Alija who is a contributor on the website istockphoto. The original is here, there are other images based on the model.


 * Tonio's Taiwan design is a reference to monster/oni in asian opera house stories.

Notable for...

 * First male Vocaloid 2 produced by Zero-G
 * Least used English vocal