Piapro Studio

Piapro Studio (ピアプロスタジオ) is a VSTi produced and developed by Crypton Future Media, meant for use in a DAW (digital audio workstation).

History
Piapro Studio is packaged along with most of CRYPTON's VOCALOID releases since KAITO V3. It is designed to replace the need for the standard VOCALOID Editor, allowing VOCALOIDs to be used without the need to purchase the full VOCALOID software. However, it was originally restricted to just working with KAITO V3, Hatsune Miku V3, and Hatsune Miku V3 English. As of the v1.2.0 update, any VOCALOID2 and VOCALOID3 voicebank can be imported into the program. As of version 2, it supports VOCALOID4 voicebanks and capabilities such as Growl and Cross-Synthesis. It has a VSTi interface and DAW plug-in capabilities. It can support multiple tracks and VSQx saving. Plug-in capabilities are also possible.

A PreSonus Studio One edition is also available with 4 virtual instruments supplied: Presence, SampleOne, Mojito and Impact.

Piapro Studio was later updated in December 2013 to be able to handle other VOCALOIDs besides those created by Crypton Future Media. Currently, Piapro Studio supports all five of the Vocaloid languages.

E.V.E.C.
"E.V.E.C." or "Enhanced Voice Expression Control", was developed to expand the expression and emotions of the set singer. E.V.E.C. is an advanced feature that can both aid and hinder a producer, due to its complexity and is more suitable for professional or experienced users.

E.V.E.C. works similar to the original VOCALOID software and is an analytic based system. Though data is recorded for usage within E.V.E.C. the resulting recorded samples are used as a mathematical equation to adapt the vocal how one pleases. As a result, it adapts the vocal into a new final result entirely, which behaviours, in theory, different to its original behaiour. This is similar to how XSY adapts the results of two combined vocals. E.V.E.C. was most likely born out of the desire of Crypton's development team had to create more Append vocals with different degrees of variation of tone such as "Dark-Sweet, Warm-Sweet, Weak-Sweet", much of which suddenly became a possibility with VOCALOID4s new XSY function. The feature was designed to combine itself with XSY specifically to blend the voice in a variety of ways allowing for a delicate adaption of the voice. These can be both extreme or subtle, simple or complex. In other words, it is a method of fine tuning the vocal in ways Vocaloid alone cannot. It was the first addition to any Vocaloid added that fully took advantage of VOCALOID 4's new XSY, as well as its new GWL function.

This effect is difficult to create within Vocaloid itself and would require a multitude of voicebanks; this is shown with Megpoid V4. Usying XSY, Megpoid V4 has access to 100 tone variations thanks to the combined effort of her 10 vocals. Compared to Megpoid V4, a package like Hatsune Miku V4x has have access to 25 tone variations with XSY only since she has only 5 vocals. But using "Voice Colours" the number of variations increases. A further 6 new tone variations become accessible on top of the original number offered by her Vocaloid voicebanks. Once other features like Pronunciation extension and Voice Release have been added, the outcome is that Miku will produce far more variation of results overall then Gumi's 100 variations from her Megpoid V4 release will be producing.

However, the new feature had a lot of complaints, most of which varied per release (see each individual Vocaloid for more details). Since it acts as a separate entity to the Vocaloid engine itself so has been known to have some effects on certain features like XSY within Vocaloid. It can over-complicate its own mathematical equations at times due to having to work with Vocaloids and bring out faults that are barely noticeable without it, such as sample oddities and phonetic errors. As a result, the current versions of E.V.E.C. have produced many undesirable effects, this results in LQ outcomes when the vocal can at times produce HQ results without its aid. Users should be aware of this.

Currently, E.V.E.C. capabilities are only available for Japanese voicebanks in Cryptons "V4X" range.

Voice Colour
Voice colours are the concept of changing a tone of voice or "colouring it" in a particularly way by adjusting vowel sounds to act a certain way, with it adjusting the vocals expression or even tone. The idea of "colouring" a voice was first created as a concept with Hatsune Miku Append and the different voicebanks were meant to display a "expression of colours".

Voice colours adapt the concept further by allowing the user to adapt the voicebanks further then they would be able to without it. This means the user can fine-detail how a voice should be according to their desire, allowed for Solid vocals with more power, or power vocals with a slight softness to them.

Within Vocaloid itself, the closest vocal to come close to the effect of "colouring" is ARSLOID with his extension libraries "Bright" and "Soft". Voice colours do not necessary have to have the entire Vocaloid sample library recorded and may only contain basic phonetic or biphonetic data, rather then the full triphonetic data.

The colours act as pre-sets and adapt the vocal to make it sound different to how it originally sounded by altering its wavelength. This saves the producer time trying to figure out how to adapt the vocal using only presets within Vocaloid itself and can be done without altering anything within Vocaloid. In theory this allows the producer to combined the impact with features such as simple parameter adjustments or XSY combination, allowing for a easy access to a large array of experimentation within the software.

Particular of note is that XSY between two EVEC compactiable vocals (such as Megurine Luka V4x "SOFT_EVEC" and "HARD_EVEC") is not always recommended and some "colours" are less stable then others. This is particular with the usage of multiple vocal colour adjustments within a song.

Not all releases had the same colours;
 * Megurine Luka V4X had multiple voice "colors" which coloured two "expressions" VOCALOID voicebanks of "Soft" and "Solid.
 * For Kagamine Rin/Len V4X the only available "colors" are "Power" and "Soft" for the "Power" Vocaloid voicebank. This is because the colours role was swapped and instead of colouring tone to expression, expression was coloured to tone. Their "Sweet", "Warm", "Cold" and "Serious" vocals handled the tone control instead and were used in XSY to give "Power" tone changes.
 * Likewise, Hatsune Miku V4X also has only "Soft" and "power" as colours. They are used with "Original", "Soft" and "Solid" to add expression. "Dark" and "Sweet" are this packages tone controllers instead.

Voice Release
The second function of E.V.E.C is voice release. This effects the ending of the voice and allows for softer ending sounds. This allows the vocal to mimic a certain way of speaking to invoke a sweeter or sexy effect. Unlike the colours, this can have less of an overall impact to the vocal as the other features of E.V.E.C. Unlike the other features, every V4X package has this feature.

Currently there are two modes;
 * Breath-Long
 * Breath-short

Consonant/Pronunciation extension
Consonant Extension was assigned to Megurine Luka V4x. This allows a consonant to have more impact over vowels, making it more impacting by giving it more attack or power. Little was explained about the feature and was not as impacting as the feature that replaced it.

The feature was re-designed for Kagamine Rin/Len V4x and Hatsune Miku V4x as "Pronunciation extension". It designed to strength the effect of GWL. It works by stretching out the consonant sound. This weakens (Miku) or strengthens (Rin/Len and Miku) the vocal and can be combined with the other EVEC functions. The result of doing so is that the vocal an imitate the effect of "shouting" (strength) or just make a much more hoarse voice (soft) with the right XSY vocal and EVEC colour/pronunciation combinations.

Tutorials

 * piaprostudio.net
 * About Tuning – A Small Pronunciation Guide
 * How to use VOCALOID3 Voice Libraries other than Crypton Products
 * How to customize a Singer Icon
 * SONICWIRE Page on Piapro Studio's new functions
 * Miku Channel - Challenge! Piapro Studio Course