MEIKO (VOCALOID1)


 * This is an article about the MEIKO software for the first VOCALOID engine.

History
MEIKO and KAITO were originally developed by Yamaha, with Crypton Future Media handling her commercial release. This was much in as the later VY1 and VY2 vocals were left to Bplats, Inc. to sell.

On July 24, 2003, a CD album named "HISTORY OF LOGIC SYSTEM," (which included a song using Japanese VOCALOIDs commercially for the first time), was released. It was a duet song of "Ano Subarashii Ai wo Mou Ichido (That Wonderful Love Once More)," being covered by a prototype version of MEIKO and KAITO before their release.

MEIKO sold 3,000+ units in her first year according to DTM magazine, which was out of the ordinary for a software synthesizer at the time. This was also far better than her counterpart Kaito, who had sold only 500 units. Another thing to consider is that for a commercial product to be successful, a software synthesizer had to sell only 1,000 units. MEIKO's success, followed by the success of Hatsune Miku, led Crypton to be focused on female vocals for their VOCALOID2 era voicebanks. It was also a common expectation that females would sell better than males, partly due to MEIKO's success.

However, after Hatsune Miku's success, Kaito went into rediscovery, which put him on par with the sales of VOCALOID2 voicebanks. In 2008, while Kaito was 2nd place in the Nico Nico Douga best-seller award, MEIKO was struggling to keep popularity with the more modern female VOCALOIDs being released. By 2009 and up to 2011, while Kaito was almost constantly on the top 10 products page from Crypton Future Media, MEIKO was barely selling at all.

In 2012, Zero-G confirmed that all VOCALOID vocals were unsupported and due for retirement "in the near future."

Recommended

 * Pentium III 1 GHz or more
 * (If using the VOCALOID VSTi or using ReWire, more than 4 1.8 GHz Pentium)
 * OS Windows 2000/XP
 * (Recommended for XP)
 * RAM memory 512MB or more
 * (Recommended 1GB or more)
 * Interface VST2.0, ReWire, standalone correspondence

Voicebank Libraries

 * -|MEIKO =

Interface


Like all VOCALOID vocals, MEIKO had her own interface design.