Megurine Luka

Megurine Luka (巡音ルカ) was the third Japanese Vocaloid2 from Crypton and released on January 30, 2009. Her surname combines Meguri (巡, circulate or around) and Ne (音, sound), while the name Luka invokes the homonymous Japanese words of "nagare" (流, flow) and "ka" (歌, song) or "ka" (香, scent); thus making "songs to all around the world as scent spreads." Yū Asakawa (浅川 悠) provided the voice for the "cool, somewhat mysterious" character.

History
Unlike its previous two characters, Crypton advertised Luka's 3GB vocal database as "Japanese/English bilingual" and chose her name to express its hope that she will transcend borders and cultural barriers. At the time of Luka's release, there was a growing interest in English speaking Vocaloids. Luka offered both languages for the price of one to Japanese Vocaloid users giving them the chance to test their skills at English capable Vocaloids. Luka was designed by the Japanese illustrator Kei, who had previously created the designs for Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Rin and Len. However, unlike previous mascots in the series, her costume is not based on a school uniform.

Append - the Future of Luka
Luka is the next member of the character Vocal series to be appended. Confirmation has come through that she will be updated next after Meiko, Kaito will follow Luka.

The appends for both her and Meiko were later reported as coming along much quieter than other updates.

On the album "VOCALOID民族調曲集", she sings the song "星空と雪の舞踏会 (Zeal mix) / このり". She is labeled as "Megurine Luka Append," but this is just her original Japanese voicebank configured to sound like an Append.

US Debut
Along with Miku's US debut, other Vocaloids from the Character Vocal series made their debuts alongside her. Megurine Luka appeared alongside Miku in the Los Angeles concert.

Luka Shade Pack
A 3D data pack for the software Shade 12 Basic was revealed the "Luka Data Pack". The software pack contained data and a 3D model for the 3D animation "Corruption Garden" made using the software. The pack will be able to be downloaded from July 1st 2011, the pack will only be able to be rendered for non-commercial purposes. A Blu-Ray featuring the PV was also made for sale on the 8th of June 2011, the video was created by IKEDA. This is the only such pack for the 3D software package so far for a Vocaloid.

Figurines


Luka has several figurines based on her. Exclusively figurines were sold during the 2009 Treasure festa event of Megurine Luka. During the 2009 and 2010 seasons she appeared in the Good smile racing figurine sets. A special "Toeto" figurine was also made based on the PV "Teoto".


 * ''For more Figurines see Template:Nav Figurines

Usage for Music
The Vocal Character series were designed to be a set of vocals with particular characteristics about them, her vocal description is that she is "moody yet husky female voice" and she was designed to handle moodier genres like Jazz. Her vocals are soft and on some notes she has a lisp-like sound, making her voicebank more limited on versatility compared to past Vocaloids in the Vocal Character series. However, she makes up for this by having access to both Japanese and English voicebanks. Due to the vocal properties along with the fact she can switch between the two languages, she has earned the acknowledgment that she is an advanced level Vocaloid.

Since she speaks both languages, Luka is able to partner with both Japanese and English vocaloids respectfully. Both voicebanks can be used in conjunction with each other, allowing users to switch between the languages as needed and giving her superior language capabilities over both Japanese and English Vocaloids before her. Japanese users wanting to use her for her fullest potential also need to know how to use a certain level of English to begin with otherwise they will only ever be able to use her Japanese voicebank.

However, despite the inclusion of English, she was not intended for a world wide release. She does not have the English interface because she is a Japanese Vocaloid and for users wanting the interface in English it will require either purchasing another English Vocaloid or deleting the correct files. When installed, she will be set on her Japanese voicebank by default, users will have to switch from "Luka_JPN" to "Luka_ENG" in the vocal selection menu. This catches many new Vocaloid users out who have never experienced using the Vocaloid software before or have never had to switch between more then one voicebank.

Even though this is the case, English speaking producers often see her as an ideal vocaloid for users planning to use Japanese vocaloids. In English speaking communities, she is often regarded as overall the best Vocaloid to buy for those seeking to use Japanese Vocaloids for the first time; if one cannot use her Japanese voicebank, access to her English voicebank still means an English user can work with her. As a note, most of the songs produced using her voicebanks are primarily done in using her Japanese voicebank, and the most common usage within the Japanese fandom of her English voicebank is for short English insertions in Japanese songs. Overall, Luka serves to bridge the gap between both languages and has proven to be her appeal as a vocaloid.

When installing Luka, it is important to pay attention to the release dates of Vocaloids you plan to install after her. Older and newer versions of the Vocaloid 2 software engine can occasionally cause conflicts. Luka has both language engines, so she can cause conflicts between Vocaloids of either language. A user can fix this problem if it occurs simply by installing all the Vocaloids in release date order with the most recent released Vocaloid being installed last. Luka is noted to be the most likely Vocaloid to produce this conflict.


 * Comparison between the Vocaloid and voice provider
 * Comparison between her Japanese and English voicebank
 * Megurine Luka has songs in the Nico Nico Douga Hall of Fame

Because she is sold by Crypton, permission is also granted to add her works to Karen-T.

Crypton Future Media have no plans to update their Vocaloid 2 engine Vocaloids to Vocaloid3, however allowance will be given for the converting of these vocals to the newer engine free of charge.


 * A tutorial for Luka can be found here

Japanese
Luka is one of the more smoother Vocaloid2 voicebanks and is not as choppy sounding as her predecessors in the CV series. Luka's Japanese dictionary is extensive and on par with previous Japanese Vocaloids and there are no known problems with that part of her program. Also, as a Japanese vocaloid, she has all of the phonemes that are often missing from English vocaloids such as the 5 breathing phonemes ([br1]-[br5]). She maintains a more mature tone then previous Character Vocal Vocaloid 2 era voicebanks, and is much softer than Hatsune and the Kagamine Vocaloids.

English
She has all the English phonemes that English vocaloids have in her voice databank.

A number of problems have been noted by western English speakers. It has been reported that she does not seem to have many distinct vowel related diphongs in her sample library in her English voicebank, making her voice less smooth then other English capable Vocaloids when some phonetics are used together. In other cases, she may not have enough distinction between the phonetic sounds in her samples that she does have to distinguish one pronunciation from another due to the softness of her vocals, but also due to her Japanese accent will occasionally leave her with a phonetic that is not as definite on english as it should be. She also has only the main/common words in her dictionary, so users not used to more complicated English words may have some difficulty when they come across them, however, an extra data library of English words for her English dictionary is available.

Her voicebank may be considered "sub-standard" to other English capable Vocaloids and her overall results will depend on the user. She is not unusable and still can be used for English songs just the same as any other English capable Vocaloid. Despite her flaws, there are no major report glitches with her voicebank and despite the odd pronunciation problems her sample quality is considered good overall.

Due to the difference in expressing tone in Japanese and English, Luka's English voicebank has a slightly different tone, often sounding much softer then her Japanese. Users may have to move her English lyrics to a different octave to better match her vocals to her Japanese tone.

Reception
She is often given a sexier approach than previous vocaloids. This is owed to both her age and having the body of an adult. In the Japanese fandom she was well received, having a much better reaction then the Kagamine vocals had seen and at one stage even outsolde them. Only a few days after her release, many songs were produced. On the 70th Weekly Vocaloid Ranking (February 2, 2009), many of Luka's songs appeared in the Top 30, knocking the very popular "Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru" and songs produced by ryo (with the exception of "Melt") right out of the Top 30. "RIP=RELEASE" had taken the #1 spot, and had earned a total of 843,233 points, making it the song with the highest one-week score.

In the Western fandom, much of the interest towards her is owed to her inclusion of an English voicebank and in some cases may even take the slot in popularity polls on "most popular" Vocaloid overall even beating Hatsune Miku. Despite its flaws, a number of Vocaloid users still like her results from the English voicebank as it is still relatively easy voicebank to work with, though it requires much experience to perfect the overall results to bring them up to higher standard. On youtube her English is often regarded as "better then the Engloids", despite that this is arguable on how well her voicebank fairs against other English capable Vocaloids.

Trivia

 * According to KEI, who was asked to illustrate her by Crypton, due to her bilingual software, her design was made to be asymmetrical, so from different angles she would look different.


 * Her design incorporates woodwind and brass instruments. The gold curl design on her chest mimics brass instruments and a circulatory organ. The jewel on her throat represents moisture in the air and water drops.


 * While the software was in the alpha stage of development, Crypton were hoping for a voice that sounded sexy, however, due to the level of softness in the results the vocals were unable to sound sexy.


 * Since the trial version had enough vocal capabilities to function as a normal Vocaloid, hackers were reported to have found out how to turn off the limit of 30 days for her 30 day trial versions.


 * Some call her "Ruka" or "Luca" however this is incorrect. Though the romanized version of the word could be either, the English version has been confirmed as "Luka" and since there is no dubbed version to content with, this name remains the only official name in existence for the Vocaloid.


 * Luka can be heard in the original musical score "Arisen Anew" from a Homestuck  album called AlterniaBound.


 * An old trick within the Western vocaloid fandom is to have Luka and Sonika sing together when using English. If correctly done both voices will blend together, the advantage of this is both Vocaloids effectively hide each others flaws.


 * On the Mikunopolis website Luka's profile contains the statement; "In the past, creating songs with English lyrics had always been somewhat awkward, but Luka is able to sing both in Japanese, English or a mix of the two - a worldwide virtual singer". While it is true it had always been awkward to use a Japanese Vocaloid for English, it only applies to Japanese Vocaloids as there had always existed English capable Vocaloids so the English language had always been easy to access. As mentioned in "Usage for Music", she has a number of issues with her English voicebank that leave some English speakers questioning her English capabilities overall. So ironically while she has the best English level of any Japanese based Vocaloid, just how much lack of awkwardness there is to her vocal results is questionable.  Lastly, she was aimed at the Japanese speaking market and was originally not intended to be a world wide release (hence the lack of an English interface).

Notable for...

 * First bilingual Vocaloid
 * First English voicebank produced by a Japanese company
 * First English voicebank provided by a Japanese provider
 * First newly released Vocaloid to impact Miku's rankings in the Vocaloid ranking charts