VY2

VY2 (stands for "Vocaloid Yamaha 2", also it was codenamed 勇馬, "Yuuma", meaning "Brave Horse") is the second from the avatarless VY series of Vocaloids, produced by Bplats and like VY1 before it, is of the highest quality amongst the Japanese Vocaloid2 engine voicebanks. Nagimiso (なぎみそ) and Kazeno (風乃) undertook the illustration for VY2's package. The Wakizashi was by Nagimiso, the illustration on the inside sleeve was by Kazeno, which was Japanese and SF styled with Tenshukaku (天守閣, Japanese castle tower) and two moons.

History
VY2 was confirmed soon after VY1 and as part of the "VY" series, VY2 shared the same intention as VY1 of being a Vocaloid without set gender, face or voice. Similar to VY1 being confirmed "Feminine", VY2 was confirmed to be a "masculine" voice type and its release date was set for late 2010.

However, on December 24, 2010, VY2 was confirmed as delayed while quality is improved, it was also confirmed to be specifically a "young masculine" voice. A 15 second demo of the VY2 voice was featured at the Y2×VOCALOID CAFE event in March 2011. On 2011/04/04, a demo song called "Asadoya Yunta" was uploaded into Youtube featuring VY2 singing as the main singer with VY1 as the chorus. On the 14/04/2011, another demo called "Anatani Hana Wo Watashi Ni Uta Wo" was released, both by  Re:nG. Later the song "Toki no sugi yuku mama ni" (時の過ぎ行くままに, As Time Goes By) by Sawada Kenji (沢田研二) was released. On the 19/04/2011 a demo of Cendrillon featuring the singing voices of VY1 and VY2 was finally released.

VY2 was released on 25th April 2011, according to the details of the Vocaloid, the Vocaloid is an attempt to make the vocals sound more realistic and stable. VY2 was also designed to define what a male vocal was and has husky results. VY2 is the 4th Japanese male vocal in Vocaloid2 following Kamui Gakupo, Hiyama Kiyoteru and Utatane Piko's male vocals (Kagamine Len and Gachapoid were excluded from this by Bplats due to their vocals being provided by female vocalists). The voice provider was the youngest male vocal sampled at the time, but Bplats did not wish the voice provider to be known.

iPad and iPhone
VY2 had been released as "iVocaloid" for the iPad and iPhone, and is available in iTunes store.

VY2v3
At the Vocaloid 3 announcement, it was announced that both VY1 and VY2 would be updated and sold with the Vocaloid 3 software.

VY2V3's boxart was first shown in August 2012, and the release date was later revealed to be October 19, 2012. VY2v3 has both a "Standard" and a "Falsetto" library.

Demos
 * Cendrillon: Nicovideo Broadcast / YouTube Broadcast
 * Hurting for a Very Hurtful Pain: Nicovideo Broadcast / YouTube Broadcast
 * Wetting Feather Color: Nicovideo Broadcast / YouTube Broadcast
 * Monolouge of a Certain Incompatibility: Nicovideo Broadcast / YouTube Broadcast
 * A Clingy Boy Sticking For 15 Years: Nicovideo Broadcast / YouTube Broadcast
 * Possesed Lie≦Simulation: Nicovideo Broadcast / YouTube Broadcast

Marketing
Unlike past Japanese Vocaloids VY2, along with voicebank partner VY1, have never had an offical avatar established for them allowing a creative freedom that other Vocaloids did not offer. While VY1 had a standard and Deluxe edition, VY2 did not offer such a choice nor did it have a CD released for it.

Due to the professional design of VY2, the vocal often appears in use for apps and equipment that involves derivative products produced by Yamaha, either by its own or with VY1. However, unlike VY1, VY2 is often added as an additional vocal or alternative one and has yet to head a product using their vocals. Furthermore, when VY2 is used, the vocal often is only made for dowload sometimes after the inital release of the product unlike its counterpart VY1.

VocaListener
They were originally going to attach Net Vocalistener, however this idea was abandoned.

VocaFes Winners
At VocaFes 2011, two winners were announced for VY1 and VY2. This was the result of the competition on how fans view VY1 and VY2. Manbou no Ane won for VY2's design which can be found in her pixiv account while Rimiko won for VY1's design.

Taiwan Release
VY2 is one of the Vocaloids set to be released by e-capsule.

VY2
VY2 is intended for professional musicians and according to Yamaha, is intended to be a high quality voicebank. As a note of the previous Vocaloid VY1, VY2 can be viewed as whatever the user wishes it to be, though the voice itself is a "young masculine" vocal. The tone of voice was intended to convey the image a handsome young male while the voicebank itself was easy to use without heavy modifications. The scripts used for recording the samples were identical to those of its counterpart VY1.


 * -|VY2=

Demo
A trial version of this software was featured in VOCALOIDをたのしもう Vol.7 along side trials of VY1v3 and Vocaloid 2 vocal Hatsune Miku.

VY2v3
Unreleased

The VY2 updated VY2v3 comes with 2 voicebanks. Unlike the VY1v3 voicebank or the inital VY2 release, Vy2v3 is a more specific release with each voicebank focusing on a particular area of the vocal capabilities. The result is that in comparison to VY1's update, VY2v3 is more then just a updated version of the VY2 software it is an extension on its capabilities (between the two vocals they cover a range between A1 ~ E4, whereas VY2 covered a range of A1 ~ E3 alone). However, while it is able to access a larger vocal range between the two vocals, it is less focused on being a middle range vocal like VY2 and results are not likely to be identical between VY2 and VY2v3, whereas VY1v3 had more closer results to the original VY1 vocal.


 * -|VY2v3(Standard)=
 * -|VY2v3(Falsetto)=

Popularity
VY2 was better received than VY1 because the concept of the VY series had been better understood at the time. The producer who created his demos declared that VY2 was the best Japanese male Vocal of the Vocaloid series boasting a quality none of the previous male vocals could reach.

A independant Vocaloid search on Nico Nico Douga revealed that most Vocaloids had less then 1,000 videos uploaded on Nico Nico Douga in between July 1 and December 15 2011. However, based on average views, VY2 came second in the report with an average of 3972.28 views per video (and 314.21 mylists). Although part of the reason for this high average was owed to the popularity of songs such as those by the producer “Ieno Urade Manbouga Shinderu-P", which upset the average results due to their high view count when most VY2 videos did not recieve such attention.

Trivia

 * VY2 also was met by some with the same joke that was previously brought up after Big Al and Tonio's late releases, that male Vocaloids (if one regards VY2 as "male") have a tendency of being late, known as Big Al's Syndrome.
 * Because of the Wakizashi, VY2 ended up overlapping with Internet Co., Ltd's Gackpoid Vocaloid, Internet co., Ltd joked that the two Vocaloids should do battle with each other.
 * VY2 was originally going to have other items for his boxart such as clothing. However, it was felt that these items were too personal and would only end up giving too much design. Thus, opting for the Wakizashi makes the Vocaloid ambiguous to any design.
 * In the western fandom, the term "Big Al's syndrome" got applied to VY2 due to being a masculine vocal. This was because he was expected in 2010 but ended up being released in 2011 after a delay. However, VY2 did not recieve so much fuss as previous "male" Vocaloids did.
 * Many Vocaloid fans mistake the codename of "Yuuma" as being the software's official name, some fans also mistake the contest-winning image "Roro" as the official image. The correct name of this product is "VY2" and the contest was not to pick an offical avatar for the product, thus VY2 still remains avatarless.

Notable for...

 * Highest quality Japanese masculine vocal for Vocaloid
 * First masculine vocal type of the VY series

Gallery

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