MEIKO

MEIKO is a Vocaloid DTM (Desktop Music) software created by Crypton Future Media. She is the first Japanese Vocaloid and first Japanese female Vocaloid. She utilizes the Vocaloid engine developed by YAMAHA. Her voice is provided by the Japanese female singer Haigō Meiko (拝郷 メイコ). The illustration was done by Shogo Washizu, who is often called わっしー(Wasshi) and was once a member of Crypton.

Vocaloid
On July 24, 2003, a CD album "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)" and it was covered by prototype version of Meiko and Kaito before their release.


 * Nico broadcast 【VOCALOID遺産】あの素晴らしい愛をもう一度
 * Nicozon broadcast【VOCALOID遺産】あの素晴らしい愛をもう一度

She sold 3,000+ units in her first year according to DTM magazine, this was abnormal for a software synthesizer at the time. This was also far better than her counterpart Kaito who had sold only 500 units. As of note, for a commercial product to be successful, a software synthesizer had to sell 1,000 units. Because of Meiko's success followed by the success of Hatsune Miku, Crypton focused on female vocals for their Vocaloid 2 era voicebanks. It was also common expectations that females would sell better then males.

However, after Hatsune Miku's success, Kaito went into rediscovery which put him on par with the sales of Vocaloid 2 era 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 released. By 2009 up until 2011, while Kaito was almost constantly on the top 10 products page from Crypton Future Media, Meiko was barely selling at all.

Append - the future of Meiko
As of 2011, Vocaloid engine Vocaloids will no longer be supported by Yamaha. However, both Kaito and Meiko were confirmed to have Appends on the way, both becoming Vocaloid 2. Crypton did a survey of 8,000+ people, confirming positive views towards updating her from Vocaloid. Crypton also noted these opinions came only from core Vocaloid users and listeners. In 2009, Haigō Meiko's voice was tested to see how it faired against the newer engine due to how it had aged, and satisfied with the results the recordings began. According to Haigō Meiko, unlike the first Vocaloid recording, the new update was much more relaxed and she was not rushing to get the recording finished.

However, the Meiko Append, together with Kaito Append, were intended to be Vocaloid 2 releases however, despite the recordings being finished early. They are further delayed due to the Vocaloid 3 announcement and the voicebanks were not yet finalized during the launch of Vocaloid 3. The voicebanks have been then moved for Vocaloid 3 release, optimized for the new engine and have been undergoing further improvements with a triphone addition being one of them.

Append Vocaloid 3 Move
After a long interval, Meiko's recording was resumed at the end of November 2011. A few days later, Meiko Haigō announced she had finished recording completely.

Meiko Append was heard for the very first time when OSTER project used her in Lollipop Factory which was uploaded on December 1, 2011; stating in the video description that she was able to use it through the courtesy of Crypton Future Media. The version she used however, was the unreleased Vocaloid 2 voicebank which was under development during that period.

Following the video, OSTER used the same voicebank in one of the songs in her album "OSTERさんのベスト" (OSTER San's Best). This time, in its more natural tone which replaces the vocals of the original Vocaloid Meiko in the 7th track "ピアノ×フォルテ×スキャンダル" (Piano × Forte × Scandal) which is noticeably smoother and clearer compared with the precedent.
 * Meiko Append's ピアノ×フォルテ×スキャンダル: Youtube Broadcast

So far, two voicebanks have been officially confirmed:
 * "Dark"
 * A "Classic" voicebank which like Kaito's Append, will be having the same tone as the original Vocaloid Meiko.

English Voicebank
Crypton was considering the grounds for a Meiko English voicebank. They later announced they will make one.

Marketing
Crypton placed this product on the market with a box art which depicted Meiko in anime form. This character had nothing to do with the singer's image, but her appearance appealed to the mainstream audience and the software sold well. The success of this marketing strategy influenced the development and art style of other Vocaloids such as Kaito and Miku Hatsune.

Figurines


Meiko has had a few figurines based on her. Due to being the least popular of the Crypton Vocaloids, she tends to have the least amount of merchandise overall as it tends to not sell particularly well.


 * For more Figurines see Template:Nav Figurines

Guest Appearances
In Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei Meiko look-a-likes are seen in the waiting queue during the auditions of the role of Meru Meru, however they do not have Meiko's known colours. Miku (though played by Fujita Saki) is also seen actually speaking in the auditions themselves.

Vocaloid

 * Comparison between the Vocaloid and voice provider

Both Kaito and Meiko form a part of the Vocaloid "series", following a different design intention to the series of Vocaloids that followed them by Crypton Future Media. Kaito is her counterpart in the series. Both Vocaloids are designed to be professional vocals for professional musicians. Her voice is noted to be steady, straightforward, and suitable for any musical genre. She is fit to sing anything from pop, rock, jazz, R&amp;B to children's songs. Her overall tone of voice is more fluid and gives her a large vocal range.

Because of the gap between release, Meiko has overall slightly less quality than Kaito because of improvements made during Kaito's developement. One particular flaw with her Vocaloid voicebank was that although they used Japanese phonetics, the menu was not in Japanese and instead was released only with the standard English interface. This made it harder for Japanese users to work with. Meiko is difficult to master due to a lack of clarity in her vocals which results in her voicebank being difficult to tune well, leaving very few Vocaloid producers able to use her vocal well. Out of her and Kaito, she is consider the harder to use overall.

V3 Meiko
Unreleased

Meiko's new vocaloid 3 voicebank is an update for Meiko.

Meiko; English
Unreleased

Meiko English will allow users to use the software in English. Previously, the only way to make Meiko sing in English was to edit the Japanese Phonetics with low quality results.

Currently unknown due to lack of release.

Popularity
Meiko was well received and sold well compared to her counterpart Kaito, becoming the more popular of the two. For a long time, she was the best selling Crypton Future Media Vocaloid until the release of Hatsune Miku.

After interest began to occur in her counterpart Kaito, Meiko users also attempted to revive the interest in Meiko as well. The Japanese fandom has taken great measures to push her voice to its limits. This is demonstrated by the fanmade derivative "Sakine Meiko" which was part of a product of Japanese producers pushing the limits of Meiko's capabilities to produce a much younger sounding voice. Though this involves heavy investment of time to make such a big adjustment of her vocals, it does highlight the overall potential of the Vocaloid era voicebanks as the same techniques have also from time to time been applied to others of her era with the same levels of results.

However, despite the producers' efforts, by 2010 while Kaito appeared in the Crypton ranking of their best selling products, Meiko has fallen from popularity, getting the least amount of attention of the Crypton Vocaloids overall. On 12/10/2011 Meiko, along with the Kagamine append, was the only Vocaloid software package not on the top ten list.

An 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. Meiko, however, did manage to be the 2nd most popular Vocaloid when a mean count was done with 423 views and 21 mylists.

Trivia

 * A Japanese electro-pop artist Susumu Hirasawa announced that he used a female vocaloid in the original soundtrack of "Paprika" by Satoshi Kon on his blog. Since Susumu Hirasawa did not reveal which Vocaloid he used for quite some time, except the fact it was a female vocaloid, many fans speculated it was Meiko. However, he later mentioned in a magazine interview that it was Lola.


 * Because Meiko's boxart hides the front of her jacket, it is difficult to tell what design it has and the result vary even in official artworks.


 * Her age was never given. In Maker Hikōshiki Hatsune Mix she is usually portrayed as a middle aged woman by KEI, however, as he mentioned in a magazine interview, what he depicts in the comic is not official settings.


 * An old myth within the overseas fandom is that her samples were not from Meiko Haigō but were from a computer that generated samples that sounded like her.


 * Spurned on by the items held by Hatsune Miku and Kaito, it became popular to feature Meiko with One Cup Ozeki (Sake).

Notable for...

 * First Japanese female vocal ever released
 * First Japanese Vocaloid vocal released
 * Was used in the oldest known Vocaloid related song ever released
 * First Crypton Future Media Vocaloid released
 * First Vocaloid to have an official avatar
 * First female Vocaloid released from Crypton Future Media