Lily

Lily (リリィ Ririi) is an official character of a singing synthesizer application software powered by Yamaha's Vocaloid2. Her basic databanks were jointly-developed by Yamaha and Avex Management Co., Ltd.

INTERNET Co.,Ltd is the distributor and also provide her effective support for the users. This was also announced by t-kimura(Takashi Kimura), once a member and now a music producer of m.o.v.e, on his twitter. Lily was published on August 25, 2010 and her design is by KEI. The data for the voice was created by sampling the voice of Yuri Masuda (益田 祐里, Masuda Yuri), a Japanese vocalist of the Japanese musical group m.o.v.e.

History
Originally Lily appeared on the cover of the CD "anim.o.v.e. 01" released on Aug 19, 2009 before the announcement of its Vocaloid development. Lily was introduced as "Code Name: Lily" on DTM MAGAZINE published in May, 2010. The voice source is the lead vocalist of m.o.v.e., Yuri Masuda. The idea of the developing a vocaloid based on Yuri's voice was occurred, as one of the member was a user of vocaloid. Two official demos, "SUPER SONIC DANCE Lily Ver. With G" and "Gamble Rumble Lily Ver With G" have been released and also Gakupo Kamui is used in them. "SUPER SONIC DANCE" is one of the songs released by m.o.v.e.

Her trial version was given out free online before her release, but is no longer available. Her contests are closed and songs are now being released onto Youtube and Nico Nico Douga using the 30 day trial. Also, "anim.o.v.e. 02", m.o.v.e album which comes along with her anime movie, was released On Aug 25, 2010. Prizes for her contest were Lily-related promotional goods, also a copy of Internet Co. Ltd.'s Singer Song Writer 9 Professional software. Judges included DJ Lily and MOSH from anim.o.v.e, Masashi Kamibayashi and Kenichiro Yorozu of DTM MAGAZINE, and Hideki Kenmochi of YAMAHA.

She saw heavy promotion with many merchandise released both prior and after her software was released. Lily received a figure released in November, 2010 becoming the first non-Crypton Vocaloid to receive a figurine. A digicomic movie(anime MV) titled "Schwarzgazer", which shows the world where Lily is, has been produced and it will be released with the album "anim.o.v.e 02". The song was sung by m.o.v.e., not by Vocaloids. Its short version has been officially uploaded on Nicovideo and Youtube. (Nico broadcast, Youtube broadcast) This short movie is unique in approach, as it provides an official English language version side by side with the Japanese version, hinting acknowledgment of the existence of overseas fans by the company. It depicts Lily and companion "Mosh" as fighters against a virus, equipped with music as their weapon.A manga of the same name, which is written by Kei, was released together.

Taiwan release
On Dec 11th, 2010, the president of Internet Co. announced that Gakupo Kamui, Gumi and Lily will be distributed in Taiwan.

Lily on Twitter
On march 4th 2011, a twitter account was set up for Lily and she also received her own website. She is the second Vocaloid to have an official Twitter account.

Usage for Music
Lily has a mature sounding female voicebank. And much of her early usage was owed to having the Vocaloid's voicebank being given out for free in various mediums.

Lily has a husky voice and she can sing in a low or mid voice better than in a high voice. Also she can pronounce clearly, however, she is not good at pronouncing a consonant sound alone.


 * Comparing VY1(β version), Miku Append (Soft), Gumi, Lily
 * Comparison between the Vocaloid and voice provider

Internet co., Ltd have announced they will be re-releasing Lily for the Vocaloid3 software engine.

Demo
Some users reported Lily's demo voicebank had pronunciation problem that she could not carry the "i"s over two notes. Her "o"s could get distorted if followed by "n". Another reported problem was that her consonants could not be pronounced if left on the end. There were reported differences between full and trial version vocal results.

Reception
Lily had the reputation for being one of the least liked Vocaloids in the Western fandoms early on after her release. When she was first released, some were unimpressed by her demo songs. Experienced Vocaloid users who tried to use her demo software were also unimpressed by the number of issues with it, for others it was also their first use of the Vocaloid software. There were also complaints towards her attire, often pointing out that her right breast was too visible from some angles and that the outfit showed far too much flesh on top of its awkward design. Her voice type was considered "common" and had nothing interesting about it in comparison to other Vocaloids. Some of the nitpicking at her was often uncalled for; she was also criticized to be an "older version of Kagamine Rin" due to her colours.

This reaction was a sharp contrast to the Japanese fandom, where Lily was very popular. Her release also overshadowed Tonio and VY1's release in the fandom as well as being one of the more popular newcomers to Vocaloid of 2010 overall.

Trivia

 * Early speculation on Lily's given name was thought to be due from the name of her voice provider Masuda Yuri, as "yuri" literally means "lily". Since she was not actually developed by Internet Co., Ltd her name does not follow Internet's naming scheme of using "poid" at the end of the softwares title, despite being sold by them nor does she have a separate name for her mascot and software.


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


 * Kio's model is available by purchase of Windows 100% magazine and MMD Second Pack magazine.

Notable for...

 * First Vocaloid sold by Internet co., Ltd not to be produced by them
 * First Vocaloid to have direct involvement from Yamaha