SONiKA

Sonika is the fifth Vocaloid created by Zero-G. Released on July 14th, 2009, she is the third English speaking Vocaloid to use the updated Vocaloid2 software. She later became the first Vocaloid to be released in Greater China.

History
Zero-G felt that a young, frivolous singer would make for an overall interesting vocaloid, providing the fresh and innocent voice that professional singers do not provide. She is the first English speaking vocaloid to use a character design and profile as part of the product. She was released with profile/biographical information on the back cover of the software package, similar to the other Vocaloid2 products. She had several demo songs released.

Her software comes with the VSQ file for her song "Sonika says".

Sonika on Twitter
Following her release Zero-G took a unique stance with her post-release development. They have created and maintained a Twitter page for Sonika, something unheard of for any past vocaloid. Tweets have included pictures of herself with a different hair color, announcing her favorite food is sashimi tuna, and announcing upcoming interviews in media articles. She has even made direct reference to fans discussing what her character item should be.

She also reports things like Tonio's late arrival and may even make a reaction to the release of other vocaloids like Big Al. In Jan 2011, her Twitter account reached 1,000 followers. The Twitter account is maintain by "Sonika" and not by a bot.

Sonika boxart 2009
From Nov. 2, 2009 to Nov. 30, 2009. Zero-G announced a competition to give Sonika a new look. The winner would receive a copy of the "Sonika Vocaloid2 Software".

Nearing the end of November an image was uploaded on Crypton Catalog that represented Sonika's new appearance. It was drawn by artist Mario Wibisono (aka raynkazuya) at the request of Zero-G. And with the image being found during the New Look Competition and uploaded to Zero-G's site a few days later, this greatly confused fans and submitters who thought that it was the winning image.

This was quickly corrected by Zero-G stating that the competition rules never included the winning image being used for boxart.

Global Exploit
Sonika was also produced as a Chinese version and Ecapsule Co., Ltd (飛天膠囊數位科技有限公司) is a distributor in Taiwan. The Chinese edition came with a new boxart. Users can choose to use the original English or Traditional Chinese interface, however it does not have Chinese language input method. Because of this, it has an instructional DVD and a comparative table of English and Chinese phonemes in an explanatory leaflet which show her accessibility to about 90% of the Chinese pronunciations and were produced by Ecapsule for users in Taiwan, not to take considerable time for making it sounds closer to nature Chinese. This version when displayed at its announced convention on 24th and 25th July, 2010 came with limited stickers and posters. On August 1, 2010, Sonika was released in Taiwan and became the first Vocaloid released in Greater China.

She had several demo songs "Little Forest, "夢想天堂", "Press that accelerator" and "Scenery".

Usage for Music
Sonika is a Vocaloid designed for Pop Music. She has a strong British accent and is better suited for late 20th century pop and sings with a soft and innocent sounding voice. However she has a limited vocal range and heavy editing may be needed and is capable of singing in the Mezzo-soprano scale. She also shares a similar trait with Miriam, having a voice that is so soft that she sometimes loses clarity in her results, although the impact of the softness varies per user.

Though marketed to an English speaking audience, Sonika can potentially sing in other languages and her vocal bank is not limited to fixed syllables and phonetics so she is able to produce any consonant and vowel combination imaginable. She lacks the breathing phonemes ([br1]-[br5]) that is commonly included in the Japanese voicebanks, even though her predecessor Prima had all of them.

She also has a high level of oddities within her samples, including a high amount of feedback across all of her sound samples, and can produce "plucking" sounds within her bank as a result of this on low grade computers. While Prima also had these sounds, it is almost impossible to produce a lengthy song without Sonika producing a high number of these plucking sounds; they appear more often than any other Vocaloid known using the Vocaloid 2 engine. When these sounds appear, the only way to remove them is to soften the end of the note within the software using the parameters. It is also possible to remove these sounds via audio editing software. As well as these low quality sound samples, when she reaches her optimum range, Sonika will suddenly change from being soft and muffled to loud and clear (one range reported where she is clear is #B2 to #G3). This makes Sonika difficult to use as crossing over the octaves and going inside or outside of this range will create unstable singing results.

Though her voicebanks gives her a large advantage over many other vocaloids, she is said to be difficult to work with and produces flat notes, however a tutorial to give tips and suggestions. These things together make Sonika a low quality Vocaloid and renders her unsuitable for amateur users; very few Producers know how to fully take advantage of what she offers.

She has the same engine version as Big Al, installing her after him will not cause problems. However, installing older Vocaloids after her may cause a problem.

Currently there are no plans for an updated version of Sonika. However, it has been confirmed that if there is demand, Sonika will be updated to a newer engine version. Confirmation was also given from Anders, that if English Vocaloids become a lot more popular, Appends for existing Vocaloids are also a possibility.

Reception
There was much hype towards her voice based on her demos, but too much negative feedback on the amount of glitches and how difficult it was to get satisfactory results from her. While many of the Vocaloid fandom has expressed a desire to see an improved version of Sonika, it has been confirmed by Zero-G that they have no intentions to improve her voicebank. However, despite having the "worst" voicebank, when asked which English Vocaloid western fans would like updated or Append, Sonika is often the one in most demand. Many fans note she has the most room for improvement and expansion of the English Vocaloids as well as being the one to catch the most attention in the western fandom at the time of her release. Despite her flaws, she was reported as having sold much better then past Vocaloids designed only for the English language.

She was initially poked fun at by both English and Japanese fans for resembling Gumi/Megpoid. Her look was said to resemble a simplified version of Gumi's outfit and the colors were similar to each other. On top of this, they were released within a month of each other. The reaction to Sonika's new look has been mixed, with positive comments stating that the look is an improvement over the original CG and stylish, and negative comments stating that the look appears too sexual and nothing like the original Sonika. Others have pointed out that the new look does not fit Sonika's soft voice. Sonika herself reacted on Twitter to the negative feed back.

Within the Japanese community, a joke often notes the sudden change of boxart and is a source of many remarks regarding make overs and plastic surgery. Odd traits they often give, or once gave, her is being considered a trickster due to the boxart change and similar appearance to Gumi, sometimes she is seen as a Doppelgänger. Sonika was also considered a "pervert", which was taken from a word play in Japanese based on her association in the Japanese fandom with pineapples.

She was also the first Vocaloid to be given a personality via her Twitter account, although some fans noted how proud she often sounded. Sonika herself tweeted about the comparison and called herself "most beautiful", although later admitted "Gumi was cool". She also noted that she was friends with Megurine Luka and all Japanese Vocaloids ("Well most of them anyway"). Other "traits" were showing envy towards "chibi Miku" and how cute it looked, and odd uses of British English ("on holiday at the moment, swimming with me ducks"). She also threw a tantrum over being called a "bot". . Overall giving her a personality has resulted in mixed reactions.

Trivia

 * The winner of Sonika's New Look Competition was entry was number 30.


 * The artist of Sonika's 2nd boxart design has a Devianart account, as well as the artist for the comics.


 * The English community debated over which item would be Sonika's character item. The most popular choices were a golden ring, based off her name's similarity to "Sonic the Hedgehog", and a bell, based off her demo song "Ring my Bell". The Japanese community has focused on a pineapple due to her appearance's similarity to a pineapple (patterned gold shirt and spiky, green hair).


 * Although she was not the first English vocaloid to use an avatar on her boxart, she was the first to mimic the Japanese style of avatars.


 * According to her twitter messages, Sonika's hair color is able to change color (e.g. from green to red), she also has freckles that show in the summer heat.


 * Sonika is the first Vocaloid to coin the concept of "the Vocaloid family". This was previously a fan concept that accepts all Vocaloids as a form of undefined "family". Sonika however became more definate on some Vocaloids.
 * Sonika regards Leon, Lola and Miriam as her older siblings
 * Prima as her "auntie",
 * Tonio as her "uncle"
 * All other Vocaloids are referred to as her cousins.
 * In regards to Vocaloid3 she was glad to be getting more brothers and sisters and was looking forward to meeting her new friends and singing along side them.
 * She referred to Big Al as "her best friend" when asked about which Vocaloid she talked to the most.


 * 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.

Notable for...

 * "Able to do any language"
 * First English Vocaloid to have a "true" avatar
 * First Vocaloid to have a boxart redesign
 * First English Vocaloid to get attention
 * First Vocaloid to be released in Taiwan
 * Most fan disappointment upon release
 * First Vocaloid to own a Twitter
 * First Vocaloid to use the concept of a "Vocaloid family"
 * First Vocaloid to coin the fan-term "Engloid"