Utatane Piko

Utatane Piko (歌手音ピコ) is the first Vocaloid from Sony Music Distribution and uses the Vocaloid2 engine. His name "Utatane" means "sound of singer" while "Piko" is the name of a popular Nico Nico Douga singer called Piko; in other words, his name means "sound of singer Piko". He was released on December 8, 2010.

About
Piko was released on December 8th 2010, at a price of 15,750 yen (around $173.08). A free trial version was released on December 1st. The same day his trial was released, Sony demanded that all content made with it be taken down. Piko's artwork was designed by YukitA.

Marketing
Though he has a standard licensing agreement, Sony have held a tight copyright control on how his voicebank may be used. This was demonstrated with his demo when Sony announced they would not give permission for his vocals to be uploaded from the demo version. There was no merchandise given for him and he seemed to rely only on his provider's (Piko) popularity and links with the Vocaloid fandom. He was the only Japanese Vocaloid 2 to be made "download only" at time of release. Utatane Piko's portrayal is that of a teenage/young male singer.

Strengths
He is a praised as a versatile Vocaloid capable of a multitude of vocal tones and results. He can easily fit in a variety of roles within music because of it. His voice is that of a teenage/young male vocal and was the only Vocaloid to cover this range prior to VY2's release. He also has the second highest known optimum vocal range of any male vocaloid within the Vocaloid 2 range, the only male vocal with a higher optimum vocal range in Vocaloid 2 is Kagamine Len, who was voiced by a female vocalist. As voiced by a professional singer, Utatane Piko has a degree of realism about him.

Weaknesses
In its default state, he is the least masculine sounding male vocal sampled by a male that was released. He cannot produce a satisfactory low masculine vocal tone as a result of it. Owed to the softness of his vocals, sometimes he can be harder to understand.

Demo Version
The demo allowed users to test out his voicebank to see if they would later desire to buy his voicebank.

The trial version was released, but unlike past trial versions was released to be usable only for 5 days. The VSQ files cannot be saved and the only savable format is .wav. The trial version has synchronization difficulties and uploading VSQ files of other vocaloids will not match up as perfectly as one expects. On some notes Piko sings too fast while on others too slow. It is also subject to pronunciation problems, producing slightly muffled results without tweaking on some notes. This makes his demo difficult to use as not only is a certain amount of editing unavoidable, but his VSQ files once edited cannot be saved; although there are also ways around this.

Sony also limits the uploading of the trial version, thus one cannot use him in the same way as his full version.

Popularity
In the Japanese fandom, he is currently amongst the lesser used Vocaloids, although he has overall seen more usage than the previous male released in 2010 such as Gachapoid. Part of his usage problem is owed to being released next to the release of the Kagamine Append, with the Kagamine's grabbing much of the attention from him as a result, he wasn't as popular as the Kagamines and the Crypton Future Media vocaloids.

An independent Vocaloid search on Nico Nico Douga revealed that most Vocaloids had less than 1,000 videos uploaded on Nico Nico Douga in between July 1 and December 15 2011 with Piko falling into that category as well.

Trivia

 * Utatane Piko's hairstyle is almost identical to the real Piko's hairstyle, the only difference being an ahoge on top of the head that is shaped like the letter "P". The white hair color is likely inspired by depicted artworks of the singer.


 * His design incorporates the guitar.
 * SF-A2 miki's voice provider, Miki Furukawa, works for Ki/oon records who are owned by Sony and is the same group Utatane Piko's provider Piko comes from.
 * Utatane Piko was also the youngest Japanese male Vocaloid to actually be voiced by a male vocalist prior to VY2.

Notable for...

 * First Vocaloid produced by Sony
 * First male Vocaloid by Sony
 * Most controversial demo version produced
 * Only Vocaloid2 not to have a boxed version