Hatsune Miku (VOCALOID2)

Hatsune Miku VOCALOID2 Append English VOCALOID3 Light Vivid eVocaloid VOCALOID4 V4 English V4 Chinese | Piapro Studio | Songs Albums Notable Originals

---

Hatsune Miku (CV01)
Product information
Company	Crypton Future Media, Inc.
Release	August 31, 2007
Status	Retired; replaced with Hatsune Miku V3
System	Windows
Language(s)	Japanese
Type	VOCALOID2
License	Proprietary
Affiliation	YAMAHA Corporation
Website	Product Page

This article is about the VOCALOID2 software known as a voicebank. If you are looking for the VOCALOID character then click here.

History

The first release for the the Vocal Character series, Hatsune Miku was the first VOCALOID developed by Crypton Future Media and the third they would distribute. The Vocal Character Series was designed to be a set of vocals with specific characteristics to them; her software allows for manipulation in a variety of ways while maintaining a 'cute' sounding voice. In 2009 she was also offered alongside the Sonar8 software package.

The idea behind her was first established as being "a cute female vocal that professionals can create with", part of the "CV" or "Character Vocal" series who were designed to combine recognizable characteristics in their voices and clear color schemes. Immediately after VOCALOID2 was announced, the idea for a bilingual Vocaloid called "Hatsune Miku" was put forward. However, the original concept for Miku later became the Megurine Luka vocal, Miku at first only receiving a Japanese voicebank. Wat wanted a simple and clear voice and had picked Saki Fujita due to her roles in anime. Though recording normally takes over 4 hours, she had great concentration and was able to do and her first recording went really well. Hatsune Miku's voice was originally recorded using nonsense phrases that made no sense; the script was changed over time to give more stretch.

Hatsune Miku was unveiled on June 25, 2007, at which time only the name "Miku" was known. Her voicebank was at 90% completion at the date of her unveiling and was the first of the CV vocals planned for the VOCALOID2 software. According to Crypton Future Media, she was worked upon for more than 10 hours a day for 2 months. Her last name, "Hatsune", was unveiled on July 7, 2007, after a 12 hour journey to Yamaha to gain permission to release the "CV01" voicebank. Due to problems with schedule, her VOCALOID2 software did not have time to go to public beta testing unlike most past VOCALOID vocals, although the same had happened to Sweet ANN released prior.

When she went on sale, she proved to be an instant success and Wat kept calling Kenmochi Hideki due to his excitement.

Her voicebank has received numerous awards:

• She was nominated for and won an award in the "All About" awards of 2007.
• Crypton Future Media picked up an BCN award in 2008 for their productions, with their sales reaching a 211% increase thanks to several products (One of which being Hatsune Miku).
• In March 2008, Hatsune Miku won the "Digital Content" AMD award.
• In June she picked up the MM総研大賞2008 award.
• At the DaiKon7 in August 2008, she received another award.
• She was awarded the "Good Design Award 2008".
• She won the Grand Prize at the BCN AWARD 2009.

Final Retirement

At the end of 2015, it was announced that from March 31, 2016, VOCALOID2 was being retired and no new serial codes were be issued by Yamaha.

Product Information

Demonstrations

Demonstrations

First demo "Hoshi No Kakera" (Fragments of Stars)	YouTube Crypton
Second demo "Kakurenbo" (Hide and Seek)	YouTube Crypton
Third demo "Pops"	YouTube Crypton
HATSUNE MIKU: DEMO SONGS (all)	YouTube

System Requirements

• 2000 + more than Pentium4 2 GHz / Athlon XP
  • (Recommended 64 2800 + or more Pentium4 2.8 GHz / Athlon)
• Windows XP (32bit) / VISTA (32bit) / 7 (32, 64bit)
  • Operation 32bit compatibility mode (WOW64) in 7 (64bit)
• 512MB or more RAM
  • 1GB recommended
  • Real-time VSTi is recommended when using more than 2GB
• VST2.3 (32bit) / ReWire / スタンドアロン

Voicebank Libraries

Product Information
Optimum
Genre: Pop, Rock, Dance  Optimum Range: A3 ~ E5  Optimum Tempo: 70 ~ 150 BPM   Total Tempo (min-max): 80 BPM  No. of Keys: W ~ 12, B ~ 7, Total ~ 19
Versions
Trial/Demo Vers?: Yes
Package details as noted:
Miku's voice is intended to be a cute-sounding Japanese vocal and was designed to have a characteristic personality to her voice. As a result of the vocal direction, Hatsune Miku is not intended to be a realistic sounding voice.
Vocal traits as noted:
Her strength lies in her ability to climb up high into the octaves while maintaining a strong mid-tone range, without losing her cute sounding tone. She is able to reach notes very few singers can reach. Ties with Prima on ability to hit the highest optimum note of any VOCALOID2 voicebank library at #E5. Due to the voice style, she's not intended to give professional quality results, however, this makes her able to sing in a very wide variety of genres. Miku was considered easy to use for beginners and was hence able to match up with later vocals released in the VOCALOID2 era. It didn't take much to maintain its cute sounding tone, often maintaining many of its underlining tones even when quality failed. This is because she was highly compactable with the VOCALOID2 engine. Another contributor to its high music usage was that it could produce some of the widest variety of vocal variations for a long time and could easily be morphed to sound very different to her original vocal. This led her to being able to be adapted for a number of genres of music. She does not produce as many quality tones as the Megurine Luka voice did. In addition, unlike the Kagamine vocals that followed her, the vocal still sounds relatively human even when she reaches ranges that cause her quality to strain. As noted while Crypton Future Media were developing Hatsune Miku, MEIKO had a habit of producing thick vocal and ugly vocal, Miku was easier to manipulate in terms of gender/age and had far less issues over MEIKO. Vibrato and pitch were much better quality in Miku then MEIKO.
Phonetic notes as noted:
Hatsune Miku showed language improvement over past Japanese VOCALOID vocals MEIKO and KAITO due an improved Japanese script used for recording. Miku, comparatively with other VOCALOID2 vocals, had a strong attack and marked consonants. A noted weakness of hers is the "マ" ("ma") related lines of text, which other vocaloids such as Megpoid do relatively with ease. She has a number of slurry or chopping vowel sounds within her vocal due to less vowels within her vocal banks.
Software issues as noted:
She has a slight skirly tone that makes her difficult to tune for certain slow musical genres. Many of the flaws within the vocal bank itself are a result of Miku being a early VOCALOID2, as improvements occurred with later vocals and owed to the experience gained through production. For example, there is a notable leap in quality between it and the Hatsune Miku Append which was released just 2 years later. Her status as one of the most versatile vocals released in VOCALOID2 ended in 2009 with the release of SF-A2 miki. Miku simply could not fill all 16 tracks like miki could while maintaining quality. The only way for Hatsune Miku to compete with these later VOCALOIDs was to purchase the later Hatsune Miku Append vocal. There are unchangeable glottal stops between a handful of her vowel transitions. The こ (ko) and た (ta) samples seem to have their consonants spliced.
Voicebank sample
Hatsune Miku VOCALOID2
view • edit

A trial version has been released of this product.