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Kagamine Rin & Len VOCALOID2 act2 Append VOCALOID4 English | Piapro Studio | Songs Albums Notable Originals


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 hint of the release came on August 10, 2007. Crypton Future Media posted a page link to the the Character Vocal Series, showing a silhouette of a another character after Hatsune Miku, this was of Rin. The page itself was explaining the purpose of the Character Vocal series. Originally CV02 asset to be released at the end of 2007 with their final vocal CV03 following soon after.[1]

Crypton Future Media intended to produce a VOCALOID with a young teen girl's voice at first following Hatsune Miku, but there was also demand for a boy's voice, so Crypton Future Media hired a voice actress who could produce both. Kagamine Rin was the first voicebank developed and introduced to the VOCALOID consumer market on November 8, 2007.[2] However, the package included two voicebanks: one for Rin and another for Len both provided by the seiyū Asami Shimoda (下田 麻美 Shimoda Asami), Kagamine Len was unveiled after Kagamine Rin on December 3, 2007.[3] The package was the same price as Hatsune Miku, even though there were two voicebanks in the box.[4][5]

According to Asami Shimoda, Len's voice was achieved by singing within her chest, while Rin's at the top of her head.[6][7]

Product Information[]

Demonstrations[]

Demonstrations

R-Side (Kagamine Rin)[8] Crypton
L-Side (Kagamine Len) Crypton
(Kagamine Rin/Len) Crypton

System Requirements[]

  • Computer: Pentium4 2 GHz / Athlon XP 2000+
    • (Recommended: Pentium4 2.8 GHz / Athlon 64 2800+)
  • OS: Windows XP (32bit) / VISTA (32bit)
  • RAM: memory 512MB or more
    • Recommended: 1GB or more
    • Real-time VSTi is recommended when using more than 2GB
  • Other: At least 2GB of hardrive space
  • Interface: VST / ReWire / stand-alone

Voicebanks[]

After the release of "Act2", this software became referred to as "Act1" by both Crypton Future Media and Vocaloid fans.[9]

The default voice for this package is "Kagamine Rin" and users have to manually select the Kagamine Len vocal.


GENERAL USAGE[]

Product Information
Versions
  Trial/Demo Vers?: No
Package details as noted:

The Kagamines were released as a more advanced VOCALOID package than Hatsune Miku, yet carried on the concept ideas, this time by releasing a package containing 2 voicebanks for contrasting male and female results.

Since they were sold together as a pair at the same price as Hatsune Miku, the Kagamine package was considered a bargain. Their vocal results are obtained from voice acting, therefore do not intentionally produce professional singing result and making both Rin and Len Character Voice type VOCALOIDs.

Vocal traits as noted:
  • Both Rin and Len are "power" vocal types.
  • Due to its flexibility the vocals could to be used for a high variety of songs.
  • This particular package had a reputation for being difficult to work with, leaving ranked as a med-expert level vocal.
  • This package was the first example of a release of its kind wherein two separate characters were released as "duo". Each character had a voicebank with its own separate roles and approach. The majority of multiple voicebank releases would be for the same character with a different tone.
  • This was also the first "multibank" release, meaning that it was the first release with more then 1 voicebank in.
  • Together they can offer more tones then the previous Hatsune Miku release.
Phonetic notes as noted:
  • As with Miku before them the Kagamines had issues with vowels, but the pair were much worst at handling vowels then Miku and they both had few decent vowel connections.
Software issues as noted:
  • Crypton Future Media received many complaints from producers who had high expectations after Hatsune Miku's release, due to the amount of issues with Rin and Len's vocals. As a result this package is notorious as one of the lowest quality releases for VOCALOID2 and was notably maintained less quality then the Hatsune Miku product. Despite just how many issues were known for the pair, precisely pinpointed problems are much harder to determine and often their more known for their reputation and not actually what lead to these complaints from users in the first place.
    • One of the more well known ones is that would sound more like wind instruments such as trumpets. Lyrics could still be heard but they didn't sound a human was singing at all. This was particular on short sounding sample lengths and certain tone ranges.
    • Tone collapsing was common, though not uncommon among early VOCALOID2 vocals. For the Kagamine release, the pair simple offered far less quality tones even together due to their overall vocal instability then what was offered by Hatsune Miku.
    • Their vocal typing had issues with Vocaloids engine and future "Power" types, such as MEIKO V3 "Power" were wary of repeating their legacy. Vocaloid had issues even within their favoured vocal ranges of controlling their singing abilities could be unstable and rough. VOCALOID3, however, had the ability to handle the vocals much better overall due to improvements then VOCALOID2, and the vocals fair better overall when imported.
  • Some of their issues were common among early VOCALOID2 vocals, a similar situation to Hatsune Miku before them. To put it simply, later VOCALOID2 vocals were much higher quality then earlier ones. However, other contributions also played a factor. One was owed to them being less compactable with the VOCALOID2 engine and another was simply they were a rushed development.



Individual Vocals[]

Product Information
Optimum
  Genre: Electro-pop, Enka, Pop, Rock  Optimum Range: F#3 ~ C#5  Optimum Tempo: 85 ~ 175 BPM
  Total Tempo (min-max): 90 BPM  No. of Keys: W ~ 11, B ~ 9, Total ~ 20
Package details as noted:

Rin is designed to be a deep sounding teenage female, and the female counterpart for the Len vocal also supplied within the package.

Vocal traits as noted:
  • She handles faster paced songs better than Len.
  • Harmonizes with Kagamine Len better than most other vocals.
  • Rin's pronunciations are sharp compared to Kagamine Len's.
Phonetic notes as noted:
  • Her vowel sounds are choppy and overall lack smoothness but can connect with workarounds. A number of vowel related sounds are absent.
  • She hardly pronounces her consonants.[10]
  • Her vowels can sometimes be pronounced with a very "closed" sound and she has a slight "lisp" because of her consonants being so lightly pronounced.
Software issues as noted:
  • Her "[t a]" sound can produce a loud "spike" in volume if the BRI parameter is turned down.
  • There are some tonal issues, for example the "[j o]" vowel in her recording is very muted, but the default "[a]" is basically a shout at some ranges.
  • According to Asami Shimoda, some say Rin's voice echoes within their head and makes them feel dizzy.[11]
Voicebank sample

Kagamine Rin VOCALOID2


Product Information
Optimum
  Genre: Dance, Enka, Pop, Rock  Optimum Range: D3 ~ C#5  Optimum Tempo: 70 ~ 160 BPM
  Total Tempo (min-max): 90 BPM  No. of Keys: W ~ 14, B ~ 9, Total ~ 23
Package details as noted:

Len is the male counterpart to the Rin vocal and like her is intended to sound "deep" in tone. He is a young boy sounding singer and the vocal range is in the boy Soprano scale.

Vocal traits as noted:
  • His voice has a slight "lisp" sound which separates his vocals overall from Rin's.
  • He can harmonize with Rin relatively easier than most VOCALOIDs due to having similar vocal capabilities.
  • His vocal range capabilities are also slightly larger than Rin.[12]
  • At a known optimum vocal range of #C5 Kagamine Len has the highest male vocal within the VOCALOID 2 range, however, take in mind that he was voiced by a female vocalist.
  • Compared to the Rin vocal, Len is often weaker on higher notes
  • Len is often considered more difficult to work with than his counterpart, Rin. [13]
  • He is better at slower songs compared to Rin.
Phonetic notes as noted:
  • His vowel sounds are choppy and overall lacked smoothness with a number of vowel related sounds being absent.
    • Thus he only has actual natural transitions between the vowels "u" and "i".
Software issues as noted:
  • A particular noted weakness of Len's voicebank is that he is limited in his authenticity to produce masculine vocal tones, owed to his voice provider being female. Therefore, he cannot produce a satisfactory low masculine vocal tone.[14]
    • This is the first known example of problems when using provider's for roles that involve mimicking the opposite gender. This is the first version of Len's vocal known to have high issues related to sounding masculine and at points he doesn't like masculine at all.
    • Of the Character Vocal Series he had the most issues with realism for this reason. He was considered the least realistic VOCALOID2 overall prior to the release of Gachapoid.
    • The problems with his masculinity add to the technical problems with the vocal, making it the overall weakest of the two.
  • Len's vocals have a "breathy" quality to them.
  • According to Asami Shimoda, there are some complaints towards the VOCALOID within the Japanese fandom on how they sound. Some say Len's high vocals do not appeal to those not fond of the pair.[15]
Voicebank sample

Kagamine Len VOCALOID2



References[]

  1. https://web.archive.org/web/20070810144529/http://www.crypton.co.jp/mp/pages/prod/vocaloid
  2. link
  3. link
  4. [1] Official Profile Asami Shimoda
  5. [2] Asami Shimoda's Blog
  6. "VOCALOID MANIACS","DTM magazine"15(1)(No.165, 2008.1, Published by Terashima Jouhou Kikaku, P26
  7. [3] Weekly Plus - VOCALOID『鏡音リン・レンAppend』発売記念インタビュー第2弾は声優の下田麻美さん♪ (Len Append, interview with Shimoda Asami)
  8. More versions of this song
  9. link
  10. link[dead link]
  11. [4] ASCII - VOCALOID『鏡音リン・レンAppend』発売記念インタビュー第2弾は声優の下田麻美さん♪
  12. link
  13. [5] Danchan-P’s Blog - VOCALOID2操作(調教)法(1)
  14. [6] ITMedia News - コードネームは「勇馬」 ヤマハ純正のイケメンボカロ「VY2」の話を聞いてきた
  15. [7] ASCII - VOCALOID『鏡音リン・レンAppend』発売記念インタビュー第2弾は声優の下田麻美さん♪

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