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LOLA VOCALOID1 | Songs Albums Notable Originals


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

History[]

According to production notes, the recording process for the LOLA and LEON vocals took 8 hours each day, for 5 days.[1]

SoulVocalist

The "Soul Singer" boxart

From the the existence of an early "Soul Singer" box illustration, LOLA and LEON may have been intended for sale as a duo. However, very little information is known about their early development at all, with much of the early development of VOCALOID, even the name "VOCALOID", having yet to have been finalized.

Both LOLA and LEON were known to have existed at the early stages of "Project Daisy", and were the only vocals to have been shown to the general public under the name "Daisy".

LOLA was released, along with fellow VOCALOID LEON, by Zero-G Limited. Both vocals were one of the exhibits at the Zero-G Limited booth during Wired Nextfest, and the pair won the 2005 Electronic Musician Editor’s Choice Award. At the time of their release, LOLA and LEON had no rival software to contend with and were the first vocal synthesizers to be released of their nature. However, due to their accents, LOLA and LEON failed to impact the American market.[2][3]

A Japanese musician and composer, Susumu Hirasawa, used LOLA in the original soundtrack of "Paprika" by Satoshi Kon.[4] Susumu Hirasawa announced that "If users can edit her perfectly, she can be a professional (singer). She can sing in soprano or whatever if they edit her overwhelmingly" on his blog. Since Susumu Hirasawa did not reveal which VOCALOID he used for a quite some time, except the fact it was a female VOCALOID, many producers speculated it was Crypton's Meiko. However, later he mentioned in a magazine interview that it was indeed LOLA. LOLA is known to have the oldest Vocaloid works on Nico Nico Douga out of all VOCALOIDs.[5]

Re-Sale[]

Due to renewed interest in VOCALOID from the success of Hatsune Miku, in 2008: LOLA, LEON, and MIRIAM were put back on sale for the first time in several years.

Final Retirement[]

In mid-December 2013, Zero-G's newsletter reported that December 31, 2013: LOLA, LEON, and MIRIAM would receive permanent retirement and be removed from sale. On January 1, 2014, the three vocalists were officially retired.

Due to financial reasons, Zero-G has stated it is not feasible to update any of the 3 VOCALOID vocals.

Post Retirement DL sales[]

On December 26, 2014, Zero-G confirmed in a response to a fan that they would still offer LOLA, LEON and MIRIAM in download format only until stock has been depleted. However, they could not provide software support, and users wishing to purchase the software were made aware that they cannot seek technical support from Zero-G.

Serial codes for LOLA and LEON were still available in November 2015, despite MIRIAM being confirmed to have run out of serial codes at this point. By 2021, both LOLA and LEON were reported to have been unavailable.

Product Information[]

Demonstrations[]

Demonstrations

Little Bird (human singer as lead vocal) Zero-G (archived)
Dupdah (LEON/LOLA) Zero-G (archived)
Falling (LEON/LOLA) Zero-G (archived)
Freaky Sheep (LEON/LOLA) Zero-G (archived)
Introducing LOLA Zero-G (archived)
Lola Is Here Zero-G (archived)
Forever (LEON/LOLA) Zero-G (archived)
Without You (human singer as lead vocal) Zero-G (archived)
Sweet Dreams Zero-G (archived)
Bach Vowels Zero-G (archived)
Knightmare Theme Zero-G (archived)
In The Darkness JMT

System Requirements[]

Please note that the VOCALOID version 1 products LEON, LOLA, and MIRIAM are not fully compatible with Windows 7 or later.

Minimum Requirements
  • Windows XP or Windows 2000
  • Pentium III, 1 GHz or faster
  • 512MB of RAM or more
  • 32 bit (does not work on 64 bit systems)
  • 700 MB or more of hard disk space
  • SVGA display (1024x768)
  • Sound card with a Microsoft DirectSound compatible driver
  • A LAN/network card must be installed, or a USB network card must be connected to the USB port.
Recommended Requirements
  • Windows XP
  • Pentium 4, 1.7 GHz or faster
  • 32 bit
  • 1 GB of RAM or more

Voicebanks[]

Product Information
Optimum
  Genre: Intended for soul music, but also suits many other styles.
Versions
  Trial/Demo Vers?: No
Package details as noted:

LOLA is the counterpart to LEON and designed to compliments his own vocals. She, like LEON, also sings with a British accent and is designed to be a generic soul singer and effort was made to make the racial appearance of the singer within the vocal itself.

Crypton Future Media, Inc. released a "couples bundle set" (male and female) which included MEIKO, KAITO, LEON and LOLA. A loop sample set was also supplied with the 4 voicebank bundle.[6]

Vocal traits as noted:
  • Sings in the contralto scale leaving her with a British Reggae vibe due to the raspy tone.
  • Has a strong, deep and mature female voice.
  • Was the most versatile of the 3 VOCALOID English vocals .[7]
  • Out of her and LEON, LOLA was praised as the better overall vocal when they were released by reviewers.
  • 'Heatviper' decribed LOLA's voice as "works great for mondo/mournful giallo morricone style tracks using vowels....wordless soulful vowels are nice"
  • She has a slight synchronization problem compared to LEON making her harder to use than he is.
Phonetic notes as noted:
  • Has 3,800 word combinations.
  • When used outside of the typical Soul Music genre restrictions, LOLA reverts back to her native providers Caribbean sourced vocal leading to inconsistency with how pronunciations sound.
Software issues as noted:
  • Despite being the more praise as a vocal, LOLA is the most criticized as a "Soul singer" out of her and LEON and LOLA is often noted to be the one to most fail to represent the racial qualities that come from a 'black soul singer'.
    • Due to the mix of accents, LOLA actually failed to met what was expected of a typical soul music genre vocal, resulting in a atypical soul music vocal. LOLA made up for her loss of genre via her accent matching by instead having a strong vocal deliverance and a good timbre.
    • The vocal type has also lead to other user related issues, such as one user noted that by default LOLA sounds "like Big ma"; it is often recommended that the gender factor be used to make LOLA more neutral.
Voicebank sample



Interface[]

Lolainterface

LOLA's VOCALOID interface

Like all VOCALOID vocals, LOLA has her own version of the VOCALOID interface.

References[]

Navigation[]

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