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SONiKA is an English VOCALOID developed and distributed by Zero-G Limited, and was released in July 2009 for the VOCALOID2 engine. SONiKA is advertised as a "virtual vocalist modeled on the voice of a young girl pop singer"; her voice provider has never been revealed.

Concept

She is the first native English speaking VOCALOID to use a character design and profile as part of the product. SONiKA was released with profile/biographical information on the back cover of the software package, similar to the other VOCALOID2 products. Her personality also shows in her "tweets".

It was stated in the live stream for Dex and Daina that Sonika was an experiment.[1]

Etymology

The name "Sonika" is Hindi, a girl's name based on the Hindi word for "golden beauty", and was likely chosen due to a resemblance to "sonic" (relating to sound).

Appearance

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.

The tattoo on her left side is her name in katakana as " ソニカ ".

Relations

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 definite on how she was related to certain VOCALOIDs.

  • SONiKA regards LEON, LOLA and MIRIAM as her older siblings
  • Prima as her "auntie"
  • Tonio as her "uncle"
  • She referred to BIG AL as "her best friend" when asked about which VOCALOID she talked to the most.[2]
  • All other VOCALOIDs are referred to as her cousins.[3][4]

In regards to VOCALOID3 she was glad to be getting more brothers and sisters, and stated she was looking forward to meeting her new friends and singing along side them.

Music featuring SONiKA

  • On this wiki, SONiKA is featured in 120 songs , 27 albums , 2 series , 0 events.
Sonikalogo

Examples of usage

Alone
YouTube logo
[nn][yt]
Featuring
SONiKA
Producers
Categories Original song
Description
A part of the Album, "So What"
Aslongas
YouTube logo
[yt]
Featuring
SONiKA
Producers
sasukeninjagal
Categories Original song
Bi☣hazard
YouTube logo
[yt]
Translation Bi☣hazard — UTAU Lyrics Wiki
Featuring
SONiKA
Producers
Categories Cover song
Haunted
YouTube logo
[yt]
Featuring
SONiKA
Producers
Skella Bella
Categories Original song

Template:External search for Vocaloid

Additional information

Marketing

Sonika site

SONiKA's site

Prior to SONiKA, Zero-G did not do much to market their VOCALOIDs, since they sold based on reputation of their products to a strictly professional market and most marketing was done via traditional means (such as software reviews).[5] Unlike past VOCALOIDs, SONiKA was a more fandom driven VOCALOID. Rather than target professionals, Zero-G focused on selling SONiKA to the VOCALOID fans. This produced in both positive and negative results, with the most important advantage being that Zero-G was able to create links with the VOCALOID English fandom that never existed previously. The downside was that any disappointments around SONiKA were more felt than with previous VOCALOIDs they had made since they were talking to the fans of VOCALOID software directly.


See also: SONiKA/Marketing and VOCALOID in other media

Trivia

  • The winner of SONiKA's New Look Competition was entry number 30.[6]
  • The artist of SONiKA's 2nd boxart design has a DeviantART account, as does the artist for the comics.
  • 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.
  • 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.

Reputation

Status

Sales
Sonikaranking2011

SONiKA's ranking, 2011

She was reported as having sold much better than past VOCALOIDs designed only for the English language. According to a flyer in 2011, SONiKA was the 13th most popular Zero-G product in 2011.[7]

In 2012, she was in 19th place.[8]

She was absent from the rankings in 2013, but returned to hold the no.35 spot in 2014.[9]

In 2015, both her and Tonio failed to make it onto the top 50 rankings.[10]

Reaction

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 of improving her voicebank.[11][12]

Misc
Ecapsule virtualvocalist poll zrg

Poll

An independent search on Nico Nico Douga revealed that most VOCALOIDs had less than 1,000 videos uploaded to Nico Nico Douga in 2011 between July 1st and December 15th, a category which SONiKA fell into.[13]

In 2013 poll on E-Capsule, the results showed that SONiKA got the most votes of interest.
Achievements
  • First English VOCALOID to have a "true" avatar
  • First VOCALOID to have a boxart redesign
  • First English VOCALOID to get significant attention
  • First VOCALOID to be released in Taiwan
  • First VOCALOID to own a Twitter
  • First VOCALOID to use the concept of a "Vocaloid family"
  • First VOCALOID to coin the fan-term "Engloid"
  • First VOCALOID to be released in greater China

Template:Poll vocaloidpage

Gallery

Template:Gallery page

References

  1. link
  2. tweet 3:31 AM - 6 Jul 11
  3. tweet 2:28 AM - 5 Aug 09
  4. tweet 2:30 AM - 5 Aug 09
  5. link Vocaloid company by halkun
  6. [1] DeviantArt - Kjbionicle; Sonika's "New Look"
  7. link
  8. link
  9. link
  10. link
  11. [2] Engloid Blog - Improvements to voicebanks are a no go.
  12. [3] VocaloidOtaku - Sonika (safe link)
  13. link Vocaloid on Nico

External links

Language Description Site
English Zero-G Limited official homepage Link
English VOCALOID2 SONIKA product page Link
English Sonika Vocaloid The official website for VOCALOID SONiKA Link
English Sonika @SonikaVocaloid The official Twitter account for VOCALOID SONiKA Link
English deviantArt , art and media community Link
Japanese Pixiv , art and media community Link

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