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Sweet ANN VOCALOID2 | 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[]

Early Development[]

While the exact date of her development is unknown, several clues exist that suggest Sweet ANN may have been headed for a VOCALOID release.[1] PowerFX was known to have joined the production of VOCALOID vocals in 2002, after Zero-G entered production in the UK autumn. PowerFX's involvement was not announced until later, leaving vagueness on when production began on Sweet ANN's early development. She did not begin production during "Project Daisy".

An image in the instruction manual for VOCALOID shows an image with Sweet ANN's codename of "JODIE" featured as the name of a voicebank, "JODIE" being identified as a reference to Sweet ANN's provider "Jody". "TARO" and "HANAKAO" are also names seen alongside "JODIE" in the VOCALOID manual, those being the codenames for KAITO and MEIKO.[2] "JODIE" had also been sighted in ANN related information to do with her VOCALOID2 version.

A demo was also included on Sound on Sound website with other VOCALOID demos. This demo featured a unknown female Vocaloid which sounds much like VOCALOID2 Ann. Wed, 25 Jun 2003 was the date the file was last modified on the site, with the file first being shown, the file was first entered in Sound on Sound May edition of 2003.

Even in later generations, demos of VOCALOID Sweet Ann were known to exist. On the official vocaloid website, samples of VOCALOID can be found; two of those samples contain examples of what appears to be Sweet Ann singing in VOCALOID.[3]

In the VOCALOID2 manual "JODIE2" also exists, it appears alongside another vocal by the name of "RONIE2", "Ronie" generally understood to be the codename of BIG AL, Sweet Ann's counterpart.

Official announcement[]

Sweet ANN, along with Prima and BIG AL, first appeared at the NAMM March 2007 event. ANN was later announced to the general public in May for a release, just weeks away from her release date.[4]

PowerFX took steps when Sweet ANN was to be released. They advertised her by creating a MySpace page and uploaded demos "Alove" and "Sweet ANN Vs Kitto" to YouTube.[5] Due to time restraints, the VOCALOID2 software was released without public beta testing with both Sweet ANN and Hatsune Miku being released with relatively little testing done to their VOCALOID2 software.[6]

After Sweet ANN's appearance, VOCALOID fell mostly into obscurity in the west due to a change in the trends of the music industry, with the focus of the indie music being taken away from sites like MySpace.[7] This was the circle VOCALOID had mostly been aimed at in the west, although VOCALOID was not the only software to be affected by this changeusic software in general was hit by the change of styles. Sweet ANN was the last of the English capable VOCALOIDs to receive great attention by reviewers for a while and the last VOCALOID to be greatly noticed prior to Hatsune Miku's rise to fame.

Japan release[]

Sweet Ann was later released in Japan with her distributors being Crypton Future Media, Inc.. Initially a number copies were shipped without their serial codes. Those without serial codes had to contact their support desk to correct the issue.[8]

Crypton Future Media noted users of LEON, LOLA and MIRIAM would receive preferable sales in addition if they registered by 2nd September, 2007.[9]

2011 Taiwanese Exportation[]

On April 4, 2011 PowerFX's website went down. When it reopened on April 6, 2011, both Sweet ANN and Big Al were sporting a new look.

On April 8, 2011 a PowerFX employee noted that the designs seen on the PowerFX website of both Big Al and Sweet ANN were that of a Taiwanese distributor of PowerFX products and were not the official designs of Big Al or Sweet ANN.[10]

According to PowerFX, they put the Taiwan boxart on their website to try the oblong shape as they preferred it and were thinking about switching to this shape for their VOCALOID products. The boxarts placement was temporary until they could run a Sweet ANN / BIG AL competition, however they noted the fandom had insisted that boxart be on the page and had to switch back.[11]

Later demo songs "Carry on", "U belong to me" and Shu-tP's classic song "Night of the Magic" were released by E-Capsule. Later Sweet ANN and BIG AL were featured in the song "At your side 2010". Other songs include "Everlasting Love".

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.[12]

Product Information[]

Demonstrations[]

Demonstrations

Crazy YouTube MySpace
Electro Five MySpace
Killing Me Softly MySpace
Waterloo MySpace
Alove YouTube
Sweet Ann Vs Kitto YouTube
Demo medley YouTube
Make Me Feel (Sweet ANN/BIG AL beta) YouTube

E-Capsule Demonstrations[]

Demonstrations

Carry on YouTube
U Belong to Me YouTube
Night of the Magic YouTube
@Your Side (Sweet ANN/BIG AL) YouTube
Everlasting Love YouTube

System Requirements[]

  • Pentium4 2 GHz / Athlon XP 2000+以上
    • (Pentium4 2.8 GHz / Athlon 64 2800+or higher
    • OS Windows 7 (32, 64bit)
  • Windows 7 (64bit) 32bit Compatibility mode (WOW64)
  • RAM 512MB以上(1GB or more recommended
    • Real-time VSTi when using 2GB or more
  • Interface VST2.3、ReWire、stand-alone

Voicebanks[]

Product Information
Optimum
  Genre: Country, Classic Rock, Lyrical Nostalgia  Optimum Range: C3 ~ C5  Optimum Tempo: 65 ~ 155 BPM
  Total Tempo (min-max): 90 BPM  No. of Keys: W ~ 15, B ~ 10, Total ~ 25
Versions
  Trial/Demo Vers?: No
Package details as noted:

As her name suggests, her voice is meant to sound "sweet." She has a wide variety of uses within music, and she is a professional producer-aimed voicebank. She also has a distinct accent that can give Ann a "sassy" ring to her voice.[13] Her counterpart is BIG AL and she is countered as a Character Voice English type vocal.

Vocal traits as noted:
  • Ann has a warm vibrato and, at the time of her release, an unmatched vocal range.
  • She lacks raspiness and is therefore better suited to genres like swing and pop rather than styles such as R&B or soul.
  • According to John Walden of Sound on Sound magazine, she is capable of sounding more realistic than past VOCALOID voicebank libraries and requires less work to edit thanks to the improved VOCALOID2 engine.
  • She has very clear English that makes her more "understandable" than previous English voicebanks.
  • Ann is quite capable of both lead and harmonic roles; this was highlighted during her initial release.
  • In Japan, Ann was noted to have a thick voice, producing clear English and a powerful vocal.[14]
Phonetic notes as noted:
  • Her accent can make her pronunciations of some words sound odd and swapping phonetics may be necessary to get around the accent, but those able to work with it report that she is relatively easy to use.[15]
  • She has no breath samples.
  • She was one of the two English-capable VOCALOIDs released during the VOCALOID2 period to not have a trilled "R" sound.
Software issues as noted:
  • She is considered the most outdated of the VOCALOID2 based English VOCALOIDs as it uses the base "VOCALOID" Devi Kit build with no real adjustments. Later Vocaloids such as her own counterpart Big AL have more recorded keys than she does or where adapted slightly. The result is her voice being less smooth than her counterpart but also many succeeding English vocals, the soul exception being Megurine Luka English whose voicebank has missing sounds.
    • Sweet Ann's vocal meant she could be used as a prototype for later English vocals and was used as reference for Hatsune Miku English.
Voicebank sample

Sweet ANN VOCALOID2



References[]

  1. link
  2. link
  3. link
  4. link
  5. [1] Youtube - Sweet ANN VS. Kitto
  6. link
  7. Wikipedia overview of the decline of MySpace
  8. https://blog.sonicwire.com/2007/09/sweet_ann.html
  9. https://blog.sonicwire.com/2007/08/vocaloid2_sweet_ann.html
  10. [2] VocaloidOtaku - PowerFx website is down - post by TipperTorvi
  11. PowerFX e-mail 13/05/2011
  12. link
  13. [3] Sound on Sound - PowerFX VOCALOID2 Sweet ANN
  14. link
  15. link

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