VOCALOID β-STUDIO

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VOCALOID β-STUDIO
VOCALOID β-STUDIO Logo
General information
Status	Ended
Products	VX-β
Affiliation	Yamaha Corporation
Website	https://vocaloid.beta.yamaha.com/

VOCALOID β-STUDIO was a research studio established by the Yamaha Corporation to be made available for a limited period of time and was developed to pursue the future of singing voice synthesis.

Concept

As a means to explore the relationship between humans and AI technology in music production, advances in AI technology have made it possible for machines to generate fairly natural text and images in a way that is almost fully automatic. In this situation, Yamaha's belief is that in the field of art, such as music production, it is more important than ever before to ensure that human creativity can be included. In pursuing this relationship between creators and AI technology, Yamaha has launched VOCALOID β-STUDIO with the belief that it is essential to ask for the help of creators themselves. The word "STUDIO" is a reference to Yamaha's hope that creators will create new music with the services provided by VOCALOID β-STUDIO.

Vision

Towards a future where the majority of the world's music producers will use voice synthesis as a matter of course Music production, using voice synthesis is now enjoyed by many creators, including "Vocalo-P" and others. On the other hand, it is not true that singing voice synthesis is used as a matter of course in music production all over the world. Instrumental sound sources such as drums and strings are so commonplace in music production that listeners have reached a level where they are unaware of whether or not the sound is synthesized. Yamaha's belief is that the technology of singing voice synthesis still has the potential to reach such a situation. Therefore, Yamaha has launched VOCALOID β-STUDIO with the vision of "a future in which the majority of the world's music creators use voice synthesis as a matter of course". Yamaha's main goal is to break down and expand the image of the word "voice synthesis" and to open up a new normal in music production. Recently, AI technology has been evolving at an accelerating pace, and the limits of naturalness of synthesized sounds are being broken through in singing voice synthesis. Yamaha believes that now is the time when the possibilities for musical expression that can be achieved with voice synthesis are at their greatest potential. For creators who have loved voice synthesis up until now, Yamaha hopes that technological innovation will bring even more attractive musical expression. For those creators who have considered voice synthesis as something that has nothing to do with them, Yamaha aims to provide truly usable voice synthesis in the field of creation.

History

VOCALOID β-STUDIO was first teased on July 27, 2023 simply featuring a promotional image of the "β" (beta) Greek letter and a date of August 8, 2023 with no additional details provided. Yamaha officially announced the project on August 8, revealed as a limited research studio to be made available to creators with the hope that they would use the rough prototype software provided, that is still in the research stage and has unknown value, to create works that will open up new horizons in the field of singing voice synthesis. The first project, the VX-β DAW plug-in, was simultaneously announced the same day. It was announced that the VOCALOID β-STUDIO services would have further details released in late August 2023. The date of services to end was announced to be March 31, 2024 and the first project VX-β DAW plugin service to end on April 1, 2024.

Services

VX-β

Services offered by VOCALOID β-STUDIO were limited to March 31, 2024. The first project of the studio was the release of "VX-β", a DAW plug-in based on Yamaha's research-stage voice synthesis technology. It was noted that VX-β was not considered a beta version of the next version of VOCALOID products. It was an experimental product that incorporated functions and elements that proposed a more futuristic world of voice synthesis. Yamaha's hope was that creators would challenge new singing voice synthesis with their own free ideas and make use of this product for their own creations. VOCALOID β-STUDIO was available for all creators to participate. Random lottery drawings were announced among those who applied for participation and serial codes to use VX-β sequentially would be issued to applicants. While Yamaha continued to enhance the project structure in order to deliver VX-β to as many people as possible, delivery times for new products would be limited. It was noted that after April 1, 2024, VX-β would no longer be available for activation due to the end of the usage period. Details on the application for participation were available in late August 2023.

On July 18, VOCALOID β-STUDIO posted its very last tweet, announcing that the account would be closing soon and thanking everyone who participated in the program. It also stated that new announcements regarding the program would be made instead on the official Yamaha VOCALOID Twitter account. The same tweet ended with an embedded video announcing that the VX-β plug-in would be in the near future bundled into the VOCALOID6 editor and made available for use by all VOCALOID6 users, requiring only the same serial code used to authorize VOCALOID6 and its standard voicebanks (now called the Silhouette Series); it was stated that all AI voicebanks (both current and future) would be made available for VX-β as well. It also announced that two of the debut VX-β vocals, Gekiyaku and Kazehiki, were now available for VOCALOID6 and that the last four VX-β vocals (Ci-chan, Kanade Kanon, And Uge, and Kasukabe Tsumugi) would be in the future be released for both VOCALOID6 and the upcoming VX-β plug-in.

Releases

Vocal libraries released for the VOCALOID β-STUDIO VX-β engine.

prtv_0

prtv_1

prtv_2

prtv_3

Gazenβ

nagiβ

multiβ-N

Gekiyakuβ

Kazehikiβ

Kanade Kanon β

And Uge β

Ci-chan β

Kasukabe Tsumugi β

Gallery

VOCALOID β-STUDIO logo, transparent

External links

• Official Website
• Official Twitter (@vocaloid_beta)