Vocaloid

Vocaloid, or boukaroido (ボーカロイド) in Japanese, is a hugely popular music software originating in Japan. Vocaloid is basically artificial voices. This is achieved by creating each sound in the Japanese language with artificial “voice” software. When you choose a certain sound in Japanese, and choose the pitch, it will sound like a slightly robotic-sounding Japanese person is singing that sound. With this, any word in the Japanese language can be created, so it’s highly versatile. The software lets you change pitch, speed, duration of the notes and lets you add your own background music (such as piano). You can upload background music, or create your own on the software. You do the same steps to create the background tracks that you would to make the voices themselves. You can mix your music, change volumes, edit tracks.

The Control parameter screen (shown below) is there to show expressiveness in the voices: if you want a song to have more passion, you can edit the voice to make it louder or give it more vibrato. The original version of Vocaloid is nearly impossible to use if you’re not fluent in Japanese (all the buttons, commands, and explanations are in Japanese). However, I think there’s a fan-made translated version of Vocaloid available, because the software has become so popular.

Here is a screenshot of Vocaloid. The different sections are labeled to show how they work.

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If you’re at all familiar with Vocaloid, I’m sure that software is the last thing you’re thinking. Each of the “voice” sounds are given in a few different starting pitches, which makes it seem like a different person is singing them. These different voices have names and even backstories. The most popular of these is Hatsune Miku, who has long teal hair in pigtails, and dresses in a gray stylized Japanese school uniform, thigh highs and black shoes. She is the face of Vocaloid because of her popularity, and many people all over the world recognize her.

These Vocaloid voices have become characters and even have their own appearances. Each of the characters have a specific color attributed to them. Hatsune Miku is known for her school uniform contrasting with her teal hair, but there are other characters as well. A character named Kaito always wears blue and has blue hair, while another character has red hair and wears only red. Two twin characters are blonde and always wear yellow.

The reason Vocaloid became viral so quickly is because of the songs created with it. It became popular in America through colorful music videos on Youtube, which people then translated and put subtitles on. In Japan, however, Vocaloid has become so popular that there are Vocaloid concerts.

If you’re familiar with the American band Gorillaz, you might know what a hologram concert is. Basically, they are concerts where music is played, and a huge screen is in front of a large audience. The screen displays an image that looks 3D, and the image is animated. The animation is matched to the music, so that it looks like the hologram is playing or singing the music. Here is a Gorillaz holographic concert.

Many Volcaloid songs have gone viral, such as “World is Mine” or one of my personal favorites, “Just Be Friends.” Just Be Friends is about a breakup, and it shows both people in the couple being sad about their happy memories. They grew apart, and they stopped dating. World is Mine, on the other hand, is different. The whole song is about a spoiled girl wanting her boyfriend to do everything and buy everything she asks for. She wants him to obey her, then she realizes the things she does and tries to love her boyfriend even more. This is the holographic concert for the song World is Mine.

For more information, the offical Vocaloid website is here: http://www.vocaloid.com/en/