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- VOCALOID1
Characteristics of VOCALOID (2004)
VOCALOID uses a method of voice synthesis that was developed solely by Yamaha Corporation over a span of many years, called Frequency-domain Singing Articulation Splicing and Shaping.
This synthesis method gathers singing articulation (a collection of predetermined voice expressions such as vibrato and fragments of sounds and syllables) necessary for the song and creates a database after making transformations to the frequency domain.
It then extracts data that is made of fragments of the voice according to what is entered, and processes the connections as changes in pitch or lyrics.
At this time, since processing is conducted in the frequency domain, along with making it easier to change pitch to match a melody this also makes it possible for a smooth transition to occur between lyrics that are essentially fragments of a voice.
For example, two fragments of "Sa" and "ai" are connected to form the "Sa-i" part of "Sa-i-ta". When this happens, the vowel sound "a" contained in "Sa" normally sounds different from the "a" sound in "ai", so when they are connected as is, there is an unpleasant noise that can be heard. This can be resolved and a smooth sound can be obtained by synthesizing connecting parts of sounds in the frequency domain (smoothing processing) when connecting them.
Figure 1) Processing in the frequency domain
In addition, by processing in the frequency domain it is possible to easily limit notes and pitch in case expressions such as vibrato are going to be added. The notes and time variations in pitch and vibrato extracted from actual human voices are stored in a databases in VOCALOID, and it is possible to reproduce these time variations included in the original vibrato by using this during synthesis.
Figure 2) Processing in the Vibrato
Licensed Products
VOCALOID is constructed of the Score Editor to enter pitch, lyrics and expression, an engine to synthesize singing and a library for each singer (pronunciation database and database for musical expression). Software that combines that synthesis engine and Singer Library is released by each company that has a license agreement with YAMAHA. Support is provided in Japanese and English, and the operating system is Windows2000/XP.
* Please note that VOCALOID 1 products cannot be used with VOCALOID™ 3 Editor.
Zero-G Limited
The voice of real professionals are realized and it is possible to create beautiful expressions in English for any genre of music.
Male vocalist, Leon
Female vocalist, Lola
Female vocalist, Miriam
Crypton Future Media, Inc.
Japanese male libraries and Japanese female libraries are on sale.
* For the five types of licensed products described above, please see
the Crypton Future Media website.
Singing samples created in VOCALOID can be played back.
Enjoy demo songs with various ideas such as using only VOCALOIDs to create a chorus.