vocafarre No. 0

vocafarre logo

The “zeroth” vocafarre event featuring VOCALOID3 was held today at Nico Nico Douga’s live event space, nicofarre, located in the Roppongi district of Tokyo. The event was also streamed live on NicoNicoDouga. Various company representatives discussed their upcoming products and introduced new ones as well, including of course YAMAHA, creator of VOCALOID. The press conference earlier in the day was followed by an augmented reality (AR) concert later on. Here we shall summarize what was presented and announced…

  • YAMAHA’s Mr. Kenmochi, father of VOCALOID, summarized VOCALOID3 Editor‘s capabilities such as ability to host VST plugins and implementation of a Lua-based scripting language for automation of editing tasks. Users can download and upload VOCALOID Job Plugins on the VOCALOID Store. A compatible VocaListener is also currently in development. Lastly, every copy of VOCALOID3 Editor will include a business card holder with the VOCALOID3 logo on it.
  • Moe Japan’s president Mofuku-chan introduced the audience to Tone Rion and stated that Rion and Dear Stage’s idol group Dempagumi.inc will be holding a performance together in the second half.
  • MiKA came on stage to talk about the VOCALOID3 she voiced, Ring Suzune. The project has now been picked up by a team called “VOCALOID NEXT” who will continue development of this sound bank. Furthermore, there is a Ring Suzune rhythm game in the works, where the player simulates the role of the song writer and “inputs” lyrics into the system. The game claims to incorporate VOCALOID3 technology and uses the network. A trial version is scheduled for March 11 of next year. The date will coincide with the VOCALOID NETWORK event, which will be a gathering of fans and creators to be held in Tokyo.
  • Aoki Lapis was introduced next, with the person behind her voice delivering a pre-recorded video message to everyone while hugging a Lapis pillow. She was unable to attend due to school. There is also an iOS app available for free where you can have Lapis show up virtually in the environment via augmented reality. An Aoki Lapis “dress-up” illustration contest was also announced where contestants would draw clothing over a provided Lapis still image.
  • VOCALOID producers buzzG and ToukaP talked about the product VOCALOID-P data series, which includes backing music and .vsqx files for a song each from several well-known producers.
  • 1st Place delivered a video message via a drawing of a human puppet being operated by a bear in a labcoatVOICEROID+ Yoshida-kun. In it, the character talked about the VOCALOID3 voice bank IA (based off singer Lia) in the style of a letter back to his mother. Afterwards, a trailer of various songs produced using the beta version of IA was run (including many new ones): Tori no Uta (IA’s cover, default gender value of 64), Shounen wa Kyoushitsu ga Kirai Datta no Da (by Ishiburo), Cafe Latte (by IOSYS’s void, gender value of 20), YUMEMIGOKOCHI (by NIO, gender value of 64), Falling Apart (by Taishi, gender value of 64), My Soul, Your Beats (IA cover/remix by sasakure.UK, gender value of 64), and Asu no Hikari (by Nhato). ShizenNoTekiP’s Headphone Actor was also supposed to have been shown but it was left out by accident and added after the next portion.
  • AH-Soft’s president came up to talk about Yuzuki Yukari. Some key features touted were that she can sing full of feeling and that she can also sing slow ballads nicely. A few of her demo songs were played — Setsugekka, Reversi and Tiny Paradise (a new song to appear on kagomeP’s C81 album). The president then went out to tout their unique feature, which was titled “exVOICE”. With the Yuzuki Yukari soundbank, they will include extra non-singing sound snippets, such laughter, sighing, breathing and consonant sounds (to enhance the consonant part of syllables, which often can get muddled by VOCALOID synthesis). A few of these snippets were played and there was a very “arousing” response on the Nico stream. Sample songs and backing audio files will also be included with the software.
  • Representatives from SBS ARTECH flew in from Korea to talk about SV01 SeeU, the first Korean VOCALOID. SeeU is actually trilingual, capable of Japanese, Korean and English. Her voice model Kim Dahi, who was also present, is the same age as SeeU, 17. Her preferred pitch range is C3 to C5 and her preferred tempo range is from 60 to 170 BPM. Lastly, it is claimed that she is best at singing K-POP compared to other music genres. Her first two Japanese demo songs (revealed today) were also played: Negai wo Komete and Asu wo Muite.
  • The president of INTERNET Co., Ltd. came on stage to talk about the VOCALOID3 version of Megpoid as well as CUL. Video messages from the voice talent behind both sound banks were shown as well. He also talked about a VOCALOID3 version of Lily as well as Gackpoid. Lily is currently approximately 20% done and both products are geared for a spring release.
  • A song contest in celebration of the release of VOCALOID3 was announced, where entrants have until the end of March to create and upload a song onto NicoNicoDouga using VOCALOID3. They then have to tag it with the contest-specific tag and lock it to be eligible to enter. Prizes include 3 VOCALOID products from INTERNET, Co. Ltd., 3 VOCALOID products from YAMAHA, 5 NicoNicoDouga items. Tentatively, anyone who has attained at least 3000 views on their video will also receive a not-for-sale VOCALOID sound bank.
  • YAMAHA introduced the service “VOCALOID Lesson Online”, which is a series of online multimedia tutorials that teach the novice how to produce music using VOCALOID software. The first lesson is by Mr. Kenmochi and is at a discounted 105 JPY. The later 1050 JPY “beginner-level” lessons are taught by Kobayashi Onyx, Toeto (TravoltaP) and Otomania, who will guide the user through the creation of Saihate, Kokoro and Ievan Polkka respectively, and there are more producers planned, with the hint that someone using this might end up doing so well they could teach others through this service.
  • New apparel have been added to the VOCALOID store, including a T-shirt with a “V” logo on it designed by illustrator Nagimiso of Roshin Yuukai fame.
  • Karaoke supplier DAM has now a collaboration to bring out VOCALOID-themed LIVE DAM model karaoke machines, including ones decorated after GUMI and Akikoloid. They invited two singers on stage to test out the GUMI model, with Ayumi Nomiya singing Aitai and maria singing Mozaik Role.

After the press conference segment, a concert was held where they used AR markers on the stage to virtually add a 3D character into the video stream. The live audience could then look at giant monitors on the wall to see, whereas the stream viewers could directly see the character implanted on stage. The AR system also added special effects such as notes flying out or fairy dust to performers both virtual and real.

The concert started with VY1V3’s (no visuals) VOCAFARRE desu., produced by UtataP of Project diva desu. fame. Then, Dempagumi.inc was called on stage, and they managed to summon Tone Rion (who crashed into an invisible screen at least once and tried to smash it later) from the future to perform Future Driver together. This was followed by a set of Aoki Lapis performances, and she was very small in the her performance of Daydream Flight and got even smaller for Little Wish so that she could sit on the guitarist’s shoulder. Aoki Lapis was followed by LAWSON’s Akikoloid, who started off by appearing behind a pair of sliding convenience store doors (which sort of just flew sideways into space due to the lack of a wall). She performed Aoi Konbini de Aimashou and Asu ni Nareba Mata Tsuzuku with a pair of backing dancers before finally disappearing behind a closing set of sliding doors. Finally, GUMI took the stage performing LoveDroid and Megu Megu Fire Endless Night, as well as Megane no Mukou no Sekai and Cyber Thunder Cider with Akikoloid. The concert closed out with VY1V3’s cover of Hotaru no Hikari, a version of Auld Lang Syne with Japanese lyrics which is sung at the end of Kouhaku Uta Gassen, while the credits rolled.

As a side note, it seemed that the cameraman for the concert really liked taking upskirt shots, although it may have been inadvertent since he couldn’t see the virtual characters…


9 thoughts on “vocafarre No. 0”

  1. i think they also mentioned v3 lily being 20 percent recorded with Gakupo scheduled to start recording after that. unfortunately unless the company recently changed their mind no english bank for Gakupo is planned for this recording session even though GACKT is fluent in it. we need to bug the company about that if we can.


  2. 1st Place delivered a video message of their representative drawn as a human puppet”

    That was Voiceroid Yoshida-kun.

  3. the only male vocaloid I read here is gakupo… they should make more guys!!! anyway, I’m really really happy that they’re giving attention to new vocaloids.. but where’s mew?? 🙁

  4. You know, I hate that no one respects Utatane Piko… In my mind, he’s better even than Len! I want Piko and Gumi to do a duet in concert! (*^_^*)

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