At Nico Nico Chokaigi 2012‘s “VOCALOID NEWS” event, representatives of i-style Project announced the name メルリ(merli) as the winner of the naming contest for Aoki Lapis’s elder sister. They will be auditioning for someone to voice the new sound bank soon. YAMAHA also promoted its VOCALOID3 music contest and revealed that the mystery VOCALOID3 sound bank awarded to all participants who receive 1000 or more views on their submissions is none other than galaco(ギャラ子). YAMAHA has posted higher quality images of the design as well. She first appeared in the music video galaxias! by an artist unit of the same name, composed of singer Shibasaki Kou and musicians DECO*27 and TeddyLoid. So far, it appears that this sound bank is only available to contestants who qualify, as there are no plans to sell this as a product.
According to the presentation slide, galaco began with an idea Shibasaki Kou had, and KEI drew the original artwork for the character. Currently, INTERNET’s Murakami Noboru is in charge of producing this sound bank, and the two other members of galaxias, DECO*27 and TeddyLoid have planned demo songs with galaco as well. Overall planning is being handled by YAMAHA and STARDUST MUSIC, INC., which is a sibling company to talent agency STARDUST PROMOTION (which handles artists such as Megumi Nakajima and Shibasaki Kou).
Depictions of galaco also showed up in VOCALOID merchandise on the VOCALOID STORE, although all instances of her appearing with the other VOCALOID characters were covered up or mosaicked out. However, two hidden accessory items featuring galaco on the store were publicly accessible if one knew the correct URL.
Of course, these two items weren’t the only things on the agenda at the event:
- YAMAHA’s Kenmochi talked about the “VOCALOID LEGENDS(working title)” lineup, including “Uekiloid”, based on the voice of Ueki Hitoshi (1957-2007).
- Tone Rion has started working her shifts at Dear Stage and there’s also a picture+music book out for her, including her demo songs.
- A “boy” VOCALOID sound bank, which has entered the voice recording phase, has an optimistic projected release date of summer 2012.
- The JobPlugin version of VocaListener has entered the beta phase. A demo song using Aoki Lapis has been uploaded to Nico Nico Douga as well as a demo song using Yuzuki Yukari.
- SeeU made an appearance, and SBS Artech also promoted the VOCALOID3 song contest as well as an upcoming compilation album slated for summer.
- INTERNET’s Murakami Noboru talked about a slew of currently available products such as Lily, GUMI, a VOCALOID3 Megpoid + Singer Songwriter starter pack, and CUL.
- He also talked about a freely available VST plugin “FormantShift” that allows real-time adjustment of the location of formants in audio, much like the “Gender Factor” control in VOCALOID. A paid version that includes pitch correction is also in development.
- A demo song using VOCALOID3 Gackpoid was also played during the event.
- More exVOICE updates for Yuzuki Yukari are coming, and customers can download these.
- 1st PLACE used VOICEROID Yoshida-kun to deliver a message again, this time promoting the compilation album IA/01. The limited edition will include various “source” files like .vsqx files as well guitar/bass/drum stems for the songs and images/storyboard/scripts used to produce the two promotional music videos.
- Akikoloid, Mie no Hito and EHAMIC made an appearance promoting Akikoloid-related products.
- Various VOCALOID character merchandise were paraded around by cosplayers.