A cafe where you can listen to Vocaloid music, order Vocaloid menus, learn about the latest Vocaloid developments and buy Vocaloid goodies, all that with the participation of companies such as Internet, Crypton, AHS, Avex and Sega: that’s the concept of Yamaha’s VOCALOID CAFE, which opened on March 3rd in Roppongi, Tokyo, and will close… on the 9th. Yup, only one week, and a rather busy one at that. Read on for more info!
On the first day of the event, Yamaha presented some of its latest non-Vocaloid-related products, but also announced two updates for its Vocaloid iPhone and iPad applications: firstly, a mixdown function has been added to the iVOCALOID-VY1 app, enabling users to export their work to WAV files (for an overview of the different features of this app, here’s a short video); secondly, users of the iVOCALOID-VY1t app, whose basic function is to make VY1 talk naturally as opposed to sing, will now be able to upload their works directly on Youtube or Twitter with a single click.
They also presented the new VOCALOID-board, which is now only 4cm x 4cm (a little more than one inch), compared to the older 8cm x 8cm version: Vocaloid in a tiny little piece of hardware! Basically, it’s a microchip that contains both the Vocaloid engine and the voicebank; it can be integrated to other machines and make them sing. It is not directed to the general public though, only to companies; Yamaha is currently looking for partners to implement it into robots or musical instruments for instance. By Hideki “father of Vocaloid” Kenmochi’s own admission, it’s still quite expensive as of now, but there’s no doubt that the prospects of singing robots will appeal to investors…
Last but not least, VY2’s voice has been made public! He has the voice of a “young man”, that “doesn’t overlap with any of the other male Vocaloids” according to Kenmochi – I happen to agree with him, and would add that it sounded strikingly natural to me, but just see for yourself! The sample song is at about 49min.
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New announcements concerning VY2 will be made soon. Kenmochi also quickly mentioned VOCALOID3, only urging us to wait just a little bit more for announcements… Sadly, he forgot to tell us what “a little bit more” in Yamaha time amounts to in regular time.
Source: Hatsune Miku Miku, VOCALOID CAFE website.