VOCALOID3 was first announced mid-2011 at a special invitation only
event and was released following the popular VOCALOID2 engine. The
release date was set for September 2011, however it was held back on several
occusions and eventually released on October 21, 2011. This particular version
had much early promotion and there were almost as many new voicebanks for it as
there were in the entire VOCALOID2 range. YAMAHA also showed great
interest in promoting its well established Japanese Vocaloid producer fanbase
while expanding the usage of Vocaloid itself.
New languages were prepared in
Spanish, Korean, and Chinese along with the Japanese and English VOCALOID
line up.
Yamaha's first attempt to revive the
voice of a dead singer also has been made with Ueki-loid. However, due to the complexicity it is
confirmed it will be a while before the same can be attempted for an English
speaking vocal.
Vocaloid 3 editor SE boxart
Additional versions of the software
were also released, including VOCALOID Editor for
Cubase (including a "NEO" version), a updated
"SE" (second edition) version and VOCALOID NEO. The SE version includes a larger
number of Job Plug-ins then the original version, all of which were previously
downloadable from the Yamaha website for free. Users who owned the original
editor did not have to buy the SE edition as all new content was supply free of
charge from Yamaha in the Vocaloid shop. Likewise, users who owned the Cubase
version of the software did not need to buy the regular version of VOCALOID3
or the SE version.
The Cubase version used any
available vocal for the current VOCALOID2 and'VOCALOID3 compactable
versions. In the case of "NEO" and "SE", some of the
previously released VOCALOID3 vocals were re-released with new versions
of the 'VOCALOID3 Lite version to match these engine updates.
Some studios had expansion packs and updates intended for
VOCALOID2
in development. The Vocaloid voicebanks known to have been affected by the
release were Crypton's up coming male vocal, GUMI Megpoid's Extend, English
Miku Hatsune, English Kaito, Luka Megurine's Append, Kaito Append and Meiko
Append. However, after the announcement of
VOCALOID3 these were delayed
and released for
VOCALOID3.
SeeU was also intended to have an English voicebank, but was released early
so it could meet the
VOCALOID3 initial release date without it; some
phonetics for English were included in her Korean voicebank as a consequence.
Also, as of the start of
VOCALOID3 more private vocals have been
released, as well as new "exclusive" vocals given out. Although
private licensing in this level is new, several private unreleased vocals were
made in the
VOCALOID2 era, further more,
VOCALOID was not
originally considered for commercial release at all. So the concepts behind
this are nothing new.
Speaking of
Snow Miku, Kahotan and her friend Hamako were shown the brand new Snow Miku
2014 streetcar by the Sapporo Department of Transportation.
