Miriam followed quickly after, with Japanese Vocaloids Meiko and Kaito following last as the first generation Vocaloids (developed by Crypton Future Media). While the Vocaloids have been on the market for quite a long time now, the virtual idols didn’t garner the popularity they have today until the release of Hatsune Miku in 2007. These Virtual idols have been restricted to the internet until recently in 2009, when Hatsune Miku performed her first ever “live” concert at Animelo Summer Live at Saitama Super Arena. Yamaha Corporation announced news about the release of the Vocaloids and its technology at the German fair, Musikmesse in 2003. While many of us believe that Hatsune Miku was probably the first Vocaloid to surface, Zero-G’s collaboration with Yamaha gave birth to Leon and Lola, an English Vocaloid, in the year of 2004.

The Vocaloid unlocked the potential of many song writers and hobbyists, giving a voice to those who had none. The collaboration of the voice bank and MIDI technology creates a vocal part that resembles a heavily Auto-Tuned voice. The software calls upon a voice bank that has sampled sounds from an actual person. Vocaloids are computer programs that allow user’s to create vocal parts by simply entering in lyrics and a melody line. “The idol-singers,” he said, starting up the hump-backed incline of the bridge. “But do they really have singers who don’t exist?” Extremely watered-down Western pop influences. “The roots of contemporary Japanese pop came later, with the wholesale creation of something called ‘group sounds.’ That was a copy-cat phenomenon, flagrantly commercial. “We could begin with a music called enka,” he said, “although I doubt you’d like it.” Software agents did that, learned what you liked.

List of offucal vocaloids