Welcome to the wonderful world of vocaloid!

"What is Vocaloid, anyway?"

Vocaloid is vocal synthesis software first published by Yamaha in 2004. Beginning with the voice bank MEIKO, followed by KAITO in 2005. Although Hatsune Miku is seen as the figurehead of vocaloid, she actually wasn't released until August 31, 2007, and was the first voice bank in a series of character vocals as well as being the first vocaloid released for the VOCALOID2 software. Hatsune Miku was followed by Kagamine Rin and Len in September of the same year. The Kagamines were the first vocaloids to be released as a set. The last, and most recent release in the character vocal series is Megurine Luka who was released in 2009. Megurine Luka is the first bilingual vocaloid as she has both Japanese and English capabilities. Since there was over a year between the release of Kagamine Rin and Len many older vocaloid fanworks revolving around the cryptonloids, the vocaloids owned by Crypton Future Media, do not include Megurine Luka.

There are MANY vocaloids that are owned by companies other than crypton future media. While the Cryptonloids remain the most popular, notable non-cryton owned vocaloids include Gackpoid, whose mascot character is Kamui Gakupo and whose voice provider is well known Japanese singer and actor Gackt. Megpoid, whose mascot character is GUMI and whose voice provider is Megumi Nakajima, most well known as the voice actress for Ranka Lee in the Macross anime series. Both Gackpoid and Megpoid debuted on the vocaloid2 software, with Gackpoid being released in 2008 and Megpoid in 2009.

Related Programs

Then there's UTAU. Utau is another japanese vocal synthesizer software featuring anime style mascots for (most) of it's voicebanks, however Utau is special in that not only is it free, but anyone can create an Utau voicebank using any vocal samples (or sound samples of anything really) and configuring them in the program. Utau was released in 2008 with the default voiceBank of Defoko also known as Uta Utane. On April 1st 2008 a utau voicebank created to parody hatsune miku known as Kasane Teto was created by a group of users of the anonymous Japanese forum 2channel and the unprecedented actual popularity of Kasane Teto is seen as the start of utau's popularity. In the 15 years since utau's release HUNDREDS of unique utau voicebanks have been created.