History Music / Vocaloid

''Vocaloid'' (portmanteau of "vocal" and "android"; stylized as VOCALOID) is a singing voice synthesizing software created by university researcher Kenmochi Hideki and the Yamaha Corporation. Originally a relatively obscure software released in 2004, Vocaloid's development of its voice banks into characters caused the software to explode in popularity on Website/NicoNicoDouga, creating an entire scene of voice synthesizer music that has since expanded beyond Vocaloid itself.

** Meiko, Kaito, Rin, Len, and Luka show up in crowd shots in ''Shinkansen Henkei Robo Shinkalion''. Subverted with Miku, who was a distinctly different character from the Vocaloid. She was a recurring character rather than a cameo anyway.

* AutoPilotTutorial: In the [[VideoGame/HatsuneMikuProjectDiva Project Diva]] series, the original retro-styled music video is a form of this for the mini-game included with the first DownloadableContent pack for the first game, showing some of the mechanics which are not made immediately obvious by the game itself. [[spoiler: It even shows Miku near-constantly watering the plant, which is how you unlock the orb that is needed to open the final door.]]

The Vocaloid subculture is known for its close relationship with the ''{{utaite}}'' subculture, who are vocalists that produce cover songs of anime, video games, and Vocaloid songs on the internet. The independent nature of Vocaloid songs made them readily available for cover songs, while their non-human vocals created interest in Vocaloid songs with human vocals. Many Vocaloid producers are in fact also ''utaite'' themselves.

See also Music/{{UTAU}}, Music/CevioAI, and Music/SynthV, other singing voice synthesizing programs, UsefulNotes/MikuMikuDance, a 3D animation software originally developed for Vocaloid [=MVs=], ''Manga/HatsuneMix'', an unofficial Vocaloid manga by official Vocaloid character designer KEI, and Creator/{{SEGA}}'s LicensedGame series ''VideoGame/HatsuneMikuProjectDIVA'' and ''VideoGame/ProjectSekai''.

** The ''VideoGame/HatsuneMikuProjectDiva'' series also enlists the Crypton Vocaloids in a story mode and gives them some personality, which was the closest thing the fans had gotten to official characterization until ''VideoGame/ProjectSEKAI'' came along. That said, WordOfGod has gone on to confirm that the Vocaloids personalities in this game shouldn't be treated as official. As well, the Virtual Singers' personalities change depending on which "SEKAI" they appear in, further downplaying this trope.

See also Music/{{UTAU}}, Music/CevioAI, and Music/SynthV, other singing voice synthesizing programs commonly used in the singing voice synthesizer scene, UsefulNotes/MikuMikuDance, a 3D animation software originally developed for Vocaloid [=MVs=], ''Manga/HatsuneMix'', an unofficial Vocaloid manga by official Vocaloid character designer KEI, and Creator/{{SEGA}}'s LicensedGame series ''VideoGame/HatsuneMikuProjectDIVA'' and ''VideoGame/ProjectSekai''.

!!! Vocaloid music

Vocaloid also has a speech-synthesizing-only sister program called VOICEROID, and features both voice banks ported from Vocaloid and its own original voice banks.[[note]]And despite being purely a text-to-speech program with no musical functions, some artists have managed to successfully create songs using VOICEROID.[[/note]]

Due to the prominence of Vocaloid in the scene, the voice synthesizer music scene in general tends to be referred to as "Vocaloid scene", even if some commonly used voice synthesizers/voice banks aren't actually using Vocaloid the software.

See also Music/{{UTAU}}, Music/CevioAI, and Music/SynthV, other singing voice synthesizing programs commonly used in the "Vocaloid scene", UsefulNotes/MikuMikuDance, a 3D animation software originally developed for Vocaloid [=MVs=], ''Manga/HatsuneMix'', an unofficial Vocaloid manga by official Vocaloid character designer KEI, and Creator/{{SEGA}}'s LicensedGame series ''VideoGame/HatsuneMikuProjectDIVA'' and ''VideoGame/ProjectSekai''.

See also Music/{{UTAU}} and Music/SynthV, two other singing voice synthesizing programs, UsefulNotes/MikuMikuDance, a 3D animation software originally developed for Vocaloid [=MVs=], ''Manga/HatsuneMix'', an unofficial Vocaloid manga by official Vocaloid character designer KEI, and Creator/{{SEGA}}'s LicensedGame series ''VideoGame/HatsuneMikuProjectDIVA'' and ''VideoGame/ProjectSekai''.

''Vocaloid'' (portmanteau of "vocal" and "android"; stylized as VOCALOID) is a singing voice synthesizing software created by university researcher Kenmochi Hideki and the Yamaha Corporation. Initially starting life as a science project in 2000, Yamaha developed the experiment into a commercial product, releasing it to the public on January 15, 2004. Functionally, Vocaloid works like a combination of SyntheticVoiceActor and AutoTune. To use a Vocaloid, one simply has to load a voice bank (sold separately from the main software and produced by different companies), type in the lyrics of the song of their choosing, and tune the melody for said song, producing a fully synthesized singing voice (though a great deal of fine-tuning is usually necessary to have the result sound natural).

If that was all that Vocaloid was, then it would have been a perfectly functional software useful in music creation with little else to say about it. But Vocaloid is far more than just that; what really made Vocaloid special was its voice banks, nicknamed Vocaloids, who are characterized as their own individual singers with their own, usually {{anime}}-styled, official character designs.

It is these singer {{Digital Avatar}}s that turned Vocaloid from a software into a ''fandom''; the Vocaloid characters have gathered ''massive'' followings in Japan[[note]]The earliest Vocaloids with no official character design are ''significantly'' less popular than the ones with character designs[[/note]], with flagship Vocaloid Music/HatsuneMiku becoming an outright VirtualCelebrity. These Vocaloid characters were incorporated into Vocaloid-using music videos, have their characterizations expanded in fan works, or even rendered into 3D and projected on stages for live concert "performances".

Vocaloids are predominantly Japanese-speaking, but there are also many English, Chinese, and Korean Vocaloids. There are currently five generations of the Vocaloid software with over 70 Vocaloids across the generations. Vocaloid also has a speech-synthesizing-only sister program called VOICEROID, and features both voice banks ported from Vocaloid and its own original voice banks.[[note]]And despite being purely a text-to-speech program with no musical functions, some artists have managed to successfully create songs using VOICEROID.[[/note]]

[=VOCALOID6=], which utilizes AI technology, was released on October 13, 2022. With it, 5 voicebanks were released: 4 "standard" voicebanks HARUKA, AKITO, ALLEN, and SARAH, along with AI Megpoid, which acts as an updated AI voicebank for GUMI. The software is backward compatible with voicebanks as far back as [=VOCALOID3=].

* CoverVersion: The Vocaloid subculture is inseparable from the ''utaite'' vocalist subculture. Originating from the cover singer community on Website/NicoNicoDouga, ''utaite'' are internet singers who cover existing songs, primarily Vocaloid songs and anime songs. ''utaite'' covers are traditionally indicated with the phrase ''utattemita'' (歌ってみた; literally "tried to sing") in their video titles. Many ''utaite'' have gained Japanese national or even international popularity through covering Vocaloid music. There are even self-covers from artists such as Reol[[note]]Also a creator and lyricist for Giga-P[[/note]] and Toru Iname[[note]]Real name for [=40mp=][[/note]] and foreign language covers like Music/JubyPhonic's work.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[{{Slogan}} The singing synthesizer technology]].[[note]]Clockwise from top-left: Kagamine Len, Megpoid Gumi, Camui Gakupo, IA, Megurine Luka, Music/HatsuneMiku, Meiko, Kaito, and Kagamine Rin. Not pictured: The hundreds of other virtual singers that couldn't fit even if we tried. And, trust us, we ''did''.[[/note]]]]

* GhostInvasion: The song "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4inb07HqpI8 Halloween Requiem]]" tells the story of a legion of ghosts being freed on Halloween Night and waging war on humanity after finding out people nowadays view Halloween and the supernatural as lighthearted fun.

* LicensedGame: The ''[[VideoGame/HatsuneMikuProjectDIVA Project DIVA]]'' series from SEGA casts the Crypton Vocaloids, some of the most popular Vocaloids( Miku, Rin, Len, Luka, MEIKO, and KAITO)[[note]][[TheCameo Guest starring Teto, Haku, Neru, Mikudayo, and Tako Luka]][[/note]] into a popular RhythmGame franchise. Its sister franchise ''Project mirai'' also includes GUMI, and other, non-Crypton Vocaloids also have their own games, such as ''Megpoid the Music#'' for GUMI's standalone title, as well as ''IA/VT COLORFUL'' for IA.
** Sega released what can be considered the first proper Vocaloid mobile RhythmGame in the form of ''VideoGame/ProjectSekai Colorful Stage! ft. Hatsune Miku''. Similar to ''Project DIVA'', it only features the Crypton Vocaloids [[note]]Now referred to as Virtual Singers[[/note]], though it differs in that an OriginalGeneration of characters is also introduced to act and sing alongside them. As well, unlike in ''Project Diva'', the game also includes famous songs sung by non-Crypton Vocaloids (such as Gumi, Flower, and IA), though some of these are given Virtual Singer covers in the form of SEKAI versions, which are sung alongside the original characters, or Another Vocals [[note]]''Project Sekai's'' equivalent of a Vocal Switch[[/note]].

* LyricalDissonance: Some of the nightmare fuel songs like "The Path to Eternal Happiness, I Found It" can be misleading. [[LyricalDissonance/{{Vocaloid}} Comes with its own page.]]

* {{Yandere}}:
** Songs that portray the Vocaloid singing it as such aren't uncommon.
** MAYU is officially characterised as a yandere.