If you don't know about Hatsune Miku and yet are diligent enough to read this article, please listen to this song: http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/Blbfhj2dogw/. If over the past few months you have been paying attention to sites like Pixiv that showcase awkward island pictures, then the name "Hatsune Miku" would certainly not be unfamiliar to you. Even if you haven't memorized her name, the image of this green-haired mechanical girl holding a leek must have already left a deep impression on you. So who exactly is Hatsune Miku? Why has this character, which does not appear in any ACGN works, suddenly become popular all over Japan?
In fact, Hatsune Miku's image comes from a series of self-made electronic music software called Character Vocal Series (Character Vocal, abbreviated as CV series). This is a fictional female singer software series developed and sold by CRYPTON FUTURE MEDIA using Yamaha's VOCALOID 2 voice synthesis engine. To put it simply, it uses real human voices combined with DIY sheet music to synthesize self-made songs. Similar imitation techniques in text reading have long been commonplace, but synthesizing songs that closely resemble those sung by humans and putting them into the commercial market is an unprecedented bold attempt. I had seen some reports during its development stage, and at the time, I just dismissed it with a laugh. However, the miracle of technology far surpassed my pitiful imagination. This software, besides the basic input of pitch and lyrics, can also adjust tremolo, speed (VEL, Velocity), dynamics (DYN, Dynamics), breathiness (BRE, Breathiness), brightness (BRI, Brightness), clarity (CLE, Clearness), mouth opening degree (OPE, Opening), gender parameters (GEN, Gender Factor), glissando position (POR, Portamento Timing), pitch bend (PIT, Pitch Bend), and pitch bend sensitivity (PBS, Pitch Bend Sensitivity), among others. It supports up to 16 people singing in chorus and also supports real-time playback and ReWire. After production is complete, it outputs in WAV format, making it very powerful.
Hatsune Miku was fortunate enough to become the first singer for this revolutionary software. "Hatsune" means "the first sound" ("初めての音," the first sound), "starting point," "the first Vocaloid2"; "Miku" written in kanji as "未来" refers to "the possibilities of future music represented by Vocaloid." According to official data, Hatsune Miku excels in pop songs from the 80s to the latest hits (though it's actually just very fond of requesting songs -_,-). Hatsune Miku's design was created by illustrator KEI in an anime style, with the original voice template provided by voice actress Fujita Shou. In the early planning stages, CRYPTON wanted professional singers to provide the basic voice templates, but many popular singers refused out of concern that their voices might be replicated and cause copyright issues. They later turned to anime voice actors, considering nearly 500 voice actors' voice samples before deciding to use the relatively unknown newcomer Fujita Shou (from Heartbeat Memory Only Love: Mizuna Yasuo). The adorable anime image, sweet anime voice actress, plus the ultra-forward-thinking human simulation music technology, Hatsune Miku gathers all these most popular elements, how could she not become a hit? Not long after the release of the preview track on August 20th, orders began to skyrocket. By September 5th, there was a stock shortage; on September 12th, sales and pre-orders approached 3,000, by September 27th, about 10,000 sets were sold, by October 10th, 15,000 sets were sold, and by October 27th, 20,000 sets were sold. It ranked at the top of Amazon's software sales rankings for three weeks. Compared to the wildly popular Halo3, these numbers may not even count as pocket change, but for music software that averages sales of 200 to 300 units, selling 1,000 sets is already considered a major hit. Do not be misled by the cute packaging; Character Vocal is not a user-friendly dummy-style music software. It requires a high level of professional knowledge. Even DIY experts familiar with electronic music production need some time to fully understand how to operate it.
To become famous, one must first become a topic of discussion, and this applies to virtual characters as well. The extensive use of Hatsune Miku covers in NICONICO animation ignited the fuse. On one hand, people were delighted to hear their favorite songs sung by a virtual character, while on the other hand, copyright issues inevitably began to arise, and thus, the uninformed Hatsune Miku was thrust to the forefront of popularity. Among the cover songs, the most famous was "Ievan Polkka" (another Finnish dance song made popular by online animation), which led to the creation of "Hachune Miku holding a leek," later surpassed by the original song "MikuMiku ni Shite Agemasho?" The climax then expanded to 2CH and YouTube. Even commercial music companies remixed their own songs "True My Heart" and "Snow of Love." Besides cover songs, there were also many fan-made videos and original songs featuring Hatsune Miku. In Japan, on November 31st, a doujinshi fair themed around Hatsune Miku titled "THE [email=[ft=#cc0000,,]VOC@LOiD]VOC@LOiD[/email][email=[ft=#cc0000,,]M@STER]M@STER[/email]" was scheduled. Usually, only extremely popular anime and manga works would have doujin events specifically themed around them, showing just how intense the Hatsune craze has become.
Her rapid rise to fame in just a few short months, much like the former god Haruhi, shows us the power of network society to create topics and even culture, especially the decisive guiding role played by web2.0 interactive websites in this process. However, looking beyond Hatsune's glamorous exterior, Yamaha's VOCALOID 2 voice synthesis technology opens a new chapter in the independent production of electronic music. These dreams that once only appeared in SF works have now become miracles created by technology, bringing infinite possibilities that we have unknowingly witnessed.