With all the existing English-Language Vocal-Synthesis Voicebanks, and new ones on the horizon, it’s sometimes hard draw a line between which are “Engloids” and which are “Engroids”.

Luckily for us, some people got together and decided to create an English Test for Voicebanks and figure out whcih ones can ‘passably’ sing English.

We like to call it the “Kit Kat Challenge”.

Continue reading “The English Test (aka the “Kit Kat Challenge”)” »

Anime Los Angeles was a great convention for us here at Engloids.Info. We got to meet up for the first time IRL, shared pizza with some random people from VocaloidOtaku, got to hang out with Tempo-P of VocalektVisions for a night, and met fellow bloggers Henry & James from MissionStartPodcast.

Overall ALA is less hectic than AnimeExpo and other large conventions. Being a small Hotel Anime Convention lets it be very intimate and have many fan driven, fan focused, events. Beyond your usual anime, manga, and gaming focused events it also featured A TON of Vocaloid-related stuff. There were no less than 2 cosplay gatherings, a cosplay dance competition, a fan panel, and a ‘concert’ of sorts.

Vocalekt Visions, a collab group of western producers and their various support staff have been touring the country refining their technique and hosting impromptu ‘concerts’ at anime and Japanese media conventions. In his most recent event Koda-P was invited to take part as a ‘special guest’ and his Engloid original Headline Love feat. Sweet Ann & Big Al was shown on stage as part of the concert’s main event.

You can view my camcorder footage embedded or view the official concert video.

Beyond the concert footage I also have in-depth coverage of the Vocaloid panel “Vocaloid: The Fan Phenomenon” on VocaRant. In there I posted video of the panel, embedded the presentation slides, and shared my opinion on the topics discussed.

For more on the panel: Additional VocaRant Coverage
For more on VocalektVisions: VocaRant: Vocaloid Popularity Contest Official Collab Website
For more on Anime LA: MissionStartPodcast’s Coverage Official Convention Website

For some reason Halloween seems to be the favorite holiday of the Vocaloid fandom. As a little gift to their fans PowerFX & VocaTone have collaborated and released this “gift” (I wouldn’t exactly call it a demo) to their fans featuring Sweet Ann, Big Al, and our first real listen to Oliver.

Beyond that we here at Engloids.Info would like to wish you a happy and safe holiday. Our own Koda-P continues his tradition and with yet another Halloween timed/themed release with [VOCALOID Original] Succubus feat. Sweet Ann. Special thanks to Mooncrafter for that simply sexy Sweet Ann art.

E-Capsule, the corporation responsible for the distribution for the English Vocaloid in Taiwan, redesigned all English Vocaloid2 today. The boxarts of the upcoming release were showed to us together with a profile for each English Vocaloid. Now each Vocaloid has an ‘official’ profile along with Sonika. For more info on their redesign check out our previous E-Capsule Overview.

Here are the new box arts. Feel free to click them for the full profile.

Or read the translated versions after the jump.

Continue reading “New Engloid Boxart for the Taiwan Distribution” »

Crypton made 'new' boxart based off the original Engloid designs for their Japanese retail release.

Crypton made ‘new’ boxart based off the original Engloid designs for their Japanese physical release.

Previously we had a feature on Ecapsule & Their Redesigns and the old Engloids blog took a look at Sonika’s Mandarin release. So other companies reselling Engloids in their respective regions is hardly anything new.

That being said the fact that Crypton is reselling the Engloids as “Virtual Instruments” in the Crypton Marketplace along with providing a fancy physical DVDs and boxes is news to me. I know I only recently found out when browsing Vocaloid.com’s 3rd Party Vocaloid 2 Listing and found them linking to Crypton Market pages.

They are priced at 19,950¥ or roughly $260. A bit expensive compared to the digital downloads available direct from PowerFX/Zero-G but about on par with many retail box releases of other Vocaloid 2s. I am unsure if like Sonika in Mandarin they come with additional native language usage materials but they are stamped onto physical DVDs.

The designs are the same as the PowerFX & Zero-G but the 3d renditions of the retail boxes are something new. Check them out for yourself at Crypton’s website following the links below.

[Vocaloid 2 Engine Listing] [PowerFX Company Page] [Zero-G Company Page]