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At the recent Hatsune Miku: Magical Mirai 2019 in Tokyo, Crypton Future Media’s Wataru Sasaki (head of Crypton Future Media’s Piapro Character development) announced in a talk session some details regarding Hatsune Miku and the other Piapro Character vocal synth software development from this point moving forward.

Simply put, Crypton Future Media will be moving Hatsune Miku and their other characters away from Yamaha’s VOCALOID engine. This is arguably the biggest change to happen to Hatsune Miku’s software since her initial release in 2007, so there’s understandably quite a few fans that might be confused as to what this means, and might even be worried. So here’s a rundown of what the known changes are, and what they will mean for Vocaloid fans as consumers, and Vocaloid music creators.

– Hatsune Miku’s voicebank, along with Crypton’s other character voicebanks, will become less tied to Yamaha’s VOCALOID engine.
– There will be no updates utilizing Yamaha’s VOCALOID 5 engine.
– A new engine/product for the characters was developed using in-house algorithms by Crypton Future Media.
– This new engine has been in development for 2 years.
– The ‘identity’ of the voices are planned to remain the same with the new engine.
– This new product is aimed to be compatible with existing tools.
– The new product is currently not named.
– 11 new effector VSTs will be included in the new product. These include Cherry Pie, HS Booster, Vocal Drive and more.
– Patches/updates to the voicebanks themselves will now be possible.
– The new product will be released as a new series along with the next generation Piapro Studio in 1H 2020.
– Relationships with Yamaha will continue going forward (vocal synth promotion, and other partnerships).
– More info on this change is expected later this year.

What does this mean for Hatsune Miku and Cryptonloid fans as listeners? Possibly not too much, since this move aims to keep Miku sounding mostly as she currently does, while adding more functionality and enhancing the tools available to the music producers. And for the producers, this translates to more options and flexibility in production, and possibly even a lower product price since there wont be a royalty fee paid to Yamaha in future product iterations.

These changes allow Crypton more flexibility in in the updates and add-ons to their software, which creates more exciting possibilities in the future for everyone! For further details, we will have to wait for more in-depth announcements from Crypton Future Media and Yamaha later this year.

Thank you to Ejiwarp for sharing info from the info panel!