The wizards at Yamaha have done it! They’ve developed software called Vocaloid that synthesizes human-sounding vocals using vocal libraries. Is it some cheesy robotic voice? No. Visit the Vocaloid samples page and listen to the song sample: Kimi no uwasa. Even though I don’t speak or understand a word of Japanese this sounds absolutely fantastic.

This software will be made available through other music packages beginning some time in 2004, Yamaha is not going to sell it direct to the consumer (source: FAQ).

Now I have to begin wondering if someday we’ll be voting American Idol style on the best music programmers for creating the most incredible vocals (from these so called “vocal libraries”). This type of synthesizing could bring in a whole new era of musicians (like me) who can’t do the vocals very well but can write music. Very cool! I am looking forward to buying software which includes Vocaloid so I can play around with it. I’m guessing that in the early stages it is not going to be too easy to put together actual non-mechanical vocals like the sample linked above, but personally I’m excited about this.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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