Zero-G Limited General information Type Public Genre Music and video Foundation 1990 Founder Ed Stratton Julie Stratton Key_people Location England Area_served British Isles, Europe Industry Software, Internet Products Products Services Online shopping Music education Consumer generated media Additional information Vocaloid(s) Leon Lola Miriam Prima Sonika Tonio Avanna Website http://www.zero-g.co.uk/

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Zero-G is a company developing sound libraries, sound effects and loops. This company provides its products for many digital audio workstations including Apple Loops, ACID, EXS24, Roland. Zero-G is one of the leading companies in the modern music industry.

AboutEdit

Zero-G is a company that produces English Vocaloids. According to Crypton, when they were first looking for an English company to recommend for the development of the the English addition of the software, every studio they approached turned down the offer. Finally, Zero-G offered to take upon the task and they later became famous for producing both the first Vocaloids and the first English voicebanks Leon and Lola for the first Vocaloid engine, and later Miriam with improved an voice engine. The voices were sold as a "Singer in a box" and intended to be a back up voice provider. However, Leon and Lola also failed to impact the American market due to their accents.^[1]

Despite this, they would later produce the successful Vocaloid Prima, and create Sonika to act as a company mascot, adopting the Japanese style of producing a avatar for the voicebank for Sonika.^[2]

Zero-G began to resell their 3 older Vocaloids due to the increase interest in the Vocaloid program and the program was made ready to download from their site. Links to update their engine from Vocaloid 1.0 to 1.1 were also included. Due to Sonika's success and the use of avatars on other Vocaloids, Zero-G has mentioned in an interview after Sonika's release, they may redesign the boxart of their older Vocaloids with the exceptions of Prima and Tonio who are intended to be as they are. No further word has been mentioned on the redesign. They also made a comment they unfortunately cannot release the names of their vocal providers for legal reasons.^[3]

Confirmation in 2011 confirms Yamaha will not support the Vocaloid engine, Zero-G currently will not be updating their Vocaloid engine Vocaloids, focusing on newer vocals instead.^[4]

It has been known for a while in that Zero-G is to release two Celtic-inspired male and female vocals using the V3 enigine. Recently in early August it has been confirmed that the female Vocaloid will be named Avanna. Her artwork is finished and Zero-G announced she will be released soon.

VoicebanksEdit

Vocaloid1Edit

LEON       Masculine; English vocals

LOLA       Feminine; English vocals

Miriam       Feminine; English vocals

Vocaloid2Edit

Prima       Feminine; English vocals

Sonika       Feminine; English vocals

Tonio       Masculine; English vocals

Vocaloid3Edit

Avanna       Feminine; English vocals

UnreleasedEdit

Main article: Status

Unknown       Masculine; English vocals

Current Voicebank projectsEdit

• Zero-G had announced a Celtic pair, while the female, Avanna, has been released, development of the male counterpart will not begin until this year.

Future Voicebank possibilitiesEdit

• According to Anders, if there is demand updates for all past Zero-G and PowerFX Vocaloids to newer engines, it is a possibility. The major factor in this though is the workload needed and involvement in the process against the demand.
• Anders confirmed that if English Vocaloids become more popular, Zero-G and PowerFX will consider making Appends for their Vocaloids.

Promotional involvementEdit

NAMM Trade ShowEdit

Leon and Lola were the first promoted at the NAMM show on the 15th of January, 2004, and was eventually commercialized on the 3rd of March, they were created for the English speaking community.^[5]

Prima was introduced at NAMM Show 2008;^[6]

At a later show, Tonio was also announced.^[7]

Fan involvementEdit

During the promotions of Sonika, Zero-G allowed users of the software to upload fanart and songs onto Sonika's website. A comic was also produced by artist Ash.

Zero-G also encourages feedback and have given out their e-mail for feed back as contact@sonika-vocaloid.com.

They are also one of two studios that supports Vocaloid Otaku forums which they use for fan feed back the other studio being PowerFX.

TwitterEdit

Following Sonika's release, Zero-G took a unique stance with her post-release development. They have created and maintained a Twitter page for Sonika, something unheard of for any past Vocaloid.

CompetitionsEdit

On Nov 2, 2009 and ending on Nov 30, 2009. Zero-G announced a competition; about giving Sonika a new look. The winner would receive a copy of the "Sonika Vocaloid2 Software". ^[8][9]

Nearing the end of November, an image was uploaded on Crypton Catalog that represented Sonika's new appearance. It was drawn by artists Mario Wibisono (aka raynkazuya) at the request of Zero-G.^[10] And with the image being found out during the New Look Competition and also uploaded to Zero-G's site a few days later, this greatly confused fans and Submitters who thought that this was the winning image.

This was quickly corrected, with Zero-G stating that the competition rules never included anything about the winning image being used for boxart. ^[11]

A new Competition was also announced prior to her 1st birthday. The prize was a copy of Sonika, Prima or Tonio.

ReferencesEdit

External linksEdit

• Official website: ZERO-G
• Official website: Vocaloid Tutorial by Joe Hogan
• Timespace blog
• Twitter: Sonika
• Twitter: Avanna 
• Youtube: Vocaloid Tutorial (English)

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