Crypton Future Media

Crypton Future Media, Incorporated
クリプトン・フューチャー・メディア株式会社

「音」で発想するチーム。
Type	Public KK (unlisted)
Industry	Software, Internet
Genre	Music
Founded	July 1995
Headquarters	Dunlop-SK Bldg., 10-4-16 Ōdōri Nishi, Chūō-ku, Sapporo 060-0042 Japan
Key people	Hiroyuki Itō (伊藤 博之), President
Products	Sound generator software Sampling CDs and DVDs Sound effect libraries Background music libraries
Services	Online shopping Online community Mobile content
Employees	30 (June 2008)
Divisions	Media Phage FX and BGM libraries Mobile Contents Service Provider
Website	Official website (Japanese) Piapro (Japanese) KarenT

Crypton Future Media, Inc. (クリプトン・フューチャー・メディア株式会社, Kuriputon Fyūchā Media Kabushikigaisha^?), or Crypton, is a media company based in Sapporo, Japan. It develops, imports, and sells products for music, such as sound generator software, sampling CDs and DVDs, and sound effect and background music libraries. The company also provides services of online shopping, online community, and mobile content.

Overview

Crypton started business of importing audio products in 1995, and has been involved in the development, import, and sales of sampling CDs and DVDs, sound effect and background music libraries, and musical synthesizer applications. Its main business partners in Japan include musical instrument shops, computer stores, and software distributors.

The company has licensed software to the following organizations:

• Video game publishers, such as Konami, Sega, Sony Computer Entertainment, Namco, and Nintendo
• Public and private broadcasting media (TV, radio, and cable), such as NHK
• Computer software and hardware companies, such as Apple Inc., Dell, and Microsoft
• Musical instrument makers, such as Roland Corporation and Yamaha Corporation
• Public institutions, such as local governments, the Ministry of Defense, and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
• Educational institutions, such as high schools, universities, and vocational schools

Crypton also operates a number of Japanese mobile websites, mainly for i-mode of NTT docomo, EZweb of au by KDDI, and Yahoo! Keitai of SoftBank Mobile, to distribute ringtones, sound effects, and voice ringtones (chaku-voice), including:

• Hatsune Miku Mobile (初音ミクモバイル)
• Miku to Utaou (ミクと歌おう♪)
• Pocket Sound Effect Pro (ポケット効果音Pro)
• Mazeteyo Nama Voice (まぜてよ☆生ボイス)

A mobile entertainment firm in Israel, Eurocom Cellular Communications, is Crypton's international partner.

In 2010, Crypton Future Media were announced as the no.1 company for sound related software, bringing a share of 21.4% of the market for their related product.^[1]

Vocaloid products and services

On October 12, 2008, Crypton president Hiroyuki Itō made a speech at the Science Café titled "Hatsune Miku Night - the diva transcending science" in Sapporo.

Crypton is best known for production and sales of speech synthesis software for computer music. Its products use the Vocaloid singing synthesis engine developed by Yamaha Corporation, they were also charged with finding and contacting English Studios in order to gain recommendations for the English version of the Vocaloid software.^[2] The company released Meiko in 2004 and Kaito in 2006. The release of the first Character Vocal Series Hatsune Miku, which uses the upgraded engine Vocaloid 2, greatly raised Crypton's profile. The second and third Character Vocal Series are Kagamine Rin and Len and Megurine Luka. Because the popularity of these Vocaloids grew, Crypton launched a website Piapro to upload fan-made content and its own music label KarenT to sell Vocaloid songs.

Vocaloid products

Kaito was the only one sold using the Vocaloid 1.1 engine; the previous Vocaloids before him were sold as Vocaloid 1.0, which he was also supplied with. However, he needed the additional Vocaloid 1.1.2 patch to work on the Vocaloid 1.0 engine.^[3] A patch was later released to update all Vocaloid engines to Vocaloid 1.1.2, adding new features to the software, although there were differences between the output results of the engine.^[4] Even though Kaito and Meiko were Japanese and sung using Japanese phonetics, the main interface was in written using English for both English and Japanese Vocaloids.

Due to the success of placing a character on the box art of Meiko, the concept was carried over to her successor Kaito and later Vocaloids to encourage creativity, however neither Vocaloid's box art originally had the intention to represent that Vocaloid.^[5][6] Though Meiko experienced good sales, Kaito was the only one who initially failed commercially, causing less demand for male voices for a while after Kaito's initial release.^[7] However, sales eventually picked up and Kaito later won the Nico Nico Douga second best seller award of 2008.^[8] Meiko and Kaito are reported to be in discussion for an update.^[9] Several updated vocal expressions have already been recorded for Kaito.^[10][11][12] In April 2011, it was confirmed six vocal expressions had been recorded for Kaito, two of which were dropped and the remaining four were being brought forward with one having reached alpha stage already. The Character Vocal (Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin/Len and Megurine Luka) series Appends had been created from vocal performances of their voice providers, however the new Kaito Appends were created by adding echo, force and tension to the samples.^[13]

Product	Language	Sex	Voice sampled	Release date
Meiko[14]	Japanese	Female	Meiko Haigō	November 5, 2004
Kaito[15]		Male	Naoto Fūga	February 17, 2006

Vocaloid 2 products

Crypton released Hatsune Miku, on August 31, 2007. The second of the Character Vocal Series is the first dual Vocaloid Kagamine Len and Kagamine Rin, a Japanese male and female, released on December 27, 2007. On July 18, 2008, the updated edition of Kagamine Rin and Len, named "act2" was released.^[16] For a period of time, users who had bought the old version were allowed to get the new version for free. On June 18, 2008, beta demonstration songs using the new version were released on the company's official blog.^[17] The expansion disc is an entirely different software and does not affect the original Kagamine Rin/Len installation in any way, giving the user options to either use the old or new voice sets exclusively or combine their usage. Crypton Future Media have now retired the sale of their old Kagamine Vocaloid and it is now no longer possible to buy the software from them.^[18] This was also the very first Vocaloid update to be done for any Vocaloid.

On April 30, 2010, an updated version of Miku called Hatsune Miku Append was released containing a package of six different tones of Miku's voice: Soft (gentle, delicate voice), Sweet (young, chibi voice), Dark (mature, heartbroken-like voice), Vivid (bright, cheerful voice), Solid (loud, clear voice), and Light (innocent, heavenly voice).^[19] Crypton Future Media also released Kagamine Rin/Len Append on December 27, 2010.^[20][21]

The third product of Crypton's Character Vocal Series is Megurine Luka, the first bilingual Vocaloid.

According to Crypton, a petition started on Facebook exceeded the needed 39,390 members in November 2010 to join Hatsune Miku's account for an English version to be released; an announcement is due to be released from Crypton.^[22][23]

Released products

Product	Language	Sex	Voice sampled	Release date
Hatsune Miku (CV01)[24]	Japanese	Female	Fujita, SakiSaki Fujita	2007-08-31August 31, 2007
Kagamine Rin and Len (CV02)[25]	Japanese	Female (Rin) Male (Len)	Shimoda, AsamiAsami Shimoda	2007-12-27December 27, 2007
Kagamine Rin and Len (CV02) Act 2[16][18]	Japanese	Female (Rin) Male (Len)	Shimoda, AsamiAsami Shimoda	2008-07-18July 18, 2008
Megurine Luka (CV03)[26]	Japanese and English	Female	Asakawa, YūYū Asakawa	2009-01-30January 30, 2009
Hatsune Miku Append[27]	Japanese	Female	Fujita, SakiSaki Fujita	2010-04-30April 30, 2010
Kagamine Rin and Len Append[28]	Japanese	Female (Rin) Male (Len)	Shimoda, AsamiAsami Shimoda	2010-12December 27, 2010

Upcoming products

Product	Language	Sex	Voice sampled	Release date
Kaito Append	Japanese	Male	Naoto Fūga	TBA
Megurine Luka Append	Japanese and English	Female	Yū Asakawa	TBA
Meiko Append	Japanese	Female	Meiko Haigō	TBA
CV04[29][30]	Japanese	Male		TBA
Hatsune Miku[22]	English	Female	Fujita, SakiSaki Fujita	TBA

• Crypton has a "Project if..." with a mysterious, child-like voice.^[31][32][33]

See also

• Vocaloid
  • ja:Meiko
  • ja:Kaito
  • Hatsune Miku
  • ja:Kagamine Rin and Len
  • ja:Megurine Luka
• Speech synthesis
• Computer music

Further reading

• 根津禎. "実録 開発物語 パソコン用歌声合成ソフト「初音ミク」(第1回)出会いは着メロから". Nikkei Electronics (Nikkei Business Publications) ((971) [2008.2.11]): 107–110. ISSN 0385-1680. 

References

This article incorporates information from this version of the equivalent article on the Japanese Wikipedia.

1. ^ link
2. ^ Utaenai (August 13, 2010). "It's a toy!". Vocaloid Creativity Community. http://vocaloid-creativity.totalh.com/index.php/vocaloid-news/15-qits-a-toyq. Retrieved September 5, 2010. 
3. ^ "VOCALOID ENGINE製品サポート（KAITO） [Vocaloid Engine Product Support (Kaito)]" (in Japanese). Crypton Future Media. http://www.crypton.co.jp/mp/do/support/prod?id=27720. Retrieved December 18, 2010. 
4. ^ "VOCALOID Software Update version 1.1". Yamaha Corporation. http://www.vocaloid.com/en/download/en_1.html. Retrieved December 18, 2010. 
5. ^ "[Vocaloid2情報] 出張終了のお知らせ。 [Vocaloid 2 News Official Tour End Notification]" (in Japanese). Crypton Future Media. September 29, 2007. http://blog.crypton.co.jp/mp/2007/09/vocaloid2_15.html. Retrieved October 17, 2010. 
6. ^ "KAITOのプロフィール・仕様 [Kaito's Profile and Specifications]" (in Japanese). Weekly Vocaloid Ranking. http://www.vocaloid-rank.com/rank/vocaloidinfo/kaito/kaito-1.html. Retrieved October 17, 2010. 
7. ^ "クリエイターを支えるクリエイターでありたい クリプトン・フューチャー・メディア社長 伊藤博之氏（前編） [I Want to be a Creator Who Supports Creators: Crypton Future Media President Hiroyuki Itō (part 1)]" (in Japanese). Internet Watch. May 12, 2008. http://internet.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/president/2008/05/12/19477.html. Retrieved January 1, 2011. 
8. ^ "出た!「2008年ニコニコ市場年間売上ランキング」でKAITOが2位! [It's Here! Kaito Got Second Place in the 2008 Nico Nico Market Yearly Sales Ranking]" (in Japanese). Hatsune Miku Miku. January 18, 2009. http://vocaloid.blog120.fc2.com/blog-entry-2664.html. Retrieved January 1, 2011. 
9. ^ "ミクの英語版や『リン・レン Append』が!? ミクの日感謝祭の上映イベントをレポ [Miku's English Edition and "Rin and Len Append"!? Report on the Miku's Day Festival Event]" (in Japanese). Dengeki Online. ASCII Media Works. September 6, 2010. http://news.dengeki.com/elem/000/000/295/295998/index-2.html. Retrieved October 14, 2010. 
10. ^ "Crypton's Twitter page" (in Japanese). Twitter. http://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/14657406248157184. Retrieved December 15, 2010. 
11. ^ "Crypton's Twitter page" (in Japanese). Twitter. http://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/14658658822529024. Retrieved December 15, 2010. 
12. ^ "Crypton's Twitter page" (in Japanese). Twitter. http://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/13136290778185728. Retrieved December 15, 2010. 
13. ^ "Crypton's Twitter page" (in Japanese). Twitter. April 12, 2011. http://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/57953674210709504. Retrieved April 19, 2011. 
14. ^ "MEIKO（音楽ソフトウエア） [Meiko (Music Software)]" (in Japanese). Crypton. http://www.crypton.co.jp/mp/do/prod?id=25220. Retrieved July 8, 2010. 
15. ^ "KAITO（音楽ソフトウエア） [Kaito (Music Software)]" (in Japanese). Crypton. http://www.crypton.co.jp/mp/do/prod?id=27720. Retrieved July 8, 2010. 
16. ^ ^{a b} "ボーカロイド市場、「初音ミク」の対抗馬登場で激化 [Vocaloid Market "Hatsune Miku" Rivalry Intensifies]" (in Japanese). BCN Ranking. BCN Inc.. September 1, 2008. http://bcnranking.jp/news/0809/080901_11641.html. Retrieved July 14, 2010. 
17. ^ "Rin/Len act2 beta demonstration songs released" (in Japanese). Crypton. June 18, 2008. http://blog.crypton.co.jp/mp/2008/06/vocaloid2_act2_1.html. Retrieved June 24, 2008. 
18. ^ ^{a b} "KAGAMINE RIN/LEN act2（音楽ソフトウエア） [Kagamine Rin/Len act2 (Music Software)]" (in Japanese). Crypton. http://www.crypton.co.jp/mp/do/prod?id=30121. Retrieved July 8, 2010. 
19. ^ "初音ミク・アペンド（Miku Append） [Hatsune Miku Append (Miku Append)]" (in Japanese). Amazon.co.jp. http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00305HJKQ. Retrieved April 30, 2010. 
20. ^ "『VOCALOID2 鏡音リン・レン』の追加音声『鏡音リン・レン・アペンド』本日発売。 [The Additional Voice of "Vocaloid 2 Kagamine Rin/Len", "Kagamine Rin/Len Append", Is Released Today.]" (in Japanese). Crypton Future Media. International Business Times. December 27, 2010. http://jp.ibtimes.com/press/article/34277/. Retrieved January 16, 2011. 
21. ^ "鏡音リン・レンの追加音声「Append」発売 [Kagamine Rin/Len's Additional Voice "Append" To Be Released]" (in Japanese). IT Media. November 26, 2010. http://www.itmedia.co.jp/news/articles/1011/26/news098.html. Retrieved December 4, 2010. 
22. ^ ^{a b} "英語シンガー初音ミクがついに始動したようだ [English Singer Hatsune Miku Has Finally Seemed to Have Started]" (in Japanese). IT Media. August 31, 2010. http://blogs.itmedia.co.jp/closebox/2010/08/post-faa4.html. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 
23. ^ "Crypton's Twitter page" (in Japanese). Twitter. http://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/5076931619848192. Retrieved November 18, 2010. 
24. ^ "CV01 初音ミク [CV01 Hatsune Miku]" (in Japanese). Crypton. http://www.crypton.co.jp/mp/pages/prod/vocaloid/cv01.jsp. Retrieved July 8, 2010. 
25. ^ "CV02 鏡音リン・レン act2 [CV02 Kagamine Rin/Len act2]" (in Japanese). Crypton. http://www.crypton.co.jp/mp/pages/prod/vocaloid/cv02.jsp. Retrieved July 8, 2010. 
26. ^ "CV03 巡音ルカ [CV03 Megurine Luka]" (in Japanese). Crypton. http://www.crypton.co.jp/mp/pages/prod/vocaloid/cv03.jsp. Retrieved July 8, 2010. 
27. ^ "CV01A　MIKU APPEND" (in Japanese). Crypton. http://www.crypton.co.jp/mp/pages/prod/vocaloid/cv01a.jsp. Retrieved July 8, 2010. 
28. ^ "CV02A Rin/Len Append" (in Japanese). Crypton Future Media. http://www.crypton.co.jp/mp/pages/prod/vocaloid/cv02a.jsp. Retrieved December 27, 2010. 
29. ^ "New Append For Kagamine Len!". Vocaloidism. January 14, 2010. http://www.vocaloidism.com/2010/01/14/new-append-for-kagamine-len/. Retrieved July 4, 2010. 
30. ^ "クリプトンの「新しい男声VOCALOID」を聴いてきたよ [We Listened to Crypton's New Male Vocaloid]" (in Japanese). IT Media. October 21, 2009. http://blogs.itmedia.co.jp/closebox/2009/10/vocaloid-a779.html. Retrieved July 4, 2010. 
31. ^ "Crypton's Twitter page" (in Japanese). Twitter. June 7, 2010. http://twitter.com/project_if_cfm/status/15684228554. Retrieved July 4, 2010. 
32. ^ "Crypton's Twitter page" (in Japanese). Twitter. June 7, 2010. http://twitter.com/project_if_cfm/status/15683680493. Retrieved July 4, 2010. 
33. ^ "Crypton's Twitter page" (in Japanese). Twitter. June 7, 2010. http://twitter.com/project_if_cfm/status/15684689042. Retrieved July 4, 2010. 

External links

• Crypton Future Media on Myspace
• Crypton's channel on YouTube
• KarenT's channel on YouTube
• Media Phage on Twitter
• Crypton Future Media on Twitter
• project if.. on Twitter