Megurine Luka V4X

==History==
===Megurine Luka Append: 2010===
Megurine Luka was the next member of the Character Vocal series to receive an append.
Wat confirmed he was considering an "aggressive Whisper" vocal for her.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/21456461964
In December 2010, tests were run on Luka's alpha expression voice. However, it was not as sexy as Wat had hoped.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/13390702398410752 Wat was also surveying the quality of the vocal.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/13405186252865536
Confirmation of production order was MEIKO > Megurine Luka >> KAITO. Tweet - 10 Dec via web
===Megurine Luka Append: 2011===
The first commercial use of the Luka Append was by Konori on the album VOCALOID民族調曲集 (VOCALOID Minzokucho Kyokushu), where she sings "Hoshizora to Yuki no Butoukai (Zeal mix)".http://www.jvcmusic.co.jp/-/Artist/A023770.html The VOCALO APPEND album later used a beta voicebank of Luka's Soft Append.http://vocaloid.blog120.fc2.com/blog-entry-10302.html
In July, Wat reported that MEIKO and Luka's progresses were coming along quietly.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/87201337485434883.
In a tweet on July 12, Wat mentioned doing tests in relation to a Luka "Soft" append.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/90938391134351360
On December 1, Wat noted that all previous demos were originally rendered with the VOCALOID2 engine and things were being redone for the VOCALOID3 engine.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/142245370280423424
A video with samples from the VOCALO APPEND album was uploaded on December 17.
===Megurine Luka Append: 2012===
Crypton confirmed that they were going to add Japanese and English voicebanks to Luka's V3 appends, but were still trying to work out how to make them cost effective.http://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/206234716565807105
===Megurine Luka V3: 2013===
Wat confirmed that Luka and MEIKO were planned for release on VOCALOID3, but no estimated releases were set at this moment.https://twitter.com/itohh/status/287765483644649474
In November, it was confirmed that Luka's V3 version was in the process of being tuned. It was reported to sound the same as the VOCALOID2 vocal, but less painful to listen to.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/405510849445367809
Later in December, Wat continued to speak of Luka. He mentioned the new standard vocal was calm, a second vocal had more of a flashy flare about it, and a 3rd was a more breathy vocal intended to be sexy. Their focus was a vocalist with a varied tone.Wat talking about Luka
On December 16, Wat mentioned having worked with Luka's recording and thanked Asakawa for her patience.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/416370605030522880 The day before, Wat mentioned recording the sound, "spell" (the 50 sounds needed for Japanese), using a customized list rather than the standard YAMAHA "Spell".https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/416065323867963393 At the end of 2013, Wat mentioned he was working on the personality of each Kagamine and Megurine vocal.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/418042424556937217 Wat also mentioned working on a feminine SOFT-like voice, but thought the bass was not good enough and needed adjustments. Wat mentioned he had done some experimental recording in the second half of 2013.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/418356438872756224
===Megurine Luka V4X: 2014===
In January 2014, it was mentioned that a "POWER" vocal was being produced. Comparing Luka's new vocal, MEIKO Power and Rin's Power Append (VOCALOID2), Wat mentioned these forceful vocals always maintained a strong feeling, even compared to the reduced wavelength of Rin POWER's V2 vocal.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/419055375489323008 Wat also mentioned there were annoyances with Luka's "elegant tone of voice" in the new vocal.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/419055375489323008 After a week of editing Kagamine Rin's vocal, Wat mentioned it was time to return to working on Luka.Talking about moving back to Luka
Luka V3 was given a website in January 2014. The only data contained within the page at the time were the 3 main features of the upcoming release. At the bottom of the page, it was mentioned that details were to be released soon. On January 30, Wat mentioned that there was a shift from α and that the β version was now under construction.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/428799682471424000 The vocal was under experimental techniques and was being scrutinized during its development.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/428804304103673856 The adjustments being made to Luka's V3 vocal gave her more expression within the vocal.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/428814045462802432 Wat mentioned that in regards to to the "core" sound of Luka, the VOCALOID team (consisting of 3 producers, a sound engineer, and a project director) met up for discussion every 3 weeks to debate on the progress for further adjustments to the product.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/428853408531902464 They were aiming to make the vocal more flexible.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/428855060924076033
On January 31, Wat mentioned that checking the characteristics of Luka's voice and the vowel/consonants were the focus being the #C5 range, mentioning the printouts of Luka's data were mounting up on his desk at the time.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/429136506620362752 Wat also explained what he meant by increasing the expressiveness of Luka's voice and that it did not refer to a falsetto vocal, but the allowance of extreme pitches.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/429143640275832832 At the end of January, Wat mentioned that they were working on the things mentioned on her teaser site. They were considering the forms of past Appends, there were changes to the databases of each vocal, and that the forms previous Appends took may not be the best.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/429622255287427072
Wat mentioned thickness of vocal was one of several focuses. Bass and vocal range were all being worked upon while trying to keep them sounding natural.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/429912925893976065
Crypton was working on a new method of recording the Luka vocal that was proving successful.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/430910018267783168 It was mentioned that Luka, Rin, and Len were all being worked upon at the same time.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/430911311774375936 Later, Wat tweeted that Luka's new voice was maybe too thick.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/430911555199184896
In late March, both POWER and WHISPER vocals were mentioned as being checked upon.
On July 11, Asakawa tweeted that they were "recording Luka in a very interesting way" and she said that she would be posting pictures of the recording process when the time came.https://twitter.com/Julia320/status/487484852283797504 On the 15th, they noted they were using the UTAU "" as a template to bring out Luka's qualities.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/489250775005003777
On August 23, Wat tweeted that Luka's phonemes were entering final tuning.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/statuses/503087021317816321 The next day, he tweeted that the design rough draft was nearly ready and he was progressing with the sound brushup.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/statuses/503437985547689984
It was mentioned that they had to work backwards with VOCALOID to bring out the characteristic sex-appeal of her provider's vocal.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/505059180210708480
Wat later mentioned that Luka was made mostly in-house with help from people in the US. He mentioned that the new Luka voice was worked upon to fit in with YAMAHA's sound system. It was mentioned that he had to constantly remodel the VOCALOID database.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/505537577592446976
On September 12, Wat tweeted about recruiting people for Japanese and English VSQ data to show off Luka's high and low range.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/510491638930497536https://twitter.com/Sonianjeriku/status/510501758700118016 Information about Luka V3 would be made available at Miku Expo 2014 held in New York.Miku Expo News On October 1, the band that would be featured at the MikuExpo practiced with Luka's voicebank using lyrics written by , who was known for her English translyrics and covers of VOCALOID songs.https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10154711720175637
On October 9, a demo for Luka was revealed at Miku Expo, as well as her projected release date of the first quarter of 2015, and Wat released a tentative silhouette of Luka V3 on Twitter. He explained that in the next month he would go into detail about why Luka was delayed for so long and mentioned she worked well with a new function.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/520402956873527296/photo/1
In late October, PowerFX's Bil Bryant revealed that their new vocal, RUBY, was originally due before December 2014. However, since VOCALOID4 was due release soon, they were holding her back. In light of this, Wat was asked about Luka's status. The title of the product was mentioned and it was noted that Wat had referred to Luka as "New Luka" and was, at the time, not called "Luka V3".PowerFX talks about V4 and reactions on "new Luka"
On November 1, it was mentioned that "POWER" was in the process of removing noise interference.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/528459816109223936
On November 7, Crypton's site was updated to reveal new information about Megurine Luka's update. It was confirmed she was being produced for the V3 engine and would come with the new E.V.E.C ("Enhanced Vocal Expression Control") feature which worked with Japanese vocals. This allowed the user to vary the vocal expression on each note and adjust the power and softness of the enunciation. It also contained various breath sounds.http://sonicwire.com/product/vocaloid/special/lukav3
Later, Wat announced that he would update Luka with more news on the following weekend. Wat apologized for keeping fans of Luka waiting, but Luka featured new innovations.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/533221137149206529 These news consisted of several things Wat discussed that was related to Luka Append, E.V.E.C., and their developments. Wat mentioned there were problems with the variety of choices to use with E.V.E.C. and decided to use POWER/SOFT/CUTE/WHISPER/CLOSED, while POWER2/POWER3/FALSETTO/DOUBLE/HUSKY/DARK were reported as being troublesome voices to deal with. They had to balance out cost and effectiveness of all 9 vocals within.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/533655033460428801 Wat also discussed that several voices sounded close to each other and listed them as: WHISPER/HUSKY、CLOSED/DARK、POWER/POWER2, all of which were recorded without fail. FALSETTO/DARK required much work. POWER's impact on the other vocals was great, but has much less effectiveness on DARK and FALSETTO and was described as annoying.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/533656058414104576 The use of DARK within E.V.E.C was poor and barely "Luka-ish" according to Wat. When he spoke of Luka Append itself, he said that Japanese Luka's DARK append was also hard to balance and gave him less concerns than with the soft/bored tone of Luka English.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/533660196631887872
Upon the VOCALOID4 announcement in November, it was revealed that the site had been temporarily set up and she would actually be released for the VOCALOID4 engine as "Megurine Luka V4X". Her vocals were changed to "Japanese; Soft/Hard" and "English; Straight/Soft", while her V3 version was said to receive Japanese/Power/Soft/Cute/Whisper/Closed/English. E.V.E.C was finally confirmed to allow access to samples from vocal "colours". This was based on the original "voice of colours" that the Character Vocal series' Appends had intended to follow. The extra Append vocals/colours that were included in E.V.E.C. were POWER, WHISPER, CUTE, SOFT, HUSKY, and FALSETTO.
In late December, Wat mentioned that Luka was focused with variation of "breath" in contrast to the Kagamines' strength of tension.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/548708731299450881 On the 9th, it was mentioned that GWL samples were still being recorded.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/542247925280030720
===Megurine Luka V4X: 2015===
On January 9, 2015, an updated list of the E.V.E.C vocals were shown. The listed vocals were "Power 1", "Power 2", "Whisper", "Native", "Cute", "Husky", "Soft", "Dark", and "Falsetto".http://blog.sonicwire.com/2015/01/luka150109.html 
It was tweeted on January 30 that Luka would have a demo released on the following day. It was also mentioned that she was delayed 20 days later than what they initially had in mind.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/560846367782735872  The demo was confirmed to utilize her English voicebanks and would be using a song that featured Luka's VOCALOID2 version.https://twitter.com/vocaloid_cv_cfm/status/560966722551693316
According to the emails sent to fans who preordered Luka V4X, she would be released on March 19, 2015.http://www.vocaloidotaku.net/index.php?/topic/53080-lukav4x/page__view__findpost__p__1233646
Posted on the Big Fish Audio page, consumers who had already purchased Hatsune Miku V3, the Hatsune Miku V3 bundle, KAITO V3, or MEIKO V3, could receive a promotional discount towards Luka V4X for a limited time.http://www.bigfishaudio.com/detail.html?1;16;1:::::::::::luka:528593
===Megurine Luka V4X: 2024===
On July 1, Crypton announced that their virtual singer software product line would be repackaged as part of celebration of the company's 20th Anniversary of their singing synthesis software business. The DAW in the Megurine Luka V4X package was changed to Cubase LE.https://blog.piapro.net/2024/07/ms2407011.html
==Product Information==
===Demonstrations===
====Append version====
====V4X version====
===System Requirements===
*OS: 
** Windows: Windows 7 (32/64bit)/ Windows 8 (32/64bit)
** Mac: OS X 10.8, 10.9, 10.10
*CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz or more
*RAM: 2GB or more (recommended more than 4GB)
*Hard Disk Capacity:
** Windows:
*** More than 25GB (NTFS format)
** Mac:
*** More than 25GB (HFS+ format)
*Other: while the Windows ver. can be both physical (3 discs) and digital, the Mac version is DL only.
*Internet connection.
===Voicebanks===
==References==
==Navigation==
Category:Megurine Luka
Category:Voicebanks
Category:Japanese voicebank
Category:English voicebank
Category:VOCALOID4 voicebank
Category:Character Vocal Series
Category:Voicebanks with trial versions
Category:English XSY voicebank
Category:Japanese XSY voicebank
Category:Updated voicebank