Zero-G Limited

Zero-G Limited is a company developing sound libraries, sound effects and loops. The company provides its products for many digital audio workstations including Apple Loops, ACID, EXS24 and Roland. Zero-G is one of the leading companies in the modern music industry.
==About==
Zero-G is a company that produces English VOCALOID voicebanks. They were the second studio (and the first studio from an English-speaking company) to enter VOCALOID production, joining in the UK during the autumn of 2002. According to Crypton, when they were first looking for an English company to recommend for the development of the the English edition of the software, every studio they approached turned down the proposal. Finally, Zero-G offered to take up the task, later becoming famous for producing both the first Vocaloids and the first English voicebanks Leon and Lola. Later they produced Miriam with an improved voice engine. The voices were sold as a "Singer in a box" and intended to be a back up voice provider. However, the products failed to impact the American market due to their accents. Vocaloid Creative Community - CEO from Crypton, on Engloids "It's a Toy"
Despite this, they would later produce a successful VOCALOID2 named Prima, and create SONiKA to act as a company mascot, adopting the Japanese style of producing a avatar for the voicebank. rekkerd.org - Zero-G shipping Vocaloid Sonika] - Rekkerd. Dated 2009-07-15. Retrieved 2009-07-23
Zero-G began to resell their 3 older VOCALOIDs due to the increased interest in the VOCALOID program. The program was also 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 that they may redesign the boxart of their older Vocaloids, with the exceptions of Prima and Tonio whose intention remained the same. No further word has been mentioned on the redesign. They also made a comment that they unfortunately cannot release the names of their vocal providers for legal reasons. Engloid Blog - Zero-G Interview: Dom Keefe (Vocaloid Production)
In 2011, it was confirmed that Zero-G currently will not be updating their VOCALOID engine voicebanks, focusing on newer vocals instead.Zero-G; "It is true that Yamaha are not supporting VOCALOID - that means they will not make Leon, Lola or Miriam work 100% on the latest PC systems like Windows 7 or 64-bit. It is unlikely these voices will be upgraded to VOCALOID3 or later versions. It could happen, but it is most unlikely. It would be expensive and time consuming to re-work the phoneme databases, and at the moment time is better spent developing new voices."
It is known that Zero-G intended to release two Celtic-inspired male and female vocals using the VOCALOID3 engine, The female has already been released, but the male has not yet been released.
During DEX and DAINA's livestream, certain things about Zero-G's VOCALOID development was revealed. Zero-G preferred to focus purely on the English language and make English only VOCALOIDs for this reason. They do not like to process their recordings and originally did SONiKA as an experiment. They do not have the money to add extra vocals like Crypton Future Media, Inc., but would consider adding extra vocals for XSY if their VOCALOIDs sold well enough.
In July 2020, Zero-G responded to a fan confirming that they are not currently making any new VOCALOIDs.https://vocaloid.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000000000426
In December 1st, 2023, a year after the release of VOCALOID6, Zero-G responded to a fan confirming that they still don't have any plans in making any new VOCALOIDs.https://vocaloid.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000000370118
===Key people===
	Dom Keeffe is an employee of Zero-G Limited. Notable for VOCALOID Production.
*
==Voicebanks==
===Developed Voicebanks===
Voicebanks the company developed
====VOCALOID====
Ofclboxart zrog Leon.jpg|LEON|link=LEON (VOCALOID1)
Ofclboxart zrog Lola.jpg|LOLA|link=LOLA (VOCALOID1)
Ofclboxart zrog Miriam.jpg|MIRIAM|link=MIRIAM (VOCALOID1)
====VOCALOID2====
Ofclboxart_zrog_Prima.jpg|Prima|link=Prima (VOCALOID2)
Ofclboxart_zrog_Sonika2.jpg|SONiKA|link=SONiKA (VOCALOID2)
Ofclboxart_zrog_Tonio.jpg|Tonio|link=Tonio (VOCALOID2)
====VOCALOID3====
Avannaboxart.jpg|AVANNA|link=AVANNA (VOCALOID3)
====VOCALOID4====
dex transparent box.png|DEX|link=DEX (VOCALOID4)
Daina box.jpg|DAINA|link=DAINA (VOCALOID4)
===Distributed Voicebanks===
Voicebanks the company did not develop, but distributed at some point.
====VOCALOID3====
V3_KAITO_boxart.jpg|KAITO V3|link=KAITO V3
====VOCALOID4====
box_lukav4x.png|Megurine Luka V4X|link=Megurine Luka V4X
MIKUV4X_TRANS.png|Hatsune Miku V4X|link=Hatsune Miku V4X
miku4english.jpg|Hatsune Miku V4 English|link=Hatsune Miku V4 English
==Current Voicebank projects==
*Zero-G had announced a Celtic pair; the female, Avanna, has been released, and the male has not yet been released. It was announced in Kenji-B/Lupin's Dex and Daina livestream the male has been shelved indefinitely due to not being able to find a fitting voice.
*In an email response, Dom Keefe revealed that Zero-G was working on a mature rock vocal.http://i.imgur.com/IZX3d13.png This vocal would have likely been released within 6 months after October 2015, but no information has been given since then.https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=17D845C946952114!106&ithint=file%2cdocx&app=Word&authkey=!ABzse06SHWxQQ94
==Future Voicebank possibilities==
*According to Anders, if Zero-G's VOCALOIDs became more popular and their demand grew, then Zero-G would have considered making updates and appends for their VOCALOIDs. The major factor in this was the workload required and the involvement in the process against the demand.Citation needed.
==Promotional involvement==
===NAMM Trade Show===
Leon and Lola were the first promoted at the NAMM show on the 15th of January, 2004, and were eventually commercialized on the 3rd of March, 2004. They were created for the English speaking community. MIT Press
Prima was introduced at the NAMM Show 2008; Harmony Central - News EastWest, Vocaloid Prima
At the NAMM Show 2010, Tonio was also announced. ZEROGcs - Vocaloid Tonio announced at NAMM 2010! Brand new male classical virtual singer
===Fan involvement===
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 encouraged feedback and had given out their e-mail for the purpose: contact@sonika-vocaloid.com.
They were also one of two studios that supported Vocaloid Otaku forums, which they used for fan feedback. The other studio was PowerFX.
===Twitter===
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 at the time for any past Vocaloid.
===Competitions===
On November 2, 2009, Zero-G announced a competition for giving Sonika a new look, which would end on November 30. The winner would receive a copy of the "Sonika VOCALOID2 Software". Zero-G - Sonika Vocaloid site: Sonika’s New Look Competition Tweet - Sonika on Twitter - 10:29 AM Nov 2nd, 2009
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. DeviantArt - Mario Wibisono; SONiKA boxart, 2009 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. Engloid Blog - Damaged Control: Sonika’s New Box-Art part 2
A new competition was also announced prior to her 1st birthday. The prize was a copy of SONiKA, Prima or Tonio.
==References==
==External links==
*Official website: ZERO-G
*Official website: Vocaloid Tutorial by Joe Hogan
*Timespace blog
*Twitter account
*Twitter: Sonika
*Twitter: Avanna 
*Youtube Channel
*Youtube: Vocaloid Tutorial (English)
==Navigation==
Category:Companies
Category:Zero-G Limited