Ryo

**Ryo** (リョウ) is a Japanese vocal developed and distributed by Dreamtonics Co., Ltd., and released as an AI voice database for *Synthesizer V Studio* in February 2022.

Ryo's voice provider has not been revealed.

## Concept

Like the previous Dreamtonics vocals before him, Ryo was intended to be treated as an official voice database or an indispensable "reference-level" type of singing voice, representing the company's brand quality.

Generally, Ryo was created to be a warm and gentle type of voice with a strong middle range that's suitable for pop but flexible enough for various genres.

### Etymology

No official information was released regarding why the name "Ryo" was chosen or what the name may mean.

Ryo's name is rendered in kana as "リョウ".

### Appearance

Like previous Dreamtonics vocals, rather than having an official human-like avatar, Ryo is represented by an abstract symbol, the letter "R", which is drawn from the first letter of his name. In the profile image from Dreamtonics, the "R" is mainly orange-red with hints of purply blue and magenta-red. In the AH-Software rendition, these colors are darker. The origins of the color scheme were less clear. Characterization is left to the song producers themselves rather than towards the product, so Ryo is open to any form of visual interpretation, allowing the producer to decide what they would like him to look like.

## Voice Libraries

* Ryo AI (*Synthesizer V Studio*), February 4, 2022

## Additional Information

### Marketing

Like previous Dreamtonics vocals, Ryo was treated as an official or standard vocal for the engine, where he could potentially be found in demonstrations of Synthesizer V Studio and its AI capabilities. This also meant that he would be among the first vocals to be equipped with the latest engine updates. After release, he was one of the demonstrative vocals for "High Dynamics Voice Model" (HDVM). In July 2023, he was featured in the demonstration for "Enhanced Pitch Generation with RLHF".

Similarly, Dreamtonics began uploading tutorial videos that were suited for new users of Synthesizer V Studio since October 17, 2022. Ryo's voice was featured in the series' second video for both YouTube and bilibili.

On the day of his and Kevin's release, he was made available on the newly established official Dreamtonics international store, as well as at AH-Software, which mainly targeted the Japanese market, and the Dreamtonics Taobao store, which mainly targeted the Chinese market. On June 13, 2022, Dreamtonics announced that they launched a new official store for the Chinese market built on WeChat's Mini Program. Users would be able to purchase the Synthesizer V Studio Pro editor and Dreamtonics' vocals through the application in a convenient manner, enjoying the automatic real-time distribution shopping experience. From June 13 to July 13, users were able to take advantage of unlimited 10% off coupons in the new store. It was later clarified that the decision to open this new shopping option was made due to Taobao's new restrictions on the sales of virtual goods as of April 2022, especially for restrictions on shipments without logistics since virtual goods would need to be delivered via email. Up until June 30, Saki Standard was the only Dreamtonics voice database to be made available as a physical copy. Ryo, Saki AI, and Kevin later had physical boxes released on July 21, becoming the first Dreamtonics AI voice databases to receive them. Ryo was also among one of the Synthesizer V vocals that could be trialed at certain Japanese music retail stores where customers can use the software that was set up with the stores' PCs.

On June 24, 2022, Dreamtonics announced its first creation contest in collaboration with AH-Software, Animen, AUDIOLOGIE Co., Ltd., and Eclipsed Sounds, LLC with three competition areas: originals, covers, and cross-lingual synthesis. Creators were encouraged to submit their work regardless of language restrictions. Prizes included cash distribution from bilibili, digital copies of certain Synthesizer V voice databases, and the physical boxed copy of ANRI. Ryo was listed as one of the eligible vocals for this contest.

On December 9, 2022, Dreamtonics announced that Ryo, Saki, Qing Su, Kevin, An Xiao, Feng Yi, Yuma, Natalie, Mai, Cong Zheng, and Xuan Yu officially have their own artist association profiles on NetEase Music. Creators can use the profiles to add to their published songs, providing a more unified retrieval method and higher exposure rate for the works. Dreamtonics would provide assistance services to creators at no charge and would not obtain any income belonging to the artist when associating their works with the singer profiles. Based on NetEase Music's policies, creators needed to provide relevant proof of purchase to NetEase Music's customer service in order to associate a virtual singer with their works, thus, screenshots of receipts would need to be prepared in advance. NetEase Music's customer service would then confirm the request and forward it to Dreamtonics, who would approve the requests within five business days upon receiving them.

### Reputation

Ryo's character status
**Reaction**

Ryo was only revealed a week before his release as an unnamed Japanese vocal. He was shown directly after Kevin's (who was still unnamed at the time) demo and was introduced as a brand new native Japanese voice database. This gained attention from users who were in demand for new masculine voice-types for Synthesizer V and surprised them as they were not only receiving just one but two new males for Synthesizer V AI. On the day before their release, only Kevin's name was revealed to the public, causing fans to only expect a new demo for him. On February 4, fans were surprised to see that not only was Kevin's demo revealed, but he, along with the newly introduced Ryo, were already releasing.
**Impact**

As a Dreamtonics product to demonstrate the capabilities of Synthesizer V Studio (specifically Synthesizer V AI), Ryo was considered to be one of the default vocals used for tech demos, allowing for producers to compare and understand the differences per update. He had a professional feel and made for a good starting AI voice database, which was especially praised for sounding realistic and helped gauge interest in this type of voice database for Synthesizer V as a whole.

Upon his and Kevin's release, the new Dreamtonics storefront quickly experienced greater traffic than was expected. On February 7, 2022, AH-Software confirmed that there were many purchases from around the world of Ryo and Kevin throughout their first weekend.
**Achievements**

* First Japanese male voice database to be solely released from Dreamtonics Co., Ltd.
* One of the first male AI voice databases to be released
* First Japanese male AI voice database to be released

## References

1. ↑ https://www.ah-soft.com/press/synth-v/20220204.html
2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYey-utSIyw
3. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKwGR08kCSk
4. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj7UipbHBdw
5. ↑ https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1o24y1k7Qu/
6. ↑ https://t.bilibili.com/671200609838301200
7. ↑ https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv17082866
8. ↑ https://twitter.com/ahsoft/status/1542711016860962816
9. ↑ https://twitter.com/shima\_umeda/status/1598220720546676737
10. ↑ https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv17237015
11. ↑ https://weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404844858597835082
12. ↑ https://twitter.com/dreamtonics\_en/status/1489439741544394755
13. ↑ https://twitter.com/ahsoft/status/1490637840417714177