Mo Chen

> “
> Morning, dusk.
> The mist, the sunset.
> A wanderer's thought, old friend's feelings.
> A secluded small path, railroad flowing like rivers.
> The thick and dense road, journey home cold and alone.
> Standing at the grass-filled riverside, looking at the twinkling night sky.
> Boat waiting for the wind to forthfaring, train whistling sounds while reaching the bridge.
> ”
> —Introduction prior to debut
>
>

**Mo Chen** (默辰), also known as **MAN-M2**, is a Mandarin Chinese vocal developed and distributed by Dreamtonics Co., Ltd., and was released as an AI voice database for *Synthesizer V Studio* in April 2022.

His voice provider has not been revealed.

## Concept

Like previous Dreamtonics vocals before him, MAN-M2 was intended to be treated as an official voice database or an indispensable "reference-level" type of singing voice, representing Dreamtonics's brand quality. After his name, Mo Chen, was selected, Dreamtonics hoped that he could become a singer who broke the silence and conveyed the rhythm beside every creator, and conveyed the soulful lyrics and melody farther ahead, echoing in every midnight waiting to be heard.

### Etymology

Upon introduction, MAN-M2 was known through only his codename. In the description of his first demo, Dreamtonics announced they were launching a contest to decide his final name. It was requested that his name should reflect his vocal characteristics and should be two to three Chinese characters long.

The winning name was created by Shan Shu (善树) who noted that "based on the style of the demo and the charm of the lyrics, the voice leaned toward reservation; although it is urbanized, it did not stay in busyness, instead wandering the darkness below neon lights, giving a sense of roaming in all directions as one wishes. Although there might be acceleration like at the last line of a song from time to time, it would still mostly return to calmness. This is a voice that belonged to the night, to a barren wilderness, to rainy nights, to under a roof; born from a silent time, passing onto the human's world of loneliness and helplessness. Therefore, I used the silent times that belonged to his name, which shall be 'Mo Chen'".

Reflecting Shan Shu's definition, "**Mo**" (默; *Mò*) means "quiet", "silent", or "still" (unmoving) while "**Chen**" (辰; *Chén*) means "time". Combined, Mo Chen's name means "quiet time", "silent time", or "still time".

Mo Chen's name is rendered in kana as "モー・チェン".

### Appearance

Like previous Dreamtonics vocals, rather than having an official human-like avatar, Mo Chen is represented by an abstract symbol, the letters M and O, which are drawn from the first part of his name in romanization. The letters are grey with hints of light navy blue and purple on the M and hints of azure blue on the O. The top of the M's arches are flat rather than pointed and the O is rectangle-shaped. Both letters are the same height. Characterization is left to the song producers themselves rather than the product, so Mo Chen is open to any form of visual interpretation, allowing the producer to decide what they would like him to look like.

## Voice Libraries

* Mo Chen AI (*Synthesizer V Studio*), April 9, 2022

## Additional Information

### Marketing

Like Qing Su, when MAN-M2 was introduced through his first demo, Dreamtonics announced that they would like users to give the next generation of virtual singers a name that only belonged to them. For MAN-M2, Dreamtonics requested three things: the name had to be two to three Chinese characters long, it should reflect his vocal characteristics, and that to participate, users were to share the video, follow the official Dreamtonics bilibili account, and comment with their selected name. The contest ran from March 25 to April 1, with the winning name set for announcement on April 3. The winning participant would be presented with a set of Synthesizer V Studio Pro and MAN-M2's library. The name was created by Shan Shu (善树).

After his name was chosen, Mo Chen was put up for pre-sale on Dreamtonics's Taobao store, which is part of their sales model for the Chinese market. During Mo Chen's pre-order period, a raffle was launched for five users to potentially win a copy of Synthesizer V Studio Pro and Mo Chen's voice database. Participants had to follow Dreamtonics's account and forward the announcement post. Winners were selected on Mo Chen's release date. For users who already bought Mo Chen, they were entitled to a full refund of their purchase. The winners were announced on April 20.

On April 9, 2022, he was released a week early and was made available on the official Dreamtonics international store. 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. Mo Chen was made available through AH-Software Co. Ltd. on October 7.

Like previous Dreamtonics vocals, Mo Chen 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. Mo Chen was one of the focal voices of marketing Synthesizer V Studio 1.6.0, which introduced the new Vocal Mode feature. On February 6, 2023, he was featured in the 1.8.1 tutorial video on bilibili.

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. Mo Chen was listed as one of the eligible vocals for this contest.

On December 9, 2022, Dreamtonics announced that Saki, Qing Su, Ryo, 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. Due to the complexity of the copyright ownership for Mo Chen's and Weina's demos, Dreamtonics was actively communicating with the relevant copyright parties to determine the final form of their singer profiles. Mo Chen's official profile was announced to be available on January 20, 2023.

### Reputation

Mo Chen's character status
**Reaction**

As a vocalist without an official character, this allowed producers and fans to create their own for Mo Chen, resulting in a variety of designs. His voice was also noted to sound professional, well done, realistic, and was met with overall positive and impressed reactions.
**Impact**

As a Dreamtonics product to demonstrate the capabilities of Synthesizer V Studio (specifically Synthesizer V AI), Mo Chen was considered to be one of the default or reference 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.
**Achievements**

* First male Mandarin Chinese voice database released by Dreamtonics.
* First male Mandarin Chinese AI voice database to be released.
* One of the first Mandarin voice databases to be distributed by AH-Software.

## References

1. ↑ https://t.bilibili.com/640827185283727369 - Mo Chen's introduction is written so that each line adds one more character or word compared to the previous line. Each line has a pair of phrases that depict scenes or imagery separated by a comma. This English translation strived to match.
2. ↑ https://t.bilibili.com/644863715792912422
3. ↑ https://t.bilibili.com/641792663868145688
4. ↑ https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/默#Definitions
5. ↑ https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/辰#Definitions
6. ↑ https://www.ah-soft.com/press/ah-soft/20221007.html
7. ↑ https://t.bilibili.com/644865158914506789
8. ↑ https://t.bilibili.com/651137297157193744
9. ↑ https://twitter.com/dreamtonics\_en/status/1512718709864820736
10. ↑ https://t.bilibili.com/671200609838301200
11. ↑ https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv17082866
12. ↑ https://www.ah-soft.com/press/ah-soft/20221007.html
13. ↑ https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1yR4y1z7Ku
14. ↑ https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv17237015
15. ↑ https://weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404844858597835082
16. ↑ https://t.bilibili.com/753220397863796773