An Xiao

**An Xiao** (Simplified Chinese: 岸晓; Traditional Chinese: 岸曉) 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 May 2022.

His voice provider has not been revealed.

## Concept

Like previous Dreamtonics vocals before him, An Xiao was intended to be treated as an official voice database or an indispensable "reference-level" type of singing voice, representing Dreamtonics's brand quality. Dreamtonics hoped that An Xiao's singing could help creators capture the fleeting hearts and bring the emotions between the melodies one by one.

### Etymology

"**An**" (岸; *Àn*) means "bank", "shore", "coast", or "waterfront", while also meaning "high" or "lofty". "**Xiao**" (晓; *Xiǎo*) means "dawn" or "daybreak", while also meaning "to know" or "to understand", even "to let someone know", "to make explicit", or "to make clear". Combined, his name could mean "dawn on the shore", and with considerations to his demo song, it may convey the meaning of hopes and expectations.

### Appearance

Like previous Dreamtonics voicebanks, rather than having an official human-like avatar, An Xiao is represented by an abstract symbol, the letters A and N, which are drawn from the first part of his name in romanization. The letters are yellowish orange with hints of purple on the A and N and hints of a darker orange on the N. The A is more of a boxy shape rather than pointed and the left side of the N is shorter than the right. Characterization is left to the song producers themselves rather than the product, so An Xiao is open to any form of visual interpretation, allowing the producer to decide what they would like him to look like.

## History

### Marketing

Like previous Dreamtonics vocals, An Xiao 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. An Xiao was one of the focal voices of marketing Synthesizer V Studio 1.6.0, which introduced the new Vocal Mode feature.

Unlike previous Mandarin Chinese Dreamtonics vocals, Qing Su and Mo Chen, An Xiao's name was not chosen via contest and there was no pre-order period. He was suddenly introduced with one demo and released on May 4, 2022 with no prior announcement. He was made available on the official Dreamtonics international store and taobao simultaneously. The only partnered storefront An Xiao was not available on was AH-Software Co. Ltd.'s store, which was mainly used to market towards the Japanese userbase.

## Voicebanks

* An Xiao AI (*Synthesizer V Studio*), May 4, 2022

## Reputation

### Reaction

As a vocalist without an official character, this allowed producers and fans to create their own for An Xiao, 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), An Xiao 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.

## References

1. ↑ https://t.bilibili.com/656356910789820482
2. ↑ https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/岸#Definitions
3. ↑ https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/曉#Definitions
4. ↑ https://twitter.com/dreamtonics\_en/status/1521791929092292608

## External links

### Articles

* Synthesizer V Wiki
* VocaDB