Kokone

Kokone is a new Japanese vocaloid – another year-end announcement for release in early-ish 2014. I have known of her for a few days now, but decided to hold this back until after Christmas.

Her name means heart sound, as I suspect at least a few long-term followers of my posts on the Vocaloid scene might have worked out: koko- from the root that gives us Rin's song Kokoro (the actual heart) and ne which means sound, and is already known to us from ends of the Crypton CV-series' surnames: Hatsune, Kagamine and Megurine.

Kokone is scheduled to be released this coming February; and the fairly short (just under two minutes in duration) demo track in the video below gives us some idea of what to expect from the new package. There is, as yet, no formal artwork to show what her humanoid avatar will be like. No doubt this will soon be revealed to the public.

It could be said with justification that we already have enough Japanese female vocaloids, and this one seems to offer little more than we have had in the more recent releases – such as the wide pitch range (three octaves), smooth sound, and (no doubt) the better control of vocal characteristics that are facilitated by newer developments including V-3 itself.

While not wishing the market to be swamped with too bewildering an array of similar products, I welcome this newcomer as the standards now being set have raised the bar another few notches and this is a good thing, to become a new, better norm. I think the market can stand these newcomers; but too many and most simply will not get the sales to support continued development and addition of new 'append'-style vocal styles, each of which requires its own complete voicebank so is a major undertaking.

For today, though, let's enjoy First Impression – an apt title for an initial demo, though currently without English words provided...