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- This page is about the character vocal and her corresponding voice database. For the virtual YouTuber and voice provider, see Shirakami Meito (voice provider).
Shirakami Meito (白神芽音) is a private Japanese vocal developed by Dreamtonics Co., Ltd. for the virtual-singer project En-gene, a collaboration between TMIK Co., Ltd. and agehasprings Party, as an AI voice database for Synthesizer V Studio. She debuted in March 2024.
Her voice is provided by virtual YouTuber Shirakami Meito, a virtual singer who belongs to En-gene.
Concept[]
Shirakami Meito is an android manufactured by a group of engineers who love music. She specializes in singing. Various personalities that were sampled during the research stage are installed in the USB memory stick attached to her ear; when the USB drive is changed, she transforms into a different personality. She has been programmed to work autonomously on the Internet, allowing herself to be exposed to various users and contents; in this way, she learns about what she likes: Japanese subcultures (mainly music, games, animation, etc.) and their information. In order to improve her singing ability, data on her attempts to sing songs she is interested in is released on a daily basis.[1]
Her birthday is August 1.
Etymology[]
"Shira-" derives from shiro (白) which means "white"; kami (神) means "god" or "goddess". Mei (芽) can mean "bud", "sprout", "spear", or "germ" (of a flower), while "-to" is taken from oto (音) which means "sound".
Appearance[]
WORK IN PROGRESS
Personalities[]
Shirakami Meito possesses four personalities:[2]
- 0-type (0型) - Her default personality. In this mode, she sings (usually in Japanese). Originally unnamed until April 28.[3]
- M-type (M型), sometimes nicknamed Ponmei (ぽんめい), Pomechan (ぽめちゃん), or Pomechi (ぽめち)[4] - One of the various personalities she assumes when her USB memory stick is swapped; it is distinguishable from her other personalities by her wearing round eyeglasses. She assumed this mode during a handful of bilibili livestreams to talk about Chinese culture and to sing her first Mandarin Chinese song demo,[5] although other times in this mode she sang instead Japanese songs. Sometimes she instead talks about food.[6]
- P-type (P型), formerly Prototype P-type (Prototype P型) - Her gamer personality, distinguishable from the others by her wearing a frameless single lens (or monocle) on her left eye. In this mode, she typically plays online games like Apex Legends and the Pokémon Trading Card Game.[7]
- S-type (S型), formerly Prototype S-type (Prototype S型) - Her silver personality, visibly distinguishable from the others because of her silver-colored hair. In this mode, she usually streams herself drawing artworks,[8] but sometimes she instead plays games of a different nature.[9] She also used this mode once to teach Mandarin Chinese (instead of using M-type).[10]
Relations[]
- Hakushi Matsuri (白紫茉莉) - fellow virtual singer from En-gene.
- Shirakiri Rei (白切鴒) - fellow virtual singer from En-gene.
History[]
2024[]
Shirakami Meito debuted on bilibili, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube Shorts as a virtual utaite (or VSinger)[11] under the En-gene label on March 22, 2024 by singing a short cover of J-pop band RADWIMPS' "Nandemonaiya", the theme song of the anime film Your Name..[12] Although the YouTube upload is currently tagged as Synthesizer V[13] and a certain Kazunari Shirane (白根一成) (from agehasprings Party) was credited for "vocal programming" on all four social platforms (thus hinting at her voice being a singing voice database), the corresponding bilibili, TikTok, and Twitter uploads were not tagged as such (instead limiting the tags to things like #VSinger, #VTuber, and the special tag #次世代VSinger_Engene or "Next Generation VSinger En-gene"), so it is unknown if the song back then was revealed to be using Synthesizer V or if the #SynthesizerV hashtag was edited into the YouTube video description several days after the fact; if the latter was the case, then the actual vocal-synthesis engine was then unknown and would be revealed only at a later date. Also, neither Dreamtonics Co., Ltd. nor any other then-known vocal-synthesizer company was known to have retweeted, shared, or commented on her content, thus contributing to keeping her out of the vocal-synth community's radar. The same happened with all of her subsequent song attempts (utattemita) during the following weeks, including a short cover of "Moonlight" by J-pop band Yorushika on March 24[14][15] and a short cover of "Senbonzakura" on March 26.[16][17]
On April 20, Meito started to sign bilibili-centric tweets with the phrase "M-type" (M型);[18][19] it was unknown what was being meant with that. Later on April 21, she tweeted about Chinese language being installed into her system, again ending the tweet with "M-type",[5] which may have implied that M-type was a new voice-database version trained with Mandarin-Chinese song material that would use Cross-lingual Singing Synthesis to sing in that new language. On April 23, her first Mandarin song cover was demonstrated using this updated library.[20]
On April 26, she held a YouTube Live broadcast where she was said to debut "Prototype P-type" (Prototype P型);[21][22] this, however, turned out not to be a voice-database update but rather a new virtual-gamer personality, as implied by her next tweet (signed "P-type") showing a deck of Pokémon Trading Card Game cards.[7] On April 27, another YouTube livestream debuted her "Prototype S-type" (Prototype S型),[23][24] which was nothing but a silver-haired variant of her character design, used to represent her digital-artist personality as demonstrated by her own live chibi drawings of herself and her En-gene companions Hakushi Matsuri and Shirakiri Rei.[8] It was noted that whenever Meito spoke (rather than singing), she may have done so through a voice changer, as artifacts were noticeable during highly-aspirated parts (like laughing or breathing).
On May 2, her song-cover tweets started to carry the #SynthesizerV hashtag,[25] while her bilibili and TikTok uploads still were not tagged as such. Thus, she still remained rather obscure and unnoticed within the vocal-synth community (especially on the western side of the fandom), as even her YouTube uploads had the Synthesizer V tag buried deep into the video descriptions' bottom portion (which by default is hidden by the video website player's user interface, initially displaying no more than the first three lines of each description) and did not include the word "Synthesizer V" (or even its common abbreviation "SynthV") anywhere on the video-upload titles. On May 4, her TikTok song uploads did start to mention "Synthesizer V"[26] (like their corresponding tweets[27] and YouTube uploads),[28] but as in the case of YouTube, the software's name was buried deep into the video's description and not visible by default (as TikTok descriptions only display their first two lines unless the user clicks to expand them). Plus, the SynthesizerV tag was still absent in her bilibili uploads.
On May 31, it was announced on a press release by En-gene that Shirakami Meito had recorded a new jingle for Japanese radio station FM802, which was celebrating its 35th anniversary. The jingle was a joint composition between Kazuma Nagasawa (a songwriter from agehasprings, one of the two parent companies behind En-gene) and AI music-track generation software FIMMIGRM (a product of TMIK Co., Ltd., the other parent company behind En-gene), with arrangement by Shogo Ohnishi (also from agehasprings); on this press release, En-gene confirmed that Meito's voice was based on an original Synthesizer V voice database. The jingle was set to premiere via broadcast on June 1.[29]
It was not until June 13 when the SynthesizerV hashtag started to appear in her bilibili song uploads.[30] At this point, the western vocal-synth community was already taking notice (since June 6) of her existence as a private Synthesizer V vocal.[31][32][33]
Voice Database Information[]
Demonstrations[]
Voice Databases[]
- Phoneme format: Romaji
- Through Cross-lingual Singing Synthesis, Meito can sing in not only Japanese but also in Mandarin Chinese. This feature is only available in the Synthesizer V Studio Pro Editor.
- Because of the voice database's private nature, it is unknown if English, Cantonese Chinese, or Spanish has been enabled on Shirakami Meito's Cross-lingual Singing Synthesis feature. So far, her published demonstration songs have been only in Japanese and Mandarin.
Voice Libraries[]
- Shirakami Meito (Synthesizer V Studio), private
Additional Information[]
Marketing[]
INFORMATION PENDING
Reputation[]
- First Synthesizer V voice database by TMIK Co., Ltd.
- First Synthesizer V voice database by agehasprings Party.
- First Synthesizer V voice database by En-gene.
- First fully-private Synthesizer V voice database.
- First private Synthesizer V voice database based on a brand-new original voice (as opposed to being derived from an existing commercial voice)
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://engene.tmik.tokyo/#section-artist
- ↑ https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1805905750994399396
- ↑ https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1784590897809621190
- ↑ https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1794704639499329852
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1782035041591464057
- ↑ https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1789639011033866540
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1783833577584730577
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1784206133848367307
- ↑ https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1791821383829524624
- ↑ https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1794358296926900489
- ↑ Not to be confused with Shanghai HENIAN Information Technology Co. Ltd.'s Vsinger series of VOCALOID voicebanks. (Note the differences in casing between both.)
- ↑ https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1771024002582208621
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/otW9US5MRyM
- ↑ https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1771824276317827559
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uG_qs45RwA
- ↑ https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1772564148351832434
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vGEW1X0La3I
- ↑ https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1781654865040781700
- ↑ https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1782004034788057450
- ↑ https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1782711010912252245
- ↑ https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1783805725552361540
- ↑ https://youtube.com/live/xErfRSwwFZg
- ↑ https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1784172697003638842
- ↑ https://youtube.com/live/yuwnV33HjO4
- ↑ https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1785972504831643678
- ↑ https://www.tiktok.com/@engene.shirakamimeito/video/7365123494079712529
- ↑ https://x.com/shirakamimeito/status/1786742582376083693
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oMJ2u9t4TSs
- ↑ https://engene.tmik.tokyo/posts/240531
- ↑ https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1sm421V7S5
- ↑ https://x.com/PositiveVSynth/status/1798773614357172533
- ↑ https://x.com/andresfelipeb25/status/1799132523483762760
- ↑ https://x.com/SynthVNews/status/1799140623410438223
External links[]
- Official Artist Profile
- Official Bilibili Channel
- Official Instagram Account (@engene.shirakamimeito)
- Official TikTok Account (@engene.shirakamimeito)
- Official Twitter Account (@shirakamimeito)
- Official YouTube Channel (@engene_shirakamimeito)