Yuma (ユウマ) is a Japanese vocal developed and distributed by Dreamtonics Co., Ltd., and released as an AI voice database for Synthesizer V Studio in October 2022.
His voice provider has not been revealed.
Concept[]
Like previous Dreamtonics vocals before him, Yuma was intended to be treated as an official voice database or an indispensable "reference-level" type of singing voice, representing Dreamtonics's brand quality.
Yuma's voice was designed to have a young, fresh texture and an androgynous tone. He was considered to be flexible and excelled at convincing singing. He has a powerful, yet clear voice in the mid to high ranges and a unique breathiness in his lower mid-range, giving him a more "shadowy" quality.
Etymology[]
As a male vocal with an androgynous voice, Dreamtonics chose "Yuma" as the name as it would be easier for users to distinguish the gender.[1]
Yuma's name is rendered in kana as "ユウマ".[2]
Appearance[]
Like previous Dreamtonics vocals, rather than having an official human-like avatar, Yuma is represented by an abstract symbol, the letters Y and U, which are drawn from the first two letters of his name. The letters are yellowish-green with hints of orangey-red and purple. The "U" is shorter than the "Y" and the bottom of it is flat rather than curved. Characterization is left to the song producers themselves rather than the product, so Yuma is open to any form of visual interpretation, allowing the producer to decide what they would like him to look like.
Voice Libraries[]
- Yuma AI (Synthesizer V Studio), October 7, 2022
Additional Information[]
Marketing[]
Like previous Dreamtonics vocals, Yuma 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 the 1.8.0 update, specifically used for the section featuring the new Diffusion Probabilistic Models (DPM) function.[3]
On December 9, 2022, Dreamtonics announced that Yuma, Saki, Qing Su, Ryo, Kevin, An Xiao, Feng Yi, 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.[4]
Reputation[]
As a vocalist without an official character, this allowed producers and fans to create their own for Yuma, resulting in a variety of designs.
On September 26, 2022, Dreamtonics addressed the concerns regarding Yuma's name on bilibili. Fans expressed that the name shared similarity with Yamaha Corporation's VOCALOID product VY2, whose codename was also known as "Yūma" (alternatively written as "Yuuma"). Dreamtonics explained that because Yuma was a male vocal with an androgynous voice, they wanted a name that was easy for users to distinguish his gender. They noted that they usually adopted the method of internal investigation to verify and avoid the duplication of official names of other products of the same type in the industry, but did not take account of product development codenames, resulting in the situation of Yuma sharing names with another product. The incident reflected an omission in the naming process, but it was not intentional. Dreamtonics noted that they would be investigating potential duplicate names in more detail in the future to avoid the situation from happening again and hoped that the video comment sections would maintain a friendly atmosphere for discussions. In order to preserve that atmosphere, some inappropriate comments were removed, and Dreamtonics apologized for the behavior.[1]