Original author(s) Initial release December 27, 2007 Platform PC | Developer(s) Crypton Future Media Operating system | |
Stable release Kagamine Rin/Len v4x / December 24th, 2015 | ||
Kagamine Rin & Len (鏡音リン・レン) are humanoid personas voiced by a singing synthesizer application developed by Crypton Future Media, headquartered in Sapporo, Japan. They use Yamaha Corporation's Vocaloid 2 and Vocaloid 4 singing synthesizing technology. Their voices are sampled by Asami Shimoda. They have performed at live concerts onstage as animated projections.
Contents
Len and Rin are twins ( siblings ). Their names are derived from the concept of 'left' and 'right', like on earphones. Their surnames came from the Japanese words for mirror (鏡, kagami) and sound (音, ne).
Development
Rin & Len were developed by Crypton Future Media using Yamaha's Vocaloid 2. Their voices were created by taking vocal samples from voice actress Asami Shimoda at a controlled pitch and tone. They were the second release within the "Character vocal series," which included the vocals Hatsune Miku and Megurine Luka. Len was the first of the Kagamines to be illustrated and Rin was made to match him , following Crypton's concept.
They received mixed results from producers because compared to Hatsune Miku, they were considered much harder vocals to use. Asami Shimoda, noted she often received the comment from Vocaloid fans that Rin's voice echoes within their head and makes them feel dizzy, while Len's higher ranges were not favoured by those not fond of the pair entirely.
Despite being released as a masculine character, during the development of VY2 the vocals of Ryuto or Len were not classified as "masculine vocals" and were not considered capable of holding a low masculine tones because of it. As a result, he and Ryuto were not referenced in the development of VY2.
Additional Software
Due to a number of complaints and issues with the original vocal, it was replaced with the "act2" package. This package acted independently from the original package. It addressed issues regarding their ability to vocalize clearly. People who purchased the old version were able to claim the updated disk until 20 September 2008.
After Hatsune Miku Append was released for Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin & Len Append was released for Rin & Len. Rin's appends are "power," "warm," and "sweet" while Len's appends are "power," "cold," and "serious."
An update, Kagamine Rin/Len V4X, was released for Vocaloid 4 on December 24th, 2015. This package contains six Japanese vocals, three for Rin and three for Len. They are updates on the old vocals from Vocaloid2. Rin's vocals are "Power EVEC," "Warm" and "Sweet" while Len's are "Power EVEC," "Cold" and "Serious." EVEC is a new system developed for Piapro Studios which allows delicate changes to how phonetic sounds sound. There are two options for the EVEC vocals: "Power" and "Soft." All Rin and Len vocals can use the new Cross-Synthesis system developed for Vocaloid4, though are limited to only being able to do so with other vocals of their assign character of "Rin" or "Len". An English vocal was also released alongside their V4x on the same day; it was sold separately but was also purchasable as a bundle with the main V4x release.
Marketing
20,000 copies were sold on initial release. The Kagamine Append package was released and went straight to fifth place on December 2010, the day of their release.
Characteristics
Crypton's initial concept was to make a boy and a girl.Crypton's final announcement was that Rin and Len are twins. During Vocaloid 2 Append production, Wataru Sasaki described them as an older twinbrother and a younger twinsister.
For their appends, Wataru wanted them to have a sense of transparency with their design. In clarification to what he meant by this, he stated the "transparency" was in reference to their hearts.
For the V4x design, Rin was given a more silver/whiter look to make her appearance more refreshing. The design also was based more on the EOS B700 rather than the Kx5 because of it more whiter appearance. More synthesizer base music symbols were used in addition.