Utau

UTAU is a Japanese singing synthesizer application created by Ameya/Ayame (). This program is similar to the VOCALOID software, with the difference being it is shareware instead of under a third party licensing.

==Overview== In March 2008, Ameya/Ayame released UTAU, a free, advanced support tool shareware software that was downloadable from its main website. UTAU (), literally meaning 'to sing' in Japanese, has its origin in the activity of , where people edit an existing vocal track, extract phonemes, adjust pitch, and reassemble them to create a Vocaloid-esque singing voice. UTAU was originally created to assist this process using concatenative synthesis. UTAU is able to use WAV files provided by the user, so that a singing voice can be synthesized by introducing song lyrics and melody. UTAU came with AQUEST's voice synthesizer "AquesTalk" for synthesizing the voice samples of the default voicebank, Utane Uta (also nicknamed , meaning 'Default Girl' in Japanese) on its initial launch, after which the generator deletes itself. Voices made for the UTAU program are officially called "UTAU" as well, though they are colloquially known as "UTAUloids", a reference to VOCALOID. They are also called "voicebanks" (more common in English-speaking areas) and "(voice) libraries" in Japan. A myriad of voicebanks have been developed by independent users. These voicebanks are normally distributed directly from their creators via internet download, but some are sold as part of commercial projects.