Hatsune Miku (Japanese: 初音ミク), sometimes referred to as Miku Hatsune, is a humanoid persona voiced by a singing synthesizer application developed by Crypton Future Media. Hatsune Miku is portrayed as a 16-year-old girl with long turquoise twintails. She uses Yamaha Corporation's Vocaloid 2 and Vocaloid 3 singing synthesizing technologies. She also uses Crypton Future Media's Piapro Studio, a singing synthesizer VSTi Plugin. She was the second Vocaloid sold using the Vocaloid 2 engine, and the first Japanese Vocaloid to use the Japanese version of the Vocaloid 2 engine. Her voice is sampled from Japanese voice actress Saki Fujita. Hatsune Miku has performed at her concerts onstage as an animated projection.
The name of the character comes from merging the Japanese words for first (初, hatsu), sound (音, ne) and future (ミク, miku), thus meaning "the first sound from the future," referring to her position as the first of Crypton's "Character Vocal Series."
Hatsune Miku was the first Vocaloid developed by Crypton Future Media after they handled the release of the Yamaha vocal Meiko and Kaito. She was built using Yamaha's Vocaloid 2 technology, and later updated over time to newer engine versions. She was created by taking vocal samples from voice actress Saki Fujita at a controlled pitch and tone and those different samples all contain a single Japanese or English phonic which, when strung together, create full lyrics and phrases. The pitch of the samples was to be altered by the synthesizer engine itself, and was constructed into a keyboard style instrument within the Vocaloid software.
Ever on and on I continue circling
With nothing but my hate in a carousel of agony
Till slowly I forget and my heart starts vanishing
And suddenly I see that I can't break free--I'm
Slipping through the cracks of a dark eternity
With nothing but my pain and the paralyzing agony
To tell me who I am, who I was
Uncertainty enveloping my mind
Till I can't break free, and
Maybe it's a dream; maybe nothing else is real
But it wouldn't mean a thing if I told you how I feel
So I'm tired of all the pain, of the misery inside
And I wish that I could live feeling nothing but the night
You can tell me what to say; you can tell me where to go
But I doubt that I would care, and my heart would never know
If I make another move there'll be no more turning back
Because everything will change, and it all will fade to black
Will tomorrow ever come? Will I make it through the night?
Will there ever be a place for the broken in the light?
Am I hurting? Am I sad? Should I stay, or should I go?
I've forgotten how to tell. Did I ever even know?
Can I take another step? I've done everything I can
All the people that I see I will never understand
If I find a way to change, if I step into the light
Then I'll never be the same, and it all will fade to white
Ever on and on I continue circling
With nothing but my hate in a carousel of agony
Till slowly I forget and my heart starts vanishing
And suddenly I see that I can't break free--I'm
Slipping through the cracks of a dark eternity
With nothing but my pain and the paralyzing agony
To tell me who I am, who I was
Uncertainty enveloping my mind
Till I can't break free, and
Maybe it's a dream; maybe nothing else is real
But it wouldn't mean a thing if I told you how I feel
So I'm tired of all the pain, of the misery inside
And I wish that I could live feeling nothing but the night
You can tell me what to say; you can tell me where to go
But I doubt that I would care, and my heart would never know
If I make another move there'll be no more turning back
Because everything will change, and it all will fade to black
If I make another move, if I take another step
Then it all would fall apart. There'd be nothing of me left
If I'm crying in the wind, if I'm crying in the night
Will there ever be a way? Will my heart return to white?
Can you tell me who you are? Can you tell me where I am?
I've forgotten how to see; I've forgotten if I can
If I opened up my eyes there'd be no more going back