Ring Suzune (lost unreleased VOCALOID voicebank; 2011-2012)
Official designs for Ring (right) and Lui (left).
Status: Lost
VOCALOID is a voice synthesizing application that has been sold commercially since 2004. Its function is similar to text-to-speech programs, except for singing as opposed to merely speech. The most famous VOCALOID is Hatsune Miku, with dozens of other Vocaloid characters that exist beyond her.
Ring Suzune and Lui Hibiki were potential VOCALOIDS announced for the VOCALOID3 engine during its pre-release promotions. A release date of December 12th, 2011 was initially confirmed, but Ring and Lui were not released on that date.
Ring's Further Development
In 2012, however, VocaNext picked up Ring's voicebank to continue development, but not Lui's, possibly due to female banks selling better, and nothing was heard about the development of Lui from that point forward. It is unknown if there was even a voice actor chosen for him, let alone a finished voicebank for the software's development.
In February 2012, a beta version of Ring Suzune's voicebank was offered to the participants of "Vocaloid Network", a small-scale fan event that took place on March 11th, 2012. While only 19 fan groups showed up to the event, the voicebank was sent to anyone who was interested. However, the trial only lasted a month, and after late 2013, Ring was not mentioned on VocaNext's site any longer, and the status of her development as well as Lui was once again unknown.
In late September 2014, a message was sent to PowerFX asking if they would or could resume the Ring and Lui project. PowerFX replied saying that they have already attempted to resume the project, but when they contacted YAMAHA, the company said that a release was not possible. Other companies have not yet been asked or revealed their curiosity in public.
Known Songs Featuring Ring
The songs linked below are the only known mixes made using Ring's official demo. There are several mixes on YouTube with a synthetic voice said to be Lui's, but none are confirmed to be legitimate.