Ring Suzune (lost unreleased VOCALOID voicebank; 2011-2012)

Official design for Ring Suzune.

Status: Voicebank - Lost / Mobile Game - Found

Date found: 27 September 2022 (tie-in game)

Found by: 卑屈P (tie-in game)

Ring Suzune is a Japanese-language voicebank that was announced for the VOCALOID3 singing synthesis software during its pre-release promotions. She was developed by the group Vocaloid Next. The release date of December 12th, 2011 was initially confirmed, but Ring ended up not being released on that date. A male counterpart named Hibiki Lui was also planned, although it is unlikely that development on Lui had ever even begun.

Ring's Development

2011

In 2011, the "Everyone's Vocaloid Project" contest was held, where people sent in potential designs for both Ring and Lui. Design submissions from both Asia and overseas were allowed in the contest. In May of 2011, the winning designs for Hibiki Lui and Ring Suzune had been decided upon and were later announced at VOCALOID Festa 02. It was also announced that MiKA from the band Daisy×Daisy would be the voice provider for Ring.

Ring had been set to be released in Winter of 2011, and was confirmed a VOCALOID3 voicebank, meaning that she would release no earlier than September. One demo song for Ring's voicebank was uploaded both to YouTube and the Japanese video sharing site niconico douga. It was later confirmed that Ring would be released on the 12th of December that year, however, Ring never ended up releasing on that date.

2012

In 2012, VocaNext picked up Ring's voicebank to continue development and improve upon it. They also brought Lui into it, stating that they planned to make him a VOCALOID as well. Auditions for Lui's voice provider were supposed to take place in 2012, but there have been claims that the auditions had never actually happened.

In February of 2012, a beta, trial 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. Only 18 fan groups showed up to the event. The voicebank was also supposed to be sent to anyone who was interested, although this never ended up happening. The trial voicebank only lasted a month.

2013-2014

YAMAHA's response to an email about Ring.

In late 2013, VocaNext's website became inaccessible, leaving the status of Ring's development at a standstill, and the possibility of a proper release unknown, although very unlikely.

In late September 2014, a message was sent to PowerFX asking if they could resume the Ring and Lui project. PowerFX replied saying that they have already attempted to resume the project, but when they contacted YAMAHA, they were told that a release was not possible, although a reason as to why was not stated. Later, in 2015, an email was sent to YAMAHA, who stated that Ring could not be released because of "many obstacle[s]". Other companies have not yet been asked about or have revealed their curiosity in public.

2018

PowerFX, in an email, confirmed that a new team has taken over PowerFX. In that same email, they said because of the change of management they will be discontinuing all development of all PowerFX Vocaloids. This confirms that Ring Suzune is forever abandoned.

The PowerFX email

Known or Potential Owners of the Trial

Japanese producer ShachihokoP produced two songs using the Ring trial. He had also made a post on his blog where he mentioned that he got a copy of Ring's demo. He has not posted any songs on either his niconico douga or YouTube since he posted the song "The Frozen World" on March 10, 2012. However, he is still somewhat active, as looking at his niconico page reveals that he has been watching and favoriting others' videos, so it might be possible to get in contact with him.

LambadaSK was also credited with tuning (or "vocal manipulation" as it was referred to) on ShachihokoP's song "The Frozen World," which would imply that they also would have a copy, as tuning for one VOCALOID voicebank likely will not work very well with other voicebanks.

Other possible trial owners would be people who worked on songs featuring Ring on the album Yakimochi Tokidoki Hare.

Known Songs Featuring Ring

The songs linked below are some of the only known songs made using Ring's official demo. There are several mixes on YouTube with a synthetic voice said to be Lui's, but it is very likely that these are fakes.

• Demo Reel
• 少女とメフィスト (Girl and Mephistopheles)
• Sweet Pain
• 幽閉カタルシス 秋ノ風 (Romantic Fall)
• 友情センチメンタル
• RPG Syndrome
• 氷の世界 (The Frozen World)
• Happy Day!
• ヤキモチときどき晴れ (Yakimochi Tokidoki Hare)
• 夢みるむら娘 (Village Girl Dreaming)
• 深海 (Deep Sea)
• ハンドル握って / 幽閉カタルシス～南鎌倉高校女子自転車部～

Tie-In Game

At VocaFarre in 2011, Suzuki Ryūji (鈴木龍道氏), the only known employee of VocaNext, talked about Ring and a rhythm game she was to star in, nicknamed "V・F・S". Footage of the game was shown. The game used the VOCALOID3 engine to render Ring's voice live, during gameplay.

In September 2013, Ring's rhythm game was shown at the convention VOCALOID FESTA03. The game, now named VFS #01RING, was shown in a playable state (with copies of the demo being distributed to attendees) and seemingly had a mode that allowed the player to create short songs with Ring's voice, akin to the VOCALOID-flex function in the PSP game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Due to Ring falling into development limbo, it can be safely assumed that VFS #01RING met a similar fate, and didn't get much further in development than what was shown in the public demo. The full game's release date was seemingly never announced, nor was there any discussion of what platform(s) the game would be released for.

A picture of the demo's title screen.

On April 6th, 2022, the Japanese Producer, 卑屈P, posted on Twitter an image of a CD-R containing the demo of the game "VFS #01RING Trial Ver. 9.11". After a few days, the Twitter/X user @cfm_una_en, replied (now deleted) to the post, showing interest in the game. Due to enthusiasm, 卑屈P, decided to help preserve the game.

On September 27th, 2022, 卑屈P shared a photo of the game files after successfully opening the files found on their old PC.. And on the following day, posted a video of the game being launched, while asking for help from older VOCALOID fans to give more information about the game, noting that it's not playable due to possible missing registry information. . On the 29th, @cfm_una_en and 卑屈P shared with the VocArchive team a screenshot meant for the public announcement on their Twitter/X., as well as the assets and images found in the game files, which were shared on Discord. The next day, on the 30th of September, @cfm_una_en published footage of the game file and of the game launching on their computer. They refused to upload the demo files publicly, citing a combination of the game's unplayability and copyright concerns over modifying the game to be playable, though they didn't totally dismiss the idea of releasing the files in the future once a patch had been made.

On October 19th, 2022, 卑屈P, made a video documenting their find, while recording what was accessible in the game file. They posted on NicoNicoDouga and YouTube, and within the description, in both Japanese and English, they told a bit of the history of the game, and the information they had about it, followed by a short explanation about the state of the game and its inability to run, being caused by age-related issues.

Almost 2 years later, in June 2024, Andy-P, asked @cfm_una_en about the game and wanted to ask questions related to it, and while no progress was able to be made in restoring the game to a playable state, the files were shared with Andy-P, and subsequently uploaded to the Internet Archive, both for preservation purposes and so others could try their hand at restoring the game.

Gallery

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  VOCALOID Festa 02 reveal of Ring and Lui's designs

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  VFS #01RING being shown off at VocaFarre.

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  A version of VFS #01RING that's presumably earlier than the version shown at Vocafarre