Yamaha Design “Synapses” VOCALOID 3

2012 / VOCALOID

Produce singing by entering notes and lyrics into your computer.

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Revolutionary

The VOCALOID is a software application that uses Yamaha's proprietary voice synthesizer technology to create singing by entering notes and lyrics on a computer. The compact GUI design consists of simple lines and colors to place more importance on the character of the real star—the composer—and the character of the piece.

Harmony

The control screen background has a dark tone, and with the other unified color tones, it creates an operating environment that is easy on the eye, even when composing for many hours. The screen expands to a maximum of 16 tracks, and uses 16 high-contrast colors to make it easy to differentiate all the information on the screen at a glance.

Intuitive

Based on Universal Design concepts, we made the tool-bar icons able to change not only in color but in size as well (version 3.0.5.0 or higher). To increase differentiation of minimized child windows on the lower-left, their borders have been special designed.

Toshihide Suzuki
Toshihide Suzuki
Designer
Yamaha Design Laboratory

The operability that evolved from the Universal Design viewpoint.

The design of software is essentially the design of the GUI. The VOCALOID screen uses a black color scheme so that prolonged use does not fatigue the user's eyes, and important information is expressed in lines and text that resemble light with a unified tonal scheme. There are many musical composition programs that provide a realistic GUI such as a piano or drums, but the VOCALOID is extremely simple. To enhance the musicality and individuality of the creator, we limited ourselves to the bare essentials, with neutral functional expressions only.
As one of the designers developing the VOCALOID, I was impressed with the speed with which user feedback was incorporated into the product. Developers immediately tested the suggestions of users sent in over the Web, via SNS and whatnot, and those that had merit were immediately implemented in the program. The designers then redesigned the interface when necessary. The speed of that development was refreshingly fast.
Responding to user feedback, we released the VOCALOID3 with better display colors and ease of operation. We reviewed the product from a Universal Design perspective and made it easier to look at and easier to use.
In the VOCALOID3, we color-coded the tracks to make all 16 of them immediately recognizable.

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