Hatsune Miku

Developer(s)	Crypton Future Media
Initial release	August 31, 2007
Stable release	Hatsune Miku V4X / August 31, 2016
Operating system	Microsoft Windows, macOS
Platform	PC
Available in	Japanese English Chinese
Type	Vocal Synthesizer Application
License	Proprietary (Vocaloid voice/software) Creative Commons BY-NC (character design)[1]
Website	ec.crypton.co.jp/pages/prod/vocaloid/cv01_us

Hatsune Miku (Japanese: 初音ミク), sometimes called Miku Hatsune, is a Vocaloid software voicebank developed by Crypton Future Media and its official moe anthropomorph, a teenage girl with long, turquoise twintails. She uses Yamaha Corporation's Vocaloid 2, Vocaloid 3, and Vocaloid 4 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 modeled from Japanese voice actress Saki Fujita. Miku's personification has been marketed as a virtual idol and has performed at concerts onstage as an animated projection (rear cast projection on a specially coated glass screen).^[2]

The name of the character comes from merging the Japanese words for first (初, hatsu), sound (音, ne), and future (ミク, miku^{[n 1]}), thus meaning "the first sound of the future",^[3] referring to her position as the first of Crypton's "Character Vocal Series".