Its signal processing part was developed through a joint research project between Yamaha Corporation and the Music Technology Group in Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona.

[6] The software was originally only available in English starting with the first Vocaloids Leon, Lola and Miriam by Zero-G, and Japanese with Meiko and Kaito made by Yamaha and sold by Crypton Future Media.

[2] It works standalone (playback and export to WAV) and as a ReWire application or a Virtual Studio Technology instrument (VSTi) accessible from a digital audio workstation (DAW).

[3] For example, the voice corresponding to the word "sing" ([sIN]) can be synthesized by concatenating the sequence of diphones "#-s, s-I, I-N, N-#" (# indicating a voiceless phoneme) with the sustained vowel ī.

[3] When Vocaloid runs as VSTi accessible from DAW, the bundled VST plug-in bypasses the Score Editor and directly sends these messages to the Synthesis Engine.

Yamaha themselves do maintain a degree of promotional efforts in the actual Vocaloid software, as seen when the humanoid robot model HRP-4C of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) was set up to react to three Vocaloids—Hatsune Miku, Megpoid and Crypton's noncommercial Vocaloid software "CV-4Cβ"—as part of promotions for both Yamaha and AIST at CEATEC in 2009.

[66][67] Crypton has been involved with the marketing of their Character Vocal Series, particularly Hatsune Miku, has been actively involved in the GT300 class of the Super GT since 2008 with the support of Good Smile Racing (a branch of Good Smile Company, mainly in charge of car-related products, especially itasha (cars featuring illustrations of anime-styled characters) stickers).

Although Good Smile Company was not the first to bring the anime and manga culture to Super GT, it departs from others by featuring itasha directly rather than colorings onto vehicles.

Since the 2008 season, three different teams received their sponsorship under Good Smile Racing, and turned their cars to Vocaloid-related artwork: As well as involvements with the GT series, Crypton also established the website Piapro.

[74] TinierMe Gacha also made attire that looks like Miku for their services, allowing users to make their avatar resemble the Crypton Vocaloids.

The series also saw guest cameos of Vocaloid variants such as Hachune Miku, Yowane Haku, Akita Neru and the Utauloid Kasane Teto.

[78][79] An anime music video titled "Schwarzgazer", which shows the world where Lily is,[80] was produced and it was released with the album anim.o.v.e 02, however the song is sung by Move, not by Vocaloids.

[93] The largest promotional event for Vocaloids is "The Voc@loid M@ster" (Vom@s) convention held four times a year in Tokyo or the neighboring Kanagawa Prefecture.

[131] Started by Hatsune Miku fan Sumio Morioka that goes by chodenzi-P, this project received the backing of Dr. Seiichi Sakamoto of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

[133] On May 21, 2010, at 06:58:22 (JST), Akatsuki was launched on the rocket H-IIA 202 Flight 17 from the Japanese spaceport Tanegashima Space Center, having three plates depicting Hatsune Miku.

[134][135] The Vocaloid software has also had a great influence on the character Black Rock Shooter, which looks like Hatsune Miku but is not linked to her by design.

[142] A Vocaloid-themed TV show on the Japanese Vocaloids called Vocalo Revolution began airing on Kyoto Broadcasting System on January 3, 2011.

[155] In addition to the donation drives held by Crypton Future Media, AH-Software created the Voiceroid voicebank Tohoku Zunko to promote the recovery of the Tōhoku region and its culture.

[161] The earliest use of Vocaloid-related software used prototypes of Kaito and Meiko and were featured on the album History of Logic System by Hideki Matsutake released on July 24, 2003, and sang the song "Ano Subarashii Ai o Mō Ichido".

The album A Place in the Sun was noted to have songs that were designed for a male voice with a rougher timbre than the Vocaloid Leon could provide; this later led to the development of Big Al to fulfill this particular role.

Hatsune Miku was released by Farm Records on December 15, 2010,[177] and was later featured on the Cool Japan Music iPhone app in February 2011.

[184] In the month prior to her release, SF-A2 Miki was featured in the album Vocaloids X'mas: Shiroi Yoru wa Seijaku o Mamotteru as part of her promotion.

[190] One of the rare singles with the English speaking Sonika, "Suburban Taxi", was released by Alexander Stein and the German label Volume0dB on March 11, 2010.

Yamaha utilized Vocaloid technology to mimic the voice of deceased rock musician hide, who died in 1998, to complete and release his song "Co Gal" in 2014.

[193] Kenji Arakawa, a spokesman for Yamaha, said he believes this to be the first time a work by a deceased artist is commercially available and includes the dead person singing lyrics completed after their death.

[203] One of the most controversial uses of the legal agreements of any Vocaloid producing studio was from the Democratic Party of Japan, whose running candidate, Kenzo Fujisue, attempted to secure the use of Miku's image in the Japanese House of Councillors election of July 11, 2010.

[210] Even with the lack of success for the English version of the software in the United States, Crypton Future Media reported that about half of music downloads at the iTunes Store for songs of Crypton's label Karent, published by Japanese producers, have been from overseas purchases, with sales from American consumers making up the majority of percentages of overseas sales.

[213] CNN's website CNNGo declared Hatsune Miku as one of Japan's best in their "Tokyo best and worst of 2010", listing her as the "Best new virtual singer for the otaku generation".

[215] Based on a December 16, 2023 survey conducted by Nikkei Entertainment, the fanbase of Vocaloid within Japan has an average age of 21 years, and a male-to-female ratio of approximately 50:50.

It was also reported that more Japanese companies were growing protective of their properties, with Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA X, which was released at the time, being the center of one such conflict of copyright interest.