These voicebanks are normally distributed directly from their creators via internet download, but some are sold as part of commercial projects. A myriad number of voicebanks have been developed by independent users. They are also called 'voicebanks' (more common in English-speaking areas) and '(voice) libraries' in Japan. Voices made for the UTAU program are officially called 'UTAU' as well, though they are colloquially known as 'UTAUloids', a reference to VOCALOID.
It comes with AQUEST's voice synthesizer ' AquesTalk' for synthesizing the voice samples of the default voicebank, Utane Uta (also nicknamed Defoko ( Defoko meaning 'Default Girl' in Japanese)) on UTAU's initial launch, after which the generator deletes itself. UTAU is able to use WAV files provided by the user, so that a singing voice can be synthesized by introducing song lyrics and melody. UTAU was originally created to assist this process using concatenative synthesis. UTAU ( 歌う), meaning 'to sing' in Japanese, has its origin in the activity of 'Jinriki Bōkaroido' ( 人力ボーカロイド, Manual Vocaloid), where people edit an existing vocal track, extract phonemes, adjust pitch, and reassemble them to create a Vocaloid-esque singing voice.
In March 2008, Ameya/Ayame released UTAU, a free, advanced support tool shareware software that was free-to-download from its main website.
