Crypton Future Media
Company Overview
Crypton Future Media, Crypton for short, is a company that specializes in audio generation for music. The company is based in Hokkaido, Japan.
President
Born March 11, 1965, Hiroyuki Itoh serves as the CEO of Crypton. Prior to starting Crypton, Itoh worked as a programmer at a university and, while it was unrelated to audio engineering, he always had a passion for music production. As a child, he would travel over an hour each day to get to Hokkaido Kushiro Hokuyo High School. After graduating, he passed the national civil service examination and entered the Ministry of Education. While working as a clerk at the Faculty of Engineering at Hokkaido University, he was studying and eventually graduated from Hokkai Gakuen University, majoring in Economics. In 1995, Itoh founded Crypton Future Media, Inc.
In 2008, he served as a guest professor at Hokkaido Information University.
He has served as a college professor at Kyoto University of Information Science since 2013. Also in 2013, he was awarded the Medal with Blue Ribbon. It is awarded to individuals who have made significant achievements in the areas of public welfare or public service.
History
Founded in 1995 as an audio import and sales business, it now focuses on the development, importation, and sales of CDs, DVDs, sound effects, background music (BGM) libraries, as well as software that consists of sound sources. Its main clientele includes musical instrument stores, computer shops, and software distributors.
Crypton started a sound effect sales service for mobile phone ringtones around the year 2000 and has included such products as "Pocket Sound Effect Pro", "Mazeteyo★Natural Voice", "Hatsune Miku Mobile", and "Sing With Miku♪". In addition, the company also operates a website for mobile phones that provides services such as sound effects and ringtones.
VOCALOID
Crypton is particularly known for the production and sale of speech synthesis software for desktop music (DTM) that utilizes Yamaha's speech synthesis engine VOCALOID. Its first product "MEIKO" started sales in 2004 and was then followed by "KAITO" in 2006. In creating the Crypton-based Vocaloids, Crypton gave basic information such as age and gender but deliberately omitted any backstory. The company did this to encourage creative freedom for music creators. In this way, it allows creators to tell their own stories without "a predefined direction set by us."
From the beginning of the venture, the company has not wished to expand into anime production as it would have solidified its characters' traits beyond age and gender. As such, official manga or anime are rarely in production.
Hatsune Miku
In August 2007, the first Character Vocal Series "Hatsune Miku" was released which featured the upgraded engine VOCALOID2.
Sporting turquoise pigtails, Hatsune Miku was considered the first major milestone for the company in its Vocaloid production. The success of Miku brought the company to the spotlight on a global scale and has helped build its reputation as one of the leading developers of Vocaloid software.
Kagamine Rin, Kagamine Len
The second Character Vocal Series was released on December 27 featuring the twin characters Kagamine Rin, and Kagamine Len. The twins were both voiced by voice actor Asami Shimoda and were popular due to their short blond hair and seemingly bubbly personalities.
Megurine Luka
On January 30, 2009, the third Character Vocal Series "Megurine Luka" was released. Voiced by acclaimed voice actor Yuu Asakawa, Luka has been regarded as a more adult type of Vocaloid, and the software is used to singing mature songs about life and work.
Other Ventures
With the success of Vocaloid, Crypton noticed a sudden rise in works being re-uploaded without express person from authors. It was then that they decided to build a centralized platform wherein creators could post their own works freely and gain a considerable fanbase. That service, piapro, is now the home to thousands of illustrators, musicians, and 3D modelers.
Crypton works with Good Smile Company to help further the reach of Vocaloid to the market. Together, they created the Hatsune Miku line of Nendoroid and figma toys as well as branching out to the car racing market.
Interaction with Fans
Crypton's staff, including Itoh himself, will often attend events and actively talk with fans. They will often ask for critiques and feedback with recent events and figurine releases in an effort to help improve their business. This method of direct fan interaction has led to the company leading the way in Vocaloid software, events, and merchandise.