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Hand-held Sound Control Unit Developed by Professional Singer
Simply attaching to a microphone, Voicease provides vocalists with sound control capability with no worry of playing time and place.
Taro Kijima, associate professor at College Choir, Kunitachi College of Music, and gospel musician started development works of simple sound control unit for vocalist, and launched it into production having raised 14 million yen through crowdfunding last year in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kijima says, “Singing is a principal human nature like eating and sleeping. But we cannot sing at midnight without bothering family members and neighbors. Build a sound control capsule in a room? It’s costly. I have sought after a solution in the last 20 years. The pandemic made all doors of studios and karaoke bars shut down. All members of my choir group lost stage to sing. One of them even gave up singing. Necessity is mother of invention. I put up my ideas I have kept in mind for the years to develop a simple sound control unit for vocalist.”
It was very fortunate for him that he happened to get acquainted with Naoko Horiguchi, owner of Aria Music Offfice, a company designing and manufacturing music-themed goods, stationery and accessories. Inspired by Kijima’s ideas, Horiguchi and her development team started research, designing and production of prototype.
The largest feature of Voicease is sound monitoring capability which allows vocalist to discern own voices while reducing sound level by more than 20dB. The quality level of sound control is good enough to satisfy requirements of professionals.
Kijima explains, “Voicease is an exclusive vocal sound control unit never existed before as it covers both mouth and nose of vocalist. When only mouth is covered with a conventional sound control unit, it’s hard for vocalist to discern quality level of his or her voice.
In addition to excellent sound control capability, Voicease provides vocalist with fine air ventilation for comfortable breathing, collects tones coming through nose, and absorb sound inside the unit. It is also lightweight to be held by a single hand, and compatible with versatile microphones.
Horiguchi adds about quality of Voicease, “We have worked with help of professional vocalists as we knew that they would not approve the unit unless they are contented with the sound control capability. We are proud of Voicease which can meet every requirement of vocalist.”
Voicease won instant appreciation among VTubers who love the unit at midnight live streaming. Their comments helped increase demands on versatile scenes including DTM music production, Yamaha SYNCROOM session and Karaoke bar.
Currently, Voicease is distributed on the internet. But sales through physical music retail channel are expected to grow as inquiry from them increases. Kijima concluded, “We are very pleased that sound control unit for vocalist finds a market far larger than we expected. Voicease can serve the needs of stress-free singing in broader occasions of the society.”