Tonio was developed as the male counterpart to a previously released vocal from Zero-G, "Prima", and designed to be used for classic-style singing such as opera. He was aimed at professional producers of music. Tonio's vocalist came from the Royal Northern College of Music. Tonio was first announced at the NAMM trade show and was set to be released back in early February 2010. After delays he was released on July 14, 2010. Like other Vocaloid 2 Zero-G and PowerFX vocals, he would later be released in Taiwan by E-Capsule. When reviewed by Sound on Sound writer Tom Flint Tonio was given only 3 out of 5 stars, less than Sonika's review in March 2010. The reason for the lower rating, however was listed as opera "just sounds odd when colored with an electronic effect" and Flint felt that perhaps Opera wasn't the best choice for the Vocaloid franchise.
Additional Software
While the voice sampled for his vocal remains unknown, it is known that the vocalist was also sampled for another Zero-G product called "Classical vocals", though the female vocalist that appears also in the product is not his Vocaloid partner Prima.
Characteristics
Tonio's original release displayed a young male in a tuxedo, the model used in the stock image photo was model Stanislav Jakuschevskij and was picked from a series of photos based on 3 young individuals at a party in evening dress. The stock image did not represent the character of "Tonio". Despite the lack of a character, Sonika had stated several "character traits" of Tonio in the Twitter account. For example, Sonika spoke of the Zero-G vocals going on holiday, and Tonio refused to jump in a swimming pool as he does not go near water that is not even partly martini based. Besides Sonika herself, Tonio was the only other Zero-G vocal to be given any attention to character details. For his Taiwan release, a new boxart depicting him as a magical being such as ogre or demon from classical Chinese opera stories was designed. He was also given a bibliography. When first introduced, he was also introduced as "Baron Tonio".
