# Are choirs out of style ?



## G.E. (Sep 15, 2014)

I used to hear a lot of choirs in 2000 - 2010 but lately composers have stopped using them even in "epic" scores. Have they been so overused to the point where they have become cheesy ?


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## tokatila (Sep 15, 2014)

G.E. @ Mon Sep 15 said:


> I used to hear a lot of choirs in 2000 - 2010 but lately composers have stopped using them even in "epic" scores. Have they been so overused to the point where they have become cheesy ?



Not if used properly...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUb1M49iVyA

Also; when we get 10 000 people choir VI? :mrgreen:


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## handz (Sep 15, 2014)

I hear choirs in almost every epic score all the time...


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## RiffWraith (Sep 15, 2014)

_Are choirs out of style ?_

*NO*


:mrgreen:


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## JohnG (Sep 15, 2014)

I sort of hope "epic" goes out of style. It's fun but I'm a bit weary of it.

Choirs can be used in a lot of ways, of course.


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## Guy Rowland (Sep 15, 2014)

JohnG @ Mon Sep 15 said:


> I sort of hope "epic" goes out of style. It's fun but I'm a bit weary of it.
> 
> Choirs can be used in a lot of ways, of course.



+1 to all that.

I think generally that big latin thing has gone out of vogue. Trailers left that a few years ago and went BRAAAAAAAM for about 2 years. Now it seems more electronic-based I think.


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## Greg (Sep 15, 2014)

Nope: http://www.traileraddict.com/the-hunger ... -1/trailer


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## José Herring (Sep 15, 2014)

Is the human voice out of style?

I heard a lot of human voice up until 2012, then I heard Skrillex. No voices.


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## jaeroe (Sep 15, 2014)

paying for them, except on the biggest of budgets, has certainly gone out of style.....


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## José Herring (Sep 15, 2014)

jaeroe @ Mon Sep 15 said:


> paying for them, except on the biggest of budgets, has certainly gone out of style.....



Haha!

Yeah, I was meeting with a producer a few months back for a job. He was playing me the temp score. He liked a particular cue a lot. Had a 40 voice male choir. I asked him if he had budget for a choir. I kid you not, his reply was "ah c'mon man we could get together and record it here, I have a mic."........ 

I got out as fast as I could.


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## Mike Greene (Sep 15, 2014)

josejherring @ Mon Sep 15 said:


> Yeah, I was meeting with a producer a few months back for a job. He was playing me the temp score. He liked a particular cue a lot. Had a 40 voice male choir. I asked him if he had budget for a choir. I kid you not, his reply was "ah c'mon man we could get together and record it here, I have a mic."........
> 
> I got out as fast as I could.


I'm not saying you should do it (all-male choirs are much harder to fake), but under the right circumstances, it can be a lot of fun. Here's a choir track i did with one woman (Julie) and me. It won't fool any experts, but the client bought it. 8) 

[flash width=450 height=110 loop=false]http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F110413614&secret_url=false[/flash]


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## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 15, 2014)

I love that, Mike!

How many overdubs did you do of each voice?


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## José Herring (Sep 15, 2014)

Mike Greene @ Mon Sep 15 said:


> josejherring @ Mon Sep 15 said:
> 
> 
> > Yeah, I was meeting with a producer a few months back for a job. He was playing me the temp score. He liked a particular cue a lot. Had a 40 voice male choir. I asked him if he had budget for a choir. I kid you not, his reply was "ah c'mon man we could get together and record it here, I have a mic."........
> ...



Awesome! Guess the producer wasn't crazy after all. 
 
Well anyway the film was terrible so I walked mostly because of that.


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## Mike Greene (Sep 15, 2014)

Nick Batzdorf @ Mon Sep 15 said:


> How many overdubs did you do of each voice?


I think I did 3 or 4 bass tracks, maybe 6 tenor tracks, then a couple alto falsetto tracks, although I might have muted those in the mix. (More isn't always more, especially when it comes to my singing. :mrgreen: )

Julie has a ton of range, so she did around 8 tracks of soprano, 8 of alto, then also did a few tenor doubles. She's a real vocal chameleon who can emulate a lot of different singers, which is great in a fake choir situation.


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## synthetic (Sep 15, 2014)

Cool track, Mike. 

There's a bunch of choir on the Godzilla score. Not so much on the soundtrack because of their strict reuse contract, although I think that just changed.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 15, 2014)

That's a lot of overdubs! But it worked really well - probably because you weren't going for the Orff choir (which I think is what this thread is really about).

I know from overdubbing string players that having three violins - i.e. a quartet + 1 extra vln. - makes a huge difference.

So probably having one more person would have the same effect with a choir. I know a lot of singers have a hard time double-tracking themselves, but I don't know why; when I do it with an instrument, the problem is the opposite - I play it exactly the same.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 15, 2014)

By the way, how many people here are likely to get hired for epic scores?


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## José Herring (Sep 15, 2014)

Nick Batzdorf @ Mon Sep 15 said:


> By the way, how many people here are likely to get hired for epic scores?



Almost every library/ trailer/ game cue is epic. One wonders if they've ever heard any other kind of music.

I'm just finishing one now for a library. But as with all library cues I feel like you're dumping tracks into the great epic virtual swat meet hoping that somebody comes by and picks it up for use.


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## olajideparis (Sep 15, 2014)

I stand vehemently against the use of choirs, I don't use them, I don't own a single choir library and I get by just fine. With all of the great instrumental libraries out there that I want, I think I would literally have to be made of money to even consider purchasing a choir library. Until then I will just have to do without. Besides that, if I even had a choir library i wouldn't even know where to begin with it in terms of implementing it into my music. When I hear music in my head I don't hear dozens of people shouting random latin phrases, I hear the instruments of an orchestra so I guess the biggest point is that my musical sensibilities don't really lend themselves to choir and if they did it likely wouldn't be in the context that most scoring choir libraries are the most strong, probably more like in an Eric Whitacresque way.


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## Rv5 (Sep 15, 2014)

Mike Greene @ Mon Sep 15 said:


> I'm not saying you should do it (all-male choirs are much harder to fake), but under the right circumstances, it can be a lot of fun. Here's a choir track i did with one woman (Julie) and me. It won't fool any experts, but the client bought it. 8)
> 
> [flash width=450 height=110 loop=false]http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F110413614&secret_url=false[/flash]



It can also get you out of a tight spot when it's mothers day and you haven't sent a card:


[flash width=450 height=110 loop=false]http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F167902790&secret_url=false[/flash]

Not sure what happened with the timing. My poor housemate woke up to me recording this. And you poor people who've clicked play I can only apologise. I couldn't talk for a week. Needless to say, I got let off not sending a card.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 15, 2014)

> Almost every library/ trailer/ game cue is epic.



Yeah, I thought of that right after posting.

Still, is there a market for *more* of the same?


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## José Herring (Sep 15, 2014)

Nick Batzdorf @ Mon Sep 15 said:


> > Almost every library/ trailer/ game cue is epic.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



To you and me it sounds the same. To people that buy that stuff, it dates itself rather quickly. There's also a ton of people doing it rather poorly that if done well, like Two Steps From Hell it can be quite successful.

I'll let you know if mine ever license. Kind of a big crap shoot right now.


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## Daryl (Sep 16, 2014)

Nick Batzdorf @ Tue Sep 16 said:


> > Almost every library/ trailer/ game cue is epic.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Epic tracks (like pizzicato cues) are disposable. It's not that new stuff is any better, in fact most of the time it is just as bad as what's already out there, but producers always like the idea of using new tracks that haven't been heard a million times before. Of course the irony is that all the included clichés have been heard a million times before and in some cases for at least 350 years. :wink: 

D


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## KEnK (Sep 16, 2014)

olajideparis @ Mon Sep 15 said:


> I stand vehemently against the use of choirs, I don't use them, I don't own a single choir library... When I hear music in my head I don't hear dozens of people shouting random latin phrases, I hear the instruments of an orchestra...


Wow! >8o 
Big +1 here!
I thought I was the only person on vi who thought that.

I actually wish "style" would go out of style.
Imagine the creativity if that would happen.

k


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## Jetzer (Sep 16, 2014)

Choir's can be used in very delicate & beautiful ways as well. Don't forget that


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## EastWest Lurker (Sep 16, 2014)

JH @ Tue Sep 16 said:


> Choir's can be used in very delicate & beautiful ways as well. Don't forget that



Exactly. Nobody forces anybody to use the cliche of Latin phrases and bombastic passages. Choirs mixed with strings can be a really lovely texture and quite emotional.


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## JohnG (Sep 16, 2014)

true. I sing in a choir every week and we don't shout random Latin phrases.

We sang a beautiful piece by Arvo Part called "The Woman with the Alabaster Box," which is lovely.


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## KEnK (Sep 16, 2014)

Well

It seems that the thread has been focused on "choir libraries" within 
"The Epic Trailer Piece" that is so cliche.

A huge amount of the time that's what they're used for.

That aspect is over done- 
anything that can be called a cliche is over done.
That's what makes it a cliche.


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## G.E. (Sep 16, 2014)

This reminds me of my childhood when all the kids had the latest hip toy while i had to wait until my birthday to get it. By the time I finally got it, everyone else was already bored with it.
Now it's exactly the same thing. I'm just getting into trailer music and those Latin phrases are still relatively fresh to me since I didn't have the chance to use them very often. But everyone else is tired of them... :lol:


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## EastWest Lurker (Sep 16, 2014)

KEnK @ Tue Sep 16 said:


> Well
> 
> It seems that the thread has been focused on "choir libraries" within
> "The Epic Trailer Piece" that is so cliche.
> ...



Goldsmith did this for The Omen in 1976. Time for the trailer makers to get over it. Better yet, time for companies to hire trailer makers who have some creativity and who don't just copy each other.


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## JohnG (Sep 16, 2014)

Now that everyone has slagged off trailers with epic choirs....

It's still a surprisingly effective way to get people to say, "wow!"

I'm a bit fatigued with it too but people like it.


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## JohnG (Sep 16, 2014)

tokatila @ 15th September 2014 said:


> Not if used properly...
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUb1M49iVyA



that is ... a big choir!


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