# Voices of Prague UVI powered v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale ends 31st August-English lyrics



## Virharmonic (Jul 27, 2013)

*Voices of Prague v1.5 is finally here,*













*After many months of hard work, sweat, tears and joy, we are very proud to announce Voices of Prague V1.5 for UVI*

When version one came out at the end of September 2012, we were eagerly awaiting our users feedback. We were amazed at how well VoP was received. VoP is now used by Choir masters for mock ups, University lectures in their lessons and even helped composers to get their choral works performed live by renowned choirs. It comes as no surprise that our library has also been used in TV and Games industry and we are very pleased to see that our customers are eager to put VoP into action.

We have listened very carefully to all the feedback and have been trying to come up with ways to implement all the amazing functions which our users came up with. This new and fresh perspective lead us to a simple realization. What we wanted to do couldn't (or at least we have no idea how)be done on our old platform of choice. We had so many ideas and very few solution on how to implement them. Then MachFive 3 accidently came under our radar and we got into talks with the guys who made it. We suddenly realized that functions we wanted were possible without cooking the CPU, overloading the ram or high latency. The first work on the update started and as it included a complete rewrite and brand new logic for the whole programme we got stuck into the samples as well.

Cross Grade IS FREE TO ALL EXISTING USERS. We have sent out an email to you all so you should be able to upgrade as well. iLok is Required to run VoP v1.5

Special Discount Price during the launch period is *$299* [RRP $399]. For more info click http://virharmonic.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=50 (HERE) 

*Main Improvements*: 

• Unlimited syllables
• Add and Remove Syllables whenever and where ever you want
• Control of all four voice group on one screen
• Copy Paste enabled between voice groups
• Loop function simplified
• Much tighter words and syllables (we didn't even think that it was possible, but here it comes)
• Recut and redone samples
• Progressive volumes on the tonal scale (more natural sound across all dynamics)
• Restart for all voice groups
• Polylegato which is played with sustain pedal down and supports your inspiration even if piano isn't your best friend.
• Expert setting where you can adjust the individual cons for each voice group
and many more........



*Demos *
[flash width=600 height=200 loop=false]http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=https://soundcloud.com/virharmonic/sets/vop-demos[/flash]

*Facebook* Click HERE


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## playz123 (Jul 27, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on- NOW $299 for a month*

Thanks for the update and all the new features. Downloading now (slow download), and am looking forward to trying out the new version in tandem with the UVI engine. It's almost like receiving a new program when compared with the Kontakt version.  Cheers.


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## Virharmonic (Jul 27, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on- NOW $299 for a month*

Hi Frank,

All new customers get to download it from Amazon S3 so they have it really fast. Sadly all existing customers have to use our old server we have used previously (All to do with how we generate the S3 links). However in future all new products and updates will be hosted on Amazon S3. So there are only fast downloads to look forward to  This is the last time on our own server.


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## Udo (Jul 27, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on- NOW $299 for a month*

Although it was mentioned in the other thread, I think it should've been mentioned in this announcement too (in particular for new customers, unfamiliar with UVI);* iLok required* (which doesn't bother me :wink: ).

EDIT: I see it has been included now.


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## Virharmonic (Jul 28, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on- NOW $299 for a month*

Hi Udo,

Thank you Udo. I've quickly edited last night before I went to sleep. Thank you for pointing it out to us


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## muziksculp (Jul 28, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on- NOW $299 for a month*

Hi Virharmonic,

I will be purchasing VOP 1.5 (UVI) as soon as I'm back from vacation around Aug. 3rd. 

I'm glad you chose UVI , and hope to see more developers offering their libraries in UVI sample engine. It's about time Kontakt has a serious competitor. I'm sure that the next few UVI updates will finally end the Kontakt monopoly on the sample library market. 

Especially, if UVI offers more, and better support, features, great GUI, ...etc. 

I also feel UVI sounds better than Kontakt. But, .... Kontakt fans will disagree :wink: 

Looking forward to use VOP 

Cheers,
Muziksculp


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## mk282 (Jul 29, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on- NOW $299 for a month*



muziksculp @ 29.7.2013 said:


> I'm sure that the next few UVI updates will finally end the Kontakt monopoly on the sample library market.



I doubt it. Kontakt has just a too huge 3rd party following, plus it doesn't use a dongle which is what a lot of people prefer more. Plus, Kontakt still wins when CPU/RAM utilization is concerned, so MF3 has ways to go with that, as mentioned before. I'm eager to see improvements in MF4 - if those improvements don't happen, then IMHO I cannot consider MF as a serious replacement for Kontakt.



muziksculp @ 29.7.2013 said:


> I also feel UVI sounds better than Kontakt. But, .... Kontakt fans will disagree :wink:



Well... Regular sample playback is identical in both samplers at unity gain - they null (just do the test ). What's arguably better in MF3 are its effects. Filters are very good, but Kontakt 5 is on par if not better with a big selection of new filters which sound excellent as well.


Anyhow, congrats to Virhamonic for the release. But I cannot shake the feeling that most of the things they did in this update were totally possible in Kontakt, as well (I'd be wary about the "unlimited syllables" thing, everything is limited at some point by the amount of RAM you have... in Kontakt, they could have up to 32768 syllables, which is not unlimited, but it's a damn large number that not a lot of people would use up, anyways).


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## Virharmonic (Jul 29, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on- NOW $299 for a month*

Hi mk282,

I thought we discussed this already in a previous thread. It doesn't surprise me that as Kontakt scripter you would defend Kontakt, but it is about the library not about the sampler.

iLok is a discussion which has been done over and over and over on hundreds of different threads. Some like it and some don't. We find it to be flexible as you can move and work on number of workstations. Compared to Kontakt/Watermarking it is effective so we find this to be beneficial as well.

I don't argue that we could increase the number of syllables in Kontakt, but every time we passed extra two pages on the old version it started to peak and cut out. It simply couldn't handle the extra steps. UVI can handle easily a lot, lot more steps without introducing problems. We haven't even managed to peak it that way. In the tests I've passed 100+ pages of text without a problem and that equals to 800 steps without a glitch. That equals to whole Mozart Requiem. We came no where near to that in Kontakt, not even half way.

Also copy pasting between the voice groups was not possible. Single instrument couldn't handle all the groups and there was no alternative how to map it differently so again another function not available in Kontakt as MultiScript instances don't communicate, but rather runs as individual instances. Of course we could have tried to run it on one multi script instance, but then simply the number of lines of code would be unimaginable to make it work.
There are many reasons and many more functions, but I think that unless you are a scripter, one would not care, so I'm not sure there is a need for me to explain the short comings of Kontakt in this instance. I guarantee to you, that deciding to REDO the whole library was not taken lightly as it is very time consuming, but we have done it because it was simply worth it.

Utilisation of Ram and CPU was discussed as well in the previous thread, but just to repeat UVI's version has lower footprint than Kontakt version of our libraries. How each sampler handles depends on the way you map, so direct comparison like for like with same grouping isn't possible. It would be like comparing Apples and Strawberries. That is why a simple port from Kontakt to UVI isn't going to give you best results. You must map it in the way UVI structure works best. This applies in reverse. I couldn't even port VoP v1.5 to Kontakt any more as the structure of the instrument is fundamentally different.

To cut to the chase: " We do not say which sampler is better or worse. We simply say that UVI has a lot more benefits for our library, thus for our customers. And that is the only thing that matters to us. We want our customers to enjoy the best libraries possible."

Warm Regards

Ondrej


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## Virharmonic (Jul 29, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on- NOW $299 for a month*



muziksculp @ Mon Jul 29 said:


> Hi Virharmonic,
> 
> I will be purchasing VOP 1.5 (UVI) as soon as I'm back from vacation around Aug. 3rd.
> 
> ...



Hi Muziksculp,

Thank you for the kind words. We'll look forward to sending you your licence 

Kind Regards

Ondrej


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## Virharmonic (Jul 29, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague UVI powered v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on- NOW $299 for a month*

New video added. This time we show you how easy it is to build english words. I did it in one take, so sorry for the occasional waffle. The lyrics are brave as well 

Enjoy :


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## quantum7 (Jul 30, 2013)

Congratulations on your VoP 1.5 UVI release! I downloaded the update and look forward to trying it out later this week.


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## Virharmonic (Jul 31, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague UVI powered v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on-NOW $299 for a month-English lyrics video ad*

Hi Sean,

Thank you and have fun with the updated version. Let us know what you think  It shouldn't take that long to get used to the new version and feel free to check out the videos to guide you through the first steps in v1.5. If you need anything, give us a shout as usual


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## quantum7 (Aug 2, 2013)

Having fun and starting to get used to it, but I am having a strange problem which may be a bug with Cubase 7.05 and UVI together. I cannot enter numerical data for the copy/paste functions since UVI itself ignores my computer's keyboard altogether. Very strange! Also, I am having other weird bugs and crashed with Cubase 7.05 & UVI together (crashing, freezing, etc.). I just do not know whether it is Cubase or UVI....or the both together that is causing the mayhem. I'm sure we'll get it sorted out, though. :D


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## Virharmonic (Aug 2, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague UVI powered v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on-NOW $299 for a month-English lyrics video ad*

I wonder what system do you use. I've just tested it in Cubase 7.0.5 Build2197(64bit) on Mac OSX 10.8.4 and it seems to be working fine. I can click on the values (any values including CopyPaste) and I can type in desired digits. One of our Beta Testers had Cubase as well (on a Mac system). If it works in standalone mode ,then it is usually DAW/setup related issue so lets try to work out where is Cubase causing this problem.

Did you map your keyboard to do other functions? Potential disabling it in VSTs? Cubase 7.0.1 was buggy, but from what I know 7.0.5 (at least on Mac) has been working well. Please let me know the exact specs so I can try to recreate the problem.

We have also tested the library in Reaper, Logic 9 and X and Digital Performer -all worked as it should.

I'm out on the wedding later today, so for once there might be slight delay in my replies 

Cheers Ondrej


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## playz123 (Aug 3, 2013)

quantum7 @ Fri Aug 02 said:


> Having fun and starting to get used to it, but I am having a strange problem which may be a bug with Cubase 7.05 and UVI together. I cannot enter numerical data for the copy/paste functions since UVI itself ignores my computer's keyboard altogether. Very strange! Also, I am having other weird bugs and crashed with Cubase 7.05 & UVI together (crashing, freezing, etc.). I just do not know whether it is Cubase or UVI....or the both together that is causing the mayhem. I'm sure we'll get it sorted out, though. :D



Mac OS 10.8.4, Cubase 7.0.5, no crashes, able to enter values in Copy etc. and keyboard works fine. My only real concern is the extremely slow loading time for a patch. UVI needs a batch resave type function (if it has one I didn't find it).


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## Virharmonic (Aug 4, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague UVI powered v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on-NOW $299 for a month-English lyrics video ad*

Hi Frank,

Thank you for the confirmation. Can you please email us your system specs and loading time with the preset name you are loading? Are you loading it of the indexed soundbanks or always browsing for it? My loading of a full preset never exceeds 3.5 mins on a 7200 rpm and is significantly faster on SSD hence the details request. It will help us to provide you with extra help in speeding it up.

Batch ReSave is unnecessary as the library is already converted into UFS so there is no need for this feature.

Few tips I can think of for speeding up the loading time: 

Root the library in your soundbanks (ie index it as shown in our installation video), then load it from the soundbanks only, not by browsing.
The library should always be placed onto a dedicated sample drive.
Use MicsOff preset - loads very fast. Check your SATB link on the mixer screen and if the link is set to "all" you simply click on any mic button, you can leave it loading in the background and work on your other instruments. We have included these presets for those who prefer to have some sort of background loading until it is native in UVI.

In any case Frank if we can be of any assistance give us a shout and I or Alex will do our best to help


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## mk282 (Aug 4, 2013)

playz123 @ 4.8.2013 said:


> UVI needs a batch resave type function (if it has one I didn't find it).



Hmmm, no. That wouldn't help. The only reason batch resave is used in Kontakt to sometimes speed up loading of patches is for two reasons:

1. When NI introduced background loading, you had to resave older patches to make them work properly with background loading.

2. When NI changed the file format to binary (K4.2+), you had to resave older patches to gain the benefit of faster loading due to enhanced file format.


Since UVI doesn't have this, batch resave wouldn't help them. But they COULD implement background loading, indeed. Nobody would object that, I suspect. 


Sorry VH for jumping into your thread again, I just wanted to make this info clear.


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## Virharmonic (Aug 4, 2013)

Hi mk282,

Thank you for explaining the reasons behind using Batch Save and it' benefits. You are always welcomed to chip in with relevant posts. I just didn't want the discussion to go off topic 

We are asking for the background loading to be introduced, but as you know it is not simple feature to implement. I'm sure it will come sooner or later  

Guys, if you need help with anything regarding our product or have pre purchase questions, just give us a mail and as our existing customers know already, you will get reply pretty much straight away and if I'm asleep you might have to wait 6 hours ( That is about the max I manage not to work  ) We are here to help and me or Alex will always answer your question or resolve your issue.

From 19th August I will leave the reigns to Alex completely as I'll be off for 2 weeks of recording our 3rd product... 14 days - 12-14hour a day  We'll post some pictures and updates on the site about this.

We are also putting finishing touches to our next library.

Cheers Ondrej


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## playz123 (Aug 4, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague UVI powered v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on-NOW $299 for a month-English lyrics video ad*

Hi Ondrej,
Thank you very much for your kind and thoughtful reply to my comment above. I should have made it clearer that I didn't consider loading times to be a major problem, but when compared with other Kontakt libraries, VoP patches do seem to take a lot more time to load. However, when you mentioned that "My loading of a full preset never exceeds 3.5 mins", well that confirmed that the times I'm experiencing are similar and that therefore they should be considered to be "normal". I guess I really don't have a "problem" at all.  While it still seems a long time to me, obviously it's also what I should expect with this library. In any case, the end result is definitely worth the wait.

I also understand your point about the library already being in UFS format and therefore not requiring batch resave. One file like that is very different than libraries where Instrument files are separate from sample files.

*****************
*mk282*, I don't want to change the direction of this thread, so will only offer a brief comment, but I suggest that batch resave remains useful and beneficial for more than just "older patches". In fact most libraries that we are downloading today benefit greatly from running batch resave after the download, even if they were treated similarly at the source. One immediately notices the difference in loading times. All I'm saying is that batch resave is still very useful and is not only for older patches, as it seems you are suggesting in your message. In any case, all of this is a moot point when discussing VoP now.


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## lucky909091 (Aug 4, 2013)

Very well done library.Compliments.
But UVi is a no-go for me. 
So I will wait until this library is imported to Kontakt 5.


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## playz123 (Aug 4, 2013)

lucky909091 @ Sun Aug 04 said:


> Very well done library.Compliments.
> But UVi is a no-go for me.
> So I will wait until this library is imported to Kontakt 5.



Actually, the first version of the library was in Kontakt, but it has now been moved to UVI (for reasons discussed in another thread). So guess it's best you go back in time rather than wait for the future.


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## mk282 (Aug 5, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague UVI powered v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on-NOW $299 for a month-English lyrics video ad*



playz123 @ 4.8.2013 said:


> *mk282*, I don't want to change the direction of this thread, so will only offer a brief comment, but I suggest that batch resave remains useful and beneficial for more than just "older patches". In fact most libraries that we are downloading today benefit greatly from running batch resave after the download, even if they were treated similarly at the source. One immediately notices the difference in loading times. All I'm saying is that batch resave is still very useful and is not only for older patches, as it seems you are suggesting in your message. In any case, all of this is a moot point when discussing VoP now.



There is one caveat with batch resave that might be considered a bug, or at least an unwanted behaviour, and that is if it's done on a Mac, it won't have an effect if you load the NKIs resaved on Mac on the PC, and vice versa. I've just been notified by a colleague of mine about this.

This was at least case with K4, not sure if it was fixed in K5.


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## Virharmonic (Aug 5, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague UVI powered v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on-NOW $299 for a month-English lyrics video ad*

Hi Lucky,

Frank is right. The library was originally on Kontakt, but there were functions we couldn't realise in Kontakt so we have switched to UVI. We have no plans on releasing Kontakt port of this library as it is impossible to do. 

UVI is a free sample player and the library is powered. You don't need MachFive or any other sampler to run it.


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## quantum7 (Aug 7, 2013)

I finally got UVI to accept values from my computer's keyboard, but only when I click off "always on top". Very strange! I hate to admit, but the 6 minute waiting time for everything to load up with UVI is painful....since I'm so used to a very quick load-up with Kontakt. With Kontakt I am up and running with VoP in under 30 seconds. I'm so very sorry to have to say that I'm not happy with UVI right now....VoP I love to death.....just not quite happy yet with using it with UVI. I very much want to like it.....especially since I spent money on several other UVI libraries last year, but haven't used them because UVI has not been as fun to work with as Kontakt is. I promise to give it a chance, though, because luckily I won't be starting a new project requiring VoP for a few more months... and perhaps UVI will be updated some more by then.

On a positive note- Great job with the improvements with VoP 1.5. As UVI progresses I can see VoP becoming even more easier to work with in my future projects. VoP is one of only 2 sample libraries I've ever mentioned in my album's liner notes- that's how much I appreciate VoP. :D


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## Virharmonic (Aug 8, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague UVI powered v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on-NOW $299 for a month-English lyrics video ad*

Hi Sean,

Thank you very much for the kind words about VoP. We do listen to all the feedback and let me try to help you a bit with UVI version setup.

The UVI version is superior to the old version in almost every way. Excluding the loading time as UVI doesn't have Background loading. The loading time should be about 3.5 mins for full all microphone load on normal HDD and around one minute on SSD(6 mins is excessive, so please give me a shout via here or email and I will try to go over your settings to make sure that it is setup correctly. As Frank pointed above he has loading time around 3.5 min)
The 3.5 min loading time gets back to you pretty much straight away by using the copy/paste between the voice group functions as retyping text is something which was quite time consuming. By the steps not being limited you can run everything on one instance so again this should save some time and finally the new polylegato is much simpler to use so not so much editing in the DAW is required. Those are just few of the new time saving features. I agree that until UVI introduces background loading it will take longer for you to start playing with it, but once you start playing it should then save you a lot of time  More than 3 minutes for sure.

And please keep in mind that when Kontakt instance loads it hasn't actually completed the loading. It loads purged and only then starts loading the Ram (which in case of VoP v1 takes around 3-4 min) If you want to load purged with VoP just select one of the presets Mics Off and once it is loaded (around 30 secs) click on any of the mics (SATB link is set to All) and all mics will start loading. During this time you can continue writing for your other instruments. This is a small workaround until UVI introduces background loading.

Sean if you need anything from us, just give us a shout. I and Alex are here to help with any setup questions and we know that it is quite different from Kontakt so don't hesitate to get in touch.

Congratulations on your CD and Thank you very much for Crediting our library. It is an honour


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## Virharmonic (Aug 8, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague UVI powered v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on-NOW $299 for a month-English lyrics video ad*

And here is a video showcase/Tutorial of our Brand New Advanced Poly-legato. You decide which voice connects to which voice, but still enjoy live performance :D


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## quantum7 (Aug 8, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague UVI powered v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on-NOW $299 for a month-English lyrics video ad*



Virharmonic @ Thu Aug 08 said:


> Hi Sean,
> 
> Thank you very much for the kind words about VoP. We do listen to all the feedback and let me try to help you a bit with UVI version setup.
> 
> ...



Thank you Ondrej!  I just tried it again with my lowly 7200 RPM drive and it took over 7 minutes to load the "Brighter Full Load". Hmmm.....must be some issues going on. I then transferred the lib to my more speedy 10,000 RPM Raptor drive and the time was much better at almost exactly 3 minutes. I definitely plan on going all SSD drives by early next year, which I am guessing will make things go at lightening speed hopefully. 

Thanks for the great poly legato video you just posted. very helpful!


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## playz123 (Aug 8, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague UVI powered v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on-NOW $299 for a month-English lyrics video ad*

Hi Sean,
Yes, the speed of the drive does make a huge difference. My numbers agree with yours. For fun I tested loading from a 7200 rpm drive this afternoon, and loading time for the full stage patch was 6 minutes and 30 seconds. From a faster drive it's 3 minutes and 40 seconds. I have not tested from an SSD drive yet, but as you said that should speed up loading times significantly. Nevertheless all times seem longer than I would have expected. Cheers.


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## organix (Aug 9, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague UVI powered v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on-NOW $299 for a month-English lyrics video ad*

For a long time I've searched for an alternative to the old but good East West's Symphonic Choir. Many other choir libs were released in the last years, but no one could beat the EWQLSC, because of their wordbuilder functionality. 

All other attempts to integrate something like a wordbuilder fails in my opinion. Some of them have a nice sound and better legato as EWQLSC, like Requiem for example, but their possibilities to build own words were too limited.

The first version of VoP was a good attempted, but failed in my opinion on too many minor problems and functionality. 

Maybe it's due the limitation of Kontakt's script engine to create a good worbuilder.

Now with version 1.5 on UVI it seems that this could be the first choir library on the market to replace the good old EWQLSC. 

Currently, I do not know UVI is better or worse as Kontakt. From what I heard is, that the quality on effects are far better in UVI as in Kontakt.
What I know from some work with MachFive-3 is, that the streaming engine is not as good as in Kontakt.

I'll give VoP a try, because in my opinion it's currently the only one alternative to my good old EW choir, but with some more nice features like a legato engine.

-Markus


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## Virharmonic (Aug 15, 2013)

*Re: Voices of Prague UVI powered v1.5 is HERE - Special Celebration sale on-NOW $299 for a month-English lyrics video ad*

Hi Guys,

Thank you so much for all the kind words and we are glad to hear that VoP v1.5 is working great. We had a lot of fun developing it and soon it will have other family members 

The sale ends 31st August so last two weeks to save $100


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## Virharmonic (Aug 27, 2013)




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