# Eric Whitacre Choir



## jneebz (Oct 25, 2018)

https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/promotions/eric-whitacre-choir/

$449 Intro Price until November 8th, $599 thereafter.


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## teammwrp (Oct 25, 2018)

Shade thrown.






.....


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Oct 25, 2018)

Two things I don't like: pianos and choirs.


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## jneebz (Oct 25, 2018)

It sounds FREAKING AMAZING. And an EVO grid....


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## KerrySmith (Oct 25, 2018)

It sounds lovely. But thankfully it just sounds (in the demos and walkthrough) lovely (and niche as a result). If it were a solid all-in-one, it would be harder to resist.


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## zimm83 (Oct 25, 2018)

KerrySmith said:


> It sounds lovely. But thankfully it just sounds (in the demos and walkthrough) lovely (and niche as a result). If it were a solid all-in-one, it would be harder to resist.


It has the same sound as Time Macro's choir. ......
+ the beautiful legatos.....But ....


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## quantum7 (Oct 25, 2018)

Holy crap!!! Man, I just bought a Moog One 16-voice, so how does Spitfire expect me now to come up with another $400+???  Sounds very nice though, for the few minutes that I've watched the walkthrough so far.


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## givemenoughrope (Oct 25, 2018)

Paradigm Shift II: Acoustic Boogaloo

Sounds good! My poor wallet...


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## jneebz (Oct 25, 2018)

KerrySmith said:


> If it were a solid all-in-one


You mean more "epic" sounding...or...?


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## reutunes (Oct 25, 2018)

Expect to hear TV show cues drenched in mournful choirs over the next few months.


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## quantum7 (Oct 25, 2018)

Wow! I'm hearing a sound reminiscent from the movie, The Abyss....one of my favorite movie choir pieces.


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## theStyg (Oct 25, 2018)

It sounds real nice, but trying to determine whether it's worth the $450 on top of my current choir selection: Dominus, Oceania, Olympus, Requiem Light.


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## quantum7 (Oct 25, 2018)

"Intimate, emotional, and spiritual" choirs are exactly what I like. I rarely have ever used Epic choirs personally.


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## Virtuoso (Oct 25, 2018)

Sounds fantastic, particularly the Evos, but no phrase builder? It's 165GB of mostly Ahhhs and Mmmms..!

Still buying it though!


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## reutunes (Oct 25, 2018)

theStyg said:


> It sounds real nice, but trying to determine whether it's worth the $450 on top of my current choir selection: Dominus, Oceania, Olympus, Requiem Light.



I think that depends on the harmonic content of your work. In the demos I can hear some lovely realism in the chordal work but things seem to get a little muddled when there’s lots of movement going on.


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## KerrySmith (Oct 25, 2018)

jneebz said:


> You mean more "epic" sounding...or...?


Partly "epic". If I was thinking about what I'd like to have as far as choirs go, there's be this Whitacre approach, some bombastic "epic" Instruments, a big Baltic/Slavic Bass Choir, and a good Children's Choir (with Boy's Choir) ala the AudioBro one. I'm patch-working everything together already in that way, but it would be nice/interesting to have it all as one package, with a unified room environment.


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## quantum7 (Oct 25, 2018)

theStyg said:


> It sounds real nice, but trying to determine whether it's worth the $450 on top of my current choir selection: Dominus, Oceania, Olympus, Requiem Light.



I own Dominus, Insolidus, & Silka, so I also have to decide if Spitfire's beautiful choirs are something I should spend the money on right now. In the long run though, I assume I'll not be able to help myself and pick this up.


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## theStyg (Oct 25, 2018)

quantum7 said:


> I own Dominus, Insolidus, & Silka, so I also have to decide if Spitfire's beautiful choirs are something I should spend the money on right now. In the long run though, I assume I'll not be able to help myself and pick this up.


If anything I'd like something with a lot of potential rhythmic texture (Silka caught my ear for that reason), so would be curious to see somebody give their thoughts on whether this is of better value than Silka/Insolidus specifically.


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## CT (Oct 25, 2018)

quantum7 said:


> "Intimate, emotional, and spiritual" choirs are exactly what I like. I rarely have ever used Epic choirs personally.



Exactly. 

I'm all over this one!


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## Lee Blaske (Oct 25, 2018)

Looks REALLY good. Just bought it, and waiting for my download info. This is going to be a real treat under the fingers.

It will be interesting to see how ubiquitous the Eric Whitacre choir sound becomes over the next year or so. I am very happy to have it, though. I wonder if in retrospect, Eric Whitacre will consider this to have been a good career move or not. Will it increase the demand for the real Eric Whitacre choir, or will it make the sound become passé (in a similar manner to the way the East West choir VIs made the whole Orff Carmina Burana Latin choir thing overused and tired)? Time will tell, but the best way to keep whatever it is that you do valuable is to keep it rare.


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## KerrySmith (Oct 25, 2018)

KerrySmith said:


> Partly "epic". If I was thinking about what I'd like to have as far as choirs go, there's be this Whitacre approach, some bombastic "epic" Instruments, a big Baltic/Slavic Bass Choir, and a good Children's Choir (with Boy's Choir) ala the AudioBro one. I'm patch-working everything together already in that way, but it would be nice/interesting to have it all as one package, with a unified room environment.



EWC is very, very nice for what it is. I think the hype leading up to it's release had me (and I suspect plenty of others) hoping (without justification) for something more complete. The whole marketing-leadup-event-launch paradigm that's been emerging is starting to scramble my brain and probably create a backlash. I prefer not to get my hopes up on products before I can discover them on their own merits - like the Emotional Violin, which (to me) came out of (relatively) nowhere, and has been surprisingly delightful to get to know.


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## Lee Blaske (Oct 25, 2018)

BTW, before this was released, I was wondering if this was going to be different enough from EW Hollywood Choirs, 8Dio Emperium/Titan, etc. (all good products). After watching Paul Thompson's video, I'm very much convinced it is quite different, and does not duplicate the things I already own.


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## CT (Oct 25, 2018)

Lee Blaske said:


> Looks REALLY good. Just bought it, and waiting for my download info. This is going to be a real treat under the fingers.
> 
> It will be interesting to see how ubiquitous the Eric Whitacre choir sound becomes over the next year or so. I am very happy to have it, though. I wonder if in retrospect, Eric Whitacre will consider this to have been a good career move or not. Will it increase the demand for the real Eric Whitacre choir, or will it make the sound become passé (in a similar manner to the way the East West choir VIs made the whole Orff Carmina Burana Latin choir thing overused and tired)? Time will tell, but the best way to keep whatever it is that you do valuable is to keep it rare.



I could see the *sound* becoming overused, but to actually use the sound well requires a more scarce kind of skill, so I don't think Eric is in any danger. 

As for me, I can't quite fit it in the budget yet, which is killing me, but it's inevitable. Choral music is a big part of my musical heritage, and Eric's in particular was really significant for me during some difficult periods. I likely wouldn't be who I am today without it. It's wonderful to have a choral VI which finally reflects all of that.


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## zolhof (Oct 25, 2018)

I'm listening to Paul's demo "Silver Locket" and this thing sounds bloody amazing! I particularly like the focused tone of the ensemble (22 singers), you can almost feel their breath. Today everything seems to be getting bigger and louder, and here they are, going smaller and intimate. I was wondering how this choir would hold up against the competition but no other library sounds like that. 

Congratulations, @Spitfire Team


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## Lee Blaske (Oct 25, 2018)

KerrySmith said:


> EWC is very, very nice for what it is. I think the hype leading up to it's release had me (and I suspect plenty of others) hoping (without justification) for something more complete. The whole marketing-leadup-event-launch paradigm that's been emerging is starting to scramble my brain and probably create a backlash. I prefer not to get my hopes up on products before I can discover them on their own merits - like the Emotional Violin, which (to me) came out of (relatively) nowhere, and has been surprisingly delightful to get to know.



I think we all hope for something super-extraordinary, but I'm satisfied regarding what this appears to be at the price being asked. A word builder certainly would have been great, but honestly, I couldn't imagine SF locking down this very busy choir in a studio for the insane amount of time it would have taken to get that. That would be a very tedious task, and might have driven them nuts in the process. It sounds like what we got is Eric Whitacre's choir actually performing.


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## Seycara (Oct 25, 2018)

Sounds great for atmosphere composers. But I couldn't help but notice legatos were glossed over fairly quickly and were not very impressive. I feel like with the release of their studio strings, Spitfire is gravitating away from industry leading legatos and going more towards atmosphere/sound design tools which seem to be the bulk of their demos.


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## Lionel Schmitt (Oct 25, 2018)

Seycara said:


> Sounds great for atmosphere composers. But I couldn't help but notice legatos were glossed over fairly quickly and were not very impressive. I feel like with the release of their studio strings, Spitfire is gravitating away from industry leading legatos and going more towards atmosphere/sound design tools which seem to be the bulk of their demos.


HZ strings legato is pretty bad. Some if it is decent, but some of it also almost unusable. So, there is reason for caution regarding the legatos.
Hope they are good. It always sucks if great samples are being screwed because of bad legato.

EDIT:
Here legatos are heavily featured and sound mostly pretty good. Great in the lower dynamics and a bit bumpy here and there in the higher dynamics.


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## ka00 (Oct 25, 2018)

Quick, I need a few more of vi-c's infamous toxic critiques if I'm going to stand a chance of not buying this library within the next few minutes.


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## jneebz (Oct 25, 2018)

KerrySmith said:


> Partly "epic". If I was thinking about what I'd like to have as far as choirs go, there's be this Whitacre approach, some bombastic "epic" Instruments, a big Baltic/Slavic Bass Choir, and a good Children's Choir (with Boy's Choir) ala the AudioBro one. I'm patch-working everything together already in that way, but it would be nice/interesting to have it all as one package, with a unified room environment.


Ah, gotcha. I’m assuming the cost of such an endeavor is prohibitive...


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## fahl5 (Oct 25, 2018)

Sorry I dont want to disturb the party, but what exactly for should I need another Ah/Ooh/Oh/MMM choir? I haven't heard yet anthing that outstanding 

On the other Hand I wonder how different a that much more powerful like Hollywood Choir was received here and evoked here so much negative excitement. 
Sorry but for me there are already great Choirs with and without any Wording available. (VSL has at least different consonants in addition to Ah and Uh and is excellent in its sound).
In short, I simply do not understand what Spitfires Choir-swells shall have that much outstanding.


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## FinGael (Oct 25, 2018)

KerrySmith said:


> EWC is very, very nice for what it is. I think the hype leading up to it's release had me (and I suspect plenty of others) hoping (without justification) for something more complete. The whole marketing-leadup-event-launch paradigm that's been emerging is starting to scramble my brain and probably create a backlash. I prefer not to get my hopes up on products before I can discover them on their own merits - like the Emotional Violin, which (to me) came out of (relatively) nowhere, and has been surprisingly delightful to get to know.



I feel much the same way. Have liked many Whitacre's choir pieces a lot during the years, but felt a little empty after watching the walkthrough. I think I will give it a little time, but probably will eventually skip buying it. The library sounded very good. Congratulations to Spitfire Audio for the new product, which seems to be a solid library.

Also planning to buy the Emotional Violin and don't like the hype marketing, but still had dreams (first time of a sample library - heh!) last night about the upcoming Strezov library; have a strong feeling that it is something that I have waited for - without knowing it. The trailer sounded like honey to my ears. 

Hmm. Was pondering that I already have a bunch of choir libraries; maybe a time to have some fun and create a little custom vocal library to expand the palette. Could use my own voice and have 3-4 fine singers available...


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## Ian Dorsch (Oct 25, 2018)

It all is just about exactly what I hoped it would be, although I agree that I'd like to hear more of the legatos before I make the jump.

The other thing that gives me pause is the Spitfire player, vs. Kontakt. It seems like there's been a somewhat rocky history with Spitfire's software and Windows 7 compatibility, so I'm very interested in hearing some boots-on-the-ground user impressions on stability and reliability in Win7.


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## CT (Oct 25, 2018)

Paul Saunderson's demo is deeply impressive. I got a little choked up by it.

Ok, obviously I am a tad more emotionally invested here than everyone else. But this, to me, is what virtual instruments are all about.


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## playz123 (Oct 25, 2018)

I've waited a long time for this, and Paul's walkthrough and playing have convinced me the wait has been worth it. Purchased! No, no Word Builder or Kontakt interface etc., but do I care? No I don't. As Reuben suggested, expect to hear a lot of Whitacre choir-drenched music in the days ahead. I'm guessing this may be one of Spitfire's most popular releases ever.


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## Lee Blaske (Oct 25, 2018)

miket said:


> I could see the *sound* becoming overused, but to actually use the sound well requires a more scarce kind of skill, so I don't think Eric is in any danger.



I have no doubt that there will be people who will get mediocre results out of this VI, but I do think there are a lot of people who have the compositional and arranging skills needed to get great results.

FWIW, it's interesting to listen to the first batch of demos from Spitfire. Paul Thompson really uses it expertly. Christians's demo its also very good. Some of the others, though, sound like a synth pad is being played (and that's fine... people will use it however they wish). Paul's demo, though, realistically sounds like something a choir might do, and he's very careful about entrances and exits. Real choirs don't fade in from absolutely nothing, or tail out to absolutely nothing (especially on a timbre that would take a fair amount of breath support). Absolutely smooth to nothing tails on sustained notes (which are possible on a VI) are going to sound fake.


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## Geoff Grace (Oct 25, 2018)

ka00 said:


> Anyone know if you can lengthen the releases on samples with the SA player? Sometimes sounds too abrupt for me.
> 
> I know can tweak that with Kontakt using the wrench and digging into the modulation effects section. But anyone who owns HZS for example know if you have that control in the Spitfire player?
> 
> Thanks


If no one answers this question, you may be able to find out with no financial investment by downloading one of the new Spitfire Labs libraries, which have the same player. 

Best,

Geoff


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## MillsMixx (Oct 25, 2018)

Hmmmmm. I was bubbling up with excitement watching the Facebook live chat with Eric Whitacre and have been waiting for this too as I'm a big choir lover. So much that I even dropped it in my cart for checkout right away, but when I switched over to watch Paul's walk through and saw that it was not in Kontakt but in their player and I'm a little bit hesitate at this time to checkout.

It doesn't mean I won't but I'm gonna see how others feel and react to this before I hit the purchase button. The Evo's just might rope me in though. Similar to the LABS interface I actually prefer the older lab Kontakt versions and have had less headaches in that environment with installation, upgrades, and the actual interface itself than the Spitfire one. 

The choir does sound beautiful and congrats to Eric and the Spitfire team for the release.


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## ka00 (Oct 25, 2018)

Geoff Grace said:


> If no one answers this question, you may be able to find out with no financial investment by downloading one of the new Spitfire Labs libraries, which have the same player.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Geoff



Smart, Geoff! I just downloaded the manual and it seems there is a release control. Thanks!


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## SpitfireSupport (Oct 25, 2018)

ka00 said:


> Anyone know if you can lengthen the releases on samples with the SA player? Sometimes sounds too abrupt for me.
> 
> I know can tweak that with Kontakt using the wrench and digging into the modulation effects section. But anyone who owns HZS for example know if you have that control in the Spitfire player?
> 
> Thanks



Yep, have a look at 2:18 in the first video on this page: https://www.spitfireaudio.com/how-it-works/eric-whitacre-choir/


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## Mason (Oct 25, 2018)

As someone who have just become a big fan of the evos this is perfect, and you can do things with this choir that no other choral libs can do. The longs also sound better than any other libs I’ve heard. Much thanks to the singers of course.


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## Virtuoso (Oct 25, 2018)

Downloading at a snail's pace - 20Mbps. I have Gigabit internet. 

I don't know why this is always the case with Spitfire - I can download in a flash from NI and any of the developers using Continuata, but Spitfire downloads often take many hours or even days.


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## Seycara (Oct 25, 2018)

DarkestShadow said:


> HZ strings legato is pretty bad. Some if it is decent, but some of it also almost unusable. So, there is reason for caution regarding the legatos.
> Hope they are good. It always sucks if great samples are being screwed because of bad legato.
> 
> EDIT:
> Here legatos are heavily featured and sound mostly pretty good. Great in the lower dynamics and a bit bumpy here and there in the higher dynamics.




Those mf/ff transitions are very bumpy and imo does not compare to what else is available. Somewhat disappointed that this is what they have to offer.

This can still be a beautiful library, just not for my uses which are more enveloped with traditional choral contexts.


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## SpitfireSupport (Oct 25, 2018)

Virtuoso said:


> Downloading at a snail's pace - 20Mbps. I have Gigabit internet.
> 
> I don't know why this is always the case with Spitfire - I can download in a flash from NI and any of the developers using Continuata, but Spitfire downloads often take many hours or even days.



If nothing changes please do contact us at spitfireaudio.com/support. It’s only by investigating individual cases that we can improve things - we might even be able to speed up your download right there and then.


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## StillLife (Oct 25, 2018)

The demo's and walkthrough sounds lovely. To me, it's a pitty it is not NKS compatible, though. With such a big library, I would really like to have the possibility to quickly browse nki's from my NI keyboard, and see the different EVO zones colored at the keys themselves. Works great with Symphonic Evolutions, for instance.


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## Geoff Grace (Oct 25, 2018)

@SpitfireSupport, thank you for continuing to stop in and provide your input. It is greatly appreciated!

Best,

Geoff


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## emasters (Oct 25, 2018)

SpitfireSupport said:


> If nothing changes please do contact us at spitfireaudio.com/support. It’s only by investigating individual cases that we can improve things - we might even be able to speed up your download right there and then.



My download started out fine, but is now crawling along. Will take days to download at this rate...


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## josephspirits (Oct 25, 2018)

Really enjoyed the interview with Eric. It sounds like there will be a small labs version of the library for people to try out and score the desert video for a contest, but I don't see that mentioned anywhere else yet (watch the last few minutes of the "Behind the samples" video). I hope that happens!


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## artomatic (Oct 25, 2018)

Always wanted a non epic choir and this fits the bill for me.
Well done, Eric and @Spitfire Team ! Downloading, steady @52 Mbps.

- and yet another Black Friday budget eater


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## Virtuoso (Oct 25, 2018)

SpitfireSupport said:


> If nothing changes please do contact us at spitfireaudio.com/support. It’s only by investigating individual cases that we can improve things - we might even be able to speed up your download right there and then.


Thanks! It's still crawling along so I've submitted a ticket.


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## ka00 (Oct 25, 2018)

Geoff Grace said:


> @SpitfireSupport, thank you for continuing to stop in and provide your input. It is greatly appreciated!
> 
> Best,
> 
> Geoff



Geoff,

Please don’t ever stop these classy and considerate posts of yours, which I’ve lovingly dubbed “Grace Notes”.

Btw, I just ordered the library! No snow tires again this year it seems.


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## Geoff Grace (Oct 25, 2018)

playz123 said:


> No, no Word Builder or Kontakt interface etc., but do I care? No I don't.


I don't either.

Word Builder impresses me as an innovation; but after struggling with it for 15 cues back when _EWQLSC_ was released, I ultimately decided that—for me, at least—it was more trouble than it was worth. I realize the feature has improved a bit in more recent libraries; but I don't believe it's become a breeze to use, even now. 

Of course, YMMV.

Best,

Geoff


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## Iskra (Oct 25, 2018)

Just for the passion Eric Whitacre shows in his chat with Christian I would pay 3K for this library. His passion for the human voice hits you through the screen.
Gotta love that man.


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## Geoff Grace (Oct 25, 2018)

Thanks so much for your kind words, @ka00!

Best,

Geoff


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## BradHoyt (Oct 25, 2018)

In deciding to purchase, the Evos may be the X-Factor...


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## playz123 (Oct 25, 2018)

Geoff Grace said:


> If no one answers this question, you may be able to find out with no financial investment by downloading one of the new Spitfire Labs libraries, which have the same player.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Geoff


Geoff, just in case you missed it, the full manual for the choir is available on the main page for the library on the Spitfire site. No purchase is required to download it, nor does one have to refer to Lab manuals for info. "Release" is indeed covered in the choir manual.


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## Nao Gam (Oct 25, 2018)

quantum7 said:


> Holy crap!!! Man, I just bought a Moog One 16-voice, so how does Spitfire expect me now to come up with another $400+???  Sounds very nice though, for the few minutes that I've watched the walkthrough so far.


You only turn 50 once amiright?



reutunes said:


> I think that depends on the harmonic content of your work. In the demos I can hear some lovely realism in the chordal work but things seem to get a little muddled when there’s lots of movement going on.


I think big block chords especially with lots of extra reverb can sound muddy, keeping just the AIR sound can help..?



Lee Blaske said:


> Looks REALLY good. Just bought it, and waiting for my download info. This is going to be a real treat under the fingers.
> 
> It will be interesting to see how ubiquitous the Eric Whitacre choir sound becomes over the next year or so. I am very happy to have it, though. I wonder if in retrospect, Eric Whitacre will consider this to have been a good career move or not. Will it increase the demand for the real Eric Whitacre choir, or will it make the sound become passé (in a similar manner to the way the East West choir VIs made the whole Orff Carmina Burana Latin choir thing overused and tired)? Time will tell, but the best way to keep whatever it is that you do valuable is to keep it rare.


Probably increase the demand, he's a big name. Also I feel the Carmina Burana thing took off mostly because of trailer music, what I call the double bacon cheeseburger sound - overly saturated "epic" FF/FFF with the occasional pp and barely anything in between. This doesn't cater primarily to the epic market.



Seycara said:


> Those mf/ff transitions are very bumpy and imo does not compare to what else is available. Somewhat disappointed that this is what they have to offer.
> 
> This can still be a beautiful library, just not for my uses which are more enveloped with traditional choral contexts.


Keep in mind Paul likes using the expression slider along with dynamics. Maybe it's the programming?


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## Mike Fox (Oct 25, 2018)

Geoff Grace said:


> I don't either.
> 
> Word Builder impresses me as an innovation; but after struggling with it for 15 cues back when _EWQLSC_ was released, I ultimately decided that—for me, at least—it was more trouble than it was worth. I realize the feature has improved a bit in more recent libraries; but I don't believe it's become a breeze to use, even now.
> 
> ...


The novelty of a word builder is cool, but in actual application, it becomes a royal pain in the ass (as you've already pointed out). Remember the good old old days when the SC word builder wasn't even integrated into the GUI? It was like a second plugin or something screwy like that.


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## Øyvind Moe (Oct 25, 2018)

Some great sounds and colors in there. I was kind of hoping they'd managed to convince Eric to write a demo track, but I guess you can't have everything ...


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## ism (Oct 25, 2018)

Wow. And you know, I’m loving the graphics of this - the deserts and the talk of open skies and large spaces and the warm colour palettes.

But if you were to rename all the demos things like “ode or a glacier’’, or “27 more names for snow” and closed your eyes and thought of fijords or something while you listened, it would Work be just as brilliantly.

Nothing against the dessert imagery though. Just sorry it won’t be joining the scandi bundle.


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## JEPA (Oct 25, 2018)

I have to say in my humble opinion this is the BEST concept library yet of Spitfire Audio from what i hear from the demos. This is choir postmodern sound to my ears. Bravo! Really nice! Must start to save pennies...

i have only one question: no shorts at all? Missed them on the specs.. or am i blind?


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## Bill the Lesser (Oct 25, 2018)

Seycara said:


> Sounds great for atmosphere composers. But I couldn't help but notice legatos were glossed over fairly quickly and were not very impressive. I feel like with the release of their studio strings, Spitfire is gravitating away from industry leading legatos and going more towards atmosphere/sound design tools which seem to be the bulk of their demos.


IMHO, string-like "legato" is not that important with choirs. Except maybe for "melisma" which is portamento on a held sound, sometimes rather extreme as is possible in Genesis. What matters (to my tastes) is what the transitions are like, and from what little I've heard they seem to have nailed it.

But yes, the whole industry is moving toward some vaguely "cinematic" concept that favors atmosphere/sound design as you aptly put it. I think the vision that is being cultivated among amateur users (where I put myself) is increasingly one of writing media scores and trailers, rather than symphonic-like things. The pros have long since had their main tools in place, it's primarily us newbies who are squirrel caging the sales machines now.

To climb down the cynical ladder a couple rungs, I do think EWC and most recent Spitfire releases still hold to a refreshingly pro standard, while being of genuine interest to the rest of us. Keep it up Spitfire, luv ya!

PS, anybody need some cool loops...?


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## Bill the Lesser (Oct 25, 2018)

ism said:


> Wow. And you know, I’m loving the graphics of this - the deserts and the talk of open skies and large spaces and the warm colour palettes.


Hah, I live under open skies in warm palettes in New Mexico's high desert at alpine elevations. While it is my chosen location, I find the English countryside exceptionally beautiful and would love to photograph there. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, sometimes literally.

Have to admit I'm still scratching my head a little on the Mojave paradigm, but OK...


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## curtisschweitzer (Oct 25, 2018)

Bill the Lesser said:


> Have to admit I'm still scratching my head a little on the Mojave paradigm, but OK...



Whitacre is from Nevada. Don't know if that's why, but it does fit.


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## ka00 (Oct 25, 2018)

ism said:


> Wow. And you know, I’m loving the graphics of this - the deserts and the talk of open skies and large spaces and the warm colour palettes.



And I just noticed the banners with the wind turbines. As in the power of air. Things that spin, as in revolutions/evolutions. Great visual execution indeed.


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## Phillip996 (Oct 25, 2018)

I just wish it had phrases. The textures are beautiful however. Just what I would expect of a Whitacre library


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## Vastman (Oct 25, 2018)

I've been away so maybe I missed something but why wasn't this posted in the commercial forum?


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## Virtuoso (Oct 25, 2018)

Meh. 4 1/2 hours later it's not even at 25%. Still crawling along at 22Mbps. I paused and ran a separate download test and got 768Mbps, so it's not the fault of the line. Is anyone else seeing better speeds?

I don't know whether they need to recode the app for multithreaded downloads (like Continuata) or just get a better hosting provider, but this is pathetic given the huge size of the libraries!


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## Paul Cardon (Oct 25, 2018)

Virtuoso said:


> Meh. 4 1/2 hours later it's not even at 25%. Still crawling along at 22Mbps. I paused and ran a separate download test and got 768Mbps, so it's not the fault of the line. Is anyone else seeing better speeds?
> 
> I don't know whether they need to recode the app for multithreaded downloads (like Continuata) or just get a better hosting provider, but this is pathetic given the huge size of the libraries!



Could depend on your location! I believe Spitfire uses Amazon servers to distribute libraries, so you're not downloading directly from Spitfire. You'd be downloading from a distributed server much closer to your geographical location, and that specific one you're connected to could be the bottleneck.

EDITED: Yup, Spitfire uses Amazon's Cloudfront. Maybe an issue with your local Cloudfront connection/server?


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## windyweekend (Oct 25, 2018)

fahl5 said:


> Sorry I dont want to disturb the party, but what exactly for should I need another Ah/Ooh/Oh/MMM choir? I haven't heard yet anthing that outstanding
> 
> On the other Hand I wonder how different a that much more powerful like Hollywood Choir was received here and evoked here so much negative excitement.
> Sorry but for me there are already great Choirs with and without any Wording available. (VSL has at least different consonants in addition to Ah and Uh and is excellent in its sound).
> In short, I simply do not understand what Spitfires Choir-swells shall have that much outstanding.


Bet the others you and I have got aren’t recorded in Air Lyndhurst though. Throw this with your HZS and SSO and you’ve got the closest anyone’s ever going to have to the real sounding deal...


----------



## ka00 (Oct 25, 2018)

Vastman said:


> I've been away so maybe I missed something but why wasn't this posted in the commercial forum?



My guess is that Spitfire have changed their engagement strategy vis-a-vis vi-control after experiencing what they saw as unfair and ill-informed criticism of some recent releases and marketing techniques (announcements of announcements, flashing banners, etc.).

Happened around the same time Paul started his informative YouTube channel and Spitfire upped their output of educational videos. Again, my guess is that this is part of an effort to shift the community discussion to youtube as well as to help people get more out of the libraries and clear up some FUD.

Also, just guessing, but it reduces the temptation to try to defend your product from attack if there's no official thread that you are invested in and which feels like it needs protecting. Not only does no one win in those back and forths, it has the effect of putting your critics on the same playing field as you, regardless of anyone's actual credentials.


----------



## windyweekend (Oct 25, 2018)

Geoff Grace said:


> I don't either.
> 
> Word Builder impresses me as an innovation; but after struggling with it for 15 cues back when _EWQLSC_ was released, I ultimately decided that—for me, at least—it was more trouble than it was worth. I realize the feature has improved a bit in more recent libraries; but I don't believe it's become a breeze to use, even now.
> 
> ...


I’m so glad they steered away from the word builder headache. Would have been a nightmare for them and us. Quality over Quantity is way more important in my book.


----------



## jneebz (Oct 25, 2018)

Vastman said:


> I've been away so maybe I missed something but why wasn't this posted in the commercial forum?


Hey sorry if I messed that up...just happened to see the website page was up and wanted to share ASAP.


----------



## windyweekend (Oct 25, 2018)

JEPA said:


> i have only one question: no shorts at all? Missed them on the specs.. or am i blind?


Shorts are included in the listed arts at the bottom of the product page


----------



## Geoff Grace (Oct 25, 2018)

jneebz said:


> Hey sorry if I messed that up...just happened to see the website page was up and wanted to share ASAP.


I don't believe we're supposed to start threads in the Commercial forum. If so, you did the right thing by starting it here.

Best,

Geoff


----------



## Quantum Leap (Oct 25, 2018)

teammwrp said:


> Shade thrown.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



What a silly comment that undermines a fantastic library from Spitfire. Nice to see something targets a particular sound and capability and nails it as far as I can tell. Obviously it is very different from what I did.


----------



## Virtuoso (Oct 25, 2018)

Paul Cardon said:


> Could depend on your location! I believe Spitfire uses Amazon servers to distribute libraries, so you're not downloading directly from Spitfire. You'd be downloading from a distributed server much closer to your geographical location, and that specific one you're connected to could be the bottleneck.
> 
> EDITED: Yup, Spitfire uses Amazon's Cloudfront. Maybe an issue with your local Cloudfront connection/server?


I'm in Seattle - most of my clients are big tech companies. I do video production, so my internet traffic averages 2-3TB a month, much of which is to/from companies also using AWS, but the only developer I have these glacial speeds with is Spitfire. I have no idea why. With a decent hosting provider this library should take around 30 mins to download, but it's actually looking like it's going to be >20 hours.


----------



## Geoff Grace (Oct 25, 2018)

ka00 said:


> My guess is that Spitfire has changed their engagement strategy vis-a-vis vi-control after experiencing what they saw as unfair and ill-informed criticism of some recent releases and marketing techniques (announcements of announcements, flashing banners, etc.).
> 
> Happened around the same time Paul started his informative YouTube channel and Spitfire upped their output of educational videos. Again, my guess is that this is part of an effort to shift the community discussion to youtube as well as to help people get more out of the libraries and clear up some FUD.
> 
> Also, just guessing, but it reduces the temptation to try to defend your product from attack if there's no official thread that you are invested in and which feels like needs protecting. Not only does no one win in those back and forths, it has the effect of putting your critics on the same playing field as you, regardless of anyone's actual credentials.


It certainly seems clear that Spitfire has decided to reduce—but not eliminate—its involvement here, while at the same time increasing its presence at YouTube.

Best,

Geoff


----------



## Geoff Grace (Oct 25, 2018)

Quantum Leap said:


> What a silly comment that undermines a fantastic library from Spitfire. Nice to see something targets a particular sound and capability and nails it as far as I can tell. Obviously it is very different from what I did.


I agree, and I'd like to add that's a gracious thing to say about a competing developer.

Best,

Geoff


----------



## sostenuto (Oct 25, 2018)

Geoff Grace said:


> It certainly seems clear that Spitfire has decided to reduce—but not eliminate—its involvement here, while at the same time increasing its presence at YouTube.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Geoff



IMHO, this would be a shame, as well as push me further toward paying more attention to alternate sources. This is a very active and open Forum, which provides a steady flow of worldwide opinions and perspectives. YT is terrific for what is does well, but loss of Spitfire Audio here seems a large, net loss for SF.

_Agree … was quite surprised to see initial post not made by SFA on COMMERCIAL Announcements._


----------



## Paul Cardon (Oct 25, 2018)

Virtuoso said:


> I'm in Seattle - most of my clients are big tech companies. I do video production, so my internet traffic averages 2-3TB a month, much of which is to/from companies also using AWS, but the only developer I have these glacial speeds with is Spitfire. I have no idea why. With a decent hosting provider this library should take around 30 mins to download, but it's actually looking like it's going to be >20 hours.



So when you use AWS and Cloudfront, you do subscribe to bandwidth tiers, and it's possible that Spitfire subscribes to a lower tier as, honestly, they're not pushing super massive amounts of data all the time, and their bandwidth limit might be constrained due to this release.

I'm down in LA and I normally get great speeds, and evidenced by the screenshot above, I'm maxing out my 100Mb/s download speeds today, so again, I don't think it's Spitfire themselves, rather the Cloudfront CDN.


----------



## Geoff Grace (Oct 25, 2018)

sostenuto said:


> IMHO, this would be a shame, as well as push me further toward paying more attention to alternate sources. This is a very active and open Forum, which provides a steady flow of worldwide opinions and perspectives. YT is terrific for what is does well, but loss of Spitfire Audio here seems a large, net loss for SF.
> Agree … was quite surprised to see initial post not made by SFA on COMMERCIAL Announcements.


As Spitfire posted in this thread just earlier today, I wouldn't go as far as to describe the situation as a "loss of Spitfire Audio here;" but I share your sentiment, *sostenuto*, that it would be great if they would ramp up their involvement at VI Control again.

Best,

Geoff


----------



## Vastman (Oct 25, 2018)

Geoff Grace said:


> It certainly seems clear that Spitfire has decided to reduce—but not eliminate—its involvement here, while at the same time increasing its presence at YouTube.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Geoff


Well, I'm glad I checked in today and visited THIS forum!
What an exciting choir. Love the personality and emotion... different from the typical religious mumbo jumbo and typical stuff cluttering my drives. This was an instant buy for me after listening to/watching the stuff on SA's site. Just got my download notification and had to download a NEW version on SA's downloader for it to appear... 

While I have acquired a ridiculous (and, in retrospect, foolish) amount of traditional orchestrals over the years I find myself gravitating to the Olafur's, Swarm, & Heavyocity's Forzo/Novo & OT's Time Macro & ARKs these days, being primarily a songwriter. It is a glorious moment to be a singer songwriter!

I'll be up all night at this rate but it's a great reason to pull an all nighter! Very excited.


----------



## D Halgren (Oct 25, 2018)

Virtuoso said:


> Meh. 4 1/2 hours later it's not even at 25%. Still crawling along at 22Mbps. I paused and ran a separate download test and got 768Mbps, so it's not the fault of the line. Is anyone else seeing better speeds?
> 
> I don't know whether they need to recode the app for multithreaded downloads (like Continuata) or just get a better hosting provider, but this is pathetic given the huge size of the libraries!


I'm seeing the same kind of speeds here in Portland. I've paused it and restarted, and seen it rise up to 50Mbps, but when I went back, it was back to 20-22ish. Ugh!!!


----------



## Vastman (Oct 25, 2018)

Geoff Grace said:


> As Spitfire posted in this thread just earlier today, I wouldn't go as far as to describe the situation as a "loss of Spitfire Audio here;" but I share your sentiment, *sostenuto*, that it would be great if they would ramp up their involvement at VI Control again.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Geoff


I agree. With one caveat...Post on release or when "real" info can be conveyed so we don't have 20 pages of speculation and wackamole mumbo jumbo before REAL discussions can begin! THIS got very old for me as time is precious these days. Mind you, I own nearly ALL Spitfire libraries but wading through a bunch of blather and speculation I did not enjoy although others might find it fun.

FWIW, I may have totally missed the intro of this had I not meandered into Sample Talk, which I seldom do these days. 

Glad I stopped by! Will be having a blast tonight, inspired by this lovely new creation... a choir full of subtle emotion, which I absolutely ADORE! Should blend nice with OT's Time macro choir and their Metropolis Choirs... I think now I'm set!


----------



## Vastman (Oct 25, 2018)

D Halgren said:


> I'm seeing the same kind of speeds here in Portland. I've paused it and restarted, and seen it rise up to 50Mbps, but when I went back it was back to 20-22ish. Ugh!!!


I'm in Coeur d'Alene Idaho on Spectrum and download speed is hovering between 44 and 51 Mbps here... Update: now down to 35 Mbps after a couple hours... only 33GBs downloaded so far...Oy!

TBH, I remember dial up so ain't gonna whine about it... just can't look forward to an all nighter of bliss as this rate...

maybe that china spy chip they hid in a lot of server boards is busy usurping Amazon's cloud at the moment... lot's of goodies stored there...


----------



## ka00 (Oct 25, 2018)

Vastman said:


> FWIW, I may have totally missed the intro of this had I not meandered into Sample Talk, which I seldom do these days.



Interesting. I browse vi-control uniquely by viewing the list of "Recent Posts" (and sometimes perusing "Member's Compositions").


----------



## heliosequence (Oct 25, 2018)

D Halgren said:


> I'm seeing the same kind of speeds here in Portland. I've paused it and restarted, and seen it rise up to 50Mbps, but when I went back, it was back to 20-22ish. Ugh!!!



I've got 28 in Portland right now... it's going to take a while.


----------



## JT (Oct 25, 2018)

Congrats to Spitfire & Eric Whitacre. It sounds like a winner to me. For those not familiar with Eric, besides choral music, he's also a wonderful orchestra and band composer. And for those who like to study scores and learn about vocal writing, much of his music is published and the choral pieces are just a couple bucks.


----------



## AllanH (Oct 25, 2018)

sostenuto said:


> IMHO, this would be a shame, as well as push me further toward paying more attention to alternate sources. This is a very active and open Forum, which provides a steady flow of worldwide opinions and perspectives. YT is terrific for what is does well, but loss of Spitfire Audio here seems a large, net loss for SF.
> 
> _Agree … was quite surprised to see initial post not made by SFA on COMMERCIAL Announcements._



It's a pity, but Spitfire seems to want to be in control of the narrative, and that's not the case here. Interestingly, Spitfire has yet to post in commercial announcements, so they are clearly "making a statement" regarding their participation. The choir sounds wonderful and worth the wait.


----------



## Bill the Lesser (Oct 25, 2018)

Bobbing up and down between 22 and 35 Mbps here, have tried stop/start a couple times to no avail. It'll probably jump up to 300Mbps on the last gigabyte in the wee hours of tomorrow. Here, let's try an experiment...everybody stop downloading except me...

Anyway, just looked at Paul's video for the first time. Lovin' that new EVO design! At long last it makes sense in relation to the keyboard. Nice to have the volume and pan on sliders. An ergonomist has been at play there. Would like to see the older EVOs updated to that scheme.

The sound is relatively dry on the closer mics! What a surprise. Or maybe I'm just not used to hearing choirs in that hall. I don't see any problems making that work with most anything I've got.


----------



## MillsMixx (Oct 25, 2018)

Sorry to hear about the slow downloads guys. I hope you get there!

I freakin' love this library. Hats off to Spitfire & Eric and I'm definitely going to buy it before the intro price ends.

I must say though as an owner of a lot of other choirs (and after listening to the demos and walkthroughs) I'm really not sure if I can't already achieve the same sort of sounds with a lot of the other choir offerings out there with a little FX & tweaking. What I'm hearing in the evolving textures in the evos are very subtle. 

In my experience if you drench a choir sample (from any library) in a lot of good reverb and keep it softer in the mix you can achieve some similar yet amazing results. It all tends to blend together as a glorious pad in an arrangement, especially if you team it up with some other evolving type textures.

I'm actually glad that they didn't do a word-builder. Listening to Eric's comments about that in the interview it makes sense. And for Epic Trailer stuff there's probably better choices out there. I mean legato schmegato right? What we're seeing here is more of a focus on atmospheric sound design which is the direction Spitfire seems to be pioneering and does so well with Chamber Evolutions, Swarms, etc.. 

While these sort of libraries are perfect for my own personal style and taste I'm struggling to weigh out "will it really add that much more to my already existing palette?" I was hoping for Kontakt but after seeing the "How it Works" section on the site I'm becoming a bit more intrigued.

I think where this library really stands out is in the singer's voices. They have a different unique tone then other libs out there and this is where Eric's signature shines. I wouldn't really call it a one trick pony as its two libraries in one for sure, but I feel the Evos are definitely the strong point, take more of the spotlight, and the gem of this collection.


----------



## Lee Blaske (Oct 25, 2018)

AllanH said:


> It's a pity, but Spitfire seems to want to be in control of the narrative, and that's not the case here. Interestingly, Spitfire has yet to post in commercial announcements, so they are clearly "making a statement" regarding their participation. The choir sounds wonderful and worth the wait.



I don't see them wanting to control the narrative as much as I see them not wanting to engage in combat, which is what they have to do if they regularly make appearances here. Why spend time confronting angry people with screen names when you may not have a clear picture of their motives and agenda? Spitfire is an amazingly responsive company. If you have a problem, you can have instantaneous communication with their tech support (at least, someone has always been there to immediately answer a question whenever I had one to ask). I think they're just choosing to take the high road.


----------



## windyweekend (Oct 25, 2018)

Am interested to hear from the early downloaders what the RAM situation is with this. Hans Zimmer Strings was a beast of a RAM and disk hog that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to use it for more than a layer tool (~500+MB for every single patch). If this one looks the same it might give me second thoughts. The HZS experience has definitely made me hesitant in this until I’ve heard some experiences. 

Would be really grateful for some insights from those brave enough to dive in altready.

Thanks!


----------



## Mucusman (Oct 25, 2018)

MillsMixx said:


> I think where this library really stands out is in the singer's voices. They have a different unique tone then other libs out there and this is where Eric's signature shines.



This. 

And... while this is indeed lovely -- and unique -- I was hoping that this library might better approach what they are clearly saying it does _not _do -- nudge further towards replacing a live choir. In my choir mock-up attempts, oohs and ahs can only go so far; I was hoping for more of a word building approach. But that's just me. I can see how their offering fits a certain niche, but this niche isn't one that I feel compelled to open my wallet to enjoy. So my wallet, at least for now, is giving a sigh of relief.

I've been eyeing some other choirs available but have been waiting to see what Spitfire was going to offer. Not to take away from what they've accomplished with this release, just not what I need.


----------



## Lee Blaske (Oct 25, 2018)

FWIW, my download took around 4 hours.


----------



## germancomponist (Oct 25, 2018)

Amazing! This is what I call a "good sound".


----------



## sostenuto (Oct 25, 2018)

Lee Blaske said:


> I don't see them wanting to control the narrative as much as I see them not wanting to engage in combat, which is what they have to do if they regularly make appearances here. Why spend time confronting angry people with screen names when you may not have a clear picture of their motives and agenda? Spitfire is an amazingly responsive company. If you have a problem, you can have instantaneous communication with their tech support (at least, someone has always been there to immediately answer a question whenever I had one to ask). I think they're just choosing to take the high road.



I don't 'disagree' yet they surely do not need to respond unless there is something positive to post, or only 'Like'.
I notice responsive posts from OT _ Tobias over time and they all seem to be essentially on the 'high road'.
It is surely not my intent to state other than my personal preference .... _that SF maintains a helpful presence here, in what ever form they choose._


----------



## D Halgren (Oct 25, 2018)

Lee Blaske said:


> FWIW, my download took around 4 hours.


Thanks for rubbing it in


----------



## ism (Oct 25, 2018)

With every respect all the ways in which the Nevada landscape contributed to the shaping of the sound, and the British singers and engineers ...

... but listening to those demos, wow this is absolutely the Nordic choir I’ve been waiting for.


----------



## packetslave (Oct 25, 2018)

anyone bought with an educational discount yet? was it 30% off the intro price, or the full price?


----------



## KEM (Oct 25, 2018)

It sounds great for a soft choir library but I just don’t see the need for it since I already have Requiem, guess I’m going with Lacrimosa then...


----------



## AllanH (Oct 25, 2018)

I think Paul Thomson's walk-through video is excellent. The Choir really sounds beautiful with very little fiddling. Generous into price.


----------



## Virtuoso (Oct 25, 2018)

Lee Blaske said:


> FWIW, my download took around 4 hours.


I'm so jealous. I've been downloading it for 8 and a half hours now and it's up to about 40% (on a GIGABIT connection!)

Looking forward to recreating Music for Airports 2/1 tomorrow though!


----------



## gpax (Oct 25, 2018)

packetslave said:


> anyone bought with an educational discount yet? was it 30% off the intro price, or the full price?


It's discounted from the full price, though you can purchase during the promo and they'll do the math.


----------



## packetslave (Oct 25, 2018)

gpax said:


> It's discounted from the full price.



That's what I figured. Thanks.


----------



## gpax (Oct 25, 2018)

packetslave said:


> That's what I figured. Thanks.


Sorry, I was editing my response while you replied. I have not purchased the EWC, though.


----------



## packetslave (Oct 25, 2018)

gpax said:


> Sorry, I was editing my response while you replied. I have not purchased the EWC, though.



Haha, no worries. Choir is downloading now, anyway, because yay impatient


----------



## LandWaterSky (Oct 25, 2018)

Vastman said:


> I'm in Coeur d'Alene Idaho...



And I'm just up the road in Sandpoint....


----------



## LandWaterSky (Oct 25, 2018)

I decided to go on and have them ship it to me on a hard drive. I would have needed to backup this monster anyway.


----------



## InLight-Tone (Oct 25, 2018)

AllanH said:


> It's a pity, but Spitfire seems to want to be in control of the narrative, and that's not the case here. Interestingly, Spitfire has yet to post in commercial announcements, so they are clearly "making a statement" regarding their participation. The choir sounds wonderful and worth the wait.


Christian stated in one of his videos that he feels that VI Control is a "toxic environment". I don't agree whatsoever, but...


----------



## Callum Hoskin (Oct 25, 2018)

What options are there to purge in this player???


----------



## jtnyc (Oct 25, 2018)

fahl5 said:


> Sorry I dont want to disturb the party, but what exactly for should I need another Ah/Ooh/Oh/MMM choir? I haven't heard yet anthing that outstanding



My thoughts exactly... Yes there is the evo grid, but even that stuff
sounded pretty vanilla to me. Considering all of the anticipation and then reading the copy on the webpage, I was expecting to have my mind blown with something new, different and groundbreaking. Pretty underwhelming overall and quite expensive. Easy pass for me.


----------



## KEM (Oct 25, 2018)

InLight-Tone said:


> Christian stated in one of his videos that he feels that VI Control is a "toxic environment". I don't agree whatsoever, but...



In what way? This is probably the most positive forum I know, he should spend some time on KanyeToThe lol


----------



## keepitsimple (Oct 25, 2018)

KEM said:


> In what way? This is probably the most positive forum I know, he should spend some time on KanyeToThe lol


Probably due to the hammering Studio Strings received upon launch (?)


----------



## Bill the Lesser (Oct 25, 2018)

windyweekend said:


> Am interested to hear from the early downloaders what the RAM situation is with this. Hans Zimmer Strings was a beast of a RAM and disk hog that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to use it for more than a layer tool (~500+MB for every single patch). If this one looks the same it might give me second thoughts. The HZS experience has definitely made me hesitant in this until I’ve heard some experiences.
> 
> Would be really grateful for some insights from those brave enough to dive in altready.
> 
> Thanks!


Still have 20gb to go, but if you look at Paul's walkthrough and I suppose the other vids you can see the Ram and CPU numbers at the upper left of the player screen. The RAM is "per instance." At least this slow download is making me read the manual.

Plod...plod...plod...


----------



## quantum7 (Oct 25, 2018)

LandWaterSky said:


> And I'm just up the road in Sandpoint....


 Wait a minute, are you the same two gentlemen who are on the gearsluts forum from northern Idaho? I’m from Boise, Idaho. (Quantum7)


----------



## HBen (Oct 25, 2018)

Purchased, and bankrupt again. Should I laugh or cry?


----------



## Vastman (Oct 25, 2018)

keepitsimple said:


> Probably due to the hammering Studio Strings received upon launch (?)


Interesting... and an astute observation from someone allergic to Narcissists! One of the challenges we all need to rise up to face is constructive criticism (I beg for it!) and Spitfire has ALWAYS seemed to have a VERY thin skin to anything said that appears negative. Mind you, VIC is FULL of Spitfire fans whereas the world these days is FULL of disgusting trolls, so I find this pretty ridiculous... KIM's comment is spot on...VI-C is a pretty great place as far as that goes.

I do believe you might be on to something... narcissist's _do_ have difficulty with anyone voicing criticism or negative feedback. Not that they are (who am I to judge but it fits the definition and this has been raised a few times before) Their loss, really...but hopefully they'll reflect and realize no need to be "prissy" about feedback... we can all learn and respect the process.

The nice thing about THIS thread is I can react as I feal... and your comment rang a bit true. Might not be but...

As to criticism... looks like their new downloader is single thread and that might be screwing with all our downloads... I'm still at under 50 Mbps, have another 25GB to go and it's been over 6 hours!


----------



## zeng (Oct 25, 2018)

It sounds very similar to EW Hollywood Choir, what do you think?


----------



## Saxer (Oct 25, 2018)

HBen said:


> Purchased, and bankrupt again. Should I laugh or cry?


Cry and write a good choir composition about that. Then laugh.


----------



## Vastman (Oct 26, 2018)

zeng said:


> It sounds very similar to EW Hollywood Choir, what do you think?


Have no _real_ idea yet as the snail paced SFA downloading/downloader? is screwing with everyone... and haven't used EWHC for years... but *I'd say no*, *it's closer to Orchestral Tools awesome choirs... OT's latest offering, Time Macro* delves a bit deeper into this evo like territory and I'm SOOOOO loving it! Glad to see OT is continuing to offer these beyond the norm orchestrals (gee, couldn't say that in Commercial!). I've been just loving Time Macro and this is what helped me pull the trigger here. I have a bunch of choirs I just don't use but these new offerings give the degree of emotion and uniqueness I want, like Heavyocity's Gravity offerings


----------



## zimm83 (Oct 26, 2018)

Vastman said:


> Have no _real_ idea yet as the snail paced SFA downloading/downloader? is screwing with everyone... and haven't used EWHC for years... but *I'd say no*, *it's closer to Orchestral Tools awesome choirs... OT's latest offering, Time Macro* which delves a bit deeper into this evo like territory and I'm SOOOOO loving it! Glad to see OT is continuing to offer these beyond the norm orchestrals (gee, couldn't say that in Commercial!). I've been just loving Time Macro and this is what helped me pull the trigger here. I have a bunch of choirs I just don't use but these give the degree of emotion and uniqueness I want, like Heavyocity's offerings...


That's it. OT Time Macro has the same sounds plus the rest of the orchestra. Loving it so much. No need for Spitfire.


----------



## zimm83 (Oct 26, 2018)

jtnyc said:


> My thoughts exactly... Yes there is the evo grid, but even that stuff
> sounded pretty vanilla to me. Considering all of the anticipation and then reading the copy on the webpage, I was expecting to have my mind blown with something new, different and groundbreaking. Pretty underwhelming overall and quite expensive. Easy pass for me.


+1 Not blown Away...


----------



## Vastman (Oct 26, 2018)

quantum7 said:


> Wait a minute, are you the same two gentlemen who are on the gearsluts forum from northern Idaho? I’m from Boise, Idaho. (Quantum7)


Not me... Gave up being a slut years ago... but there's loads of escapees up here... quite amazing! i DO have a "Quantum" though!


----------



## Guffy (Oct 26, 2018)

Vastman said:


> haven't used EWHC for years... but *I'd say no*


It's been out less than a year, are you thinking of symphonic choirs?


----------



## Bill the Lesser (Oct 26, 2018)

"Loaded." Such a wonderful word.

OMG OMG OMG! Kids, this isn't your average choir. WHAT A SOUND! Right out of the box I was literally speechless after a few major 7ths with tensions.

We've been hearing the term "detail" thrown around a lot lately, well this one's got detail, I'm pretty sure I can hear every one of those singers as an individual, no exaggeration, and none of them needs to apologize for anything. It's just amazing! No amount of mixing on anything I have so far can get to this. I'm sitting here just hammering away with pretty much any old aleatoric mashup, and it's invariably gorgeous and distinct with zero mud.

Got things to do, see ya later. Don't wake me up in the morning.


----------



## Vastman (Oct 26, 2018)

zimm83 said:


> That's it. OT Time Macro has the same sounds plus the rest of the orchestra. Loving it so much. No need for Spitfire.


Yea, I may regret it but I'll let you know next week when my download is finished!  Then again, TM is more limited in scope, choir wise... but deeper in rhythmic awesomeness so... I DO hope OT keeps this up and maybe ARK 4 will have more... loving the pricing/content of OT lately, _and_ they still support the forum.

Zimm... thanks for reminding me to not be so impulsive... especially with an ARK coming out soon, which might cover more of this arena... If I would have considered the download problems.... If I would have thought this through a bit more... (naw, I'll love it! I hope)


----------



## Vastman (Oct 26, 2018)

Fugdup said:


> It's been out less than a year, are you thinking of symphonic choirs?


Yep! sorry! BRAIN FART!!!
And I DID listen to all of the recent stuff on EWHC...and reviews... Indeed, really wanted/hoped for a strong AI word builder revolution and hoped all the delays and hype would give us that! Commented lots on this in the months leading up to the library's release here at VIC. I would have snagged it in a second but wasn't impressed with the offering at all... But don't own it. Was too pissed at the letdown on word builder. Hoped it would be revolutionary. Definitely did NOT live up to all the hype.


----------



## Alex Niedt (Oct 26, 2018)

zimm83 said:


> That's it. OT Time Macro has the same sounds plus the rest of the orchestra. Loving it so much. No need for Spitfire.


Time Macro is an exceptionally inspiring library, but being that it's not a specialized choral instrument, it is much less fully-featured than the Eric Whitacre choir, though some sounds are similar. I own both and find the idea that there's "no need for Spitfire" odd and untrue. With that said, I think they will work well together and strongly recommend purchasing both to anyone who is able to do so.


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## NoamL (Oct 26, 2018)

Mucusman said:


> I was hoping that this library might better approach what they are clearly saying it does _not _do -- nudge further towards replacing a live choir.



Same... I wasn't expecting them to chase the white elephant of a full word builder, but given EW's involvement, I guessed that the choir would have a series of Latin phonemes with adjustable consonant/vowel releases, making it land about halfway between Oceania and Hollywood Choirs in terms of complexity. It's a pass for me at this price/design point but I'm not disappointed. They have made their philosophy crystal clear about what currently excites them in sampling, they are on a different path from a lot of developers, and this instrument sounds stunning and achieves those aims. 


edit - For what it's worth, they are running banner ads on VIC... just saw one after posting this.


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## Vastman (Oct 26, 2018)

Alex Niedt said:


> Time Macro is an exceptionally inspiring library, but being that it's not a specialized choral instrument, it is much less fully-featured than the Eric Whitacre choir, though some sounds are similar. I own both and find the idea that there's "no need for Spitfire" odd and untrue. With that said, I think they will work well together and strongly recommend purchasing both to anyone who is able to do so.



That's how I viewed it also... however, given the download snafu I've had time to think...and since you have this library I have a few concerns...If I'm missing something, let me know or hope Spitfire will chime in...First time Ive begun to feal a bit of buyers remorse BEFORE even spending time with a library!

*NO NKS really sucks*... my Kontrol 88 is a pleasure to use with a zillion of my other libraries, including SA's... wtf?

*No multi core/threading? *I invested in an i9 10 core monster for a reason*! *Maybe I missed this but not mentioned in manual either... Am I missing something here? Has this been addressed elsewhere?

What''s they point of this "new" engine? To save licencing fees? Why no NKS? Save money? What does new engine give us that Kontakt doesn't? Curious... has this been discussed? I've been away.

If this is how it seems & the way Spitfire's going, I'm done. Have quite enough anyway, already

! Hopefully the above will be clarified and I'll feel better tomorrow... nighty night!


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## nyxl (Oct 26, 2018)

Vastman said:


> *No multi core/threading? *I invested in an i9 10 core monster for a reason*!*


Multi-threading is usually handled by your DAW, no need for plugins to support multi-threading. Some plugins do, because their creators believe that some people will run a single instance of their plugin and nothing else (or not much else). But if you're using a large number of plugins anyway, multi-threading should be handled by your DAW. U-he Diva for example explicitly advises you to disable multi-threading in the plugin if you're using multiple instances, so that Diva's multi-threading doesn't interfere with the multi-threading done by your DAW.

A Native Instruments employee also talks about that here: https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115002515485-Multi-cores-on-CPU-s


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## Vastman (Oct 26, 2018)

nyxl said:


> Multi-threading is usually handled by your DAW, no need for plugins to support multi-threading. Some plugins do, because their creators believe that some people will run a single instance of their plugin and nothing else (or not much else). But if you're using a large number of plugins anyway, multi-threading should be handled by your DAW. U-he Diva for example explicitly advises you to disable multi-threading in the plugin if you're using multiple instances, so that Diva's multi-threading doesn't interfere with the multi-threading done by your DAW.
> 
> A Native Instruments employee also talks about that here: https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115002515485-Multi-cores-on-CPU-s




Hmmmm...thanks for the response. I'm no computer wiz but on my last 6 core Intel machine putting Diva in multi core hugely improved core balancing and reduced peaks/overload in some heavy Diva patches...ears didnt lie and on daws that actually attempt to show this (sonar did while cubase/studio one don't ) it was visually clear. Kontakt includes it for heavy loads... indeed, this lack of multi core in Falcon has been mentioned as a reason why it'll never effectively compete with Kontakt as a multichannel sample playback machine My other concern is look how long it took ewql to get their Play engine to be efficient... well, I'll wait till I see what the GUI allows. If it only allows one instrument per plug instance, yea, that makes sense I guess.

I understand DAWs allocate individual plugs, with a controversial level of success depending on the daw. But thanks...maybe much ado about nothing.at least the multicore...maybe not, depending on the multichannel capabilities of the GUI. It's late. Brain dead!

Would still like to see the rational for going away from Kontakt, advantage and what's lost. Pros & Cons And why NO NKS??? NI piss off Christian? Brexit? I'm getting loopy now


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## jononotbono (Oct 26, 2018)

Vastman said:


> Buyers remorse and I haven't even spent time with it yet! Hopefully the above will be clarified and I'll feel better tomorrow... nighty night!



Will love to know your thoughts when you've spent some time with the library. It's sounds lovely.
Also, sorry to derail slightly, but what CPU i9 10 core did you choose?

Edit... Sorry, just notice your signature. Nevermind and back to...


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## funnybear (Oct 26, 2018)

I was at the launch event yesterday and I have to say I was impressed. Eric and his singers beautifully performed two pieces immediately before Paul was demoing the new library. Now that is some courage right there!

I love the sound of the library (they had a demo station you could play the library on Logic with headphones). It is unique and specialized (like HZ strings) and not everybody will have a need / budget for this. I monitored the CPU usage in Logic while playing around with the patches and it was a little high for my taste but in the end I don't really mind as all what counts is the sound.

The sound is absolutely gorgeous.


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## Will Wilson (Oct 26, 2018)

I'm really loving it, performance is great on my old rig. Sounds lovely. Here's a little something I put together this morning (I'm no Andy Blaney!)


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## Krayh (Oct 26, 2018)

My god this is it??? 165gb, of ooohss and aaaahss, I really dont get whey everybody is so excited about this??? I really expected a tiny bit more...


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## babylonwaves (Oct 26, 2018)

Krayh said:


> My god this is it??? 165gb, of ooohss and aaaahss, I really dont get whey everybody is so excited about this??? I really expected a tiny bit more...


they have uuuuhhs as well


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## jononotbono (Oct 26, 2018)

Will Wilson said:


> I'm really loving it, performance is great on my old rig. Sounds lovely. Here's a little something I put together this morning (I'm no Andy Blaney!)




Sounds amazing. I can never get my head around Choir (I mean, I used to sing in one when I was a kid) libraries. There's always, to me, the issue of them only being able to sing oohs, ahhhhh, laaaahs etc and never singing actual words. Must be a nightmare to create a word builder but I always look at Choir libraries as a Textural thing. To me, for textures, this is a must buy but alas, I don't need choirs in music I am currently writing so it will be a future purchase. I'm so very glad it's a choral choir and not a library that instantly makes me think of dragons, armoured Unicorn riders and magic potions. Looking forward to hearing music people write with it as it does sound amazing.


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## zimm83 (Oct 26, 2018)

Krayh said:


> My god this is it??? 165gb, of ooohss and aaaahss, I really dont get whey everybody is so excited about this??? I really expected a tiny bit more...


Same here.....and No Kontakt !!!!!!! And you can't make a multi !!!!??????


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## Callum Hoskin (Oct 26, 2018)

packetslave said:


> anyone bought with an educational discount yet? was it 30% off the intro price, or the full price?


the full price


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## procreative (Oct 26, 2018)

Have Spitfire withdrawn from VIC as this is the first release I for a while not announced in the Commercial section?


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## Francis Bourre (Oct 26, 2018)

packetslave said:


> anyone bought with an educational discount yet? was it 30% off the intro price, or the full price?



Just received the answer from Spitfire. They're very generous. 
*Product* *Discount Code* *Amount* *Expires*
Eric Whitacre Choir XXXXXXXXXXXX 3.68% 26th Oct 2019 23:59 GMT


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## jbuhler (Oct 26, 2018)

Francis Bourre said:


> Just received the answer from Spitfire. They're very generous.
> *Product* *Discount Code* *Amount* *Expires*
> Eric Whitacre Choir XXXXXXXXXXXX 3.68% 26th Oct 2019 23:59 GMT


Weird, that doesn't seem to total 30% off the full price which should be about $420.


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## Begfred (Oct 26, 2018)

Curious why they didn't split it into reg/pro version? They could have made a cheaper CTA only version . Like SCS, SSS, SSW and SSB.
But maybe the pro version price would have been higher tough


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## Moquan (Oct 26, 2018)

I've been holding off on getting a choir library until this was released. I'm kind of on the fence if this is a specialized (Whitacre) sound or can it server as a general chamber-ish library. Didn't really see much in regard to solid forte sound. Not really looking for epic. I know it's really early though to judge it.


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## windyweekend (Oct 26, 2018)

procreative said:


> Have Spitfire withdrawn from VIC as this is the first release I for a while not announced in the Commercial section?


Apparently so. Don’t blame them after the DJ Hans Zimmer business.


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## rottoy (Oct 26, 2018)

windyweekend said:


> Apparently so. Don’t blame them after the DJ Hans Zimmer business.


That debacle showed that they can be just as toxic as this supposed "incredibly toxic" community.
Sure, this place can get hella toxic at times, but at least now we have a Drama Zone for that rubbish.
VI Control is still a place where people help each other.


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## SpitfireSupport (Oct 26, 2018)

Francis Bourre said:


> Just received the answer from Spitfire. They're very generous.
> *Product* *Discount Code* *Amount* *Expires*
> Eric Whitacre Choir XXXXXXXXXXXX 3.68% 26th Oct 2019 23:59 GMT



The educational discount is always 30% off the retail price rather than the promo price. Admittedly this does generate some odd looking discounts but there you have it! We are planning to make this more intuitive in the future. Ben


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## ism (Oct 26, 2018)

Vastman said:


> Interesting... and an astute observation from someone allergic to Narcissists! One of the challenges we all need to rise up to face is constructive criticism (I beg for it!) and Spitfire has ALWAYS seemed to have a VERY thin skin to anything said that appears negative. Mind you, VIC is FULL of Spitfire fans whereas the world these days is FULL of disgusting trolls, so I find this pretty ridiculous... KIM's comment is spot on...VI-C is a pretty great place as far as that goes.
> 
> I do believe you might be on to something... narcissist's _do_ have difficulty with anyone voicing criticism or negative feedback. Not that they are (who am I to judge but it fits the definition and this has been raised a few times before) Their loss, really...but hopefully they'll reflect and realize no need to be "prissy" about feedback... we can all learn and respect the process.
> 
> ...



The problem is that the criticism isn’t alway constructive. In one recent release someone made a honest (if, in my opinion, excessive harsh in its language) critique over what to me felt like small (almost unnoticeable) flaws. The problem being that, internet dynamics being what the were, in the vi-c context these minority negative critiques were being massively amplified (generally be people who didn’t own the library), way out of all proportion in a way that the actually suppressed critique.

Another thread had again mostly positive response to the library, but the actual number of posts was dominated by maybe 2-3 people people with, again some perfectly legitimate and often even valueable critiques, but a lot of critique seemed to be along the lines of ‘the [non legato] patches have terrible legatos’ - which I guess is technically a correct critique, but more a lament of buyer’s remorse at not having had realistic expectations of what the library was (which of course we can all sympathize with).

And it’s Not that there’s anything wrong with expressing such critique, but the amplified negativity made it not seriously fun for people like myself to chime in with positive reaction. Add to this the dynamic that people happen to like the space of spitfire’s products seem to be regularly accused of being ‘fanboys’ - which I find a really offensive term. Because I while can be effusive about libraries that’s I really love, I would also defend that effusiveness both on an artistic level and a technical one.

So I really don’t know who this alleged army of droolingly uncritical ‘fanboys’ are supposed to be (no one has ever been willing to give an example of an actual act of ‘fanyboyism’ being propagated). But just because a critique is positive doesn’t mean that it it isn’t critical in the sense of being intellectually engaged. (And conversely, just because a critique is negative doesn’t mean it’s a beacon of intellectual depth and honesty).

So I appreciate that there are positive and negative critiques to be made about any library around technical execution, artistic conceptions, and the fidelity of it’s marketing to these things. And at it’s best, I find vi-c threads can Be extremely value in the positive and negative critiques on display.

And it’s nice that this thread has stayed mostly on point. Even the kinds of negative critiques that are basically ‘this isn’t for me’ offer an insight into the artistic space of the the poster is coming from, and can be valueable in clarifying the artistic space(s) where the library actually lives. It’s totally fair to say - ‘only ahs and oohs, I dont’ see the point.’, in the same way some people dismiss Tundra with (to paraphrase) ‘how many kind of sul tasto do you really need’. Which to me hilghts the expressive dimensions of the artistic vision behind the library. To me, while the Dessert imagery is interesting and beautiful, there’s a deeper level in which the expressive dimensions of this library fit entirely with Tundra and the ‘Scand-zeitgeisti’ libraries. They are maybe a bit more subtle in their expressive dimensions than a lot of other libraries, but is complexity is consistent with what I think this is so brilliant about a lot of recent libraries. Especially the like of Tundra, the Ólafur Chamber Evo - but , more subtly, the spitfire solo strings, which has expressive dimensions that exceed even what the marketing celebrates.

Similarly Time Macro to me represents OT dipping it’s toes into these expressive dimensions in extremely interesting, but very different, ways. And it’s interesting that people who see Time Macro as contiguous with Met Ark seem to have a slightly different take on the library that those so see it as closer to Tundra or Orchestral Swarm.



So I’m all for critism of Spitfire and all other libraries. But the dynamics of a few recent threads here have clearly been unnaturally amplify the negative, which has really been a drag, and, I’d be willing to bet, probably even suppressed musically valuable conversations that might otherwise have emerged. so under the circumcirstances, I think it’s probably smart for Spitfire step back, if only to see if it lessens the unhappy amplification. Which itself is a drag because I found Christian and Paul’s comments very generative.

Anyway, there’s been some good insights on this thread, I can’t wait to see what more user demos spark.


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## funnybear (Oct 26, 2018)

There is also a learning curve for the community to come to grips with the fact that sample libraries are opening up in terms of palette diversity / specialization. You still get your bread and butter "do it all" library releases but also increasingly "concept" libraries.

Spitfire is breaking new grounds artistically in many ways with their products. I would compare it to the introduction of titanium white in painting: at some stage white was no longer enough. The palette had to be expanded.

The conversation then sometimes lags behind a bit. I hope Spitfire can bring the whole community along on their fabulous journey. I for one can't wait to see what the now 60 folks at Spitfire have in the pipeline next.


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## LandWaterSky (Oct 26, 2018)

quantum7 said:


> Wait a minute, are you the same two gentlemen who are on the gearsluts forum from northern Idaho? I’m from Boise, Idaho. (Quantum7)



I am a gearslut in N. Idaho, but I don't think I'm one of those guys. Haven't posted there in a good while.


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## ism (Oct 26, 2018)

I recently read that John Luther Adams has followed up his “Become Ocean” piece with a “Become Dessert” piece. There doesn’t seem to be any recording available, but it’s fun to image how it might be different. And I can absolutely imagine a LJA piece using this kind of textual choir in way completely parallel to his Ocean piece to evoke a dessert space.

That said, If I were going to write an ode to a dessert piece, I might also try to forget about all the beautiful Scandi marketing of Tundra and the Ólafur Chameber Evo (for instance) and close my eyes and think of sand dunes while I autition all the georgeous colour of sul tasto looking for just the right shade of tan to go with just the right shade of sky.


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## ism (Oct 26, 2018)

Which makes we wonder, how would orchestral swarm work with this choir? I find all the water imagery of the marketing, and the Blue Ocean score, very compelling. But what if the pointalism of swarm might combine with the delicacy of the choir to get away from the metaphor of water and flowing and circulation?


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## sostenuto (Oct 26, 2018)

Will be watching carefully for more 'choir-comparison' posts.
Have Storm Choir 2 Core+Exp ..... as well as Swarm, Tundra, OT_TM. 
Sooo uncertain now about how much EWC truly adds ....


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## redlester (Oct 26, 2018)

ism said:


> Which makes we wonder, how would orchestral swarm work with this choir? I find all the water imagery of the marketing, and the Blue Ocean score, very compelling. But what if the pointalism of swarm might combine with the delicacy of the choir to get away from the metaphor of water and flowing and circulation?



God dammit I just recently bought Orchestral Swarm. Am trying to resist this one but you're not helping my wallet stay shut!


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## theStyg (Oct 26, 2018)

sostenuto said:


> Will be watching carefully for more 'choir-comparison' posts.
> Have Storm Choir 2 Core+Exp ..... as well as Swarm, Tundra, OT_TM.
> Sooo uncertain now about how much EWC truly adds ....


Same. I'm still not sold on whether this is one, when there's other more versatile choirs (with better prices), some of which I already own or am looking to own, and can easily fit the same niche EWC is trying to fill. Specifically, I want to hear how it does with rhythmic textures compared to the likes of 8dio's Silka.

The legatos in EWC seem unmatched at low velocities, which is something to think about, but slightly better legatos aren't worth $400+ especially given the value I would get with something like Strezov's Next-Gen Choirs series. Also, don't have to worry about 150+ GB of data for choir with a fairly singular purpose...


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## driscollmusick (Oct 26, 2018)

ism said:


> I recently read that John Luther Adams has followed up his “Become Ocean” piece with a “Become Dessert” piece. There doesn’t seem to be any recording available, but it’s fun to image how it might be different. And I can absolutely imagine a LJA piece using this kind of textual choir in way completely parallel to his Ocean piece to evoke a dessert space.
> 
> That said, If I were going to write an ode to a dessert piece, I might also try to forget about all the beautiful Scandi marketing of Tundra and the Ólafur Chameber Evo (for instance) and close my eyes and think of sand dunes while I autition all the georgeous colour of sul tasto looking for just the right shade of tan to go with just the right shade of sky.



Mmmm... "Become Dessert"...


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## theStyg (Oct 26, 2018)

driscollmusick said:


> Mmmm... "Become Dessert"...


No doubt JLA's tastiest work.


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## jononotbono (Oct 26, 2018)

SpitfireSupport said:


> We are planning to make this more intuitive in the future. Ben



30% off RRP is already rather intuitive. haha


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## sostenuto (Oct 26, 2018)

How many libs now with SF new engine ? 
This large effort has no issues being 'non-K5 /6 ?


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## Bill the Lesser (Oct 26, 2018)

ism said:


> The problem is that the criticism isn’t alway constructive. In one recent release someone made a honest (if, in my opinion, excessive harsh in its language) critique over what to me felt like small (almost unnoticeable) flaws. The problem being that, internet dynamics being what the were, in the vi-c context these minority negative critiques were being massively amplified (generally be people who didn’t own the library), way out of all proportion in a way that the actually suppressed critique.
> 
> Another thread had again mostly positive response to the library, but the actual number of posts was dominated by maybe 2-3 people people with, again some perfectly legitimate and often even valueable critiques, but a lot of critique seemed to be along the lines of ‘the [non legato] patches have terrible legatos’ - which I guess is technically a correct critique, but more a lament of buyer’s remorse at not having had realistic expectations of what the library was (which of course we can all sympathize with).
> 
> ...


That's a good description of things that have bothered me about this otherwise great forum. Well stated.

Long ago I took a class on critique, the instructor identified a concept called "stunt criticism" which she called a "critical disease." That involves allowing the presence of an audience and a soapbox to seduce the critic into "eloquent exaggeration" as a self serving end in itself. It's easy to identify, look for the colorful words. I keep that in mind, since being human it's there in me too.

(ooh...look at this soapbox!)

PS, as long as I'm here, l'll say that after many sleepless hours I still think EWC is a musical miracle. No remorse whatsoever, I've flummoxed around trying for that quality of sound and clarity for quite a while.

It covers a lot of ground, but it's not general purpose. It does carve a large niche that extends into previously inaccessible places. And the EVOs are superb, a major step up from anything previous. I won't miss multis, I recently decided that grouping instances in the daw is more useful for accessibility and the selective use of filters. The new SF player itself incorporates some nice filters.

I don't miss word building in EWC, Hollywood Choirs does that very well, as does Dominus in it's more limited but lusciously-legato way. I'm into EWC for its sound and I'm sure a word builder would require engineering compromises in areas that give EWC its lovely character, the EVOs would suffer the most. We may see wordbuilders suitable for this type of sound in a few years, I'll guess in the the multiple terabyte size range unless they're synthetic. (sorry for the colorful words)


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## prodigalson (Oct 26, 2018)

jononotbono said:


> 30% off RRP is already rather intuitive. haha



except that 30% off RRP is $419 and the EDU discount here (extra 3.68% off $449) brings it to $432. 

So it's 27% vs. 30%. which is obviously no big deal but still strange.


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## heisenberg (Oct 26, 2018)

Well I just watched Paul's walkthrough. Sure met my expectations. Gorgeous and useful. All the mic treatments work & are useful (unlike a few libraries issued over the past year and a bit). Range of textures and colours are excellent. Understated, delicate and many bows to different eras of choral music from polyphony to toned down Meredith Monk techniques. I really, really like it and think it is pretty special.

If you found it disappointing, you need to get into the head space for it. Try listening to a Palestrina or Talis piece or even some Charpentier, or more modern stuff like Jenkins or Taverner then go back to Paul's walkthrough and give it your attention. You might have a better chance of seeing what they were up to with this library. Well done Spitfire and thank you for resisting the urge to hype up the sound for marketing reasons.


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## jbuhler (Oct 26, 2018)

prodigalson said:


> except that 30% off RRP is $419 and the EDU discount here (extra 3.68% off $449) brings it to $432.
> 
> So it's 27% vs. 30%. which is obviously no big deal but still strange.


Yes, this is what I found strange too. I can't get the math to work, so I don't know what they are calculating.


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## fretti (Oct 26, 2018)

prodigalson said:


> except that 30% off RRP is $419 and the EDU discount here (extra 3.68% off $449) brings it to $432.
> 
> So it's 27% vs. 30%. which is obviously no big deal but still strange.


Have you requested an EDU-discount and got 3.68%? 

Because every time I requested one for products that were still on intro pricing I got ~6.5% which would bring it down from 449 to ~419(. something)... (haven't done it for the choir yet though, which is why I'm asking)


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## erikradbo (Oct 26, 2018)

1. On the library: I really love choral music, and I've been listening to Whitacre and Nordic choirs quite a bit (being a Swede), and I really think they've succeeded with the demos, very delicate. It does seem a bit limited, but again as someone said, to create exactly these kind of music pieces, it seem to really fit the bill. Probably too narrow scope for me at that price, so will be a pass.

2. On this thread: I've been quite some time now here on VI-control, and for some reason this thread gives me a uncomfortable feeling. It's just so many people adding sensible and positive comments about this library, helpfully taking away all doubts from the doubters. It's unbelievable how many fans this library has gotten in such a short time, and how the negative input in some posts just seem to fade away, whilst the positive comments live on. Much more so here than in most other threads. Mind you, this is all just based on a feeling, but on the other hand, so are most comments in here.

Will go back to have a second listen to those demos now. And then some real choral music on spotify.


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## Vadium (Oct 26, 2018)

more syllables for 300$ from 8DIO: https://8dio.com/instrument/insolid...297707269&mc_cid=04c84d3077&mc_eid=700d60677d


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## ism (Oct 26, 2018)

erikradbo said:


> 1. On the library: I really love choral music, and I've been listening to Whitacre and Nordic choirs quite a bit (being a Swede), and I really think they've succeeded with the demos, very delicate. It does seem a bit limited, but again as someone said, to create exactly these kind of music pieces, it seem to really fit the bill. Probably too narrow scope for me at that price, so will be a pass.
> 
> 2. On this thread: I've been quite some time now here on VI-control, and for some reason this thread gives me a uncomfortable feeling. It's just so many people adding sensible and positive comments about this library, helpfully taking away all doubts from the doubters. It's unbelievable how many fans this library has gotten in such a short time, and how the negative input in some posts just seem to fade away, whilst the positive comments live on. Much more so here than in most other threads. Mind you, this is all just based on a feeling, but on the other hand, so are most comments in here.
> 
> Will go back to have a second listen to those demos now. And then some real choral music on spotify.



I'd argue that the negative comments are of the "this isn't for me" variety. And it's interesting to note that many people want a choir to do something else, and this may help focus people's attention on what that library isn't, and help inform decisions. So if such opinions are repeated noted, and respected, why would then need to be any further amplified.


Usually when the are really negative debates its when there are technical flaws or holes on the artistic conception or a feeling that the marketing intentionally or otherwise somehow misrepresents what the library actually is. And I don't see any reason to suggest that this library doesn't do what it says on the tin.


Against that, there's quite a lot to unpack and understand about what this library is, which is where a thread like this is likely to be helpful - including your comment on the quality of Nordic choirs which I found very interesting. And I feel there's a lot more to discuss on this.


So it seems pretty natural and unproblematic that we have more of a positive feedback loop that a negative here.


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## ism (Oct 26, 2018)

erikradbo said:


> And then some real choral music on spotify



Care to recommend some good Nordic choral works?


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## Virtuoso (Oct 26, 2018)

Some initial thoughts after a few hours exploring:-

The sound is fantastic - spacious and clear, even with dense clusters. Very inspirational - playing almost _anything_ will get your creative juices flowing, which is the hallmark of a great instrument! All the mic options are very usable and it's nice to have the quick Big/Medium/Small mixes on a single fader.

The UI looks good, has roll-over tips and is ACTUALLY SCALABLE!! As in, properly scalable from tiny to huge with all text scaling proportionately. This is a godsend on a 5k screen and an area where Kontakt 6 is seriously lacking. You can set a default scale and an initial preset to load. I feel the space could have been used more efficiently for the mixer and patch selection filtering, but that's a personal gripe. Load times are quick, just a couple of seconds, and CPU usage seems reasonable and low with no glitches or issues so far (2014 4GHz iMac).

There are a few rough legato transitions, usually with descending min3rd intervals where in some instances the second note sounds like a retrigger of the first, and a few bugs - (eg Alto Legato Ahh Ambient mic, transition to/from B2 gets cut dead). Some of the release samples also sound like retriggers. I'm sure these will get ironed out once Spitfire are made aware of them (I'm building a list!)

The selection of FX articulations is very limited, but I suppose that's not really what this library is about.

I wonder if Spitfire would consider selling the library à la carte, the way Embertone did with the recent Steinway? Might make for a more affordable entry point for people who just want the tree/close mics.


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## Vastman (Oct 26, 2018)

jononotbono said:


> Will love to know your thoughts when you've spent some time with the library. It's sounds lovely.
> Also, sorry to derail slightly, but what CPU i9 10 core did you choose?
> 
> Edit... Sorry, just notice your signature. Nevermind and back to...


It's quite lovely! I'm glad I got this as it will be very useful along with Time Macro. Never been enamored with the other choirs. Gorgeous sound!

GUI is weird...lots of empty space but it IS scalable which is very nice... No NKS which REALLY SUCKS.

I DON'T know why Spitfire is going away from Kontakt...scalability is the ONLY advantage I see and that IS nice on my 4k 65" OLED! However, their new platform seems to take more CPU than Kontakt and I'm very concerned about THIS, as it took YEARS for EWQL to get their Play engine optimized. But I'll leave it to more computer savvy folks to determine if this engine taxes CPU's more than Kontakt...

I may limit future Spitfire purchases until this issue is addressed with hard data. Assume this is a money making move to avoid Kontak fees but WTF do I know? And NO info from Spitfire as to the advantages of their new platform... I'd LOVE info on this which might turn me around...

No Multies, no NKS...really sucks. *Indeed, the ability to create cross product multis, combining different libraries into amazing combinations is a HUGE reason I absolutely LOVE Kontak... *THIS IS totally gone with their new approach.


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## madfloyd (Oct 26, 2018)

Vadium said:


> more syllables for 300$ from 8DIO: https://8dio.com/instrument/insolid...297707269&mc_cid=04c84d3077&mc_eid=700d60677d



Wow, they sound very good. Can someone explain how these two libraries differ (if at all) in terms of quality?


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## Phillip996 (Oct 26, 2018)

madfloyd said:


> Wow, they sound very good. Can someone explain how these two libraries differ (if at all) in terms of quality?


I think they are both very high end choirs. If you want syllables, then insolidus is the way to go. What you are paying for with Eric Whitacre choir, is the sound of Eric Whitacre, which is very beautiful and unique imo.


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## Vastman (Oct 26, 2018)

madfloyd said:


> Wow, they sound very good. Can someone explain how these two libraries differ (if at all) in terms of quality?


Listening now... absolutely STUNNING! Half price ($298 vs 598 come november 1) this DOES seem a bargain...tempo synced, 3/4 & 4/4 timing AND it works within the Kontakt environment, allowing for mixed library multies... oh my, choices choices! Nice to have Insolidus as such a bargain option...Beautiful!

Beginning to enjoy the main thread being in this _Sample Talk forum..._didnt get these contrast and compares in the paid commercial forum...


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## sostenuto (Oct 26, 2018)

Vastman said:


> Listening now... absolutely STUNNING! Half price ($298 vs 598 come november 1) this DOES seem a bargain...tempo synced, 3/4 & 4/4 timing AND it works within the Kontakt environment, allowing for mixed library multies... oh my, choices choices! Nice to have Insolidus as such a bargain option...Beautiful!
> 
> Beginning to enjoy the main thread being in this _Sample Talk forum..._didnt get these contrast and compares in the paid commercial forum...



Insolidus sale is big surprise, as my current top prospect was StormChoir 2 (Core & Exp) at Crossgrade pricing (_which is same as Insolidus sale_). Got some time to sort this, but all in context with EWC release.

I can use some help placing Storm Choir 2 in this scenario.  
I have Storm Choir 1, but all my info says SC2 is totally different; not an Update?


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## windyweekend (Oct 26, 2018)

Vastman said:


> No Multies...really sucks. *Indeed, the ability to create cross product multis, combining different libraries into amazing combinations is a HUGE reason I absolutely LOVE Kontak... *THIS IS totally gone with their new approach.


Ditto that....
This was my one and only issue with Hans Zimmer Strings. Multis make workflow so much easier and efficient. Can’t blame them ownig their own destiny though. Who knows whats NI will donin future releases.


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## Francis Bourre (Oct 26, 2018)

fretti said:


> Have you requested an EDU-discount and got 3.68%?
> 
> Because every time I requested one for products that were still on intro pricing I got ~6.5% which would bring it down from 449 to ~419(. something)... (haven't done it for the choir yet though, which is why I'm asking)



Yup, I requested an educational discount. As mentioned in the email pasted above, I received a 3.68% discount code. At the end, I paid $432.48.


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## Damarus (Oct 26, 2018)

Vastman said:


> It's quite lovely! I'm glad I got this as it will be very useful along with Time Macro. Never been enamored with the other choirs. Gorgeous sound!
> 
> GUI is weird...lots of empty space but it IS scalable which is very nice... No NKS which REALLY SUCKS.
> 
> ...



What is the benefit of staying in Kontakt?


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## ism (Oct 26, 2018)

Vastman said:


> I DON'T know why Spitfire is going away from Kontakt...scalability is the ONLY advantage I see and that IS nice on my 4k 65" OLED! However, their new platform seems to take more CPU than Kontakt and I'm very concerned about THIS, as it took YEARS for EWQL to get their Play engine optimized. But I'll leave it to more computer savvy folks to determine if this engine taxes CPU's more than Kontakt...
> 
> I may limit future Spitfire purchases until this issue is addressed with hard data. Assume this is a money making move to avoid Kontak fees but WTF do I know? And NO info from Spitfire as to the advantages of their new platform... I'd LOVE info on this which might turn me around...
> 
> No Multies, no NKS...really sucks. *Indeed, the ability to create cross product multis, combining different libraries into amazing combinations is a HUGE reason I absolutely LOVE Kontak... *THIS IS totally gone with their new approach.




I’ve been wondering this myself. But the cost - and risk - of developing and supporting and maintaining a new sampler surely can’t compare to a $15 player fee on $600 libraries.? It’s curious that Spitfire hasn’t really talked much about the new engine on a technical level. But we do know is:

i. It’s based on Han’s proprietary sampling technology. which I think means that we can assume that it’s focus is exclusively on orchestral sampling. NI is 90% about electronic music, so much, probably most, of the focus for Kontakt is on non-orchestral functionality. The choir is only the second library build using it (excepting labs), and as Spitfire apparently don’t like to go into all the techie details, it’s hard to say what the full bennefits of this is. But you have to think that if Han’s could have just used Kontakt instead of building his own sampler, he probably would have. And Spitfire as a company is (by some accounts) practically built on learning from whatever is is that Han’s does when records samples. So there has to be something interesting going on in Hans’ proprietary sampler right?

ii. Kontakt has massive legacy code, and a massive number of legacy libraries, which makes innovating without breaking older libraries immensely expensive. Even if there were no immediate bennefits of the new sampler over Kontakt, if it’s the intention of Spitfire (or Hans) is to really push innovation in specifically orchestral sampling forward, being free from this kind of legacy complexities is a huge advantage benefit.

iii. It’s been a long time between Kontakt 5 and 6. And it’s not even clear to me how orchestrally focused the innovations in Kontakt 6 are, a lot of the look kind of synth-focused, on the surface at least. So if we’re at a point that innovation in orchestral libraries needs innovation at the sample level, waiting on Kontakt may or may not be a great idea. And how much better could a library like SCS be with existing Kontakt technology?

iv. I also have a sense that the critical thing limiting sample libraries in recent years has been disk speed RAM. But there a a few hints that going forward it’s going to be processing power. In the coming years people are going to have a lot more processing power available (in the form of many cores, maybe GPUs, maybe even ‘neuromorphic’ chips which are basically a form of hardware accelerated mostly-linear algebra). As modeling techniques become more important (the progressive vibrato on the new virtuoso violin is maybe a hint of the direction of innovations to come), being able to push a sampler forward quickly becomes even more important.


I did see one video on HZS that compared it to SCS and a few other libs, which made the interesting observation that dynamic crossfade on HZS was very different. Otherwise the reviews were all preoccupied by responding to ... other things ... and didn’t seem to pay much attention to this kind if thing. But maybe this is a hint of the benefits of the new sampler?


Just my impressions, of course.


if anyone has thoughts on what the Spitfire engine brings to the choir. I’d love to hear them.


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## ism (Oct 26, 2018)

I guess I’d add that we know, through a vlog by Christian, that part of the agenda is control of the interaction design. And there’s a politics to this, in that as sample libraries become more mainstream, and hopefully used by a greater diversity of people, controlling the interaction design is about a lot more than making it pretty.


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## babylonwaves (Oct 26, 2018)

ism said:


> if anyone has thoughts on what the Spitfire engine brings to the choir. I’d love to hear them.


looking at previous SF kontakt libs, there was a need to combine multiple instruments to get all articulations on one channel. the same for having like 10 mics and loads of articulations in one instrument. those are practical limit (of their kontakt instruments) they can overcome with a proprietary instrument.


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## playz123 (Oct 26, 2018)

One word: "Gorgeous". I've been totally immersed in both the choir patches and the Evo library for hours now, and IMHO it's probably the best choir library for my purposes that I have ever purchased. And for the record, I have at least 8 other choir libraries....all from well-known developers. No, it does not offer some of the features other libraries do, BUT then again, in turn it is not designed to compete, rather to enhance. More importantly, what it DOES do is provide sounds and features other libraries simply do not have. Beautifully crafted, and awe-inspiring and captivating sounds truly reflect Mr. Whitacre's approach towards choral music. If you are looking for epic, then of course, look elsewhere. But if you want a choir library that has the potential to transport you to a softer, more gentle and moody place, then this choir is definitely worth considering. Finally, I have most of the libraries Spitfire has released, and feel this is definitely one of the top 3. Well done, Spitfire; you 'nailed it' this time! We waited patiently for a long time for its release, and the wait has been worth it.

As for the discussion above, I'll just say, that with most libraries, I suggest the only people who are really able to assess them properly are the ones who actually purchase them and work with them. I honestly am not drawn to posts with comments such as "I don't need it" or "I'm not buying it", and feel those comments only enhance someone's post count and contribute nothing towards the discussion of the product. As for the rest...well I'm an just old guy whose opinion may not matter much anymore, so maybe it's best if I refrain from restating things that have already been said.


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## Geoff Grace (Oct 26, 2018)

ism said:


> I guess I’d add that we know, through a vlog by Christian, that part of the agenda is control of the interaction design. And there’s a politics to this, in that as sample libraries become more mainstream, and hopefully used by a greater diversity of people, controlling the interaction design is about a lot more than making it pretty.


Voilà:



Best,

Geoff


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## JEPA (Oct 26, 2018)

Geoff Grace said:


> Voilà:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




good point! if the library were on Kontakt, everybody must invest €400 for Kontakt, €500 or more for the choir = almost €1000.... that's on the business view of things a smart move...


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## Jediwario1 (Oct 26, 2018)

JEPA said:


> good point! if the library were on Kontakt, everybody must invest €400 for Kontakt, €500 or more for the choir = almost €1000.... that's on the business view of things a smart move...



Not really, as a lot of the Spitfire libraries run in Kontakt Player (which is free).


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## JEPA (Oct 26, 2018)

Jediwario1 said:


> Not really, as a lot of the Spitfire libraries run in Kontakt Player (which is free).


then not... , bad move...


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## ism (Oct 26, 2018)

Jediwario1 said:


> Not really, as a lot of the Spitfire libraries run in Kontakt Player (which is free).



Not quite - a player library the cost developer ~ $15 per library, which is included in the price you pay. So no good for labs. And if you buy 20 player libraries, you're paying ~$300.


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## jbuhler (Oct 26, 2018)

playz123 said:


> One word: "Gorgeous". I've been totally immersed in both the choir patches and the Evo library for hours now, and IMHO it's probably the best choir library for my purposes that I have ever purchased. And for the record, I have at least 8 other choir libraries....all from well-known developers. No, it does not offer some of the features other libraries do, BUT then again, in turn it is not designed to compete, rather to enhance. More importantly, what it DOES do is provide sounds and features other libraries simply do not have. Beautifully crafted, and awe-inspiring and captivating sounds truly reflect Mr. Whitacre's approach towards choral music. If you are looking for epic, then of course, look elsewhere. But if you want a choir library that has the potential to transport you to a softer, more gentle and moody place, then this choir is definitely worth considering. Finally, I have most of the libraries Spitfire has released, and feel this is definitely one of the top 3. Well done, Spitfire; you 'nailed it' this time! We waited patiently for a long time for its release, and the wait has been worth it.



I find this library quite lovely, but perhaps you can help me sort through this. Maybe because of the demos I've heard and where the focus of the conversation has been I'm mistaken, but it seems to me like this library is a very useful supplement to a core choir sound you'd get from other libraries. That is, it gives an expansive richness in a particular area of the choir but it doesn't really give you the base, core choral sound. So my question would be can this library serve as that core or is it better to be looking at other libraries for that? I should add that I'm not looking for epic. I already have that covered well enough.


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## germancomponist (Oct 26, 2018)

Is this bull... bla bla bla... going on again? This library sounds great, and any professional composer who likes this good sound will buy this lib.
I do not care on which player the lib works on, the main thing is that I can import this sound into my compositions.
Spitfire primarily produces sample libraries for professionals. And they do this very well!


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## sostenuto (Oct 26, 2018)

No winning position here ! Up to each individual if they prefer to stay with one, or few, or many.
Some brilliant talents here, but others (like me) are challenged to learn and utilize one system well, versus skimming the surface with several. I will be long gone before becoming a capable Kontakt5 /6 User.
Sample Fuel has drawn me into HALion Sonic SE 3. Lots of tiddly questions to deal with (NOT SF!), and not likely adding more HALion content. UVI somewhat similar.
Hey ….. likely _my personal limitations_, but not going further with non-Kontakt libs until valid reasons why it makes sense.
EWC superb contributions may be a sacrifice, but so be it.
(_fwiw, I have a notable number of SFA Libs and delighted with all of them_)


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## neblix (Oct 26, 2018)

I find this library tailored to my exact needs for the kind of music I write. The sample quality and expression are wonderful. As others have said, it handles clusters _very _well.

I did a short doodle this morning just to test out the sound. I am only using the Close mics and my own reverb sends (as I do for all my music, since it makes blending libraries from different developers much easier).



Here it is again, more blended into a mix. Strings are Spitfire Chambers (still just close mics, my own reverb):



If the long tails sound odd to you it's because there's a bit of Valhalla Shimmer in the ambient send. I like a little sound design-y flavor to my stuff.


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## quantum7 (Oct 26, 2018)

Vastman said:


> *No multi core/threading? *I invested in an i9 10 core monster for a reason*! *Maybe I missed this but not mentioned in manual either... Am I missing something here? Has this been addressed elsewhere?



A little OT, but do you notice the added power of your i9 10 core over an i7 6 core? On my recent build I stayed with an i7 6 core, but made sure that my new motherboard can accommodate the fastest i9 I can afford if I so choose later on.


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## quantum7 (Oct 26, 2018)

madfloyd said:


> Wow, they sound very good. Can someone explain how these two libraries differ (if at all) in terms of quality?



I can't compare the 2 since I haven't purchased Spitfire's choir yet, but I can say that Insolidus is incredible!


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## MillsMixx (Oct 26, 2018)

Not sure this if anyone has seen this yet or if it's already been posted but here's a detailed look at the library I found searching YouTube.


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## Daniel James (Oct 26, 2018)

Beautiful tone! worth the wait.

-DJ


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## Vastman (Oct 26, 2018)

quantum7 said:


> A little OT, but do you notice the added power of your i9 10 core over an i7 6 core? On my recent build I stayed with an i7 6 core, but made sure that my new motherboard can accommodate the fastest i9 I can afford if I so choose later on.


 My last i7 6 core was a 4340k... the I9 is like having double the power...of course, it's $1000! Still, I'm very pleased... my dream machine, really. Here's a comparison...fwiw... you can Google yours vs the i9 9700x... http://hwbench.com/cpus/intel-core-i9-7900x-vs-intel-core-i7-4930k

I upgraded after selling my bay area farm and moving up north to help mom in her final year...wanted thunderbolt for latency as I was sick of the delays..echoes on echoes, vocally! Also wanted the ability to drive 2 large 4k oleds because of my old eyes! Man, nothing like a 65in OLED! Just decided to splurge and get the best cpu last March...didnt wanna think about it or do it again! Btw, it's STILL the best CPU for the money!

I can't imagine EVER needing another maschine. I throw tons of CPU heavy stuff at it and it just purrrrs along. Had Jim Roseberry of Purrrrfect Audio build it. Cleanist build I've ever seen, quiet and wicked fast and full of m.2/regular SSD's and hot swappables...A dream machine! still have the 4930 as an emergency backup

DO YA NEED IT? Don't know! I DO know my 4930 was chokable...and a problem child. For me, it is a no brainer! Then again, I wank on CPU sucking VST's like DIVA, Omnisphere Multies that frack Skippie's machine, and love creating big Kontakt multies! Luv me some prety heavy effects too like those from Zynaptiq and Fabfilter's 8 or 16x's oversampling can get a bit rough on mortal maschines. So for me, it's perfect... let's me follow my bliss without a hiccup...EVER!


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## Vastman (Oct 26, 2018)

babylonwaves said:


> looking at previous SF kontakt libs, there was a need to combine multiple instruments to get all articulations on one channel. the same for having like 10 mics and loads of articulations in one instrument. those are practical limit (of their kontakt instruments) they can overcome with a proprietary instrument.


OT handles this fine! And we loose the ability to set up Multies combining different libraries! Combining Olafur's chamber evolution with his Evolutions, SWARM and a few others are just ecstatic! Maybe the macho mega template orchestrators laugh at this but songwriting multies are just wonderful! Oh well...

I DO luv the library! Don't get me wrong... and will use it loads...mucked around a bit more with it and TM and adore THEM BOTH. However I found myself wanting to save some of the combinations of these libraries as a multi and couldn't! Guess I'll have to start using Studio One's multi system....finally! Just glad much of what I like using is already in Kontakt and, financially it might help limit my future Spitfire GAS to ONLY very unique expressive creations that sweep me away (yum!)

Good night!


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## Puzzlefactory (Oct 27, 2018)

I noticed there was no thread from Spitfire about this. Have they left the forum all together now? (I know Paul and Christian had)...


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## erikradbo (Oct 27, 2018)

ism said:


> I'd argue that the negative comments are of the "this isn't for me" variety. And it's interesting to note that many people want a choir to do something else, and this may help focus people's attention on what that library isn't, and help inform decisions. So if such opinions are repeated noted, and respected, why would then need to be any further amplified.
> 
> 
> Usually when the are really negative debates its when there are technical flaws or holes on the artistic conception or a feeling that the marketing intentionally or otherwise somehow misrepresents what the library actually is. And I don't see any reason to suggest that this library doesn't do what it says on the tin.
> ...



Yes, this is very well put and I agree and hope you are right. Still, for the first time in here, I got the feeling that everything was much more correct than usual.

Even though that's a good thing, it gave me the same feeling parents get when coming home after a trip and the teenager has been home alone, and for once the house is just _too_ tidy. It's really hard to accuse the kid for having done anything wrong, 'cause hopefully he hasn't, and who are you to say otherwise, but you just get that feeling...especially when he also is very interested in your comment on the quality of Nordic Choirs, when all you did was mentioning that you like to listen to that kind of music . Then the feeling sticks.


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## erikradbo (Oct 27, 2018)

ism said:


> Care to recommend some good Nordic choral works?



Ah, yes. Not knowing what you are looking for, a nice entry point is this small vocal ensemble doing the traditional pieces/hymns that most swedes know and occasionally sing (spotify link): The Real Group, Stämning: 



A personal favorite from that collection: 



For larger choirs, check out Eric Ericssons album "Nordic", and for the slightly more contemporary and atonal, his Swedish contemporary Swedish music series, such as:


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## Bill the Lesser (Oct 27, 2018)

Puzzlefactory said:


> I noticed there was no thread from Spitfire about this. Have they left the forum all together now? (I know Paul and Christian had)...


Their support team is monitoring this thread, evidenced by volunteering some help about download speeds yesterday. Definitely a class act, thanks fellas! But nothing proactive. They've bought a lot of ads (please click), good for them and us too!


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## Virtuoso (Oct 27, 2018)

Loving the Evos - the subtle movement and width sound fantastic!


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## windyweekend (Oct 27, 2018)

Anyone tried running this on an HDD yet. Running out of SSD space and need to know how essential this is. HZS had real problems on an HHD so would be good to know if disc throttling is to be expected in addition to the big RAM requirements. 

Thx


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## zimm83 (Oct 27, 2018)

Vastman said:


> OT handles this fine! And we loose the ability to set up Multies combining different libraries! Combining Olafur's chamber evolution with his Evolutions, SWARM and a few others are just ecstatic! Maybe the macho mega template orchestrators laugh at this but songwriting multies are just wonderful! Oh well...
> 
> I DO luv the library! Don't get me wrong... and will use it loads...mucked around a bit more with it and TM and adore THEM BOTH. However I found myself wanting to save some of the combinations of these libraries as a multi and couldn't! Guess I'll have to start using Studio One's multi system....finally! Just glad much of what I like using is already in Kontakt and, financially it might help limit my future Spitfire GAS to ONLY very unique expressive creations that sweep me away (yum!)
> 
> Good night!


Yes that's it. No multis.....


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## Scamper (Oct 27, 2018)

The choir sure sounds great.
Since I'm still looking for a proper choir library, what libraries are similar in style and size, being more on the softer side than epic? Fluffy Dominus, Soundiron Requiem, 8Dio Silka maybe?
Anybody who got some experience with those and can comment and compare them somewhat?


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## Shad0wLandsUK (Oct 27, 2018)

I made a pact to not buy any more libraries and now they bring out this and 8DIO slash Insolidus to $298!!
What is the wrong with people... 

Choirs are the only weaker point in my aresenal...

Though I have picked all the voices but one, from 8DIO. Also Voices of Soul is out and I have HWC and EWSC


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## Jaap (Oct 27, 2018)

I do hope they consider releasing also a core version or something like that as they do with other products. Nice pristine sound, though I only skimmed through the walkthrough and demos, but for me personally it looks like an overload of gb's and just a basic core version of the library would do fine for me.


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## Michel Simons (Oct 27, 2018)

Jaap said:


> I do hope they consider releasing also a core version or something like that as they do with other products. Nice pristine sound, though I only skimmed through the walkthrough and demos, but for me personally it looks like an overload of gb's and just a basic core version of the library would do fine for me.



I just watched Paul's Walkthrough and had the exact same thought.


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## ism (Oct 27, 2018)

erikradbo said:


> Ah, yes. Not knowing what you are looking for, a nice entry point is this small vocal ensemble doing the traditional pieces/hymns that most swedes know and occasionally sing (spotify link): The Real Group, Stämning:
> 
> 
> 
> ...





These are wonderful - thanks!


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## ism (Oct 27, 2018)

erikradbo said:


> Yes, this is very well put and I agree and hope you are right. Still, for the first time in here, I got the feeling that everything was much more correct than usual.
> 
> Even though that's a good thing, it gave me the same feeling parents get when coming home after a trip and the teenager has been home alone, and for once the house is just _too_ tidy. It's really hard to accuse the kid for having done anything wrong, 'cause hopefully he hasn't, and who are you to say otherwise, but you just get that feeling...especially when he also is very interested in your comment on the quality of Nordic Choirs, when all you did was mentioning that you like to listen to that kind of music . Then the feeling sticks.



Yes, I’d agree that its unnerving to go on the internet and not find one kind of dumpster fire or another :_)_


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## Bill the Lesser (Oct 27, 2018)

Scamper said:


> The choir sure sounds great.
> Since I'm still looking for a proper choir library, what libraries are similar in style and size, being more on the softer side than epic? Fluffy Dominus, Soundiron Requiem, 8Dio Silka maybe?
> Anybody who got some experience with those and can comment and compare them somewhat?



Dominus is quite beautiful and covers a lot of dynamic ground. IMHO it is most lovely at the low end of the dynamics but can get very loud when needed. It has a (mostly) Latin word builder with lots of presets, selecting words with varying amounts of vowels and note durations works as a texture control. "U" is gorgeous by itself, "Miserecordia" is very textural. When you run out of vowels it extends the last vowel. Notes can be changed within a word. Apropos of Eric's comments about harmonics it has very little vibrato, I now understand why...that preserves the harmonic architecture. The wordbuilder offers a huge selection of variations, but you would need thousands of more words to put together grammatical phrases, it's there for the sound texture. Ancient Romans would laugh. It's very quick to use.

I was able to approximate Christian's first ultra-subtle Mojave teasers with Dominus. However the total of EWC covers much more territory with greater variation. I'm not putting Dominus on the shelf, and will surely pick up the hoped-for Dominus 2. Like EWC, Dominus is niche in what it does. EWC is modern and even aleatoric, Dominus evokes times past. They're kind of complimentary. EWC and Dominus are my personal favorite VIs. Both are a pleasure use since they play easily with minimal fussing around.

I also have Soundiron's Requiem Light, Mercury Elements, and Olympus Elements, and Sonokinetic Tutti Vox. Those are all adequate for many things, but are best sounding toward the normal to epic end of the scale. They often need envelope controls to address the subtle end of the scale, which tends to sounds odd. They all have minimal vowel selectors, Requiem Light has a rudimentary word selector, and Tutti can build long phrases from a limited set of words and vowels. The Tutti Vox Ligeti-like patches are very well done and quite unique. If you want a real wordbuilder, go to Hollywood Choir. IMHO it's important to know that vowel and word builders impose limitations on what can be done in terms of sound quality and composition, there are tradeoffs there. Mostly all those choirs are far more plain-vanilla than EWC or Dominus. And none of them has anything like EWC's EVO grid which can build a whole cue with held chords. EWC and Hollywood Choir tie for the sound quality award, the production values are amazing.

If you have the full Kontakt version, be sure to check out its choir patches. Very minimal but with beautiful sound.


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## erikradbo (Oct 27, 2018)

ism said:


> Yes, I’d agree that its unnerving to go on the internet and not find one kind of dumpster fire or another :_)_



I feel you are aiming at pointing me out as someone looking for trouble. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just like the parent in my analogy above I hope for everything to be safe and sound, and shy away from the harsh tones in many threads and forums. This was just me sharing a feeling of something not being 100% right, and I have noted that you don't feel the same way.



ism said:


> These are wonderful - thanks!



Yes, they are indeed really nice. Enjoy!


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## sostenuto (Oct 27, 2018)

Bill the Lesser said:


> Dominus is quite beautiful and covers a lot of dynamic ground. IMHO it is most lovely at the low end of the dynamics but can get very loud when needed. *******
> I was able to approximate Christian's first ultra-subtle Mojave teasers with Dominus. However the total of EWC covers much more territory with greater variation. I'm not putting Dominus on the shelf, and will surely pick up the hoped-for Dominus 2. Like EWC, Dominus is niche in what it does. EWC is modern and even aleatoric, Dominus evokes times past. They're kind of complimentary. EWC and Dominus are my personal favorite VIs. Both are a pleasure use since they play easily with minimal fussing around. ****** .



Very timely and informative, Bill.
The very recent 8DIO Insolidus sale price announcement is now changing my priorities.
While SF_ EWC is highly desirable, and priced attractively, I share other thoughts about a Core version with fewer Mics and related smaller size. 
Frustrating now, as SF cannot realistically add this without impacting those early-adopters who may have preferred a smaller option.

Your 'complementary ' comment is interesting ….. as is *@ Alex Niedt* thoughts about 8DIO Silka.

Regards


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## sostenuto (Oct 27, 2018)

erikradbo said:


> I feel you are aiming at pointing me out as someone looking for trouble. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just like the parent in my analogy above I hope for everything to be safe and sound, and shy away from the harsh tones in many threads and forums. This was just me sharing a feeling of something not being 100% right, and I have noted that you don't feel the same way. *****
> Enjoy!



Too bad your post may have been interpreted so differently. I read it thru carefully and felt it may have expressed some of my personal feelings as well. A bit clumsy for me to express this any more succinctly, and your intent seems clear. 

(edit) @ ka00 ….. was writing as you were posting. Not reacting her to your Post.


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## jbuhler (Oct 27, 2018)

sostenuto said:


> Very timely and informative, Bill.
> The very recent 8DIO Insolidus sale price announcement is now changing my priorities.
> While SF_ EWC is highly desirable, and priced attractively, I share other thoughts about a Core version with fewer Mics and related smaller size.
> Frustrating now, as SF cannot realistically add this without impacting those early-adopters who may have preferred a smaller option.
> ...


Glad you feel like you have clarity. I find I'm getting more confused about how to proceed. Not sure if that means I should pull the trigger on something (since I feel I have a large gap in my choir libraries and any of the choices will improve that) or hold off and wait until I'm sure what I need.


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## ism (Oct 27, 2018)

erikradbo said:


> I feel you are aiming at pointing me out as someone looking for trouble. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just like the parent in my analogy above I hope for everything to be safe and sound, and shy away from the harsh tones in many threads and forums. This was just me sharing a feeling of something not being 100% right, and I have noted that you don't feel the same way.




Sorry if I misrepresented what you were actually saying. I actually agree with you that its odd, and thought the oddness you point out was interesting enough to merit some musings of these happy dynamics, kind of as a follow up to my earlier post musing on the unhappiness of dynamics of certain other threads. Which ultimately I think does throw some light on the nature of the both various libraries, across their technical, artistic and marketing dimensions.

In general I think sample libraries have in the last few years hit a threshold of complexity that it becoming interesting to muse about what a proper "sample library criticism" would look like - analogous to historical development of film or literary criticism as technology brought to a certain level of complexity and social prominence.

So again, apologies if it came off defensively. I do appreciate you sharing the interesting insight.

And I quite like the way your 'parent's coming home' analogy captures something of the uncanniness of the moment. 


And really loving those Scandi choirs.


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## ironbut (Oct 27, 2018)

gpax said:


> It's discounted from the full price, though you can purchase during the promo and they'll do the math.


You apply just like any other product. The sent me a code for 3.68% off the intro price.

BTW, now that it's a few days down the road, is everybody still having slooooow download speeds on this?


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## sostenuto (Oct 27, 2018)

jbuhler said:


> Glad you feel like you have clarity. I find I'm getting more confused about how to proceed. Not sure if that means I should pull the trigger on something (since I feel I have a large gap in my choir libraries and any of the choices will improve that) or hold off and wait until I'm sure what I need.



Ha ha ….. _clarity_ is a bit of an overstatement  
The Insolidus promo is just an excuse to do _something __……. _
My _Storm Choir 2 Crossgrade_ options are almost same cost. 

Probably making SF_EWC 165GB more of a big deal than it is. It will require a new HDD or SSD, but that's just a case of bad timing.


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## ka00 (Oct 27, 2018)

sostenuto said:


> Too bad your post may have been interpreted so differently. I read it thru carefully and felt it may have expressed some of my personal feelings as well. A bit clumsy for me to express this any more succinctly, and your intent seems clear.
> 
> (edit) @ ka00 ….. was writing as you were posting. Not reacting her to your Post.



No worries, I withdrew my post anyway as I don’t want to inflame this thread.


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## JT (Oct 27, 2018)

Jaap said:


> I do hope they consider releasing also a core version or something like that as they do with other products. Nice pristine sound, though I only skimmed through the walkthrough and demos, but for me personally it looks like an overload of gb's and just a basic core version of the library would do fine for me.


I got the impression after watching CH's conversation with EW, that they're planning on releasing a basic free version at some point.


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## The Darris (Oct 27, 2018)

This might be the first library that I've found capable of recreating something similar to this piece by John Luther Adams. I've skipped it to where the voices come in.


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## MillsMixx (Oct 27, 2018)

I was was waiting a long time for the price to go down and finally able to pick up *Insolidus *at half price during a sale last year since I'm an 8Dio V8P member.

I wasn't disappointed. It can be bit cumbersome in functionality (abrupt release, etc..) but because it uses "arc" phrases with a little effort it's the best sounding and realistic library out there in my opinion.

If you're thinking about a choir purchase you can bet this 8dio half-price flash sale will never be lower again. It's not worth the full 600.00 in my opinion (well, maybe if you combine it with it's 2nd volume Silka...more phrases... I won't go on a rant here as to why they split the libraries at that price or charge so much compared to Dominus) but for half price it's just about right and 8dio has been generous with their sales! It also has legato oohs, ahhs, etc...

I also own Freyja and Dominus and feel those 2 libraries come closest in sound to Eric Whitacre Choir just from playing along to the walk-throughs for comparison. The spitfire choir is truly an atmospheric sound design tool from what I can hear. Some of the voice patches don't even sound like the human voice but more like a pad or a string which I actually like. It looks like a creative addition. I just have to decide if I'm willing to pay that much for something that is so very close in sound to the others I've mentioned.


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## playz123 (Oct 27, 2018)

MillsMixx said:


> I just have to decide if I'm willing to pay that much for something that is so very close in sound to the others I've mentioned.



You suggest other choirs come close in sound, but if you ever do purchase the Whitacre library, I'd be interested to hear if you still have the same opinion.....no offense intended. As for me, after working with this new library, I feel it can compliment other libraries, but I also feel, that in many instances, it brings a sound that is new and unique to my multi choir collection, and adds elements that are simply not matched elsewhere. I've also discovered there's far more value to this library than even the videos reveal.

It's interesting to note that most purchasers seem to love the new choir, while challenges to it originate with people who don't actually own it. Just to be clear, I am NOT suggesting one shouldn't be cautious and compare, or examine one's own needs before purchasing any library. But what I am suggesting is, that until one has worked with this new choir, it may also be very difficult to assess just how good it really is and why it was a worthwhile purchase, even if one has many other choir libraries...as I do.


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## madfloyd (Oct 27, 2018)

playz123 said:


> You suggest other choirs come close in sound, but if you ever do purchase the Whitacre library, I'd be interested to hear if you still have the same opinion.....no offense intended. As for me, after working with this new library, I feel it can compliment other libraries, but I also feel, that in many instances, it brings a sound that is new and unique to my multi choir collection, and adds elements that are simply not matched elsewhere. I've also discovered there's far more value to this library than even the videos reveal.
> 
> It's interesting to note that most purchasers seem to love the new choir, while challenges to it originate with people who don't actually own it. Just to be clear, I am NOT suggesting one shouldn't be cautious and compare, or examine one's own needs before purchasing any library. But what I am suggesting is, that until one has worked with this new choir, it may also be very difficult to assess just how good it really is and why it was a worthwhile purchase, even if one has many other choir libraries...as I do.




Which other ones do you own?


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## X-Bassist (Oct 27, 2018)

playz123 said:


> what I am suggesting is, that until one has worked with this new choir, it may also be very difficult to assess just how good it really is and why it was a worthwhile purchase, even if one has many other choir libraries...as I do.



How about letting others in on what you found out about it after purchasing that made it such a great decision? List why it’s so much better than you expected.


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## MillsMixx (Oct 27, 2018)

playz123 said:


> You suggest other choirs come close in sound, but if you ever do purchase the Whitacre library, I'd be interested to hear if you still have the same opinion.....


Trust me I'm very close to pulling the trigger on this. There are certainly no complaints I have about this library from what I've seen other than perhaps overkill with what I already can do with the others I own. I definitely don't _need_ it even if the sound is better, but I certainly WANT it. Now it's just down to price. 



playz123 said:


> but I also feel, that in many instances, it brings a sound that is new and unique to my multi choir collection, and adds elements that are simply not matched elsewhere.


This is what I'm thinking too which is why it's been sitting in my cart for checkout since Thursday.


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## playz123 (Oct 27, 2018)

madfloyd said:


> Which other ones do you own?


Well, that might be a bit of a leading question  but to name a few...

OT Arc choirs
Dominus
Audiobro Genesis
Virharmonic Voices of Prague
Virharmonic Voices of Prague Soloists
Virharmonic Czech Boys Choir
8DIO Lacrimosa
8DIO Requiem Pro
8DIO Liberis
Cinesamples Voxos 2
Soundiron Mars
Soundiron Mercury
Soundiron Olympus Elements
Soundiron Venus
EWQL Symphonic Choirs
Plus MANY single vocalists such as the Ethera series, Voices of Rapture, Shevannai etc. and vocal libraries such as Cantus and Mystica. Anyway, hope that answers your question.


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## Bill the Lesser (Oct 27, 2018)

playz123 said:


> Well, that might be a bit of a leading question  but to name a few...
> 
> OT Arc choirs
> Dominus
> ...


That's a good basic starter kit!


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## playz123 (Oct 27, 2018)

X-Bassist said:


> How about letting others in on what you found out about it after purchasing that made it such a great decision? List why it’s so much better than you expected.


Well, I suspect my previous posts may have covered some of that, but I'll also add that it was not my intention here to end up seemingly trying to 'sell' the choir to others.  In brief, what this choir brings to my table that is new and unique is the sound of the singers, and the mood those sounds can subsequently create, valuable patches that extend beyond the ones covered in the videos, and the Evo library (which I feel adds great value, and IMHO goes beyond the value that other Evo libraries have for me) (yes I have them all). But again, I also want to make clear that what I expressed in threads here are simply my own opinions, that I'm not out to sway others, and nor do I wish to get into a situation where I am asked to defend my opinions. Don't misunderstand...clearly that was not YOUR intent...IMO your question was valid. But I simply took the opportunity to offer the above comments as well.  Cheers!


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## playz123 (Oct 27, 2018)

Bill the Lesser said:


> That's a good basic starter kit!


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## playz123 (Oct 27, 2018)

MillsMixx said:


> This is what I'm thinking too which is why it's been sitting in my cart for checkout since Thursday.


 Good luck; it's never easy deciding...and it always seems one can never be 100% sure before purchasing if one is making a wise decision or not. We've all been there!


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## emasters (Oct 27, 2018)

m


playz123 said:


> It's interesting to note that most purchasers seem to love the new choir, while challenges to it originate with people who don't actually own it.



Without advocating whether one should buy it or not - nor how it compares to other libraries, just playing it is fantastic. I spent the afternoon with it today, running it through Spaces II and wow, what a great choral library. What it provides, it does well. Very nice job, Spitfire!


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## Scamper (Oct 27, 2018)

Bill the Lesser said:


> I was able to approximate Christian's first ultra-subtle Mojave teasers with Dominus. However the total of EWC covers much more territory with greater variation. I'm not putting Dominus on the shelf, and will surely pick up the hoped-for Dominus 2. Like EWC, Dominus is niche in what it does. EWC is modern and even aleatoric, Dominus evokes times past. They're kind of complimentary. EWC and Dominus are my personal favorite VIs. Both are a pleasure use since they play easily with minimal fussing around.



Sounds good, thanks.
Dominus seems like a solid package, especially the *word builder technology, but I wish the sections would be split into soprano, alto, tenor and bass.

I got the EWQL Symphonic Choir, but can't properly use it, since it always crashes, when I load the word builder patches. The Kontakt choir sounds also aren't bad, but I find it hard to work with patches, that don't have modulation control for dynamics.


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## paoling (Oct 27, 2018)

Scamper said:


> Dominus seems like a solid package, especially the world builder technology


I only wish we could be so advanced. But I believe that world building would be awesome for Soundiron Mars.


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## Garry (Oct 27, 2018)

@paoling - are you planning on responding to 8Dio's flash sale, and make similar reductions to Dominus? They are clearly going after those who waited for the Eric Whitacre choir, and were disappointed, and trying to get in quickly before the Black Friday sales start. It's a smart move on their part, and forces those of us trying to make a decision between Insolidus and Dominus to guess before Nov 1st if there will be any counter response from you?


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## sostenuto (Oct 27, 2018)

Kinda tough to try to sort Posts from those with quality Choir Libs and those with others _ or none.

My salient uncertainty has NO concerns about value and quality of EWC …. NONE.
Concern is whether EWC is a valid addition when current Choral content is quite limited.

As holiday deals continue, a key concern is how critical it is to own and familiarize with one of top Choir libs, PRIOR to EWC ???? $449. (for EWV) is only a factor in terms of 'blocking' other top Choral purchases this season.

NO B/W answers here, but maybe some helpful comment regarding these personal concerns ?


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## paoling (Oct 27, 2018)

Garry said:


> @paoling - are you planning on responding to 8Dio's flash sale, and make similar reductions to Dominus? They are clearly going after those who waited for the Eric Whitacre choir, and were disappointed, and trying to get in quickly before the Black Friday sales start. It's a smart move on their part, and forces those of us trying to make a decision between Insolidus and Dominus to guess before Nov 1st if there will be any counter response from you?


Hello Garry!

Black Friday is coming soon and personally I don't like to make special sales based on what other developers do. It seems like a weak and jealous move to me. It happened by two developers when we released Dominus and I felt a bit disappointed. It seems like having an ex girlfriend trying to ruin your wedding day. Who cares who releases what. I felt relieved that Spitfire library was exactly what I thought. I believe that Dominus and Spitfire EWC do quite different things and they are somewhat complementary as Bill said. Insolidus was a library that I personally bought (along with many others) to test if my plan for sampling Dominus could work.

Now we are working on something even bigger, but I can't wait to start working on the beautiful sounds we got one month ago with the same choirs!


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## Bill the Lesser (Oct 27, 2018)

paoling said:


> ...Dominus...Now we are working on something even bigger, but I can't wait to start working on the beautiful sounds we got one month ago with the same choirs!


I'll be the first one in line!


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## prodigalson (Oct 27, 2018)

paoling said:


> Hello Garry!
> 
> Black Friday is coming soon and personally I don't like to make special sales based on what other developers do. It seems like a weak and jealous move to me. It happened by two developers when we released Dominus and I felt a bit disappointed. It seems like having an ex girlfriend trying to ruin your wedding day. Who cares who releases what. I felt relieved that Spitfire library was exactly what I thought. I believe that Dominus and Spitfire EWC do quite different things and they are somewhat complementary as Bill said. Insolidus was a library that I personally bought (along with many others) to test if my plan for sampling Dominus could work.
> 
> Now we are working on something even bigger, but I can't wait to start working on the beautiful sounds we got one month ago with the same choirs!



Very classy. unlike the other developer.


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## Michael Antrum (Oct 27, 2018)

Well, at the risk of drawing the ire of a poster on this thread, EWC is not for me, but purely because a choir isn't on my radar at this time. But I am wondering how everyone is getting along with the new Spitfire VST itself (does it have a name ? - I'll call it the Spitfire player).

I have heard lots of comments about the library and it's sound - but not very much about how they are finding the Spitfire player in use. I suppose that this is probably a good sign.

There is an upgrade to the SSO coming next year - and I'm speculating that it will use the new player.

In the meantime, Black Friday and another 32Gb RAM is on my horizon for now.


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## Michel Simons (Oct 27, 2018)

JT said:


> I got the impression after watching CH's conversation with EW, that they're planning on releasing a basic free version at some point.



How much that would be appreciated, but I would still prefer a core version as @Jaap suggested. It's more of a disk space issue than a money issue, although cheaper is always better (I am Dutch after all  ).

However, @sostenuto has a valid point why this is probably not going to happen.


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## Vastman (Oct 28, 2018)

windyweekend said:


> Anyone tried running this on an HDD yet. Running out of SSD space and need to know how essential this is. HZS had real problems on an HHD so would be good to know if disc throttling is to be expected in addition to the big RAM requirements.
> 
> Thx


This is another important issue we have no info about...kontakt allowed preload size adjustment and streams quit well. Spitfire REALLY needs to publish this engine's specs, how it handles these things...imo, give different CPU's & ram that folks have...


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## Garry (Oct 28, 2018)

paoling said:


> Hello Garry!
> 
> Black Friday is coming soon and personally I don't like to make special sales based on what other developers do. It seems like a weak and jealous move to me. It happened by two developers when we released Dominus and I felt a bit disappointed. It seems like having an ex girlfriend trying to ruin your wedding day. Who cares who releases what. I felt relieved that Spitfire library was exactly what I thought. I believe that Dominus and Spitfire EWC do quite different things and they are somewhat complementary as Bill said. Insolidus was a library that I personally bought (along with many others) to test if my plan for sampling Dominus could work.
> 
> Now we are working on something even bigger, but I can't wait to start working on the beautiful sounds we got one month ago with the same choirs!



That's a very fair reply I think, and probably good business sense in the long run: there will always be short term occurrences that spring up unexpectedly, but if you are reactive to each one of these, then in the long term you are no longer running your business, your competitors are. Fair point. 

Doesn't help me choose though! 

Actually, from my own perspective, I think I have now chosen: Dominus was originally my first choice for a choir library, but once it was announced that Spitfire were to release a choir, I just had to wait, and see what they came out with: one of my favorite developers, with one of my favorite composers just could not be overlooked. In the end, what they produced wasn't what I personally was looking for: the lack of a phrase-builder, as both you and 8Dio have successfully implemented in your libraries, was a deal-breaker for me, which wasn't compensated for by the inclusion of the EVOs concept. That may be great for others (particularly those who already have choir libraries), but it just wasn't what I had on my shopping list, so combined with the lack of NKS support (due to not using Kontakt) and in the end it's an easy pass from me.

So, for a lyrical choir, aimed at non-epic, soft/intimate ambient genre, for me it comes down to Dominus and Insolidus. I have watched the demo videos countless times now. Both libraries sound absolutely beautiful, but what has now finally made my decision for me is the inflexibility of Insolidus: all of the demo videos I have seen have the same rhythmic structure (3 to 4 syllable phrases, pause - repeat). It sounds great at first, but it gets very repetitive, but given the architecture of the library, it seems to me that you're essentially locked into this structure, as far as I can tell - do current owners agree? If so, what sells Dominus to me, is that you have managed to achieve very convincing legato, without the need to lock the user into an artificial structure (ie. a 3 syllable phrase, or a 4 syllable phrase, as with Insolidus). That you have achieved that level of flexibility whilst maintaining smooth legato is truly astonishing. I think where Insolidus has the edge is that having pre-baked dynamic transitions (swells, crescendos and arcs) probably sounds that little bit better than crossfades, but it's not enough of a difference to overcome the advantages that the flexibility of Dominus provides, which frees the player from the artificial rhythmic structure imposed by the library.

The other disadvantage of pre-baked phrases as Insolidus has, is that you will end up playing the same phoneme combinations over and over. This might not be that noticeable, I'm not sure, but take for example the phrase "And so is the snow" (a phrase in the Silka library). Once you have used this in one piece, it would become very noticeable if used in another. Perhaps with latin phrases, that's not too much of an issue, I don't know, but with the almost infinite flexibility of phoneme combinations in Dominus, again because the user isn't tied to either rhythmic or phonemic structure imposed by the library's architecture, then this can never be an issue for Dominus. 

One other issue with Insolidus: the 2,3 and 4 syllables patches need to be played on different tracks. That means that if you want to use them in a single piece to break up the imposed rhythm and increase the number of phoneme combinations, you can't just play in a line as the inspiration comes - you have to do separate tracks for each. That makes it difficult to just play what you feel in the moment, and is another example of the inflexibility imposed the library's structure.

I don't want to be dismissive of Insolidus - it is a beautiful library, and a huge achievement by 8Dio. But in directly contrasting it with Dominus, its weaknesses (assuming I've understood them correctly) really highlight Dominus' strengths. Similarly, bringing it back round to the topic of the thread: the Whitacre library sounds beautiful, but Dominus really shows what could have been achieved if they hadn't have immediately dropped the idea of a phrase-builder. 

So, these are just my thoughts after reviewing both libraries for a few days, and mulling over my decision, which is: Dominus.

However, this is based purely on reviewing the information available online, and since I don't currently have either library, I'd love to be corrected on anything I've misunderstood (or my assumptions confirmed if correct) by people who actually have these libraries (or their developers!) - just please do so before Black Friday, after which, it'll be too late for me!


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## colony nofi (Oct 28, 2018)

Vastman said:


> This is another important issue we have no info about...kontakt allowed preload size adjustment and streams quit well. Spitfire REALLY needs to publish this engine's specs, how it handles these things...imo, give different CPU's & ram that folks have...


So the engine seems rock solid here. Have been putting it thru its paces the last 24 hours.

Now - I'm currently away from my studios, so running on a (tricked out) macbook pro. Library is sitting on an external Glyph 4TB SSD - which is 6x faster than a 150MB/s spinning disk. That *AND* spinning disks have much slower random I/O times (which is important for sample players.)

The software seems to have a few targetted options for sample preload / number of voices which could be a big help to those on spinning drives. I don't have a spinning drive here to test it on. But I can say it runs like butter in other sessions that are already fairly large (60+ kontakt instruments running quite complex stuff - getting to the limits of the macbook pro.)

I certainly don't feel like its much more or less resource heavy than a similar kontakt instrument.

I *didn't* have the same experience with phobos, which caused two of my systems issues - but they managed to sort out fairly quickly after the first release. This player has far more testing behind it now - since they use it for labs (smart move in my opinion) as well as zimmer strings - though I don't use the latter!)

For your reference, the mbp I'm running things on has 32GB ram. Which is heaps given I can run extremely low preloads with my ssd setup, and I only run stereo sessions (well, mostly) on this portable rig. I also have my older 2015 laptop with me; if I get time in a week or so (after a bit of a project crunch this week) I'll happily install onto that machine and see how it runs for you.


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## windyweekend (Oct 28, 2018)

Initial thoughts having used EWC for a bit as part of an orch and not just in its own

(while I don’t like to gulp my 82 Margeaux down too fast, there are a few aromas that do come through quite quickly!):

1. *Performance* - is waaayy better than HZS. Most patches run in the 20-30MB RAM range unless you really want everything all at once (compared to HZS using 400-500MB per patch - so the UI is clearly very, very efficient). HDD disk streaming A-Okay. You don’t need NORAD to run this. What I’m struggling to get my head around is that even when you’ve loaded a low RAM patch with these quality sounds you can easily ramp it up across 6-8 mics with only a tiny (1-2MB) performance uplift. (Score - A)

2. *UI* - is growing on me. I love my multis and a small tight use of real estate on a screen (ala Blake R or whoever designed the Albions) but....its pretty clear that when you get to a certain size something like this may work better. For someone with bad ADD like me, this UI actually stops me playing around and experimenting too much, and lets me wallow in the one instrument for a bit and actually listen..(Score - B)

3. *Uniqueness* - Some very interesting stuff in here that on the surface one might be compelled to sniff at, but given my experience with HZS, something tells me I’ll be using some of these weirder artics years down the road when other libs have long dried up. This offers new colours you won’t see in any other pallette. (Score - A)

4. *Sound* - it clearly has the SA and Air quality to it, but at first I didnt think anything special to it until I put it underthe current score I’m working on all done with SSO and HZP/HZS - now EWC is blowing the roof off.
a. I’ve said this before but I believe it even more now - the more Spitfire Air libraries you have, the better this will sound. The sound of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Everything really does sound like the singers are in the same room as the Orchestra.
b. May sound odd, but the most unexpected thing I’ve experienced with this is that even with 100+ instruments belting it out, the voices actually shine through the rest of the orchestra rather than getting blended in. I didn’t expect this, but it’s the most stunning thing to hear. Even the softer pads ring out at a totally different frequency to cut through some how. Now that was worth the price of admission (Score A++)

5. *Quality* - top marks to Spitfire. This one has thoroughly been tested. Install smooth, no glitches, no fruity notes. The best tested product from them yet as far as I can see so far (Score A+)


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## ka00 (Oct 28, 2018)

Regarding the player, I like it. Need to spend more time with it, but I have a few initial thoughts.

The big knob
Let me turn up or down by simply mousing up or down instead of having to do a circular motion. Could be a user-selectable toggle in the plugin preferences circular/linear control of the knob.

Preset Menu (Patch browser)
Would love it if the pull-down browser, where you load different patches, could be resized larger or even fill the plugin's entire UI . Too much scrolling needed for my taste.

Mixer/Microphone selector
Would be nice to see all mics on that one page. The Advanced/Global button section takes up a lot of space that could be reclaimed for mic options.

EVO Grid individual volume levels
Since each evolution in the grid has a default volume of "100%", you run into situations where if you want only one or two evolutions in the grid to be louder, you have to instead reduce the volume on every other channel to bring the relative levels where you want them. So, I think it would be great if 100% weren't the top end of the slider, so that you could set only that one particular part of the grid that you think is too quiet to 200% for example. Or if the notion of going over 100% violates some UI philosophy, you could just set the default slider value for each evo to 50% for example.

ADSR envelope
Forgive my ignorance, but is there a reason why there can't be an ADSR tab in the main instrument? It would be nice to be able to tweak the attack or release for every available patch. As far as I can tell, the only control we have over the envelope is in the EVO patches and in the longs patches of the individual sections in the main choir plugin (as opposed to the tutti patches).

Thanks


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## windyweekend (Oct 28, 2018)

ka00 said:


> Regarding the player, I like it. Need to spend more time with it, but I have two initial thoughts.
> 
> The big knob
> Let me turn up or down by simply mousing up or down instead of having to do a circular motion.
> ...


The big knob was designed to be like that per CH’s WWII utilitarian design principles.

The patches can be added together if theyre loaded together (just use the Shift key). You cant have multis per Kontakt though.


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## ka00 (Oct 28, 2018)

windyweekend said:


> The big knob was designed to be like that per CH’s WWII utilitarian design principles.



I wonder how much thought those WWII Utilitarian designers gave to carpel tunnel syndrome?


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## Mucusman (Oct 28, 2018)

Thanks to those of you who have used EWC for your comments so far. I find myself now, after the initial disappointment of what I hoped EWC _would be_, to be increasing lured by the beautiful tone of the choir, of what it _is_. Doing some quick A/B comparisons with the tones of other choirs, I find that there is some sonic "magic" that's here; its siren song is calling to me...


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## windyweekend (Oct 28, 2018)

Mucusman said:


> Thanks to those of you who have used EWC for your comments so far. I find myself now, after the initial disappointment of what I hoped EWC _would be_, to be increasing lured by the beautiful tone of the choir, of what it _is_. Doing some quick A/B comparisons with the tones of other choirs, I find that there is some sonic "magic" that's here; its siren song is calling to me...


I felt exactly the same way after HZS. After using it for months and finding ways to work with it I couldnt have found at first, I’ve come to adore it. The true beauty of some things isn’t in what you see in the first instant gratification straight out of the box. Some things in this world (thankfully) still have more depth than that...


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## paoling (Oct 28, 2018)

One note about Dominus. The forte dynamic has a quite fixed dynamic structure while the lowest dynamic has actually a Swell that makes possible similar crescendos like in the other libraries mentioned. We usually leave some freedom to our musicians to put dynamics in phrases to make them more emotional (our clarinet is an example of that). Another side note is that we don't use the timemachine at all in Dominus. Not only it is a CPU killer, but it creates some strange warbling artifacts even if used for small tempo changes.


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## jbuhler (Oct 28, 2018)

sostenuto said:


> Kinda tough to try to sort Posts from those with quality Choir Libs and those with others _ or none.
> 
> My salient uncertainty has NO concerns about value and quality of EWC …. NONE.
> Concern is whether EWC is a valid addition when current Choral content is quite limited.
> ...



This is my situation as well, and it would be nice to have some guidance on how to proceed. Perhaps the fact that this advice seems harder to find than with orchestral instruments or synths or hardware is a sign that with choirs there are many paths and much more depends on own's very particular needs and taste, more so than other types of libraries. I was struck by Garry's observation:



Garry said:


> One other issue with Insolidus: the 2,3 and 4 syllables patches need to be played on different tracks. That means that if you want to use them in a single piece to break up the imposed rhythm and increase the number of phoneme combinations, you can't just play in a line as the inspiration comes - you have to do separate tracks for each. That makes it difficult to just play what you feel in the moment, and is another example of the inflexibility imposed the library's structure.



I very much dislike imagining myself under this workflow and knowing where I'm at with my templates I think I would almost certainly have to either upgrade my RAM or get another machine to run samples to get this to work for me if I was trying to use with the choir along with orchestra. So that leaves me back still deciding which choir library to go with first. Which of the available options would best complement what I already have: the two Ark choirs, the Time Macro Choir, Oceania, and the old EWQL Symphonic Choir (which I find maddening)?


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## Fitz (Oct 28, 2018)

mikeybabes said:


> Well, at the risk of drawing the ire of a poster on this thread, EWC is not for me, but purely because a choir isn't on my radar at this time. But I am wondering how everyone is getting along with the new Spitfire VST itself (does it have a name ? - I'll call it the Spitfire player).
> 
> I have heard lots of comments about the library and it's sound - but not very much about how they are finding the Spitfire player in use. I suppose that this is probably a good sign.
> 
> ...


What’s the update to SSO? I was looking to maybe getting it on Black Friday but perhaps I’ll hold off.


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## SpitfireSupport (Oct 28, 2018)

Fitz said:


> What’s the update to SSO? I was looking to maybe getting it on Black Friday but perhaps I’ll hold off.


They’re referring to the fact that the expansion packs were taken off sale earlier this year and will be back again next year. You won’t be put at any kind of disadvantage by buying SSO now verses waiting until we update SSO with the expansion packs again. Ben.


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## ism (Oct 28, 2018)

Mucusman said:


> I find myself now, after the initial disappointment of what I hoped EWC _would be_, to be increasing lured by the beautiful tone of the choir, of what it _is_.



That's well put. And I think 90% of the unhappy dynamics of vi-c threads comes down to confusions between these two things, particularly on an innovative library that genuinely attempts something new.

But also, most what I find so useful and interesting about vi-c threads a their best emerges as people work though through this distinction towards various forms of clarity.


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## sostenuto (Oct 28, 2018)

ism said:


> That's well put. And I think 90% of the unhappy dynamics of vi-c threads comes down to confusions between these two things, particularly on an innovative library that genuinely attempts something new.
> 
> But also, most what I find so useful and interesting about vi-c threads emerge as people work though through this distinction towards various forms of clarity.



Your many informative Posts are much appreciated. As they evolve, I'm left wondering how you would advise impressed prospects who do not yet have a 'mainstream' Choral library.
Are there 'essential' missing pieces with EWC that must be considered ?
_Current 'uninformed' leaning _ as keyboardist with weak MIDI skills _ is toward Dominus /EWC ….. for ease of playing-in creations. _

Other posts suggest complementary libraries (e.g. Dominus, Insolidus) …. and I'm asking whether these should be in place before EWC.


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## jneebz (Oct 28, 2018)

ism said:


> And I think 90% of the unhappy dynamics of vi-c threads comes down to confusions between these two things, particularly on an innovative library that genuinely attempts something new.


Yeah but for me, _"innovative"_ libraries _"with beautiful tone"_ aren't much of an appeal if they don't help me put food on the table. So maybe it's not so much "confusion," but practicality...at least in some cases.


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## playz123 (Oct 28, 2018)

sostenuto said:


> Other posts suggest complementary libraries (e.g. Dominus, Insolidus) …. and I'm asking whether these should be in place before EWC.


I can only speak for my own approach, but there's a reason I have many choirs...choice. The choir I use for a composition depends on what I'm writing and what other libraries are being used as well. Every choir library has both pros and cons. Not everyone has the luxury of choice though, so it's really important when choosing the first few choirs to pick ones that you feel at the time will best help you meet your goals. I know...that is obvious, but nevertheless worth repeating. One choir I can suggest you check out is Genesis childrens choir by Audiobro. It's a keeper. There are many choirs that can do epic. Dominus is worth considering for sure, and will be developed further at some point. The Virharmonic choirs are very versatile, and Soundiron Olympus series has many useful features. Venus is my favourite Soundiron choir. I certainly don't envy the decisions you have to make, but hopefully you will end up being happy with your choices.


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## sostenuto (Oct 28, 2018)

playz123 said:


> I can only speak for my own approach, but there's a reason I have many choirs...choice. The choir I use for a composition depends on what I'm writing and what other libraries are being used as well. ***** One choir I can suggest you check out is Genesis childrens choir by Audiobro. It's a keeper. ***** I certainly don't envy the decisions you have to make, but hopefully you will end up being happy with your choices.



 Yes … the choices are many, and become muddier without a specific project in focus. This immediate interest clearly arose with EWC Intro, and 8DIO Insolidus Sale. Perhaps this should not be a basis for moving forward …...

Genesis is definitely high on the list, but inexperience with limits of Childrens' Choir is a factor.
I have Arva, Freyja. Wotan, and Storm Choir1, so Genesis new engine could well be a solid choice.

Some days to decide, and hopefully more discussion of EWC will help.

THX !


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## boxheadboy50 (Oct 29, 2018)

I didn't read this (edit: *whole*) thread because it's starting to seem silly.

I came here to ask (because I couldn't find it by searching here) if anyone noticed at 27:38 of this video: 

CH and Eric talk about giving something away, maybe video of the footage they shot for the teasers, maybe a small snippet of the library, so folks can try it out and write music to these videos. Did I miss something? Or was that another Spitfire cheeky sneak peek?


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## madfloyd (Oct 29, 2018)

How would you know if it’s silly or not if you haven’t read the thread?


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## ism (Oct 29, 2018)

Personally, I like a touch of silliness in my vi-c threads.


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## boxheadboy50 (Oct 29, 2018)

madfloyd said:


> How would you know if it’s silly or not if you haven’t read the thread?


Ha, you're right! I should've said that I didn't read the *whole* thread.
Thanks for keeping me honest


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## boxheadboy50 (Oct 29, 2018)

ism said:


> Personally, I like a touch of silliness in my vi-c threads.


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## sostenuto (Oct 29, 2018)

Apprx 10 days left for EWC Intro price.
Lots of useful / informative info here and hope it does not diminish before Nov.
As with *@ ism _* ' _I like a touch of silliness in my vi-c threads_ '


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## Geoff Grace (Oct 29, 2018)

I found this to be helpful:



Best,

Geoff


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## Lee Blaske (Oct 30, 2018)

My first getting-acquainted with the EWC library track...


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## ism (Oct 30, 2018)

sostenuto said:


> Your many informative Posts are much appreciated. As they evolve, I'm left wondering how you would advise impressed prospects who do not yet have a 'mainstream' Choral library.
> Are there 'essential' missing pieces with EWC that must be considered ?
> _Current 'uninformed' leaning _ as keyboardist with weak MIDI skills _ is toward Dominus /EWC ….. for ease of playing-in creations. _
> 
> Other posts suggest complementary libraries (e.g. Dominus, Insolidus) …. and I'm asking whether these should be in place before EWC.




I'm really not one to ask about what choir library to buy in that my experience, historically, is mostly buying the wrong ones.

But I think the interesting question here is how the notion of a 'mainstream' choir library has been changing, certainly with EWC, but beginning - at least in my understanding - with Dominus.

Before Dominus I think it was fair to say that a 'mainstream' choir was more or less an epic, or maybe symphonic, choir. At least in the sample library world this was true, because of course in the world of really singers actually singing in actual real choirs the epic was never so dominant as to qualify as 'mainstream'

And you see this addressed both subtly and not so subtly in the interview with Eric - I really like his quote about a choir having the range of a symphony. Which at first sounds like a Blakean 'world in a grain of sand' sentiment. And to some people it surely is - EWC has all these very finely crafted detailed textures that go to incredible depth. From the perspective of the expressive dimensions of the 'conventional' epic choir, it might very well seem like the diminishing returns of zooming in to incredibly fine detail - like counting grains of sand on the head of a pin. A variant of the 'all you sul tastos sound the same to me' response to Tundra.

... except that maybe the world of choirs - if we step away from the dominance of the epic choir in the sample library world - maybe the EWC level of expressive detail was never a grain of sand, but always a vast sea of enormous, symphonic, expressive dimensions. Which is something that I began to feel when Dominus came out - igniting an angst for a different type of choir. I have Venus, and Mercury, which for all their extreme loveliness, never seem to do quite what I want them to. Dominus felt very different.

And then ... Time Marco hit, and its choirs were both a huge surprise and an instant revelation. It was suddenly clear just the kind of dimensions choirs could reach towards - even if there's really only one or two patches among the TM choirs that align with what I'm looking for, they really are just that stunning in how they suggest new possibilities of the choir. (The rest of the patches are fun but a bit ... well the "zzz"s and "nana"s would make a great muppet choir if you could only throw in a 'phen-om-a-na' patch - which now that I think of it,I really want).

Of course the TM choirs are also very limited. I attempted to mock of Eric's "Lux Aurumque" with TM ... which I can share if anyone's morbidly curious ... but the bottom line that while some moments within individual chords are indescribably gorgeous and suggestive of vast possibilities ahead ... you simply cannot and should not attempt Eric Whitacre mockups with TM.

One of the first things to go through my head wth when I first played a TM choir patch was ... 'what if spitfire were to do an entire library along the lines of 'choral swarm'! .... and then EWC hit (though to my deep laminations, it will probably next year before I reasonably (or unreasonably) justify another large sample library. Sigh.)

But to (sort of, if actually, not quite) answer your question ... sure, why not! I myself am totally comfortable with letting the Dominus, TM choirs, and EWC entirely redefine what a 'mainstream' choral library is - let the supposed grain of sand become the new universe. And within our brave new choral universe, relegate all the formerly mainstream epic libraries to respected, but actually, when you think of it, quite small places on the periphery.


Needless to say, you mileage may vary.


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## Vastman (Oct 30, 2018)

Don't have Dominus (hoping for a great BF sale) but DO agree...Time Macro and EWC are a WELCOME evolution to the nice but very traditional choirs I've gotten over the years and, frankly, find little use for!

EWC, though pricey, is way more interesting from a songwriter perspective...than more expensive choirs ive bought. I kinda hope OT's next ARK is a HUGE move in this direction also and that what we saw in TM was just a tease! Kinda overloaded with the other orchestrals...Seems THIS is the area both of these giants have shied away from till now (I can only hope re: ARK 4)

Note: SSD PRICES ARE FALLING and the word is they'll continue to do so going into the new year, with the caveat that for us stuck in the F'd up USA, the orange A-hole's tariffs are also ramping starting 2019 so for us it might not help much if at all next year...even though all we buy in this area comes from Asia...go figure


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## Geoff Grace (Oct 30, 2018)

This is completely off topic, but am I the only one here who reads “EWC” and thinks “Earth, Wind & Choir?”

Best,

Geoff


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## sostenuto (Oct 30, 2018)

ism said:


> I'm really not one to ask about what choir library to buy in that my experience, historically, is mostly buying the wrong ones.
> But I think the interesting question here is how the notion of a 'mainstream' choir library has been changing, certainly with EWC, but beginning - at least in my understanding - with Dominus. *****
> But to (sort of, if actually, not quite) answer your question ... sure, why not! I myself am totally comfortable with letting the Dominus, TM choirs, and EWC entirely redefine what a 'mainstream' choral library is - let the supposed grain of sand become the new universe. And within our brave new choral universe, relegate all the formerly mainstream epic libraries to respected, but actually, when you think of it, quite small places on the periphery. ***



Aaaaarrrgghhh !!! I try so hard to raise questions, but not truly wanting to imply … "_what should I buy ? _" My gut wants to go with EWC and Genesis, but I lose confidence not having Dominus or Insolidus in place, _and learned_, to some extent. 
For sure, the Insolidus sale price is having more impact than perhaps it should.
If I read SFA's Intro material correctly, EWC will not be included in this Holiday promo offerings, so there remains apprx one week to decide.

Your comments have made me feel notably more comfortable with EWC or Genesis, and focusing on some serious 'choral' learning. I can surely use what I have, to better understand what I may be missing.

Thank-you for continuing to provide relevant perspectives. They are very helpful.


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## Geoff Grace (Oct 31, 2018)

sostenuto said:


> If I read SFA's Intro material correctly, EWC will not be included in this Holiday promo offerings, so there remains apprx one week to decide.


...or perhaps one year to decide, if you don't mind waiting for a later sale.

For what it's worth, their website says, "Please note - this product will not feature in Black Friday promotions," however nothing is said about Christmas that I can find. 

Of course, if last year's Wish List sale repeats this year, one should expect a lower discount for recently released titles, perhaps 15% instead of 30% or 25% instead of 40%.

Best,

Geoff


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## zimm83 (Oct 31, 2018)

Vastman said:


> Don't have Dominus (hoping for a great BF sale) but DO agree...Time Macro and EWC are a WELCOME evolution to the nice but very traditional choirs I've gotten over the years and, frankly, find little use for!
> 
> EWC, though pricey, is way more interesting from a songwriter perspective...than more expensive choirs ive bought. I kinda hope OT's next ARK is a HUGE move in this direction also and that what we saw in TM was just a tease! Kinda overloaded with the other orchestrals...Seems THIS is the area both of these giants have shied away from till now (I can only hope re: ARK 4)
> 
> Note: SSD PRICES ARE FALLING and the word is they'll continue to do so going into the new year, with the caveat that for us stuck in the F'd up USA, the orange A-hole's tariffs are also ramping starting 2019 so for us it might not help much if at all next year...even though all we buy in this area comes from Asia...go figure


Really curious about What ark4 will be.....can't imagine.....maybe choir as you say....maybe.....atonal stuff....


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## CT (Oct 31, 2018)

ism said:


> let the supposed grain of sand become the new universe.



Agreed. Call me crazy, but I have to chuckle when I see the Whitacre library described as "niche" or a "grain of sand," as if it's not totally the other way around, and we haven't had tons of choral libraries over the years catering almost exclusively to one very specific mode of writing for voices.


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## madfloyd (Oct 31, 2018)

Have OT actually announced Ark4 or do they just release one every fall?


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## MillsMixx (Oct 31, 2018)

madfloyd said:


> Have OT actually announced Ark4 or do they just release one every fall?



Curious too. Do we know if there will even be a forth installment? I've heard nothing but then it's always around Christmas time when if/when they drop one. It's what usually keeps me broke going into the new year which is usually rough after the Spitfire wish list. 
I'm not sure why they would do Ark 4 as a choir library though. I would think they would make that a library that stands out on it's own. However they already have some choir elements here and there so who knows.


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## noises on (Oct 31, 2018)

Gr


ism said:


> I'm really not one to ask about what choir library to buy in that my experience, historically, is mostly buying the wrong ones.
> 
> But I think the interesting question here is how the notion of a 'mainstream' choir library has been changing, certainly with EWC, but beginning - at least in my understanding - with Dominus.
> 
> ...


Great post ...thank you


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## madfloyd (Oct 31, 2018)

noises on said:


> Gr
> 
> Eat post ...thankd



Not very nutritious...


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## boxheadboy50 (Nov 1, 2018)

boxheadboy50 said:


> [...]CH and Eric talk about giving something away, maybe video of the footage they shot for the teasers, maybe a small snippet of the library, so folks can try it out and write music to these videos. Did I miss something? Or was that another Spitfire cheeky sneak peek?




Haha! I win!


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## madfloyd (Nov 1, 2018)

I don't hear much in the way of human voice in that video...


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## ism (Nov 1, 2018)

madfloyd said:


> I don't hear much in the way of human voice in that video...



A little more detail on this one





Though it definitely leans towards the ambient side of the spectrum of what the full library can do.


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## ism (Nov 1, 2018)

madfloyd said:


> I don't hear much in the way of human voice in that video...




I know what you mean - on a first listen it's very much the edge of sound design pad territory.

But listening to this a few more times, I think actually think its quite striking how at certain moments the voices emerge very clearly and distinctly from the mix, establish the sonic landscape as very much the territory of the human voice ... and then dissolve seamlessly back in the more ambient overall ambient sea of the piece.


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## ism (Nov 1, 2018)

miket said:


> ... as if it's not totally the other way around, and we haven't had tons of choral libraries over the years catering almost exclusively to one very specific mode of writing for voices.



And that (helpfully) puts quite a fine point on it what I was muddling through all that abstraction to express.


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## Vadium (Nov 2, 2018)

There is a several strings from my conversation with Spitfire tech support. May be this info will useful for anybody. For this moment, if I want to use this choir for microtonal music, I must to use 10-12 instances (for polyphony) of a choir plugin with a custom conversion pitch band messages to "tune' parameter of a plugin. Such count of instances is strong stress for CPU and disc system, especially as LABS engine have not a memory server, as in Native Kontakt..

Hi!
Is audio engine of this choir support multichannel tuning for microtonal music making? (for example, MPE or multy mode, as in East West Play? (see appl. picture) for me, this is a decisive factor in the case of purchasing a library, because in the case of Kontakt engine I can use a special script, and with this new engine - I can not.

Hi there Vadim,
I'm afraid that this is currently not possible, however it could be likely in a future update. There is a tuning feature at the top of the interface which you can hold "Cmd/Ctrl" to fine tune.


Hi Luke,
A tuning future at the top is not a way (becase it is monophonic and 7-bit CC instead of a pitchband) I will buy it only if it will be implemented, because this aibility (also as pitchband ability) is strongly important for my microtonal music.  but sale price stops at next days, hmm.. Can Spitfire to promise implementation of polyphonic microtuning ability? )

Hi Vadim,
I'm afraid we cannot promise the tuning ability. It's worth noting that you can hold 'Shift' whilst using the interface tuner to tune in cents, this is very fine tuning.


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## TeamLeader (Nov 2, 2018)

So how are you owners working with this if we can't save multis with a bunch of individual instruments within them? Thanks!


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## ism (Nov 3, 2018)

A quick sketch with the labs choir (and a clarinet):



Incredible sound, very nice dynamics.

And there's a real evo feel to it - it starts our kind of ambient and then becomes more defined as the arc develops. Without legato, the kind of voice leading you can pull off is obviously a bit limited, but the evo effect is something you can really work in instead.

Really makes me want the full choir.


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## Geoff Grace (Nov 4, 2018)

Best,

Geoff


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## redlester (Nov 5, 2018)

Geoff Grace said:


> Best,
> 
> Geoff




This truly is magnificent marketing.

Not only does it make me want EWC, it makes me want The Grange, Fabfilter Pro-R and even Glass & Steel which I already have but have never used in anger yet!

In fact it even makes me want to watch Spinal Tap again...


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## Lee Blaske (Nov 6, 2018)

Another experiment with EWC... (Strings on this are a combination of SA Chamber Strings, Studio Strings and HZ.)


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## N.Caffrey (Nov 6, 2018)

Lee Blaske said:


> Another experiment with EWC... (Strings on this are a combination of SA Chamber Strings, Studio Strings and HZ.)




Nice composition! This choir sounds so good


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## madfloyd (Nov 6, 2018)

Great job, Lee - it sounds wonderful.


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## sostenuto (Nov 6, 2018)

Lee Blaske said:


> Another experiment with EWC... (Strings on this are a combination of SA Chamber Strings, Studio Strings and HZ.)




Extra Cool !! Any one of several large companies should buy this now and use with their main Holiday commercial ! 
MBZ, Budweiser come to mind quickly: snow, motion, spirit-raising theme.


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## Lee Blaske (Nov 6, 2018)

sostenuto said:


> Extra Cool !! Any one of several large companies should buy this now and use with their main Holiday commercial !
> MBZ, Budweiser come to mind quickly: snow, motion, spirit-raising theme.



I sure hope those major advertising clients are keeping an eye on VI Control!


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## CT (Nov 6, 2018)

Sadly it looks increasingly like I won't be able to scrape together the cash for this before the sale runs out, so I grabbed the LABS version a few hours ago and grumpily threw something together with it, Albion V, and a little Zebra. The music is nothing special, and the choral stuff isn't even that prominent... but here it is anyway.


P.S. No, I don't expect anyone to buy this even for $1, I just don't have a better way to share stuff since I got rid of SoundCloud and Dropbox isn't very sexy.


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## Josh Richman (Nov 7, 2018)

OK I’m on board! Let the downloading begin... This was a tougher decision than other purchases for couple reasons. Being that choral singing was my formal musical training I’m particularly sensitive to it and moved by it. I know how a good chior should sound. Partly because the human voice / what choirs can actually do is so hard to replicate. It’s expensive no doubt, but likely built with care and attention to detail. SA produces quality tasteful stuff. I suppose a few, at least one truly classical or more traditional choral mock up demo would have been nice to hear to easy the deliberating.


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## madfloyd (Nov 7, 2018)

miket said:


> Sadly it looks increasingly like I won't be able to scrape together the cash for this before the sale runs out, so I grabbed the LABS version a few hours ago and grumpily threw something together with it, Albion V, and a little Zebra. The music is nothing special, and the choral stuff isn't even that prominent... but here it is anyway.
> 
> 
> 
> P.S. No, I don't expect anyone to buy this even for $1, I just don't have a better way to share stuff since I got rid of SoundCloud and Dropbox isn't very sexy.




You sell yourself short - this music is beautiful and I think the Labs version worked very well for it. The choral drifts in and out in a very nice way.

I'm curious why you got rid of SoundCloud?


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## Billy Palmer (Nov 7, 2018)

miket said:


> Sadly it looks increasingly like I won't be able to scrape together the cash for this before the sale runs out, so I grabbed the LABS version a few hours ago and grumpily threw something together with it, Albion V, and a little Zebra. The music is nothing special, and the choral stuff isn't even that prominent... but here it is anyway.
> 
> 
> 
> P.S. No, I don't expect anyone to buy this even for $1, I just don't have a better way to share stuff since I got rid of SoundCloud and Dropbox isn't very sexy.




VERY VERY nice


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## CT (Nov 7, 2018)

Wow, thanks everybody! Especially whoever *actually bought* that track, assuming you're someone here. You are crazy but thank you.



madfloyd said:


> I'm curious why you got rid of SoundCloud?



Oh, this was a few years ago when there was a lot of bad press about them, but I'm sure that's blown over by now and they may have improved things. I also started to hate the sound quality.


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## DerGeist (Nov 7, 2018)

I have to say that LABS is an incredible marketing tool. I don't own any Spitfire (yet) but I love the labs drums, amplified cello, and choir. All three of these have started me looking into purchasing their parent or related libraries.


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## ism (Nov 7, 2018)

Josh Richman said:


> OK I’m on board! Let the downloading begin... This was a tougher decision than other purchases for couple reasons. Being that choral singing was my formal musical training I’m particularly sensitive to it and moved by it. I know how a good chior should sound. Partly because the human voice / what choirs can actually do is so hard to replicate. It’s expensive no doubt, but likely built with care and attention to detail. SA produces quality tasteful stuff. I suppose a few, at least one truly classical or more traditional choral mock up demo would have been nice to hear to easy the deliberating.




Yes I really enjoyed that last video where Christian pushed it library over to one edge, but I’d really love to see how it would fare pushed over to a more classical edge. The legatos sound great, so I would expect it should go pretty far before it breaks.


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## madfloyd (Nov 8, 2018)

Last day for intro price! I think I will go for it...


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## TeamLeader (Nov 8, 2018)

How do we do something akin to a batch reserve on this thing folks?


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## erikradbo (Nov 8, 2018)

Does anyone have a good sound example to post where Dominus or Insolidus does something similar to the delicate EWC sound?


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## Vadium (Nov 8, 2018)

erikradbo said:


> good sound example to post where Dominus



I think that Silka is better then Insolidus, because has a legatos 'mm' etc.

there is a Dominus, I am waiting for a sale:


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## Rey (Dec 15, 2018)

I know It just been released. did eric Whitacre choir go on sale on black Friday? and will it be discounted for spitfire wishlist Christmas sale?


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## jbuhler (Dec 15, 2018)

Rey said:


> I know It just been released. did eric Whitacre choir go on sale on black Friday? and will it be discounted for spitfire wishlist Christmas sale?


No, it wasn't on sale for BF. It's unclear whether it will be part of the wishlist. If past experience is any guide, any discounts for this library are likely to be relatively modest for this wishlist discount.


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## Rey (Dec 15, 2018)

jbuhler said:


> No, it wasn't on sale for BF. It's unclear whether it will be part of the wishlist. If past experience is any guide, any discounts for this library are likely to be relatively modest for this wishlist discount.


thanks for the heads up.
something slightly close to the intro price again would be nice.


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## jbuhler (Dec 15, 2018)

Rey said:


> thanks for the heads up.
> something slightly close to the intro price again would be nice.


CH confirmed on his videoblog that was released today that the wishlist sale would happen, so there's that.


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## Bill the Lesser (Dec 15, 2018)

IIRC I got a 10% Wishlist discount offer on Chamber Strings during its introductory year, and much more on other older things. So I wouldn't expect too much for EWC this year. If history repeats itself, the wishlist will center on generous single item offers, more than bundles as on BF. 'Tis the season, it's one last blast for 2018.


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## sostenuto (Dec 15, 2018)

jbuhler said:


> CH confirmed on his videoblog that was released today that the wishlist sale would happen, so there's that.



Good to hear, but with NI_OT Promo ending Monday (_17th _ right?_) leaves only that day to impact anyone making last-minute OT choices ……


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## Rey (Dec 16, 2018)

poetd said:


> Would really love a "lite" version of this.
> The labs instruments is really good and I want more, but not £550 worth of more (nor 300GB HDD space more), too much of an investment right now for what I'd use a choir.



You got some good points there. The price mostly, and the space. But I saw some people saying Eric Whitacre choir is their best purchase for 2018 from the Best purchase of 2018 thread. im quite blown away by the walkthrough by spitfire personally. Application-wise aside, I think for spitfire libraries they always inspirational just to play on their own. But if a good discount for the wishlist is given, my guess is yeah, Eric Whitacre Choir is one of the thing worth going for. And I might end up having to get a new HDD anyway for many other reasons now that mine is all almost filled up.


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## ism (Dec 16, 2018)

jbuhler said:


> CH confirmed on his videoblog that was released today that the wishlist sale would happen, so there's that.


 
Not only did he confirm a wishlist sale, but the return of Rodney the Christmas Dinosaur.


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## jbuhler (Dec 16, 2018)

Rey said:


> You got some good points there. The price mostly, and the space. But I saw some people saying Eric Whitacre choir is their best purchase for 2018 from the Best purchase of 2018 thread. im quite blown away by the walkthrough by spitfire personally. Application-wise aside, I think for spitfire libraries they always inspirational just to play on their own. But if a good discount for the wishlist is given, my guess is yeah, Eric Whitacre Choir is one of the thing worth going for. And I might end up having to get a new HDD anyway for many other reasons now that mine is all almost filled up.


I’m definitely getting this. It’s inevitable. The only question is when. Probably not until next summer.


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## Rey (Dec 16, 2018)

jbuhler said:


> I’m definitely getting this. It’s inevitable. The only question is when. Probably not until next summer.



Yeah me 2. If the wishlist is awesome and got enough I might grab ewc now. Otherwise I still need brass and woodwinds. Maybe I'll go with spitfire's


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## Francis Bourre (Dec 16, 2018)




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## Duncan Krummel (Dec 22, 2018)

Vastman said:


> difficulty


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## D Halgren (Dec 22, 2018)

Best first message ever!!!


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## Duncan Krummel (Dec 23, 2018)

Ahhhhhh, proof that me and my fat thumbs shouldn't scroll through forums on mobile!


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## tokatila (Dec 26, 2018)

Pondering about this, but almost all demos I hear are slow, has anyone anything speedier available?


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## cola2410 (Dec 31, 2018)

ism said:


> I'm really not one to ask about what choir library to buy in that my experience, historically, is mostly buying the wrong ones.
> 
> But I think the interesting question here is how the notion of a 'mainstream' choir library has been changing, certainly with EWC, but beginning - at least in my understanding - with Dominus.
> 
> ...



I was looking at my SF wishlist for a couple of hours torn between choices and EWC was no1 for quite some time. 
And... I pass.
Thank you for the post but I'll add something to it and it's 100% my personal opinion.
There was one actually asking why comments on a negative side went shadowed for a number of, well, non-obvious reasons. I totally get every choir library has its pros and cons and judging from the demos only could be very narrow-minded but it's what we get.

I've went through all the walkthroughs and here is what I can say.

1. Some people praise EWC for good sounding clusters and, guess what - they don't use EWC for them in their pieces. Instead, we hear very simple and basic transitions between consonant triads that inevitably hide the need of a proper polyphonic legato when writing in lines. I heard a better piece from a guy who used Arks Choirs that are way less flexible if talking the content of both. 
2. Textures and na-na-na artics are very good but make them a central and winning point of the library is strange for me. If we look at Evos - yes they are an addition to the main libraries and very nice ones but they are still add-ons and priced respectively. On the other hand, Spitfire never explicitly said it's their main flagship choir - could we wait for some more then?
3. Some say there is no need for a word-builder - really? Actually most miss the main point with building nonsense phrases- they actually work as Evos because they force singers to evolve the sound in a more distinct way that to me feels more emotional and moving than just slight variations. Some syllables also help in getting to higher dynamics just because of open sounding so it feels very natural and well accepted by the audience. I support the opinion that too much layered Evos may result in a swarm that will sound almost synthy and strings-like and I don't need that all because I have many other candidates.
4. Personally I don't think that "contemporary sound" may advocate the gaps in any big library. In my opinion, SA may split it into two - Evos and traditional and see which one better sells to create add-ons and evolve further. 

At the end, I'm a huge fan of Eric's choral works and I absolutely dig his pieces from musical standpoint and you know, Dominus feels way more appropriate to re-create them. Try "Alleluia" and "Lux Aurumque" (version with the Dutch choir), for instance. Do we really buy Eric's sound?

And.. I don't buy talking. Eric is a wonderful person and doing an interview with him is a nice addition. We love Eric for what he does, not talks, same for library - we should hear his passion here and there in properly processed samples, scripting, variations, transitions, controls, etc. Being a fan of him I just don't hear that and I bet it's not his fault.


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## jbuhler (Dec 31, 2018)

jbuhler said:


> I’m definitely getting this. It’s inevitable. The only question is when. Probably not until next summer.


So it was inevitable, but I didn't wait till summer. Downloading. We'll see if this gives me the pleasure I think it will from having played with the free Labs patch.


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## jbuhler (Dec 31, 2018)

poetd said:


> The issue I think I have with the library is the human voice is very distinctive - not something you can use much as a texture or background without it giving itself away - unlike say Orchestral Swarm where you have all those textures that could be added to many other parts, once you start putting voices in it changes the whole nature of a project.


I'm not sure if this is true. I suppose that is the bet one makes in buying something like this, that you can use it to find a different dimension to choral writing, a different way to incorporate the choir into your music making. But wordless choirs have long been a staple, and I see these EWC sounds as extending that. Whether it turns out to be a fad that sounds dated and so 2018 a few years is a distinct possibility, but I don't think it is inevitable.


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## jbuhler (Dec 31, 2018)

poetd said:


> I think it sounds excellent and pretty unique too, so don't see it as a fad item, just not something I'd use often enough to justify (even though I do want more of the sound).


I think that's entirely fair and the Labs patch is probably enough for most folks. That Labs patch is really fun to play with and wanting to push it further is one of the reasons I decided to go for the full choir.

I'm still looking for a standard choir to unite all my niche choirs. I have the choirs in the Arks, in Time Macro, Oceania, and Dominus, as well as the old EWQL Symphonic Choir and the Kontakt Factory Library choir. The latter two are pretty standard but lacking in certain respects. I should probably go back to the Symphonic Choir and see if I can get more out of it now. I'm also wondering about one of the Soundiron, 8dio, or Strezov choirs. Or Perhaps Fluffy's Dominus 2 will cover enough to make that a more fully functional choir for standard use.


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## ism (Dec 31, 2018)

I think it’s entirely possible that industrial trends may decide that at some point tha textured vocal samples are ‘so 2018’.

And I also think that it’s true that Spitire is primarily catering to professional media composers, and so there’s a very pragmatic level that these samples have the some commercially valuable work-a-day properties such as: not have been done to death already, being able to sit in an underscore without stepping on the dialogue, and so forth.

But none of this precludes what I think is an artistic vision of great depth. Eric himself talks about how there’s something about the human voice and the depth of reaction to it that it much be somehow bodily in origin.

I think he uses the word ‘neurological’. But it’s not really anything that Kant did didn’t foresee in his assertion that all ( perception of) beauty has origins in the human body. Which, like a lot of Kant, presages modern insights in evolutionary psychology, and I think also some of their recent advances of the perceptual dimension of our minds in the larger question of the origins of musicality.

So even if industrial tastes at some point decide that this isn’t the sort of thing producers are going to pay composers into write, it will just be another case of pearls before swine, so business as usual then.

Hopefully this won’t happen - loads and loads of Eric Whitacre Evos might even make some of the films spewing out of the super hero film industry moderately watchable.

But quite regardless of the vagarities of industrial trends, I don’t think the underlying artistic insight here is a genie that’s could ever be put back in the bottle.


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## ism (Dec 31, 2018)

cola2410 said:


> I was looking at my SF wishlist for a couple of hours torn between choices and EWC was no1 for quite some time.
> And... I pass.
> Thank you for the post but I'll add something to it and it's 100% my personal opinion.
> There was one actually asking why comments on a negative side went shadowed for a number of, well, non-obvious reasons. I totally get every choir library has its pros and cons and judging from the demos only could be very narrow-minded but it's what we get.
> ...



Thanks for sharing your though process here. It’s very interesting.

What I’m hearing is that you’ve considered my ‘universe-in-a-grain-of-sand’ theory, and decided that you’re pretty happy with the view from the beach, actually. 

I’m with you on this - I could sit of the Fluffy Audio beach all day.

I think Dominus and EWC and are both brilliant, but each incomparable brilliant.

So I’m not anti-beach at all. Just pro-universe-in-grain-of-sand.

And it’s interesting that, so far as I know, no one has attempted to mock up an actual Eric Whitacre piece with the Eric Whitacre Choir. Which is in part by design.

I think you could get amazingly beautiful mock ups of Eric Whitacre pieces both from Fluffy and Spitfire. But they would be very different things, not really comparable to each other, and especially not really comparable to what Whitacre himself does.

Which is a limitation I crashed into quite hard in my abortive attempt to mock-up Lux with Time Macro + Mercury (for the high legatos).






It’s pretty, and not exactly unpleasant in an ambiently-pleasant kind of way - unless you listen to it along side the actual Eric Whitacre piece. In which he’s doing something with human voices, that this mock up just utterly crashes and burns on. Trying to get the samples to exhibit the same fluidity as the real voices ... it’s like snowshoeing through mud

It also helped to convince me that I was just going to have to suck it up at some point and buy the EWC. But perhaps it also served as a warning about not expecting sample library to really get you to quite the same arm of the aesthetic universe as a real choir.


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## jbuhler (Dec 31, 2018)

ism said:


> I think Dominus and EWC and are both brilliant, but each incomparable brilliant.
> 
> So I’m not anti-beach at all. Just pro-universe-in-grain-of-sand.


The situation seems pretty similar to the solo strings, and your diagram works better for choirs more or less unchanged than say for orchestral strings or brass, I think, where the sample libraries cover more what a real string section or a real brass section can do than is the case for the solo string instruments. (A real string or brass section can do plenty that samples still can't do, of course, I'm just saying more of the circle is covered by sample libraries than for the solo strings or the choir.)


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## erikradbo (Jan 1, 2019)

Vadium said:


> I think that Silka is better then Insolidus, because has a legatos 'mm' etc.
> 
> there is a Dominus, I am waiting for a sale:




This will pull the dominies-trigger for me now during the sale.


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## AdamKmusic (Jan 1, 2019)

Haven’t seen any mention of it here but Spitfire are holding a competition to win a copy of this library, all you have to do is score a video from a selection of a few using the Labs Choir only, here’s my entry


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## Digivolt (Jan 7, 2019)

My first time scoring to video for this competition


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## ism (Jan 13, 2019)

Between the time zones and messing around with youtube, not sure if I got this into the #labschoir context in time, but very fun to write all the same.





There's lots of crazy (and cool) things people are doing with effects for this, but it I though I'd try to go organic and evolving, making as much use of the evo nature of the patch as possible, augmenting it with evolving voices both in dynamics, occasionally fluttering entries of the voices, and just a touch of contrapuntal motion (would love to have the legato to really build on this though kind of motion though)

Amazing how fun even a single evo patch is to work with, I can't wait to pick up the full library ... someday.


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## jbuhler (Jan 13, 2019)

ism said:


> Between the time zones and messing around with youtube, not sure if I got this into the #labschoir context in time, but very fun to write all the same.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Nice. I messed around with it myself but didn’t come up with anything I thought was sufficiently distinguished. 

I thought it was a fascinating exercise though because the films are so short but the library is built for sounds to just kind of sit there.


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## JC_ (Jan 13, 2019)

Great little project to see all of the possibilities using just one patch. It got me to delve a little deeper into my effects plugins to craft things, where my default move is usually to just look for a different synth patch.


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## storyteller (Jan 13, 2019)

ism said:


>



This sounds good. Just curious though - are the pops and clicks part of the libraries you used or are they maybe rendering artifacts? It seems to happen just before each new note... almost like the samples weren't edited at the zero point of each wav file. But it may just be an artifact.


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## ism (Jan 13, 2019)

storyteller said:


> This sounds good. Just curious though - are the pops and clicks part of the libraries you used or are they maybe rendering artifacts? It seems to happen just before each new note... almost like the samples weren't edited at the zero point of each wav file. But it may just be an artifact.



Must be internet/soundcloud or some such issue - the samples are quite pristine to my ears.


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## Michel Simons (Jan 13, 2019)

jbuhler said:


> Nice. I messed around with it myself but didn’t come up with anything I thought was sufficiently distinguished.



That didn't keep me from uploading my attempt.


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## Vadium (Jan 14, 2019)

My 2 cents)


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## Digivolt (Jan 14, 2019)

Some nice sounding entries out there, good luck to all who entered


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## josephspirits (Jan 14, 2019)

I had a great time making 4 of these, unfortunately I ended up being pulled away this weekend and ran into a lot of export complications right up until the deadline, so my uploads are quite janky . Still had fun with the project though, and lessons learned for next time (such as you can do a simple audio/video merger right in youtube these days!) Looking forward to checking out some of the other submissions.


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## Ian Dorsch (Jan 16, 2019)

I bought the lib during the wish list sale, and in terms of the actual library it's pretty much exactly what I'd hoped it would be.

However: I'm having an issue in Cubase 9 with the EVO Grid plug where tempo changes somehow trigger a note off to the plugin. So you can have multiple sustained notes, and they all stop sounding as soon as the tempo changes. Has anyone encountered this? I have to assume it's a bug - it's just the kind of weird technical issue that makes me leery of buying into expensive non-Kontakt libraries.


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## jbuhler (Jan 16, 2019)

Ian Dorsch said:


> I bought the lib during the wish list sale, and in terms of the actual library it's pretty much exactly what I'd hoped it would be.
> 
> However: I'm having an issue in Cubase 9 with the EVO Grid plug where tempo changes somehow trigger a note off to the plugin. So you can have multiple sustained notes, and they all stop sounding as soon as the tempo changes. Has anyone encountered this? I have to assume it's a bug - it's just the kind of weird technical issue that makes me leery of buying into expensive non-Kontakt libraries.


I just tried it in Logic, and I'm not having the issue, so it seems like it's not a problem specific to the plug-in, the Evo grid, and tempo changes. If you can do it reliably in Cubase 9, it would be worth submitting a ticket to Spitfire support. I've had very good luck with them helping me diagnose issues.


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## Ian Dorsch (Jan 20, 2019)

jbuhler said:


> I just tried it in Logic, and I'm not having the issue, so it seems like it's not a problem specific to the plug-in, the Evo grid, and tempo changes. If you can do it reliably in Cubase 9, it would be worth submitting a ticket to Spitfire support. I've had very good luck with them helping me diagnose issues.



This is where I'm headed next. Issue occurs with both the EVO Grid and core libraries. Really, really annoying.


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## TeamLeader (Jan 29, 2019)

Anyone know, has the AU version of this been fixed for use w/in VEPro yet?


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## Vadium (Feb 3, 2019)

So, is there any info - who win a contest?


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## AdamKmusic (Feb 3, 2019)

Vadium said:


> So, is there any info - who win a contest?


They’ve been posting them on insta/twitter


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## idematoa (May 7, 2019)

My First contact with *EWC






*


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## idematoa (Jul 27, 2019)

*01 - SA - Eric Whitacre Choir - Soprano - Pitched Clashes
02 - BS - Era 2 - Vocal Codex - Lord of Wind 4
03 - SA - KO - Woodwinds - Accelerating Momentum Grid
04 - NI - Straylight - My Darkness Approaching*

Always a pleasure to use this Choir...


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## Spectator (Jul 27, 2019)

still way too expensive for me - and I'm always disappointed with SA products. 
Is there a cheaper Choir alternative?


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## jamwerks (Jul 27, 2019)

I've listened to all the video's. Fantastic tone and lot's of textures. 

I vote for SF to do a EW Choir II, with more distinct shorts & longs with syllables. As is, lots of beautiful textures (and other) is possible, but too much "standard" stuff I'd want like singing on different syllables to simulate singing actual words, just isn't possible


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## idematoa (Aug 2, 2019)

01 - SA - EWC - Tutti - All In One
02 - SA - ASE - A Good Start
03 - SA - Earth eDNA - Epic Chamber MW
04 - NI - STRAYLIGHT - Exquisite Pulse
05 - NI - STRAYLIGHT - My Darkness Approaching
06 - SA - HCT - Forgotten Past - Ping Kong
07 - UVI - Orchestral Suite - Snare 

EWC in the first part


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## gussunkri (Nov 6, 2019)

I have been enjoying the Whitacre choir a lot. Thank you for a great library!

However, I discovered some (seemingly) superfluous samples in the library. That is, the library could take up less space. I went through all the samples and found two mic signals that seemingly can be removed.

1. On the one hand, while the Bass, Tenor, Soprano and Alto mic signals are useful in the Tutti patches (allowing the user to boost one section above the other), that mic signal is also present in the patches which are divided by section. I did a quick bounce and it seems in those cases the signal perfectly cancels out with the close mic. That means the same information is present in both the close mic and in the specific section (e.g., Tenor). For all sections then, those could be removed since the Close mic has the same information. This would already shave off a few GB from the library.

2. Second, there is for most patches a Mix 4 mic position present in samples, but it is not available from the interface. Here again, quite a few GB could be removed from the library.

Since SSD space is precious, perhaps Spitfire should consider an update to the library with these samples removed, since I would guess this could remove some 10 GB (I wrote to their support suggesting this). For people who needs the space, you could go in the samples folder and manually remove these. It is quite easy to do. (In fact, for my laptop rig, I only kept a few of te mic signals to keep a mini version of the library for sketching)

All the best,
Kristoffer


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## pfmusic (Nov 7, 2019)

Love the EW Choir. Spitfire have never made any updates to this library since it was released a year ago.

Bit of a strange one considering they always update most of their libraries


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## idematoa (Feb 7, 2020)

A new update which is NKS ready and includes a Preset Editor, a multi-output mixer and optimised performance.


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## Robert_G (Feb 7, 2020)

idematoa said:


> A new update which is NKS ready and includes a Preset Editor, a multi-output mixer and optimised performance.



Still way overpriced. I've listened to the demos several times...they don't grab me at all. I just can't see the attraction of laying out $419 bucks for this choir.....and I love choirs.


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## Mike Fox (Feb 7, 2020)

Robert_G said:


> Still way overpriced. I've listened to the demos several times...they don't grab me at all. I just can't see the attraction of laying out $419 bucks for this choir.....and I love choirs.


I really dig the sound of it, but I'm not really sure how i would justify its price tag.


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## CT (Feb 7, 2020)

If there was ever a sample library in history that was not "overpriced," it's this one.


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## JyTy (Feb 7, 2020)

I like it! Love how expressive and instrumental it sounds like and not so epic like some of the other choirs... Really trying hard not to pull the trigger  I was really set to finally invest in Superior drummer 3 + OP SDX this month...


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## jbuhler (Feb 7, 2020)

Robert_G said:


> Still way overpriced. I've listened to the demos several times...they don't grab me at all. I just can't see the attraction of laying out $419 bucks for this choir.....and I love choirs.


Overpriced compared to what? I don't think there is another choral library that approaches what EWC can do. Now, whether you need to be able to do what EWC can do is another question, and if you don't there is no reason to buy it. It's also true that EWC is priced high for a regular choir and not especially well suited to the task. But for long evolving choral textural stuff that sits well with instruments and indeed almost becomes one itself, it is really special and worth every cent.


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## Robert_G (Feb 7, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> Overpriced compared to what? I don't think there is another choral library that approaches what EWC can do. Now, whether you need to be able to do what EWC can do is another question, and if you don't there is no reason to buy it. It's also true that EWC is priced high for a regular choir and not especially well suited to the task. But for long evolving choral textural stuff that sits well with instruments and indeed almost becomes one itself, it is really special and worth every cent.



We just had a topic of what demos moved you to buy the library.
EWC demos just don't move me to spend that much on a library. I think the sound is boring....and I really don't like mixing that room with other libs that aren't AIR Studios....very limiting.

At that price, I'm going Wotan/Freya, or Dominus Pro everytime.


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## jbuhler (Feb 7, 2020)

Robert_G said:


> We just had a topic of what demos moved you to buy the library.
> EWC demos just don't move me to spend that much on a library. I think the sound is boring....and I really don't like mixing that room with other libs....
> 
> At that price, I'm going Wotan/Freya, or Dominus Pro everytime.


Those are very different libraries from EWC. I love Dominus Pro, but it can't do what EWC can do. (And vice versa is true as well.)


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## Mucusman (Feb 7, 2020)

JyTy said:


> Really trying hard not to pull the trigger  I was really set to finally invest in Superior drummer 3 + OP SDX this month...



Well, if you are willing to wait a bit, it will be 40% off (towards the end of 2020, though perhaps summer). You can enjoy SD3 until then. EWC is on my radar to purchase, and I realy like the free Labs patch, but since I have Dominus and Genesis, the urgency for EWC isn't high. Likely someday...


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## jbuhler (Feb 7, 2020)

Mucusman said:


> Well, if you are willing to wait a bit, it will be 40% off (towards the end of 2020, though perhaps summer). You can enjoy SD3 until then. EWC is on my radar to purchase, and I realy like the free Labs patch, but since I have Dominus and Genesis, the urgency for EWC isn't high. Likely someday...


Assuming SF has their May wishlist sale, it will be 40% off then as well.


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## Robert_G (Feb 7, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> Those are very different libraries from EWC. I love Dominus Pro, but it can't do what EWC can do. (And vice versa is true as well.)



True enough.


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## styledelk (Feb 7, 2020)

I understand this library more and more with every interview or video with Eric Whitacre. The things he's attracted to in tones and clusters. His view of what music and sound and the human voice can do.

This is the most idiomatic to a composer a library can be. I treated the purchase like buying a PS4. None of the games on it are mine, but I want to live in them for awhile. This lets me do that.

I've made all of two pieces with it in a few months-- and maybe I feel like an imposter using it-- but it made me happy. All for it.


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## Mike Fox (Feb 7, 2020)

Robert_G said:


> We just had a topic of what demos moved you to buy the library.
> EWC demos just don't move me to spend that much on a library. I think the sound is boring....and I really don't like mixing that room with other libs that aren't AIR Studios....very limiting.
> 
> At that price, I'm going Wotan/Freya, or Dominus Pro everytime.


I get where you're coming from. EWC seems like more of a one trick pony compared to other choir libraries out there. I guess it is in the sense that it has a very specific focus (which it excels at), and doesn't do much more than that.

I think I'd just consider EWC as a "boutique" library, and anything boutique usually comes with a higher price tag. I'm also assuming that having EW's name attached to it doesn't do anything to keep the price lower. You're partially paying for a name.


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## Robert_G (Feb 7, 2020)

Mike Fox said:


> I get where you're coming from. EWC seems like more of a one trick pony compared to other choir libraries out there. I guess it is in the sense that it has a very specific focus, which it excels at.
> 
> I think I'd just consider EWC as a "boutique" library, and anything boutique usually comes with a higher price tag. I'm also assuming that having EW's name attached to it doesn't do anything to keep the price lower. You're partially paying for a name.



I think you put that best....but most of us can't afford 'boutique' libraries. The only libraries I have over $100 that I don't use is Realivox Blue and that was my mistake for not doing my research.
If I'm going to own a library that costs $419, I better be using it regularly.

But with that said....one day if I can afford 'boutique' libaries....EWC is one I could try out. I see the '1 trick pony' from the demos....and I would love to try out that '1 trick pony', but it will never be my go-to choir...and for $419 a lib must qualify as a go-to lib.


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## gussunkri (Feb 7, 2020)

Mike Fox said:


> I get where you're coming from. EWC seems like more of a one trick pony compared to other choir libraries out there. I guess it is in the sense that it has a very specific focus (which it excels at), and doesn't do much more than that.
> 
> I think I'd just consider EWC as a "boutique" library, and anything boutique usually comes with a higher price tag. I'm also assuming that having EW's name attached to it doesn't do anything to keep the price lower. You're partially paying for a name.


What you say describes my experience with the library very well. I am very happy to have it, but it is a bit pricey.


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## CT (Feb 7, 2020)

One trick pony? Nah. Also, I'd be uncomfortable calling any VI "overpriced" when royalties are being paid to the musicians. I'll gladly pay for that cause.


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## Mike Fox (Feb 7, 2020)

miket said:


> I'd be uncomfortable calling any VI "overpriced" when royalties are being paid to the musicians. I'll gladly pay for that cause.



That actually is pretty cool. I wasn't aware they were doing that with this particular library.

Overpriced is such a subjective term. A lot of people think Afflatus is overpriced, but I'd gladly pay twice it's cost for it.


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## jbuhler (Feb 7, 2020)

Mike Fox said:


> That actually is pretty cool. I wasn't aware they were doing that with this particular library.
> 
> Overpriced is such a subjective term. A lot of people think Afflatus is overpriced, but I'd gladly pay twice it's cost for it.


As far as I’m aware SF always pays royalties to musicians.


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## Mike Fox (Feb 7, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> As far as I’m aware SF always pays royalties to musicians.


I guess you do learn something new every day then.


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## styledelk (Feb 17, 2020)

With the EWC update, are people seeing EWC in Komplete Kontrol's browser, or is this the same as when the HZ Strings update happened and it's not there yet?

It's not there for me, and I had to do a delete of all of the VSTs/AUs and a repair to get anything to work (but I can add it through the + sign in plugins... but I could do that already.)


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## StillLife (Feb 17, 2020)

No problem here. Updated and EWC is in the browser. Only use Maschine , but should be the same as kk, I think?


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## Dr.Quest (Feb 17, 2020)

This video is quite inspiring --- Eric Whitacre on composing

After listening to the EVOs I wish Spitfire would release those as a separate instrument. I'd love to work with those. So beautiful sounding.


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## Jaap (Feb 17, 2020)

Dr.Quest said:


> This video is quite inspiring --- Eric Whitacre on composing
> 
> After listening to the EVOs I wish Spitfire would release those as a separate instrument. I'd love to work with those. So beautiful sounding.



Very nice talk from Eric and inspiring indeed.

The whole library is such a beautiful sounding library, for me a big source of inspiration to be honest.


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## Technostica (Feb 17, 2020)

styledelk said:


> With the EWC update, are people seeing EWC in Komplete Kontrol's browser, or is this the same as when the HZ Strings update happened and it's not there yet?


I'm seeing it in KK. Loaded it in standalone mode and EWC is unstable and I had to manually end KK.
I was just trying to change the mic levels and it completely froze on a few occasions in a row.


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## Mike Fox (Feb 17, 2020)

Dr.Quest said:


> After listening to the EVOs I wish Spitfire would release those as a separate instrument. I'd love to work with those. So beautiful sounding.


That's the only part of the library i take interest in. I'd be all over that!


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## Jaap (Feb 18, 2020)

Ok, lesson learned....

Backup your User saves from the EWC Evo Grid before updating as it deletes all the old ones... I lost all my custom EVO settings (very very very annoying!).
You can find them in the folder located in Spitfire Audio - Eric Whitacre Choir - Presets - Eric Whitacre Choir Evo Grid - user

If it is loaded into a project, it keeps those custom settings settings though.


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## jbuhler (Feb 18, 2020)

Jaap said:


> Ok, lesson learned....
> 
> Backup your User saves from the EWC Evo Grid before updating as it deletes all the old ones... I lost all my custom EVO settings (very very very annoying!).
> You can find them in the folder located in Spitfire Audio - Eric Whitacre Choir - Presets - Eric Whitacre Choir Evo Grid - user
> ...


That's a most curious behavior. If you haven't done so already, it is probably worth contacting support and asking that they fix it.


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## Jaap (Feb 18, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> That's a most curious behavior. If you haven't done so already, it is probably worth contacting support and asking that they fix it.



Yeah just did. I can recall around 4 custom EVO's I made from projects, but created around 20 of them for a project and very frustrating that they are gone and indeed reported this to them, because I guess that is not something they also intend.


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## jamwerks (Feb 18, 2020)

Love the concept but a little too niche for my taste. If there were an EWC 2 doing more standard things, having both of them would make a lot of sense!


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## Jaap (Feb 18, 2020)

I also reported that the mics are not working correctly in the Choir Evo Grid in Cubase. When I want to adjust the mic level, it stops almost straight away and I can also not enable any other mics atm. Cubase stops to respond. This is both as VST and within Komplete Kontrol. Don't know if others have the same?

The regular choir is doing fine, there I can adjust the mic levels and enable/disable them.
Didn't had this problem before the update.


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## Technostica (Feb 18, 2020)

Jaap said:


> I also reported that the mics are not working correctly in the Choir Evo Grid in Cubase. When I want to adjust the mic level, it stops almost straight away and I can also not enable any other mics atm. Cubase stops to respond. This is both as VST and within Komplete Kontrol. Don't know if others have the same?


As I mentioned above I have the same issue, in KK and subsequently in Reaper also.


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## Jaap (Feb 18, 2020)

Technostica said:


> As I mentioned above I have the same issue, in KK and subsequently in Reaper also.



Somehow missed your post. Hope they sort this soon.


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## idematoa (Feb 23, 2020)

After update - 100% Spitfire Audio

*01 - SA - EWC - Tutti - All In One - Dynamic Swell OOH*
*02 - SA - EWC Evo Grid - Bass - Dynamic Movements
03 - SA - Alev Lenz 3 - I Know You Will*
*04 - SA - Albion - NEO - Brunel Loops - Suspended in Space* 

==> Palette Of Voices


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## Jaap (Feb 26, 2020)

Technostica said:


> As I mentioned above I have the same issue, in KK and subsequently in Reaper also.



Received word back from the Spitfire Support that they are aware and hoping to address a fix for this soon.


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## Jaap (Mar 18, 2020)

There has been a new update for the Eric Whitacre Choir (and gosh I wish they added release notes BEFORE the download) and it fixed for me the issue with Komplete Kontrol and the choir and the Evo Grid issue with the microphones. The patch notes didn't update for me (yet, last time it took also a week or 2 before they became visible...) but it's all working good here now again!


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## jbuhler (Mar 18, 2020)

It's weird. I did the updates, and they took forever to download. (Also noticed the speed issue with recent Native Instrument downloads: speedtest is fine and other downloads are as quick as usual.) The SF updater app says that I have 1.2.1 installed for both the regular choir and the Evo Grid and it then showed 1.2.3 to be installed. But on the SSD a version 1.2.1 folder only showed up when I downloaded 1.2.3, and there is no version 1.2.3 folder, but only a version 1.0.3 and 1.2.1. For the Evo Grid it's even odder. Again on the SSD I have a version 1.0.3 but also a version 1.2.2. Again the updater shows a version 1.2.1 and 1.2.3.


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## gussunkri (May 7, 2020)

Just a heads up, in the new version (just released?) there is now an articulation manager similar to the one in BBCSO. We can now add or remove articulations.


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## synkrotron (May 7, 2020)

gussunkri said:


> Just a heads up, in the new version (just released?) there is now an articulation manager similar to the one in BBCSO. We can now add or remove articulations.



I've just gone into the SA app, which required updating, and now my EQC ain't working properly.

I've raised a ticket...


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## SvenE (May 7, 2020)

synkrotron said:


> I've just gone into the SA app, which required updating, and now my EQC ain't working properly.
> 
> I've raised a ticket...


I had the same problem today. EWC did not work after the update of the SA app. I tried to repair it several times without success. The relocation function worked for me and EWC now works again. I have the samples located on an external drive and now relocated the two file Eric Whitacre Choir and Eric Whitacre Choir Evo Grid to the same external folder and now it works for me.


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## synkrotron (May 7, 2020)

Hi Sven  



SvenE said:


> I had the same problem today. EWQ did not work after the update of the SA app. I tried to repair it several times without success. The relocation function worked for me and EWQ now works again. I have the samples located on an external drive and now relocated the two file Eric Whitacre Choir and Eric Whitacre Choir Evo Grid to the same external folder and now it works for me.



Interesting, thanks.

I have my samples and presets on a second data drive in my workstation. I have tried it in a number of locations on that drive (a sub-folder and the root of that drive) and it doesn't help. That drive is a Samsung 860 QVO SSD, which would not have been my first choice.

No amount of relocating and repairing has fixed the issue. And that issue is that I can fix the Eric Whitacre Choir VST3i so that it loads and works okay, as best as I can tell, but the Eric Whitacre Choir Evo Grid VST3i shows the "ERROR #1" message.

I can go to the SA app and try to fix the Evo Grid software and when I go back into my DAW, Evo Grid now works, but the main Choir VST3i is now showing "ERROR #1"

I also have a "better" Samsung 850 Pro but I need to do some shifting around of data because there isn't enough room to simply move my complete 255GB sample collection to that drive. And moving around that amount of data is quite time consuming and fraught with potential problems (data loss).

I have a couple of external drives but I don't think that there is enough space on them either, and it would only be as a test. I really don't like the idea of any stuff being stored on an external drive especially when they are HDD and not SSD.

I'm going to do a video showing the problem, but first I need to perhaps try using an external drive, just to test.


cheers, and thanks for your reply,

andy

@Spitfire Team @SpitfireSupport


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## SvenE (May 8, 2020)

synkrotron said:


> Hi Sven
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Have you tried the "optimize" function as well, then try the "location" function again? I replicated what I did and put the files back to my original folder (error appeared again). I then optimized the files and then used the "location" function to relocate EW Choir and the EW Evo Grid (and the problem disappeared again). It worked for me but it looks something has changed during SA App update. I only had the problem with EWC all other SA libraries worked fine after the update.


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## synkrotron (May 8, 2020)

Hi Sven,



SvenE said:


> Have you tried the "optimize" function as well, then try the "location" function again? I replicated what I did and put the files back to my original folder (error appeared again). I then optimized the files and then used the "location" function to relocate EW Choir and the EW Evo Grid (and the problem disappeared again). It worked for me but it looks something has changed during SA App update. I only had the problem with EWC all other SA libraries worked fine after the update.



Yes, tried all that stuff.

It is really weird how I can repair one application which then breaks the other, and on and on, any number of times. The two simply can't co-exist on my computer at the moment.


I realised that I don't need to copy any library files over to an external drive because I have already done that as a backup, so I just need to tell the Spitfire Audio application to find stuff on the backup drive instead.

As I become more senior in years my senior moments become more apparent. A bit depressing in a way as I have always been reasonably "computer savvy."

Okay... Off to do that relocating/fixing/repairing again...

I'll be back


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## synkrotron (May 8, 2020)

Hmmm... Interesting.

Pointing Spitfire Audio to my external backup drive certainly fixed my EWC issue. I'm not happy, though, running a library off an external drive. But perhaps that thinking needs to be addressed in the long term. I suppose I could invest in a new SSD just for my Spitfire audio stuff... half a terabyte would suffice.

I am now shifting data around so that I can at least put my SA libraries on to an internal SSD to see if that works.

cheers, and thanks again, @SvenE for the suggestion.

andy


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## synkrotron (May 8, 2020)

Hi again @SvenE 

I have just finished moving my entire Spitfire Audio library from my D: drive (Samsung 860 QVO SSD) to my F: drive (Samsung 850 Pro). And I followed that up with doing the locate thing in the Spitfire Audio application for all the SA player libraries.

I am happy to report that I now have both EWC and the EWC Evo Grid versions of the player working in REAPER.

What I am a little bit nervous about now is, why?

Is my QVO "on the way out?"

Or is there an issue with the use of the drive letter, perhaps?

To me it doesn't make sense at all as to why the above was happening and only because it was on a particular drive. It would still be good if @SpitfireSupport could have a look into this.

cheers, and thanks again for your advice and help.

andy


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## SvenE (May 8, 2020)

Hi Andy,

Glad to hear that EWC is now working for you again. I would also love to hear what SA has to say. It is strange that we had this problem after the update of the player and that the library is now only working from an external drive. 

Sven


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## emasters (May 8, 2020)

Same issue here with EW Choir and BT Phobos on an external drive. Tried relocating the folder, repairing, etc. Still an issue. Was ok with v3.1.8 of the Manager app. After updating to v3.2.1 of the Manager app, EW Choir indicated an error. After updating to v3.2.2 and then v3.2.3 of the Manager app, both EW Choir and BT Phobos now indicate an error. And BCC SO wants to optimize over and over and over.... Waiting on SF support fo follow-up.


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## synkrotron (May 9, 2020)

SvenE said:


> Hi Andy,
> 
> Glad to hear that EWC is now working for you again. I would also love to hear what SA has to say. It is strange that we had this problem after the update of the player and that the library is now only working from an external drive.
> 
> Sven



Thanks, Sven,

I should have explained that my F: drive is another internal drive, so connected directly to the motherboard.

I'm not sure why it works on a different internal drive.

Like you say, it would be good to hear what @SpitfireSupport has to say.

I have two open tickets and they haven't received any love at all for the last 24 ~ 48 hours. I can only assume that they are treating other things (BBCSO Discovery, perhaps) as higher priority.



emasters said:


> Waiting on SF support fo follow-up



Did you raise a ticket on the Spitfire Audio zendesk support page?


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## SpitfireSupport (May 9, 2020)

We’re not focussing on tickets about discovery at the expense of others but the launch on Thursday does mean we’re a little behind. You should get an answer early next week.


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## synkrotron (May 9, 2020)

SpitfireSupport said:


> We’re not focussing on tickets about discovery at the expense of others but the launch on Thursday does mean we’re a little behind. You should get an answer early next week.



Thank you.


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## daviddln (Nov 30, 2020)

Hi. 
I've purchased the library this week-end and I like it so far. But I've noticed that the volume of all the legato articulations is very low compared to the other ones. Is it normal?


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## Justin L. Franks (Dec 1, 2020)

Yes, the legatos are a fair bit quieter for me too.


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## daviddln (Dec 1, 2020)

Justin L. Franks said:


> Yes, the legatos are a fair bit quieter for me too.



Thanks. I guess I'll use Logic's Gain plug-in then.


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## idematoa (Mar 13, 2021)

*01 - Spitfire Audio - Alev Lenz 3 - I Know You Will
02 - Spitfire Audio - Eric Whitacre Choir - Tutti - All In One - Dynamic Swell OOH
03 - Spitfire Audio - Eric Whitacre Choir - Evo Grid - Bass - Dynamic Movements
04 - Spitfire Audio - Albion - NEO - Brunel Loops - Suspended in Space

*


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## ism (Mar 13, 2021)

idematoa said:


> *01 - Spitfire Audio - Alev Lenz 3 - I Know You Will
> 02 - Spitfire Audio - Eric Whitacre Choir - Tutti - All In One - Dynamic Swell OOH
> 03 - Spitfire Audio - Eric Whitacre Choir - Evo Grid - Bass - Dynamic Movements
> 04 - Spitfire Audio - Albion - NEO - Brunel Loops - Suspended in Space
> ...



Trippy! And yet with a lovely and striking acoustic quality.


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## Alex Niedt (Mar 13, 2021)

Guess I may as well post this in here. All Eric Whitacre Choir...


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## forjam (Aug 5, 2021)

Vastman said:


> Well, I'm glad I checked in today and visited THIS forum!
> What an exciting choir. Love the personality and emotion... different from the typical religious mumbo jumbo and typical stuff cluttering my drives. This was an instant buy for me after listening to/watching the stuff on SA's site. Just got my download notification and had to download a NEW version on SA's downloader for it to appear...
> 
> While I have acquired a ridiculous (and, in retrospect, foolish) amount of traditional orchestrals over the years I find myself gravitating to the Olafur's, Swarm, & Heavyocity's Forzo/Novo & OT's Time Macro & ARKs these days, being primarily a songwriter. It is a glorious moment to be a singer songwriter!
> ...


I couldn't agree more!


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## LostintheBardo (May 3, 2022)

I'm beginning to think this just isn't the choir library for me at all. I submitted an orchestral track for feedback just before and someone pointed out that everything sounded good except for the choir part at the end which just sounded sterile. That is how I hear it to, something about it just doesn't sound natural to me. Damn.


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