# How to make a children's choir as airy as possible



## Wally Garten (Sep 7, 2018)

So I recently acquired a couple of children's choirs in various sales, and I'd like to do something where I make them as "airy," "heavenly," "angelic," or "gossamer" as possible. Hard to describe exactly what I'm aiming at, but the raw sounds are kind of grounded to earth, and I would like this sound to float up into the heavens. Like, so you can barely feel it. Almost transitioning into a pad, but still recognizable as voices. Really push the stereotype to its breaking point, if you will.

I recently came across some advice along the lines of, "use a high pass filter to EQ out the fundamental and just leave the overtone." But if I filter it enough to remove the fundamentals, at least using my fairly basic EQ'ing tools, I feel like I'm left with something that's more shrill than airy. Perhaps I'm overdoing it? But I wonder if there's something subtle in the technique that I'm missing.

Would welcome tips on this or any other ideas to get a really breathy/airy feel -- uses of reverb, shimmer, chorus, etc.

EDIT: One other thought -- I wonder if one way to do this is to send it to a bus with the right reverb on it and then turn off the output from the track itself, so I only have the bus output, with no dry/input signal? Now that I'm thinking about this some more, I feel like maybe I've done that before to try to get a more mystical effect....


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## Nite Sun (Sep 7, 2018)

If you're wanting to hear the wet reverb signal on its own without dry signal mixed in you'd be better off using reverb as an insert instead of a send effect. As for the heavenly sound Valhalla Shimmer might do the trick


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## Nite Sun (Sep 7, 2018)

Soundtoys crystallizer might be another idea if you've got it


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## Wally Garten (Sep 7, 2018)

Nite Sun said:


> Soundtoys crystallizer might be another idea if you've got it



That's a good thought. I have Crystallizer and have used it on a few things, but I feel like I've only scratched the surface.


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## Wally Garten (Sep 7, 2018)

Nite Sun said:


> As for the heavenly sound Valhalla Shimmer might do the trick



This led me to a soundcloud example by the Valhalla guy where he piles eight instances of Shimmer onto a harp sample and turns it into a shimmery cloud. I dunno if I want to go quite that extreme, but it's a pretty interesting starting point.


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## FourFour (Sep 8, 2018)

Could try blending a dry/dryer signal with a superwet one like the above example.


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## Loïc D (Sep 8, 2018)

If your library allows it, put the girls in front and boys in the back.


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## Nite Sun (Sep 12, 2018)

Two further plugins to add into the mix: Zynaptiq Adaptiverb and Subspace


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## Saxer (Sep 12, 2018)

Play them at the softest dynamic level. Quiet children are a blessing anyway  Uhh and Mmh vocals works better than Aaa or Eee. If you have the choice use close mics. Reduce the 'body' via EQ rather than adding too much high end. Try an exiter (I use the exiter of Logic and VSL a lot). I don't know your libraries but I like the children's choir in Ark 2 and Omnisphere's boys choir.


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## JohnG (Sep 12, 2018)

Saxer said:


> If you have the choice use close mics



hmm -- I'd use the mics that are the farthest away I can find. And double with a synth that has a floaty release and a nice hollow sound, not too loud.


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## Alex Niedt (Sep 12, 2018)

Wally Garten said:


> But if I filter it enough to remove the fundamentals, at least using my fairly basic EQ'ing tools, I feel like I'm left with something that's more shrill than airy.


That's why filtering out the fundamentals is a bad idea. Air without body will always come across as more shrill. Close mics will have more air. Utilize them with the airiest vowels and boost a bit with something like the air band of the Eiosis AirEQ.



JohnG said:


> hmm -- I'd use the mics that are the farthest away I can find.


Why would you do that to get an airy sound? Moving the mics further away literally does the opposite.


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## playz123 (Sep 12, 2018)

If you have Genesis, have a look at snapshot "07 Air and Dream Choir". It should provide a lot of information. If you don't have Genesis, then you should buy it because you don't have the _best_ children's choir!


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## Beat Kaufmann (Sep 12, 2018)

For all my voice- & choir-recordings during the last 2 years I used the Vocal Enhancer. It brings out of the voices what no EQ can do. But attention: You should not use it too strong. Their is the possibility of trying it for free - I believe 14 days.

Example Voice (the youtube-Version) It works with strings as well: Example Cello Both recordings with a TLM 103 about 1,5m away...


Beat

_Edited and added at the 13th of Sept. 2018_
And another *airy* recorded example with "very close microphones"


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## JohnG (Sep 12, 2018)

Alex Niedt said:


> Why would you do that to get an airy sound? Moving the mics further away literally does the opposite.



Honestly, that is bonkers. If you want a floaty, airy sound, put the choir in the balcony / choir loft.

But do whatever you want. There aren't any rules. Besides, if he's working with samples, he can experiment and fool around with it until he likes what he hears.


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## Alex Niedt (Sep 12, 2018)

JohnG said:


> Honestly, that is bonkers. If you want a floaty, airy sound, put the choir in the balcony / choir loft.
> 
> But do whatever you want. There aren't any rules. Besides, if he's working with samples, he can experiment and fool around with it until he likes what he hears.


Judging from the initial post, they're not talking about a floaty quality, but airy as in a lot of top end sparkle. High end detail attenuates as a microphone is moved back from the source.


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## Saxer (Sep 13, 2018)

JohnG said:


> If you want a floaty, airy sound, put the choir in the balcony / choir loft.



Probably a question of definition. 

While floaty and angelic (musical term) for my taste is this here:



while airy for my definition (mixing term, concerning overtones) is this sound here:


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## Olivier1024 (Sep 13, 2018)

Wally Garten said:


> Almost transitioning into a pad, but still recognizable as voices. Really push the stereotype to its breaking point, if you will.



To create Pad, you can use Mikron Cascade from 112dB. It doesn't change the tone of the sound, it's easy to use and you can try it. The main problem is that it mix many times the samples, so if your samples are not perfect, you will hear more and more their default.
The children's choir I own are from 8Dio and Soundiron, the samples are noisy (noise floor). Strevoz Arva is also noisy (a bit less) and Genesis seems also noisy when I listen to the demos. It's perhaps also a reason why they don't sound angelic.
So it's important to remove this noise floor before using the samples. I use Sonible entropyEQ+, it's very efficient. Don't try to remove all the noise or you will get artifacts. Now children's choir are usuable and sound good.

You can also use Ambient Reverb from Stone Voices (VST only). The Decay can be very very long. Try, it's free. Don't use it as a reverb, but as a creative way to get Pad.


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## Studio E (Sep 14, 2018)

I think we should nail down the OP's definition of airy. To me, air is high end gloss on top of the dry signal. I have actually been creating this quite a bit recently for live vocal recordings of pop and rock stuff. If this is what you mean, I can probably give you some techniques to try.


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## Wally Garten (Sep 18, 2018)

Thanks to everyone for your great replies! It's been humbling to realize that I needed to think through more what I am actually imagining. I was starting from a place of trying to capture the emotion (lightness, I think), but I may have hindered the discussion by suggesting terms with precise engineering meanings ("air"). 

Going off @Saxer 's useful benchmarks, I _think_ what I'm looking for is closer to Edward Scissorhands than 10cc? I think maybe the closest analogue for me would be something like this:



The choir seems far away, ethereal, and kind of... blended? Does that make sense? I freely admit my engineering/mixing vocabulary could use some work. I'd also be willing to believe that there's a lot going on here with recording and staging that can't easily be recreated with samples.


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## Saxer (Sep 18, 2018)

I think the Metropolis Ark 2 choirs can do that sound rather good (maybe need just a bit more room). Probably other choir libraries can do that well too but I just used the Ark children's choir in a recent project so it't the first that comes into mind.


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## Guffy (Sep 18, 2018)

Use the tree/surround mics from Ark 2 and run it through additional reverb and it sounds exactly like that.

Edit: Saxer beat me to it


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## Blakus (Sep 18, 2018)

Depending on what library you’re using, check high mid freqs as well. Sometimes these need taming a little, which can allow the airy top end to open up a little. Combined with some long blackhole like verb, works well for me.


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## mixtur (Sep 18, 2018)

This https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/noveltech_character.html

Great for 'oos' and 'aas'

Also checkout Vocal Enhancer


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## Heledir (Sep 19, 2018)

You could try this free plugin called Roth-AIR. As you may guess from the name it's designed to add air. Even has a big button with 'Air' on it in the middle of the interface. I've used it a fair few times.

https://www.kvraudio.com/product/roth-air-by-rothmann


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## reddognoyz (Sep 19, 2018)

I've always put a high pass filter on live background vocals to keep them from being too heavy. I wonder how this would work with a boys choir, maybe just creative eq before any added reverb/ambience would work


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## Wally Garten (Sep 19, 2018)

Heledir said:


> Even has a big button with 'Air' on it in the middle of the interface and all.



That's really my sort of plugin. Will give it a try!


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