# Symphonic Choirs and Wordbuilder



## kurtvanzo (Jul 29, 2015)

Now that there are sales at Cinesamples and East West I'm looking at Voxos and Symphonic Chiors. Love the former but wondering how many people are still using the latter. in particular the word builder. At this point that would be the main reason I would buy it since I have vowels from Olympus and others.

(Edit: Purchased and made a review of SC is on page 2, but I thought I would answer my own questions below)

Is the word builder worth it? (Yes) Are there dynamics built in (like Voxos) or is it just volume? (3 dynamic layers if you included the $40 extension) And can you get some realistic words? (Yes, very editable and works well once you take time to learn it- watch Nick's videos posted below)

Here is a Votox definition chart to help:


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## EvilDragon (Jul 29, 2015)

When actual symphonic choirs sing in those huge halls, most people (if any) cannot really understand what they're singing about - it IS a garble! It's not the point of sample libraries to get absolutely intelligible lines of text, at all - but the sense of something being sung in syllables.


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## kurtvanzo (Jul 29, 2015)

Thanks ED, I guess for my music I am looking for something more intelligible with some clear consonants, not necessarily to mimic a real choir in a big space. I'd like to use it in simple pieces where the vocal will open the piece on it's own or have simple backing. If SC is exclusively big sounding, I may hve to look elsewhere. I'm not sure about Voices of Prague (don't own it), but I rarely find SOP usable even with a bed behind it. But I can see how the two combined for a big choir sound with a word builder might be more idea for epic pieces.

Saw this on Sweetwater's site about Symphonic Choirs...

Slurred legato on all vowels
All Singers recorded in position and chromatically sampled with multiple dynamics (non-vibrato, light vibrato and heavy vibrato)
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/QLChoirs

Strange someone else had pointed out in another post that there are no legatos in SC. How well do the slurred legatos work and sound? I still get some issues with HS slurred legatos glitching or jumping up in volume momentarily, but I tend to work around it, I assume SC has non-slurred patches as well. And how many dynamic layers are there? Even 3 with soft, med, loud crossfaded (like HB) would be useful if it sounds good.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Jul 29, 2015)

I think the word builder works really well and there has never been anything I wasn't able to program into it. Having said that, I find the sound of the library to get a bit uninspiring after having it for a number of years. I've considered getting other libraries like Voxos. Most of the time I only use the basic syllables anyways so I probably wouldn't miss the word builder very much.


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## kurtvanzo (Jul 29, 2015)

I know what you mean, any library can seem underwhelming if you can't use it. Came across Nick's video on it, if you watch all 5 parts he goes through how to tweak it, amazing the versitility he's put into it. Stretching consonants to make strange noises like the zzzzz or short phrases is quick and painless, and the prebuilt menu to get you started is great. I like Voxos for softer passages, but at $287 right now (with mf Expansion) SC is hard to beat.


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## murrthecat (Jul 30, 2015)

I think Word Builder could be still improved in terms of interface but in my experience SC with Word Builder is a very versatile choir. It needs a bit of programming but I am pretty happy with the results I can get. This is a Russian style choir I made for a WWII game:


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## EvilDragon (Jul 30, 2015)

kurtvanzo said:


> Strange someone else had pointed out in another post that there are no legatos in SC. How well do the slurred legatos work and sound?




There ARE no true legatos in SC. Slurred articulation is just that - like a pre-bend on a note. Not exactly true legato.


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## DHousden (Jul 30, 2015)

I've had Symphonic Choirs since 2011 and found it pretty underwhelming back then. It hasn't aged well in my opinion and there are far better choices available today. I don't own Voxos, but I understand it received a big update not too long ago, which really improved it. I'd also recommend looking at Requiem Light (also SoundIron), if you're just looking for consonants and syllables to compliment your existing vowel library. It's much simpler to use than Symphonic Choirs and takes half of the effort to get it to sound decent. Admittedly you can't programme in _anything_ that you want to say, but it's a great library for the price.


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## playz123 (Jul 30, 2015)

You might also wish to check out the Virharmonic choirs and their word building capabilities.


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## EvilDragon (Jul 30, 2015)

playz123 said:


> You might also wish to check out the Virharmonic choirs and their word building capabilities.



Somebody didn't read the first post, the OP has some experience with Virharmonic and didn't find it to his liking


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## kurtvanzo (Jul 30, 2015)

Thanks Ed for clarifying the legato question. I really like Murrthecat's Russian example above, even the "rough Russian" is clearer than most other libraries I've heard. I listened to Voxos again and although I really like the sound and legatos, I know I would probably get more use out of Symphonic Choirs. I don't mind tweaking it like Nick did in his video, but just having the option to tweak like this is only available in SC and Virharmonic (which I can't get clear enough consonants to make reliable English), but please let me know if there are others.

Voxos limited builder works well if you want that Latin thing or quick shouts, but that aside its really just an Oooh, Ahhh, mmm library (although excellent for that, beautiful dynamics). I read in another thread that they might be working on a sequel to SC, but until they announce I realize it could be years away (and need time for debugging), so I decided to pick up the current version while the summer sale is still on. I will probably wait for Cinesamples next 40% off sale, if I could get Voxos at $299, it would be a no brainier! But for now I'll work through SC and try to post a review here soon.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 30, 2015)

Hey Kurtvanzo, you can't be Captain Zorro. I AM since I was the composer for the TV series


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## playz123 (Jul 30, 2015)

EvilDragon said:


> Somebody didn't read the first post, the OP has some experience with Virharmonic and didn't find it to his liking


Thank you for your gentle jibe, but either you didn't quite grasp what I was saying or read it quite correctly. The OP did check out the "Soloists". My suggestion was he check out the "choirs". There's a difference. Other forum members who are involved heavily with choirs have found the Virharmonic ones to be quite satisfying and so have I, especially when Word Building is a factor. They are smaller choirs though, and if one is looking for epic and not specifically word building, there are a few others that can provide that sort of thing. And sometimes "garble" can be quite effective.


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## kitekrazy (Jul 30, 2015)

BTW is World Builder a separate download from the library?


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 30, 2015)

kitekrazy said:


> BTW is World Builder a separate download from the library?




No, in the Play version it is integrated. Watch Nick's videos.


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## kitekrazy (Jul 30, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> No, in the Play version it is integrated. Watch Nick's videos.



Will do! I got this free with one of their promos. I rarely mess with choir libraries.


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## murrthecat (Jul 31, 2015)

kurtvanzo said:


> I know I would probably get more use out of Symphonic Choirs. I don't mind tweaking it like Nick did in his video, but just having the option to tweak like this is only available in SC and Virharmonic (which I can't get clear enough consonants to make reliable English), but please let me know if there are others.


I would be interested, too, to know if there are alternatives. In SC the possibility to edit the length and the envelope of single phonemes is a great tool, if you don't have to deliver your music 'yesterday'...


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## R.Cato (Jul 31, 2015)

The Wordbuilder from Symphonic Choirs is still the best one out there. At least I haven't heard any audio demo, which has the same "realism" when it comes to wordbuilding from the competitors. I also like the sound of the library and the hall it was recorded in, but still the most natural and realistic sounding phrase builder based choir library available right now is the StormChoir Series, which can't do everything, but excells at what it was designed for. (hence the name)


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## Mystic (Jul 31, 2015)

I'm hoping EW is working on a new Choir. It's about time for something groundbreaking in that area.


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## wpc982 (Jul 31, 2015)

is an acappella english choral piece, using a combo of SC and the older Voices of the Apocalypse set. Not perfectly understandable, and not perfectly recorded, but it gives the idea. 

I'd love to find a new choir package with vowels, diphthongs by midi CC, and consonants. Don't need legato, don't need phrases.


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## kurtvanzo (Jul 31, 2015)

I'm actually surprised to say that Symphonic Choirs is pretty amazing after working through all the patches. It comes with soft and hard patches (genius for those times you don't need a full range since it gives you more subtle control over dynamics) and VOTA expansion adds a full dynamics patch with a great mf level and some extra patches (angels, demons) along with the mens, womens, and boys choir. Clear sounding, even with the wordbuilder, they have full, mens, womens, and sections (bass, tenor, alto, sop) with decent extended ranges when played separately (some are not there, but the sops go very high and the basses go to fog horn!). Yes there are a lot of patches considering they have consonants, fx and vowels folders for each section. But those are there if you only need the one sound, the wordbuilder patches incorporate all those except the fx so that is what went into my template. The idea of having separate sections ready to go with wordbuilder set to start with just "O" is great. I tried a few phrases but will plan on using it regularly.

The other surprise is with the newest version of Play (4.2.35) it all played smoothly and loaded quickly in VE Pro ( and on a Mac!). Works smoother and easier than HS or HB, which is a very cool thing. As computers get faster this will become a workhorse. The down sides are the lack of real legato (although the subtle scripting for legato and portamento is appreciated), and the longing for more dynamic layers especially in the lower dynamics (in some patches it's hard to tell if they are using sampled dynamics or a Highpass EQ/ volume combo to script the dynamics). But the wordbuilder and it's editing is pretty straight forward once you watch the video- you can change length, speed and volume of each sound and build up to four (five?) sounds in each syllable. They can even overlap or play on release. If you lay the words out correctly (sometimes adding an extra e or ah helps) and spend a little time tweaking the length and overlay, it gets faster pretty quickly. The sounds are usable and I have yet to come across a garbled sound. It also has an overall consonant volume level in settings- it's default is halfway but I suggest turning it up all the way to get some decent consonant clarity- to my ear that sounds the best. In Soloists of Prague (and I assume VOP) each consonant must be tweaked individually, which I would normally consider a bonus, but when every consonant can barely be heard and when I crank it, I get a sad, short "t" that's noisey and can only be adjust a little, it becomes difficult and the end result dissappoint. I'm not sure if the Choir for VOP have the same problems, but the soloists sounded thin and weak on consonants, like they didn't speak english or had heavy accents. It could just be the particular soloists, but for me it's not very usable besides the normal oo and ah. For me I like to hear the words, and make up my own words if I want garble .

Which brings me back to SC, very usable and clear once the consonants are cranked up in the settings, even pitched down a bit ( I wanted to see how low I could get it- WOW! Fog Horn is a good description) it was usable- yes, a little noise solo'ed, but would work great even in a quiet piece. The soloist though are another story, they give you a keyswitch patch (Ah, ee, oo, mm and a few others) for solo Soprano, Alto, and Boy, but no Bass or Tenor. Shame since the low end on the choir is one of it's best features. And no wordbuilder for solos. The range on them are pretty limited too, but they will work for the ranges you expect them to be in, and they don't sound bad solo'ed. All patches have close, stage, and surround mics, of which the stage is default and usually sounds good, I was glad to hear both close and stage are clear and dry enough to add your own reverb. The built in reverb sounds decent but I like Valhalla Rooms and Spaces better. Annoying that reverb pops back on when you change the legato or port settings, but I understand- it can sound harsh dry and does need something  

So in conclusion I love the sound of Voxos for normal choir sounds ( so smooth sounding and the soloist especially seem ideal) but SC really surprised me with the clarity and how much I could get out of the wordbuilder. Being able to build simple sounds is not difficult- but doing long phrases, and then learning to perform them correctly, could take some time. The Fx patches (most sections have a patch for Cluster fx, Cluster Ohs, Whispers, Falls, Shouts) are all solid and come with a decent variety. It's a lot of patches to get through but I was able to do it in 4 or 5 hours, and now I have a template set up and ready to go  Let me know if you want me to test a phrase.

All in All I have to say a great buy for $287, and I don't think I've seen a better word builder. Crazy that no one has surpassed this, just shows how much it takes to get something like this out and working- Congrats Nick and his team. I'm glad to have skipped the first versions of this and have the wordbuilder built in. Cheers!


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## kurtvanzo (Jul 31, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> Hey Kurtvanzo, you can't be Captain Zorro. I AM since I was the composer for the TV series



Ha! Then you should know the Mask is worn by many who seek Truth and Justice! Stay thirsty my friend! 

PS. Any word on a new version of SC (SC2?) Jay? I thought I had heard EW was working on it, but perhaps that was a dream... a sweet Dos Equis dream.... 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Interesting_Man_in_the_World


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## Ah_dziz (Jul 31, 2015)

I still use the kontakt version of EWQLSC along with the amazing wordbuilder script some lovely user posted here a while back. I generally only use it if i need the choir to actually say something and then still layer it with the closest sylables I can find in voxos to give it some oomph (they don't get super powerful). Also taking a couple of minutes to sing along in my own voice even with my terrible pitch can bring a lot of extra intelligibility to the table. That being said, I wouldn't consider buying it for play. I know it's much improved as a platform, but I don't like the company, and I'll leave it at that. It should run fine on any modern system so if you don't share my prejudice I would say go for it.


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## kitekrazy (Aug 6, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> No, in the Play version it is integrated. Watch Nick's videos.



Videos could be updated. The rants on the videos is beginning setup. I started reading the manual and word builder does not detach.


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 6, 2015)

kurtvanzo said:


> Ha! Then you should know the Mask is worn by many who seek Truth and Justice! Stay thirsty my friend!
> 
> PS. Any word on a new version of SC (SC2?) Jay? I thought I had heard EW was working on it, but perhaps that was a dream... a sweet Dos Equis dream....
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Interesting_Man_in_the_World



I don't think that EW has any plans to do that. If it were up to me, they would because I honestly believe that if it had true legato, it would still be the best choir library in the marketplace by a fair amount, except for you "epic" louder and bigger is better" folks


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## wpc982 (Aug 6, 2015)

I hate to be a critic of something I use a lot: but really, the contractor who hired the singers for SC should have been fired or severly reprimanded. All that effort, and you get a mess of conflicting intonations for most notes. Yes, like your typical amateur choir, but that's not good enough for imitating the professional choir. And I'll never ever understand treating A4/A3 as the lowest soprano and tenor note, and B4/B3 (or something close) as the highest alto and bass note. I hope EW has made some money over the years, but it is clearly time for a better effort.


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## maclaine (Aug 6, 2015)

The thing I like most about Symphonic Choirs is its quietest dynamic. I have every choir library from Soundiron, and while I use those quite a bit for bigger stuff, I find that the softest dynamic just isn't soft enough. It feels like it starts at mezzo forte and goes up from there, so when I need something a bit quieter, I got for SC.


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 6, 2015)

wpc982 said:


> I hate to be a critic of something I use a lot: but really, the contractor who hired the singers for SC should have been fired or severly reprimanded. All that effort, and you get a mess of conflicting intonations for most notes. Yes, like your typical amateur choir, but that's not good enough for imitating the professional choir. And I'll never ever understand treating A4/A3 as the lowest soprano and tenor note, and B4/B3 (or something close) as the highest alto and bass note. I hope EW has made some money over the years, but it is clearly time for a better effort.



Please tell me an example of the conflicting intonations. because over the years I have worked for EW, this is the first time I have had someone complain about this.


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## Virharmonic Tea boy (Aug 7, 2015)

kurtvanzo said:


> In Soloists of Prague (and I assume VOP) each consonant must be tweaked individually, which I would normally consider a bonus, but when every consonant can barely be heard and when I crank it, I get a sad, short "t" that's noisey and can only be adjust a little, it becomes difficult and the end result dissappoint. I'm not sure if the Choir for VOP have the same problems, but the soloists sounded thin and weak on consonants, like they didn't speak english or had heavy accents.



Hi Kurtvanzo,

I'm sorry to hear that you are not getting the results you would expect from SoP. I have gone through our support emails, but didn't see any request for advice/tips or tricks which would allow me or Ondrej to help you get more out of the library, but let me see if I can try to give you some tips here and also explain a bit more behind the philosophy of the instrument in question which might provide better info on how to use it.

SoP is a highly unique instrument which we are very proud of aimed at mimicking choral soloists in Choral settings. The best kind of application where our library shines is shown in the demos such as Universe and Fury of the Alto and in our opinion backed up by many users it does that rather well. And I find Fury of the Alto as intelligible enough and it took Ondrej less then 2 hours to compose and produce to show the speed at which one can write with our library. Now of course the Requiem Demo shows that they can be used in a more exposed manner as well, but it requires slightly more careful modwheel action as shown in the Tutorial Video for SoP. The library is about Dynamic Pronunciation as in real life, rather then about modded loudness. In terms of the consonants - the aim is that they blend easily and are not over pronounced - We are not trying to make or mimic a dry recording sound for the choir in a chamber environment as even the recordings took place in a lovely church which offered some rich colours to the samples. 

The main idea behind all our libraries is that you don't need to tweak the consonants to get good results, but you rather use the ModWheel to accent the words/syllables you want, so in comparison to some other competing products if used properly some of our users get great results very fast! Fury of Alto being a main example as considering the number of syllables the Alto line took barely any time to write and process. However if you need to achieve heavily exposed intelligibility and you have the time to tweak each consonant individually then competing product might be better choice as it is also a choice of philosophy. 

On the note of the consonants sounding "thin ": The consonants can't just be cranked up as that would lead to a weird Over Gained boosted effect which would of course bring up some noise and in your words would sound thin. It is much better to increase the sharpness of the attack by decreasing the attack time if modwheel action is not available. The other way (much more preferred) is to increase the strength of the pronunciation by using the MOD wheel as all consonants were actually recorded in 3 true dynamics, so if you want more accented start of the words ride the mod wheel accordingly and the result should be immediately audible.

We are currently making a whole new range of tutorials providing indepth tips and tricks from novice to expert with our libraries as well as massive updates bringing more amazing features.

I hope that this gives you some tips which help you to use the library to better results and please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions as we are always more then happy to assist our customers with info, tips and solutions for their projects.

Also, please don't be afraid to communicate with us as we have made this product to help composers and we are always keen on hearing feedback and providing assistance as we want the libraries to evolve, get more amazing and provide even more satisfying results to our composers.

Warm Regards

Alex 
Virharmonic


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## Uncle Peter (Aug 7, 2015)

I've found Symphonic Choirs to be useful to add size, behind a small live choir. I used symphonic choirs (with wordbuilder) in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz2Epde9Aak (this one) to support the small choir that was available to me. So the choir is a blend of samples and real vocalists, which is nothing new of course... but it helped all the same.


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## wpc982 (Aug 7, 2015)

Here's an example of the Symphonic Choir sopranos on moderately high notes. I first found this when trying to tune individual notes, and got a bunch of clicks and pops ... a Melodyne support person pointed out to me that you can't tune a cluster into a single tone.


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 7, 2015)

wpc982 said:


> Here's an example of the Symphonic Choir sopranos on moderately high notes. I first found this when trying to tune individual notes, and got a bunch of clicks and pops ... a Melodyne support person pointed out to me that you can't tune a cluster into a single tone.




Well, not going to say you are wrong but I have been working for EW for about 6 years now and you are the first person to tell me you find the tuning unsatisfactory.


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## wpc982 (Aug 7, 2015)

Well I'm going to be on the far end of any tuning spectrum ... so maybe it's all good! And since the clusters do center correctly for the most part on the right pitch, one might say the tuning is good in that way ... even in the images I posted, there's clearly a dominant voice that is tuned pretty well.


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 7, 2015)

The whole "tuning inconsistencies=more human and therefore more realistic" crossing a line to "unacceptable" is a highly individual calculus. Just for an example, LASS was an example of a library that evoked passionate debate over this issue but has proven to be over time a great success with lots of people who love it.

Personally, I have no dog in the hunt. We should all use what we like and not use what we do not, for whatever reasons.


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## SpeakPianissimoAndCarry.. (Aug 7, 2015)

EvilDragon said:


> When actual symphonic choirs sing in those huge halls, most people (if any) cannot really understand what they're singing about - it IS a garble! It's not the point of sample libraries to get absolutely intelligible lines of text, at all - but the sense of something being sung in syllables.




SC was the first choir that I bought. It was fun at first but man did it take a lot of time to get something understandable. I agree with EvilDragon. Once I got something that was understandable by itself and put it with the rest of the orchestra, it got garbled. In the end it was just a choir singing syllables, which was way better than ah and ooh, but no way could you understand the words in the final track. But that is effective, compared to ah and ooh. Now I have all of the libraries discussed here and more. They all give you different sounds, but none of them really sing words, as EvilDragon said. To get the effective choir sounds, I like Voxos way better than Symphonic Choirs. It is way more punchier and way more effective in the track. I like Virharmonic sometime also. It has a unique sound.

To me, they all sound like they are singing in a foreign language in the end. That really is the goal. If you try to make them sing words and fail, listeners will disrespect you in the end.

I have a friend in Switzerland who I corroborate with from time to time. He is an expert at SC and only uses that library. His choir tracks are amazing, so if you spend the time that he does, so can your choir tracks be. For me, Voxos is faster, as is Liberis from 8Dio. Load up, a few clicks and you have cool, non intelligible syllables right away.

We are years away from a choir that can sing words when mixed with a track, IMHO. Now for solo Vocals, Mike Green's Lady in Blue can be understood when mixed with a full track. He is on the right track with this. If he does with a choir library what he did with Lady in Blue, then we have something, even if it not be perfect, which will never happen.

BTW, my fave syllable library at this time is 8Dio Emperium. I choose it over Voxos 7 times out of 10. I never use SC from EastWest anymore. That was your question really, I think.


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 8, 2015)

I don't have those libraries you mentioned but a key to what you said is "it is way more punchier". If that is what you want out of a choir, that may be true. I don't get hired to do "Epic" generally so I want my choirs to be pretty.

Is there a newer choir you guys use that you think is as pretty or even even prettier than SC? Something that sounds like a good recording of Poulenc's "Gloria" e.g. ?


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## SpeakPianissimoAndCarry.. (Aug 8, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> I don't have those libraries you mentioned but a key to what you said is "it is way more punchier". If that is what you want out of a choir, that may be true. I don't get hired to do "Epic" generally so I want my choirs to be pretty.
> 
> Is there a newer choir you guys use that you think is as pretty or even even prettier than SC? Something that sounds like a good recording of Poulenc's "Gloria" e.g. ?



Good point Soundsonline dude. I actually have never written an epic track in my life, so when I said punchier, that is not what I meant. I did not mean epic sound. What I meant was understand-ability of the words typed in Word Builder compared to just selecting syllables in the other libraries in general. but because of you reaction, I will speak to pretty. I have most of the choir libraries, and have tried them all. When in the background, doing pretty, they are all good. My favorite for pretty though, is Vienna Choir. SC does pretty as well but not like Vienna. But SC does syllables, which makes it a notch above Vienna, even though it is not as pretty. But, they all do pretty. They do pretty in different ways though. My only contribution to this discussion really is this. I love choir sounds. I have almost every one ever made, including SC, Olympus, Liberis, Voxos, Emperium....all of them. I have tried them all in tracks, so when I express an opinion, it is not from listening to demos. I was in no way trying to disrespect SC. I was just answering the question originally asked by Kurt. As an EastWest employee, you should respect me as a customer. I bought almost every library that you guys have made so far, so don't blow off my opinion. EastWest products sold me and I gave up my money. That does not mean that I have to like your products over a competitor's product though. I like SC. But because I have so many other choir libs, I choose them more often. That does not mean that I think SC is bad. I am just saying what is true for me, as was asked by this thread.


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 8, 2015)

I am going to disagree with "they all do pretty" because I have a couple of others that I won't name, that to my ears are not pretty. They are not bad, but not pretty.


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## SpeakPianissimoAndCarry.. (Aug 8, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> I am going to disagree with "they all do pretty" because I have a couple of others that I won't name, that to my ears are not pretty. They are not bad, but not pretty.



Gotta give you that one. I was too general. I meant all of the ones that I have but I typed all so now I have to eat my words. I used to have one that was not pretty back in 2005, "Bubba's Singin' Library", so I agree Peace Jay!


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## kurtvanzo (Aug 8, 2015)

Thanks again for the the input Speaks! I would love to hear some of the other libraries you have that are good with word building. I love Voxos playability and sound, but am more curious about word building.

Thank you Alex from Virharmonic for the time you took to answer my concerns, that was very kind of you. I thought in response I should take another look at Soloists of Prague and see how it compares with other wordbuilders I have. I decided to give it my full attention on a simple piece, then afterward duplicate the process with other word builders. I was actually surprised when I gave it some time that the words were coming up clearer, yes I had to tweak the consonants most but things came together surprisingly well.

First to be fair I wanted to test similar voices so I chose the Soprano, since one of my other word builders only had soprano (I can test the other voices too if there's a request). I also wanted to pick a phrase that was not too long yet covered a lot of ground (consonants and vowels). The phrase I chose was "Talk to me please, you dummy". The idea of the test was to see with tweaking how close I could get to understandable english. I hope we all understand how reverb makes things nicer, so I went with "as dry as the library could go" to show every flaw, but with the understanding that if people would like it, I can also post a wet version. 

Also, Speak has an important point- this is solo'ed and in my experience it instantly becomes more garbled when added to a mix, but if the consonants are clear enough (as he mention Realivox Blue is) then it becomes a new ball game- which is why I pursuing this- not to get "word-like" sounds but actual understandable phrases. 

This being said I worked on the line in Virharmonic Soloists of Prague first, checking all the dynamics- the lows are muffled (nice for soft stuff) and the highs are less intelligeable, so I went with the mid dynamic. I tried using modulation on the consonants as Alex suggested but often it took away from clarity because (as I said) the higher dynamic isn't as clear with consonants. Keeping the mid dynamic was the clearest choice. I tweaked each part and the performance. Using the interface was nice, and for a soloist belting in a chior or a russian sound it fits right in, but I was looking for intelligeable english, so I kept working. When I was done I felt I had really nailed the phrase as best I could. Then I pulled up Realivox Blue. The interface was great, the sound amazing, and in a short time I had the same sentence in clarity that blew me away. Granted the voice is a softer, more pleasing tone, so it may just naturally sound better with english, but going back to SOP I realized there were a few issues with the Virharmonic Soloist.

One as mentioned is the consonants, but now I was noticing transitions to vowels being a little off, and the vowels sounding a little too synthetic. Now I believe part of this could be the UVI workstation it's in and not all in Virharmonics hands. I've been disappointed before with other UVI purchases, including Mello, as the sounds, although okay, and not as strong (or warm) as I hope for, and sometimes when sustained they sound a little too synthetic- I can hear the bits being stretched. I don't hear these things in Kontakt until you get beyond 2 octaves down- which is saying a lot. I don't expect other samples to live up to that, just that they sound good out of the box. So I think some of the issue here may be with UVI.

But the consonants, the samples? I like the soprano and bass soloists, when soloed they sound good (especially with great reverb) but when put into a mix they sound thin, not just the consonants Alex, all of it. Could be the recordings, a high pass filter during editing or mix, mic selection, the hall, the voices, I can't tell you. As I said as a soloist to a choir or a russian soloist, it works. If that was the point of the library then you've succeeded, I'm just looking for something the average listener can understand when it's put into a mix. 

On the bright side I do like the interface (though I wish it were in Kontakt). It's easy to work with once you get the hang of it. My only suggestion is it could use the option of using a keyswitch for the restart- more natural for me than using a CC controller, but both options would be best if it was possible (not sure if UVI restricts this).

Lastly I had to add Symphonic Choirs to this to bookend this thread. Unfortunately the Soprano soloist doesn't have word builder, so I used the Soprano choir for this. Definitely useable, but I understand what Speak is saying about it getting lost in a mix. Personally I really like the SC interface, it gives me ways to tweak things I never thought of. And although at first I felt like make consonants were missing, in the end I got a decent phrase out of it.

Overall Realivox was the best of the bunch, SC was an interesting second, and SOP suddenly sounded more synthetic. But I'd be more that happy to give Voices of Prague a shot if Virharmonic is interested and feeling generous.  I understand the complexity in trying to get a great soloist. It's amazing the job Virharmonic has done considering they are giving you four soloists (bass, tenor, alto, soprano) for $199- that's less than half the price per soloist. But I personally would rather pay $129 for one great singer than $50 for a good one. 

Which brings me to my repeated request. I want to start a petition to get Mike Greene (Realivox) to make more soloists- especially males. I will continue to hound you Mike until you do it, so you might as well tell me you're working on it, even if you're in the Bahamas. COME ON! How much money do we have to throw at you? I'll pay to get the vocalists into the studio! It's a goldmine waiting to happen. Blue is great and all I can say is... MORE! Just make sure to sell them one at a time please- you can offer a bundle later- but for those of us that want to pick just certain voices to start, make them available separately. You'll make more money in the long run from fools like me that come back for more and more (just ask Cinesamples ).

Thanks for reading, here is the video with the evidence.... Cheers.


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## SpeakPianissimoAndCarry.. (Aug 9, 2015)

kurtvanzo said:


> Overall Realivox was the best of the bunch, SC was an interesting second, and SOP suddenly sounded more synthetic. But I'd be more that happy to give Voices of Prague a shot if Virharmonic is interested and feeling generous. I understand the complexity in trying to get a great soloist. It's amazing the job Virharmonic has done considering they are giving you four soloists (bass, tenor, alto, soprano) for $199- that's less than half the price per soloist. But I personally would rather pay $129 for one great singer than $50 for a good one.
> 
> Which brings me to my repeated request. I want to start a petition to get Mike Greene (Realivox) to make more soloists- especially males.




Well yeah, we all want more realistic VSTi vocal libraries, but petitioning is not going to make it happen. Heck if that worked, I'd ask Mike to make a gospel choir that can sing Jesus perfectly. Whoever creates that library first is going to be rich....in money and spirit. I am writing a song now that will have a choir as an important part of it. The choir will be singing without other tracks, so I am deciding between Virharmonic and EastWest. If I do it myself, I will use Virharmonic. But I am thinking that I will let my friend in Switzerland write this part of the music, using his expertise in SC. If I still lived in Los Angeles, I would just bring a small choir over. That is always the best answer, but I live near the Arctic Circle now and I am the only musician up here. I have to use VST but since I have worldwide friends, I can use them instead of doing it all myself. What Eastwest, Virharmonic and Mike Green have done is incredible to me. All of the work is awesome. It seems that all of the creators of the libs we have now are having fun, so I am not going to petition them to do anything except keep having fun. As long as they are having fun, I am buying! Mike has many of the cards. That Lady in Blue script that he wrote could be applied to many future libs, soloists and choirs. EvilDragon is also an incredible Kontakt programmer! What if they got together? Holy awesome Batman!


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## kurtvanzo (Aug 9, 2015)

SpeakPianissimoAndCarry.. said:


> Well yeah, we all want more realistic VSTi vocal libraries, but petitioning is not going to make it happen. Heck if that worked, I'd ask Mike to make a gospel choir that can sing Jesus perfectly. Whoever creates that library first is going to be rich....in money and spirit. I am writing a song now that will have a choir as an important part of it. The choir will be singing without other tracks, so I am deciding between Virharmonic and EastWest. If I do it myself, I will use Virharmonic. But I am thinking that I will let my friend in Switzerland write this part of the music, using his expertise in SC. If I still lived in Los Angeles, I would just bring a small choir over. That is always the best answer, but I live near the Arctic Circle now and I am the only musician up here. I have to use VST but since I have worldwide friends, I can use them instead of doing it all myself. What Eastwest, Virharmonic and Mike Green have done is incredible to me. All of the work is awesome. It seems that all of the creators of the libs we have now are having fun, so I am not going to petition them to do anything except keep having fun. As long as they are having fun, I am buying! Mike has many of the cards. That Lady in Blue script that he wrote could be applied to many future libs, soloists and choirs. EvilDragon is also an incredible Kontakt programmer! What if they got together? Holy awesome Batman!



I agree completely. I just think some developers get ideas and encouragement from this forum, and I know Mike is a regular here, so there's always a chance to nudge his thought process (although yes, only they can make it happen). After all, as you said, he now has a great interface and script- hopefully recording more samples and tweaking the script is all that's needed to output more, but even that is a giant task. EvilDragon is amazing as what he does, and it would be great to see that collaboration, but I know Mike has been doing scripting a long time, his work on this (though I don't know for sure if it's all him) has been incredible. Thanks for all your input Speak, really helpful.


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## Virharmonic (Aug 9, 2015)

kurtvanzo said:


> Thanks for reading, here is the video with the evidence.... Cheers.



Hi Kurt,

I'm sorry to have to react with an example as we have never actually had to do that yet, but this is possibly the biggest misrepresentation of our library I've ever heard. You are literally comparing apples and oranges and it appears to me that you are just purposely making it sound rubbish and used it out of the scope of sensible application to make some point.... Making our library sing dry is simply pointless as the library was recorded and staged in a church. Of course that it won't sound right completely dry as would one expect when told that it is sampled in church! In the demo below I use similar melody to yours I've quickly improvised without any clicker or rhythmical thought. I've simply played on my keyboard and hit record.


At the end of the video I've also included a simple example of Capella application of the singers to show one of the suitable applications meant for SoP, so there is no confusion as the demos on the site already show that it can be the icing on the cake for orchestral tracks as well as applied in chamberish style music, but make no mistake it is meant for Choral works or cinematic music, but it won't work in pop or rock or when you force it into dry setup as that is not the designed application and it never pretended to be! As Far as I remember we even say in the manual that some reverb needs to be always applied for the library to sound correct by design. For the Capella part of the demo I've recorded Triad Soprano chords and then arranged them between the voices quickly.

All music in the video is without external EQ or tweaking any of the settings for the cons and using only the Modwheel to work with the diction... It could sound even better if I have used 4channel audio out patches and applied unique EQ to each of the vocals as well as proper spacing, but I wanted it to remain as out of the box as possible. After the first two example I use external reverb as I prefer the sound to spark verb used in the out of the box version, but that is being addressed in the update with a new reverb as we continuously work on improving the libraries and most users have their own reverb they like to use. It took me barely an hour to produce all of this and to start the upload.

For the tech part the lyrics are "Talk to me please, you dummy". for the Capella part it says "Talk to me, Why don't you ask of me." It simply fitted the rhythm I had in my head, so please don't try to read anything into the lyrics. I'm no lyricist 




Recommended setting on youtube is 1080p

I hope that this explains the philosophy for SoP even more then what Alex has already tried to do. Please don't take any of my comments above personally as they are not meant in a personal manner, but rather in factual manner. As I'm Czech, things might get lost in translation, but I could not leave this without response as our choral series have taken us years to develop and hundreds of sleepless nights. They excel in their designed application with little time cost to the composer once they know how to use our libraries and I had to post an example to provide clarification.

PS:


kurtvanzo said:


> I can hear the bits being stretched.


 No Sample stretching took place on any of our libraries - If you turn on Round Robin for VoP and SoP pitched tones will be borrowing semitone up and down and I wouldn't really use the RR function on SoP as the unpitched cons have 3 true RR for all anyways which is the most important, so if you are singing lyrics it shouldn't be really needed. RR for SoP becomes very useful if you are using it as mini chamber choir though. CBC has true round robins for all samples and of course no stretching again!

Personally I would think that you might be thinking of the reverb used in general on the samples which is internal Sparkverb which works great for connecting things tightly, but not best in terms of warmth of sound. Using warmer reverb brings out more of what you might be looking for.

Edited Content - Added PS and corrected some grammar 

Warm Regards

Ondrej Pochyly
Head Developer
Virharmonic
www.virharmonic.com
[email protected]


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## SpeakPianissimoAndCarry.. (Aug 9, 2015)

Virharmonic said:


> Hi Kurt,
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Ondrej, 

I wanted to step in here and say I love what you guys are doing. Your word builder is by far the easiest to use. That is why I said to Kurt that if I do this next choir part myself, I will use your library. My investment in your choir libraries was money well spent. I notice every detail that your libraries have to offer. Unfortunately, the average listener, even if they are a trained musician, does not notice. Either the words can be understood clearly or they cannot be understood. Mostly today they cannot be understood by using any of the libraries, except Mike Green's Lady in Blue. Your choir interface is awesome but Mike Green's is off the planet incredible. He gives away what he did in his videos. If you guys use him as a guru, what you have now will blow us all away, so keep working please and I will keep saving my money, in Czech currency. ☺


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## Virharmonic (Aug 9, 2015)

SpeakPianissimoAndCarry.. said:


> Ondrej,
> 
> I wanted to step in here and say I love what you guys are doing. Your word builder is by far the easiest to use. That is why I said to Kurt that if I do this next choir part myself, I will use your library. My investment in your choir libraries was money well spent. I notice every detail that your libraries have to offer. Unfortunately, the average listener, even if they are a trained musician, does not notice. Either the words can be understood clearly or they cannot be understood. Mostly today they cannot be understood by using any of the libraries, except Mike Green's Lady in Blue. Your choir interface is awesome but Mike Green's is off the planet incredible. He gives away what he did in his videos. If you guys use him as a guru, what you have now will blow us all away, so keep working please and I will keep saving my money, in Czech currency. ☺



Hi SpeakPianissimoAndCarry

Thanks for the kind words and I get what you are saying. Sadly what Mike did can't be applied to SoP, VoP and CBC as it would simply cook the systems of most users if we wanted to retain the flexibility and language scope. Also Blue would not be suitable for a lot of music our library shines in by design. Ultimately you can just compare the demos on Mike's site and ours and you will see that the genres are completely different. We are not really in competition with each other as we both do completely different concepts by design for completely different application. There is cost for everything and we decided to make it linguistically flexible, but emotionally full. Blue can't sing Slavonic and nor can it do all the Latin to my knowledge, but it will sound more intelligible in English then ours. It was designed specifically for that function as well as a specific music style. If we wanted to make SoP in style of Blue (talking in term of language only) and tried to retain the language flexibility the library would be simply too large to run on most systems. Imagine blue larger by at least 25% (probably more like 50%) and then multiply that by 4 for each section of the choir. Then multiply it by 2 so you can have SATB choir and soloists and then add 3 more blues for CBC and you get where I'm going with this. I'm still using single mic position by the way in this calculation as if I added 3 mic positions it will be over at VoP . We would love to do something like that, but it needs to be playable by the average system which composers use. We still have over a terabyte of unused recordings from our VoP sessions and we hope to implement some of it into our coming updates, but we always have to weigh the pro's and cons for what is the library designed to do. Ultimately it again comes to "what is the library designed to do" 

Warm Regards

Ondrej


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## kurtvanzo (Aug 9, 2015)

Virharmonic said:


> Hi Kurt,
> 
> I'm sorry to have to react with an example as we have never actually had to do that yet, but this is possibly the biggest misrepresentation of our library I've ever heard. You are literally comparing apples and oranges and it appears to me that you are just purposely making it sound rubbish and used it out of the scope of sensible application to make some point.... Making our library sing dry is simply pointless as the library was recorded and staged in a church. Of course that it won't sound right completely dry as would one expect when told that it is sampled in church! In the demo below I use similar melody to yours I've quickly improvised without any clicker or rhythmical thought. I've simply played on my keyboard and hit record.
> 
> ...





Thanks you so much Ondrej! Don't be sorry, this is perfect- excellent of you to respond in such a meaningful way. As a recording engineer, editor, composer, and musician I'm interested in how things are done and how to get the most out of these libraries. I realize the hard work that goes into all the stages of this, including scripting, as I have made a few instruments with custom GUI's and I know all these libraries are going way beyond the norm, which is what gets me excited about our field. Apologies for presenting the library dry, but as a mixer I always want to know what I have to work with, and I felt this would give the track the best chance at clarity, but you're point about using the libraries as intended is fair. Perhaps what I'm perceiving as a "bit stretching" sound is actually a slight smearing that's happening with the early reflections, and therefore you're church hall comes into play. Having worked in large churches and cathedrals myself (sound for services and events) a smearing does happen, and it gets more pronounced the bigger the hall is. Reverb would need to be added to make this ER smear understandable to the ear.

So my apologies for representing the library in a way it is not intended to be used. As a technician I was always hoping for a demo like this before I bought SOP. I want to know I can add my own tail that fits in with the other instruments, so baked in reverb, no matter how good, is a negative thing for me. I believe giving us this choice is the best way to go, so thank you. I will post another version with proper reverb (probably Altiverb or Spaces) but please know I did not attempt to misrepresent the product. I applaud your version and thank you for using the same phrase, which is what makes the example so much more useful. Considering that you are trying to cover several languages, and not just English, you should be applauded for your efforts. All the articulations x 3 dynamic layers x 4 singers with round robins is a huge feat- on top of VOP and BC, wow.

Speak is correct, all the work that I do on projects, whether in movies, TV, or ads, is heavily scrutinized and often tossed out if the audience can't understand the words. But again, that is my problem and many others here probably do not have the same issues. I admit that you and Mike are people in the brave new frontier, I would just encourage you to keep working in this direction. Both of you are covering different styles, as you said, and both are making products that were considered impossible 15 years ago - so a big congrats. I can see where SOP will come in handy, and for me it was worth the purchase for that style of singing. The languages you are covering is a huge feat in itself, and you are smart to make it useable to as many as possible (does Daniel James still have his older Mac?). But we will eventually get to the 200+ GB libraries soon, and this is the one area I feel it's worth it (when the computers can handle it). You guys have done an amazing job, and I hope you continue to shine. I know all the hard work will pay off.

In gratitude for your response and video, and as a gesture of good faith, I will look to purchase Voices of Prague and the Boys Choir, because like Speak, I'm hoping to have all those colors to use in my pallet (Is there a "complete my bundle" price?... ok, you can punch me now  ). Let me know if my assertions above are correct, and please by all means keep going. I'm glad to amend what I wrote if it brings more truth to the matter and more encouragement for these libraries to get done. There is a huge market for this, and I think the color choices for voice are endless as "the sands of the sea".

Cheers!


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## Virharmonic (Aug 9, 2015)

Thank you Kurt.

Edit : I completely agree. I can't wait for the day of more advanced hardware- we are keeping a close eye on all the technology developments and when the time is right we will definitely evolve the choirs further.

Private response sent to your cheeky request


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## AlvaroALorite (Mar 2, 2016)

Ah_dziz said:


> I still use the kontakt version of EWQLSC along with the amazing wordbuilder script some lovely user posted here a while back. I generally only use it if i need the choir to actually say something and then still layer it with the closest sylables I can find in voxos to give it some oomph (they don't get super powerful). Also taking a couple of minutes to sing along in my own voice even with my terrible pitch can bring a lot of extra intelligibility to the table. That being said, I wouldn't consider buying it for play. I know it's much improved as a platform, but I don't like the company, and I'll leave it at that. It should run fine on any modern system so if you don't share my prejudice I would say go for it.



Could send me the threat on which that user uploaded the script? Also, cojo you explain to me what is it that works better?


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## Vardaro (Dec 14, 2020)

A fascinating thread!

Just to say that I just bought the EWSC on sale, and the VoP-SoP-CBC bundle _just _in time, so my wife will see even less of me than usual! (Even less still, as using the 64bit UVI bridged into my 32bit Sibelius 6.2 is not without hitches..)

I hope Ondrej and Alex will find a way of re-cycling all those phonemes..


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## Ashermusic (Dec 14, 2020)

Virharmonic said:


> Hi SpeakPianissimoAndCarry
> 
> Thanks for the kind words and I get what you are saying. Sadly what Mike did can't be applied to SoP, VoP and CBC as it would simply cook the systems of most users if we wanted to retain the flexibility and language scope. Also Blue would not be suitable for a lot of music our library shines in by design. Ultimately you can just compare the demos on Mike's site and ours and you will see that the genres are completely different. We are not really in competition with each other as we both do completely different concepts by design for completely different application. There is cost for everything and we decided to make it linguistically flexible, but emotionally full. Blue can't sing Slavonic and nor can it do all the Latin to my knowledge, but it will sound more intelligible in English then ours. It was designed specifically for that function as well as a specific music style. If we wanted to make SoP in style of Blue (talking in term of language only) and tried to retain the language flexibility the library would be simply too large to run on most systems. Imagine blue larger by at least 25% (probably more like 50%) and then multiply that by 4 for each section of the choir. Then multiply it by 2 so you can have SATB choir and soloists and then add 3 more blues for CBC and you get where I'm going with this. I'm still using single mic position by the way in this calculation as if I added 3 mic positions it will be over at VoP . We would love to do something like that, but it needs to be playable by the average system which composers use. We still have over a terabyte of unused recordings from our VoP sessions and we hope to implement some of it into our coming updates, but we always have to weigh the pro's and cons for what is the library designed to do. Ultimately it again comes to "what is the library designed to do"
> 
> ...



I think somebody has a business opportunity to do an English only choral library and really nail it. After all, these days a lot more people speak it as their first or second language than Latin


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## Vardaro (Dec 16, 2020)

Then, as with supplementary mic positions, we could have paying extra sound sets for Latin, French, German etc etc..

What about Myriad?


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