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Eric Whitacre Choir

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.
 
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 …… :notworthy:
 
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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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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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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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. :)

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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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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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.

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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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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