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Versatile and realistic choir

Joe_D said:
Dominus is great. I love it for what it is. But it wouldn't be a good choice for fast music or for music with words in other languages.
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Hello guys!

In general, I think that there are a lot of choir libraries, but we can divide them in two main categories:
1) Choirs that sound great but are tricky to use and not versatile (fixed phrases, dozens of patches) or are "one trick ponys" (few syllables, just one basic style).
2) Choirs that sound a bit "strange", but are extremely versatile (you can write things in any language, with mixed results)

With Dominus we tried to cover a middle ground. Just one patch, you can build a lot of Latin words, or invent your own words, to create a lovely flowing choir sound. I'm personally more used to listen to this kind of choir sound, that's not "churchy" per se. You can play with voweling sounds, do Elfmanesque woman-only uuus, or do mockups of classical music pieces. More than the "Epic" style this is for me the kind of choir sound that I like and give me the goose bumps.

For example this lovely video by Ashton Gleckman feature Dominus in a beautiful soundtrack:

Nevertheless I wished for a Staccato sound when making the Lacrimosa mockup and also I sometimes wish for more syllables to play with.

That's why this September we had another sampling session with the same two choirs that made Dominus possible.

We sampled about 65 syllables staccato and marcato style (with mf to f dynamic) and 30 new "words" (a total of 30*4= 120 new syllables) in the typical flowing format.

The aim of this session was:
1) Have a more complete Dominus with almost any latin possible word done in the "flowing" style of the original Dominus.
2) Cover some other languages, for example we did all the possible diphthongs (ae, ai, ou, etc) and consider latin/italian as a kind of Phonetic language to write English. For example to write "I love you" you can write it as: "Ai loviu" in Dominus. We sampled some specific finals like the s of "is" (not present in Italian/latin) or the "sh" of "Ash".
3) Have a new super short staccato articulation.
4) Have an new arbitrarly long marcato articulation, but in our way, so having as much less crossfades as we can and letter-by-letter gluing that steals away the magic.
5) Have some bonus stuff like a beautiful Sussurrato articulation and little new additions to the scripting engine.

The about 65 syllables for Marcato and Staccato are accurately chosen on the basis of acustical similarity, in a way that should allow for ANY possible word to be reproduced with accurate results. For example, when sung by a choir, the D and the T sounds practically identical, so we skipped one of these two letters.
Also the nature of this kind of sampling, will allow to create a substantially wider range of words, since these new syllables don't need to be connected with the previous one.

For eg. in the "Flowing legato" style of Dominus I, the "ORA" and "IRA" were two different syllables. With the Marcato and Staccato, you have "O", "I" and "RA", so the syllable "RA" can be preceded by any of the 5 possible vowels.

Since the work behind this new version of Dominus is equal to the original release we plan to release it in three formats:

1) As an expansion of the original Dominus (probably renamed in Dominus Volume I). With a decent discount for existing users.
2) As Dominus Volume 2, that you can buy INSTEAD of the original Dominus, with the full complete Marcato and Staccato articulations, no Polyphonic Legato Transitions (that are present in the Dominus Volume I) but the ability to build flowing words anyway. This is the perfect choice for the "Epic" trailer, action composer.
3) As a bundle with the two products combined.

Anyway we have soon a very big product to release before this, but Dominus II will be just few months away (no "years in the making" :D).

In the meantime, a big CIAO to all of you ("goodbye" in Italian) from the lovely choir La Rose, our women choir in Dominus.

 
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David Enos said:
I wonder when it's going to be released.
Mike Fox said: ↑
I would wait until OT releases their choir library. It's going to dominate.
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I think OT will be comparably very pricey to the others. I'm looking for Epic, and OT will probably be able to do that very well I suspect. The other player is Storm Choir 2, but that is ageing slightly. I am very interested in the Spitfire one, but I sense that will not be focused on Epic.
Oceania - for me, lacks something I can't put my finger on, maybe it lacks a certain dimension I am looking for.
 
Strezov said:
All great choirs above - I recently got TM and it is absolute tool of inspiration!!! I just wanted to point out that Storm Choir is now an old product which we approved imo A LOT when you talk about legato and performance in Freyja/Wotan. Check out this polyphonic true legato demo of Wotan's latest update:

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I was going to suggest Freyja, Wotan, Arva for the full combo.
 
Land of Missing Parts said:
I only have the Micro version of Olympus, and the Micro of Mercury. I mostly use choir to do soft ooo sustains, so I don't really need legato or loud trailer stuff and I might not be the best person to advise you on those. That said, you can do a lot with just the Micros. They have a couple vowels and a couple Latin phrases.

Olympus Micro is more present and a little more edge than Mercury. And Time Macro Choir's ooo's are a lot smoother and more natural sounding that the two Soundiron ones.
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I agree with that. Although it's "just" a micro version it does the simple stuff without a problem. The only remark about Micro would be it's fine-tuning. Fortunately I got a correction after I send a sound sample to SoundIron, works like a charm now.
 
Now that the Spitfire choir has dropped and it's a lovely niche choir rather than the core choir I'm back to wondering what to get to fill out what's missing from the OT Ark and TM choirs and Oceania. Soundiron, Cinesamples, Strezov, Fluffy Audio?
 
Is there such a thing as a very small-section, dry vocal ensemble with even rudimentary word building? The opposite, in other words, of all the grand, ecclesiastical, epic choirs. I've looked but I can't find one.
 
@paoling - any idea on an ETA for Dominus 2? Would it be an update for existing users, or an entirely separate product? =^_^=

Thanks
 
PaulBrimstone said:
Is there such a thing as a very small-section, dry vocal ensemble with even rudimentary word building? The opposite, in other words, of all the grand, ecclesiastical, epic choirs. I've looked but I can't find one.
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Metropolis Ark 4 has marcato (5 syllables) and staccato (10 syllables) patches for its six-person choir. There's also (broken link removed):
Emperium contains two choirs, including the 200-piece Titan Choir and a smaller, 16-piece, operatic chamber Destiny Choir.
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...but I don't think there are any solo demos available.
 
Like David I was looking, reading and listening to find a good reliable choir. I decided to buy East-West Hollywood Choirs Diamond which was (is) on sale at Black-Friday.
Of course I listened to the Ark-1 Choir and a lot of other Choirs.
I use EWHC for a about a week now and I can say it has most other libraries for breakfast. The samples are clean and dynamic and "seem to" adjust to whatever you play.
Last week I uploaded a short demo on my Youtube channel. If you search for "Ed S MOXF6" I'm sure you'll find it.
The guys from EastWest are very helpful and most questions are answered within 15 minutes or directly by a live chat-session.
The only downside would be the memory usage if you have no more than 8GB of internal memory on board. I use 16GB internal and have no problem loading the library even when I choose to use all the Choir microphones. The default (one mic) is already impressive but when you turn on all of them it's like the Choir is right in front of you and almost scary.
Greetz,
Ed
 
I have to say, I bought Storm Choir 2 for it's sound. I still think it's one of the best sounding choirs out there for the epic thing. I'm just now getting into it so I can't say yet what I think of it yet, I'll try to post later my reactions to the scripting/interface. What I WILL say is I also bought 8dio's Requiem Professional on sale and it came with the Liberis Angelic Choir thrown in. I have to say, right out of the box, the learning curve on Requiem Pro is super easy and the sound is nothing short of phenomenal. It does the epic thing quite well and yet can do the soft, Eric Whiteacre thing just as well. Very impressed, especially since I have relatively little experience with 8dio. An underrated company if you ask me, especially for choirs. That being said, I agree with Ed S that Hollywood Choirs would be an excellent investment if you need specific words said. Their new word scripting is pretty amazing, no doubt.
 
Ruffian Price said:
Metropolis Ark 4 has marcato (5 syllables) and staccato (10 syllables) patches for its six-person choir. There's also (broken link removed):

...but I don't think there are any solo demos available.
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Emperium is only available to 8Dio loyalty program members.

I agree that Hollywood Choirs is the best with the Wordbuilder.
 
Ashermusic said:
Two things:
1. Hollywood Choir and Dominos sound gorgeous together.

2. Sign my petition to outlaw the further use of Latin phrases, please :)
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As a singer, I understand using Latin for choirs. Though Italian would be fine too. They flow easily when singing which gives a nice smooth sound if you want legato phrases. Not a lot of hard consonants.

Now, for an epic staccato, German might be better because it does have hard consonants. Just my two cents.
 
rottoy said:
What do you propose instead?
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I propose a girl choir with an Indie Pop dipthong generator:

Tonight = too-nah-eeet
Christmas = Christ-muh-eese
Stay = stah-yee
Playing = plah-uh-eeng
Rain = ray-een
Discontent = Dih-ees-[unintelligible]

Vocal fry would be controlled by the mod wheel.

OK, seriously now...

I can understand growing tiresome of Latin phrases, but they still work excellently in my opinion because a few syllables can cover a lot of ground -- vowels, starting consonants, and ending consonants -- plus, the language is pretty. A choir singing "cheese" and "splat" won't sound nearly as pretty as singing "cree" and "sant".

I'm all for choirs that use syllables from other languages, though: Russian, Bulgarian, German, Italian, Eastern Belkravian, whatever it may be. If it sounds good, it sounds good, and every language would find its application in people's compositions. But for an all-around choir library, I think Latin phrases, even after all these years, still work best.
 
Polkasound said:
I propose a girl choir with an Indie Pop dipthong generator:

Tonight = too-nah-eeet
Christmas = Christ-muh-eese
Stay = stah-yee
Playing = plah-uh-eeng
Rain = ray-een
Discontent = Dih-ees-[unintelligible]

Vocal fry would be controlled by the mod wheel.

OK, seriously now...

I can understand growing tiresome of Latin phrases, but they still work excellently in my opinion because a few syllables can cover a lot of ground -- vowels, starting consonants, and ending consonants -- plus, the language is pretty. A choir singing "cheese" and "splat" won't sound nearly as pretty as singing "cree" and "sant".

I'm all for choirs that use syllables from other languages, though: Russian, Bulgarian, German, Italian, Eastern Belkravian, whatever it may be. If it sounds good, it sounds good, and every language would find its application in people's compositions. But for an all-around choir library, I think Latin phrases, even after all these years, still work best.
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Gimme gimme gimme a man after midnight?
 
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