english choir sample library ?

[d112359]

greetings !

i'm looking for a fairly complete choir sample library -- something along the lines of voxos or requiem pro -- that has phonemes usable in the english language. so far, latinate seems to be the common denominator, w/occasional ventures into slavic and/or germanic.

my litmus test : the 'happy birthday' test -- i.e., can i create a recognisable version of the song 'happy birthday' that sounds like an english or american choir or ensemble singing 'happy birthday' -- a surprisingly difficult task for such a simple thing, but a good benchmark for seeing if the library's phrases and/or wordbuilder are up to snuff.

any recommendations appreciated !

thanks
dave

[EvilRaccoon]

At 10/28/14 01:07 AM, d112359 wrote: greetings !

i'm looking for a fairly complete choir sample library -- something along the lines of voxos or requiem pro -- that has phonemes usable in the english language. so far, latinate seems to be the common denominator, w/occasional ventures into slavic and/or germanic.

my litmus test : the 'happy birthday' test -- i.e., can i create a recognisable version of the song 'happy birthday' that sounds like an english or american choir or ensemble singing 'happy birthday' -- a surprisingly difficult task for such a simple thing, but a good benchmark for seeing if the library's phrases and/or wordbuilder are up to snuff.

any recommendations appreciated !

thanks
dave

Hey Dave. Currently the only full choir that i know of which would work is East West Choirs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI5Gg2-mhmU

It's a good piece of kit, but if you're using FLStudio you may find it hard to work with. The wordbuilder connects as an insert to the library. A feature FLStudio doesn't support natively. And you need to use mfxshell to load it in. Which isn't perfect.

[SoundChris]

At 10/28/14 01:07 AM, d112359 wrote: greetings !

i'm looking for a fairly complete choir sample library -- something along the lines of voxos or requiem pro -- that has phonemes usable in the english language. so far, latinate seems to be the common denominator, w/occasional ventures into slavic and/or germanic.

my litmus test : the 'happy birthday' test -- i.e., can i create a recognisable version of the song 'happy birthday' that sounds like an english or american choir or ensemble singing 'happy birthday' -- a surprisingly difficult task for such a simple thing, but a good benchmark for seeing if the library's phrases and/or wordbuilder are up to snuff.

any recommendations appreciated !

thanks
dave

If you want to compose with lyrics and also want to be free in what you let the choir sing there is only EWQL Symphonic Choirs. Even it has no portanemto if i remember correctly the advantage is that you can type in any word you want and manipulate all the single syllabs. It needs some time to understand how to use it perfectly but even it is quite old it is IMO stil a very strong tool - especially with the voices of the apocalypse addon. I am stil using it. It has been used in danny elfman´s soundtrack of spiderman as far as i know. There is an english and latin dictionary ad you can create and add new words to it so your vocabulary can grow really mighty... Pretty cool and the sound is stil strong.

http://www.soundsonline-europe.com/Symphonic-Choirs

I recommend to compare the second demo "o große lieb" by bach with the real live recording by the bach choir munich:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M_MS7x4wKo

IMO it can be edited even better than shown in the demo but i guess the guy who edited it didnt know the german lenguage well. Also the demo Itineris Spiritus is quite cool and can show how good this vsti can sound.

There are also other great choirs. The ones with the (IMO) best sound are requiem pro and liberis, but they are lacking concerning the wordbuilder. You only have 24 syllabs and thats too less for my needs... Voxos has the same problem - too less words.

What also sounds quite nice is Cantus and Mystica by eduardo tarilonte. But also here the same problems: Too less words.
For slavonian stuff there is soundiron´s mars choir. But since i checked out one walkthrough i knew that i dont want to work with it ... didnt convince me.

So in my opinion symphonic choirs + vota addon is stil the best and most versatile product out there. I really hope they will create a newer choir soon with the power of the old wordbuilder and the beautiful portamentos of 8dio´s requiem pro ... maybe "Hollywood Choirs"? I would not be surprised if that would happen within the next 2 years. Until then i will combine symphonic choirs, requiem, liberis, cantus and shevannai.
So if you want to be free

[SoundChris]

Addition: Since Peter mentioned the lacking support from fl studio - i have got logic and everything works without problems. Just starting the choir multis that allow the wordbuilding (S-A-T-B, , boys choir and the 2 vota patches for men and women) and the wordbuilder is already directly connected and ready for use within the same instance.

[d112359]

thanks to you both for your input !

i actually bought VOTA quite a few years ago when it first came out. decent quality sounds, but a real PITA to get anything sounding like words, since the 'wordbuilder', such as it is, ...isn't. i don't know what kinds of improvements they might have made since then, but the one i bought lacks the hard 'a' sound [like the german 'ä' sound, the 'a' in 'happy'], and totally misses on dipthong reproduction, and many consonant combinations as well [try doing just about anything w/an 'r' in it, such as 'hearth', or 'horde' or 'forward', or for example]. do either of you know if the east-west symphonic choir has remedied that ? the demos i saw of it on youtube weren't too convincing... failing that, does either of you happen to know where i can get ahold of a list of the articulations included in the library ? [strangely enough, they don't seem to have one on the soundsonline site.]

chris, i'm with you regarding voxos and requiem. they both sound WONDERFUL -- but very limited in terms of phonemes. :( i hope someone decides to put together a really complete library soon.

[SoundChris]

At 10/28/14 01:51 PM, d112359 wrote: i actually bought VOTA quite a few years ago when it first came out. decent quality sounds, but a real PITA to get anything sounding like words, since the 'wordbuilder', such as it is, ...isn't.

Oh it is. It just is very hard to understand how it works well - but you can make it sound very nice and also to reproduce the words - even diphtongs - is possible if you know how. Really - the only thing i dont like about this library is the missing portamento.

Concerning the articulations: Its written somewhere in the manual. You have to write a letter in front of the word to determin if it is staccato, legato and stuff. The dynamics are even more strange. You have to edit every single letter in a word. You can choose between the velocities of 1-127 to determin the volume (e.g.), the consonants in the wordbuilder itself may not be convincing. But: Dont go into the multis! There are consonants in another folder. If you combine it with the wordbuilder results you really get good results. The funny thing is that nowhere in the manual i have found that issue ... sometimes developers are hard to understand (???). If you want a strong german F, T, Z or whatever use the wordbuilder for that word and add the consonant directly (into another track in your arrangement. After some time i got used to it and meanwhile it isnt a problem anymore ... but i had to struggle hard to find that stuff out ...

For the diphtongs: You know that you can mix any vocals with all the others and can adjust the balance between them? That way you can shape your diphtongs. Takes some time but once you understand how it works its good (i know this problem since i come from germany myself :D ).

The demos i saw of it on youtube weren't too convincing...

Yeah since people are not able to use this mighty tool correctly :D

All the best with your project1

[samulis]

My advice that I've gone on... just take the time to get a mic and record the track 16 times or so doing slightly different voices each time. If you need a full choir, find two female vocalists who can do soprano and alto and do the same technique. It really is a vastly superior technique to spending hours fiddling with parameters and it really doesn't require much work other than the ability to sing, which anyone can do.

Alternately, you can get some buddies together and just do a few recordings of a small chamber size and duplicate it.

I've had very good results even though I wouldn't remotely call myself a qualified singer:
https://instaud.io/21a
https://instaud.io/1ms#0:50.8