Christian Filmmakers

Paul, it depends on what’s more important to you: special choir effects, or the ability for them to sing lyrics. It looks like the Symphony of Voices has more extended techniques. But, SC has the WordBuilder (and some extended techniques, although they’re comparatively limited).

It also looks like for Symphony of Voices and the Omnisphere, you need to already have a sampler that supports the sample formats. SC comes with one (EWQL PLAY), but it looks like the Spetrasonics libraries only give you the raw samples in various formats, and it’s up to you to use a sampler that can read the files.

Is that true, Jurgen?

Alex Beard, composer
www.composeralex.com
www.myspace.com/composeralex

To give you an idea of what the Omnisphere Choir patches sound like, I put together three short samples:

Choir Sample 1
This is a full choir patch with a boys soloist patch. The full choir is mostly done in the bass and tenor range.

Choir Sample 2
The same piece as Choir Sample 2, but the full choir notes have been transposed up one octave to put them into the alto and soprano range.

Choir Sample 3
This is a full choir patch with a soprano soloist patch.

Note that I have not done any processing other than normalizing the audio file. Everything you hear, including reverb, is coming from Omnisphere.

This is just a very small sampling of what can be done with the choir patches in Omnisphere. Again, remember that Spectrasonics included most of their Symphony of Voices samples in Omnishphere, which makes it a very versatile synth virtual instrument.

Jurgen Beck
http://www.jurgenbeck.com
Follow me on Twitter

Alex Beard wrote:

Paul, it depends on what’s more important to you: special choir effects, or the ability for them to sing lyrics. It looks like the Symphony of Voices has more extended techniques. But, SC has the WordBuilder (and some extended techniques, although they’re comparatively limited).

It also looks like for Symphony of Voices and the Omnisphere, you need to already have a sampler that supports the sample formats. SC comes with one (EWQL PLAY), but it looks like the Spetrasonics libraries only give you the raw samples in various formats, and it’s up to you to use a sampler that can read the files.

Is that true, Jurgen?

Alex Beard, composer
http://www.composeralex.com
http://www.myspace.com/composeralex

Actually, Symphony of Voices is included in Omnisphere, which is a virtual instrument that can be used in any digital audio workstation software such as Logic, Digital Performer, Cubase, etc. (I’m just being explicit for the sake of those who are not fully up on all the technical aspects.)

Now, the original Symphony of Voices was just a collection of samples that required a sampler. Not so with Omnisphere.

The choir patches in Omnisphere (again, taken from Symphony of Voices) are more the ‘oh’ and ‘ah’ patches for full choir, mens choir, women choir, boys choir, and then certain soloist, such as soprano, tenor and a boy. It also includes special patches such as Gregorian men patch.

For the most part there are no specific phrases in Omnishpere, with the exception of a few for boys patches (‘agnus-dei’ and such), so if you are after sung words, you’d need to stick with EW Symphonic Choirs. If the ‘oh’ and ‘ah’ patches will do, Omnisphere is definitely your ticket.

BTW, Omnisphere also has some great choir FX, such as gliding, octave runs, rounds, and others. If you want to create more complex arrangements, there are plenty of swells and chord patches in major and minor. They all work very well together.

Jurgen Beck
http://www.jurgenbeck.com
Follow me on Twitter

To add to the list of choir/vocal libraries, you may also want to check out Bela D Media’s vocal sample libraries. They are much cheaper and may fit the bill. Note though, that you will need Kontakt 2 or 3 as they do not come with their own sample player.

For some of the library details you will need ask Bela D Media for a password.

http://beladmedia.com/index-1.html

Jurgen Beck
http://www.jurgenbeck.com
Follow me on Twitter

All excellent suggestions! Thanks, Jurgen.

Alex Beard, composer
http://www.composeralex.com
http://www.myspace.com/composeralex