Virtual Vocalists

I run this in Kontakt 5 on a Macbook Pro i7 with an Rme FireFace 800. I use both Logic 9 and Ableton 8. I have noticed that this set works better in Ableton for me for some reason. Occasionally I get some glitches in Logic 9, some due to me not being patient and playing the instrument while it is still loading in Kontakts memory server. But other instances occur where one particular sample will have a distorted, digital clipping sound (not a good sound). I am not sure if it's my settings or Logic 9 itself, but I have not noticed the same behavior in Ableton. No real need for a manual on this one, it's simply a collection of samples pre-mapped to specific notes with some basic envelope options, a few harmony options and tempo. The configuration is very simple, just like any other basic Kontakt instrument. The setup is simple yet unpolished. Some of the controls are sort of hard to read as the interface appears a little fuzzy, like it suffers from low pixelation. The controls are very easy to access but I some panels seem like they waste a lot of space. The envelope tab for example only has 4 basic, sideways faders which occupy maybe 5% of the GUI. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE Besides the issues of "clipping" I have on a (very) few samples, everything else appear to run fine. So far I haven't lost any sets saved in my DAW's or Kontakt and now crashes of any kind. As for performance, if you are looking for a nice size collection of Male Middle Eastern voices with a fair amount of variability, then this will come in handy. I do feel like the instruments them selves need to be tweaked quite a bit to make it more "playable." For example, you can run a few notes that are next to each other and get some interesting phrasing, but then all of a sudden the next note in the succession has a super short attack and quickly blasts volume at you with almost no natural feeling. Although in fairness, I don't imagine many people trying to play this as an actual Instrument but more as a quick sampler. I have had this for over a year now but in all honesty, I don't use it that much. Maybe 3 or 4 tracks in the past year. OVERALL OPINION What I like about this set is pretty much what it is, a collection of Male middle eastern voices. I bought them when I had the need for them for a track and they worked great. The quality is good and the phrases are very interesting as the language sounds very passionate. I also liked the quiet speaking samples as I use them in the background of eerie sounding pads where they are almost inteligible even if you spoke the language, to add a little creepiness to the feel. What I don't like is the interface, which is pretty low quality and I don't care for the issues I have had with those few and far between samples that clip. I paid around $100 which isn't too bad for a nice collection of samples, but due the lack of there use over the past year, I probably would not make the same choice. This is the only collection of male middle eastern vocals I have used other than the few ones found in Logic or "all-encompassing" synth/sample sets.

The Symphonic Choir is a plug in that I didn’t want to invest it. Just because at the early stages of my musical compositions I overlooked the importance of having some really good choir samples and sounds ready to go. Most of my other softwares like the Kontakt bundel and some other vst’s have a lot of chior sounds in them. Usually I only use choir to fatten up some of my music, I never use it to stand out . So I though that I could just get by with using some of the cheaper choir patches that came with other vst and plug ins. But when I got Symphonc choir all of my thoughts changed, there is a big difference with the preset banks in most vst’s and patches, when you have symphonic choir you really have full conrol over the sound and its really almost like having a live choir on hand to use in your usic. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE It did take some time to really understand and get into depth of the program but after you practice and mess around or read the manual it wont be hard anymore. The thing that I hated the most about it is that it takes forever to load and install. Its sort of too long, my computer is fast and it still took a long time, I cant remember how many gigs it was to install I just remember it taking a long time. OVERALL OPINION Yes, you should buy it. The price isn’t as bad as some of the other stuff from EastWest or else I wouldn’t have got it, But its affordable and worth the buy, and installing it is also worth the wait. Because it will take some time to install, you will have to get up from your computer and do something else while you wait.

AudioNerdz's Delay Lama is a free synthesizer plug-in that comes in a VST format. I used to run this on my old system when I was running Cubase on a PC, and I'm no longer running it now that I have Pro Tools on a Mac. However, they have recently released a version of this for Mac that was previously unavailable. I don't remember too much about installing the plug-in, other than I don't believe I had any hiccups. The interface of Delay Lama is pretty basic, as it only has a few different parameters to mess with. You can use the plug-in either as a singing monk software synth, hence the 3D image of a monk in the interface, or as a simple stereo delay plug-in. You can probably find a manual on AudioNerdz's website, but one shouldn't be necessary. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE While I was running this plug-in, it was in Cubase SX 2.0 and on a Hewlett Packard Pavilion dv8000 lap top with 2 GB of RAM and a 3.0 Ghz processor. I don't have the Delay Lama in my current, as until recently they didn't have it available for Mac operating systems. In my old system I can't say that I ever had a problem running this, but I never had a need to run more than one of them at a time. Being that it's free you might as well just try it for yourself to see how well it runs on your system. OVERALL OPINION Even though the AudioNerdz Delay Lama is somewhat limited in what it can do, it's worth having around since it's free! I didn't use this soft synth/delay plug-in very often, but it was definitely fun to mess around with while I had it. There's no risk in giving it a try for yourself, as describing the sound of the singing monk is hard to do in writing! The delay is limited in what it can do, but it's cool that it has it anyway. I wouldn't buy this plug-in if it wasn't free, but being that it is indeed free it's worth trying if you've got a VST compatible system.

The Myriad Virtual singer came out around 2006 and I have only been using it for a few months after seeing someone talk about it on a forum so I checked it out. The price of it is very affordable and the interface of it is very different. You can pick several different voice styles to sing at the same time , you can also have them sing in different languages including, English, Spanish, French, German, Finnish, Japanese and a few more that I cant think of right now. The Myriad Virtual Singer creates a realistic human voice from what ever progressions or score lyrics you create and Myraid Virtual Singer will sing it. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE Myriad Virtual Singer is very stable and has been updated a few times, all of the updates are free once you purchase the real version and not the demo version of the software. Myriad Virtual Singer only cost 25 dollars and you can download it right away. Installing it is very quick. The manual is easy to read and understand, I think it comes in PDF format. I ran Myriad Virtual singer on my Dual Core PC, I am not sure if you can run it on a Mac though. OVERALL OPINION The Myraid Virtual Singer isn’t a VST that you will use a lot, but when you do use it you will love how neat and cool it is. It will allow you to add some much needed flavor to your music with these realistic voices. I am very happy that I purchased this not too long ago, it is also one of the cheapest priced VST’s that I have ever purchased at just 25 dollars and you get free updates for life. The sound quality and customer support from Myriad is great, they will reply back to your emails very fast if you have any questions. I recommend using the Myraid Virtual Singer, it will have you hooked; just download the demo and you will see what I mean.

Classical Choir has been out for over 5 years now and I have been using it every since it first came out. It is hands down one of my favorite “choir” plug ins because all of the patches are very realistic and thick. Not like all of those freeware plug ins that sound really thin and cheesy. Installing Classical Choir took a little longer than expected but there were no issues and it installed and opened up without a problem. All of the basic functions with Classical Choir are easy to get to and use. You can use the Choir samples in a different player if you want, I ran them in Kontakt Player several times and it worked great. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE I use Classical Choir by Best Service on my Dell 8500 desktop PC with an Intel core i7. It worked great, I have not tired it on any other system just yet. Classical Choir is very stable on my machine and I have nothing but great things to say about how it runs. It was a rather big install but it doesn’t take much CPU to use Classical Service. You can run it multiple times simultaneously and still not have any glitches or errors. Your system requirements need to be Windows XP or Vista and running Dual Core CPU over 1.6 Ghz per cor, and it can be used on a Mac if you have 10.4 or better and at least 2GB of RAM. OVERALL OPINION I am very happy with my purchase, even though it seems like I have had this forever now. I still continue to use it any time I need good choir patches in my music. Classical Choir has a very stable and powerful interface to it as well with easy controls for the filters, LFO and a whole list of effects are right at the click of a mouse. You can also layer the sounds and patches right in Classical Choir to give you more richness. I highly recommend these patches if you are in the need of some choir patches.