MUSICALITY: 10
SELECTION: 10
DOCUMENTATION: 9
BANG FOR THE BUCK: 8


FORMAT
4 CD-ROM set (Roland, Akai/Emu, SampleCell, Kurzweil).

OVERVIEW
Choral and solo vocal samples; multisamples, phrases, effects and stacked pop pads.

CONTENTS
Disc 1: Various vowel multisamples of full classical choir, female choir, and male choir; choral swells; performances with vibrato; staccato, whistling, and vowel-changing performances. Disc 2: Choral effects chords, choral phrases in Latin, soprano multisamples and phrases, and tenor multisamples and phrases. Disc 3: Boy's choir and solo multisamples and phrases, male Gregorian chant phrases and multisamples. Disc 4: Various vowel multisamples of pop vocal stacks, scoops, synth pads.

SUGGESTED RETAIL PRICE
$499


LICENSING AGREEMENT
Licensed to original purchaser only for use in music production, no fee required. Credit required on album releases.

CONTACT
Producer: Spectrasonics, P.O. Box 7336, Burbank, CA 91510. Distributor: Ilio Entertainments, Box 6211d, Malibu, CA 90264. 818-707-7222; fax 818-707-8552. Web: www.ilio.com.

Spectrasonics Symphony of Voices

Symphony of Voices from Spectrasonics is an ambitious effort to provide a comprehensive collection of vocal samples that rise above the usual lifeless Vox pad. In fact, the four CD-ROMs in this collection are just the first of two volumes, the second being the three-CD-ROM set called Vocal Planet, scheduled for release later this fall, and which will contain vocal samples of the world's music cultures as well as blues, gospel, and jazz vocals. Perhaps I should characterize Symphony of Voices as an exhaustive effort instead of merely ambitious: Not only did Spectrasonics collect thousands upon thousands of vocal samples, they also programmed and organized them into musically useful patches (for a hint of what an enormous task this was, see "Lifting Voices" sidebar).

What do you get that's so useful? An 80-voice professional church choir, a male choir singing chant, a boys' choir, and studio singer pads, all sampled in a variety of dynamics, vowels, and configurations. From single notes and intervals to chords and horror movie vocal effects, this collection presents a remarkably wide palette. Phrase samples abound as well, including entire multi-verse chants, solo voices in a variety of classical styles, and liturgical passages for full choir. Since it takes four CD-ROMs to hold it all, let's open up the church doors on each disc separately.

THE LONDON CHOIRS

If you've ever worked with a large choir or listened to one, you know that, with rare exceptions, part of the sound is often a liberal and possibly indiscriminate use of vibrato. Now, vibrato is an essential part of a singer's tone and phrasing, and it definitely has its place in ensembles as well as solo singing. But where samples are concerned, having vibrato is almost as limiting as sampling a Hammond organ through a Leslie: When you play more than one note, the vibrato rates will be out of sync, and you can never get the vibrato to match your phrasing.

Which is why Spectrasonics traveled to England, a musical culture with a long tradition of controlling and even eliminating vibrato when singing. All of the multisampled oo's, oh's, ah's, ee's, mm's, and vowel combinations sound clear and intelligible, whether sung by full choir, or men alone, or women alone, or whether piano, forte, or with crescendos and decrescendos. Now, keep in mind that this is an 80-voice choir, but there's hardly a trace of vibrato in the bunch. Combine this sonic purity with the beautifully blendable bunch of samples. I found all of the multisampled patches on this disc to be very musical when I used them on polyphonic (that is, contrapuntal) material. The gentle attacks made them less successful when I played in a block chord style, but there are patches on the other discs that may help you if you need this kind of sound. The crescendo/decrescendo patches are quite musical, but unfortunately you can not change the rate of crescendo or decrescendo, since it is part of the performance. On the many patches, the mod wheel is assigned to volume or dynamic crossfades, so you do have a ready-to-go alternative for controlling dynamics.

On this disc, technical editor Mitch Gallagher noticed two of the very few audio blemishes to be found anywhere in this set. "Some of the full-choir samples have an overtone ringing prominently," he points out, "especially at higher velocities. It's annoying with single notes; when playing chords it's almost offensive." While I, too, heard the harmonics, I felt that it was more in line with the overtones produced when a group of singers are singing well in tune with each other.

And if you really do need that vibrato texture, there are two such programs, one with light vibrato, the other with heavy vibrato. The whistling and staccato patches are great, too - imagine, 80 people whistling the same pitch! What a cool sound.

SOLOISTS AND FX

The solo patches on this disc come in two flavors: soprano and tenor. Both have multisampled patches with some variety in vowels and dynamics, as well as a patch in ascending fifths and one with staccato treatment for the soprano, and some, ah, robust arpeggios and octaves for the tenor. In contrast to the full choir samples, these have whatever vibrato the soloists felt like using. The pitch is not always on the money, but the performances are certainly beautiful, expressive, and best of all, believable.

The soloists were also asked to sing some phrases, which are arranged with some ten to 20 per patch, and categorized by style: Traditional, lamenting, ethereal, serene, lyrical, triumphant, and operatic are some of the patch descriptions. These phrases would be the perfect thing to underscore the mood of a track. Some are nonsense syllables, others have discernible words, but they are not designed to be pieced together to form a coherent piece. "I loved the solo soprano lament phrases," says Mitch. "Instant emotion and vibe!"

The choir FX are eerie and powerful, and many patches contain the reversed versions for extra weirdness. They consist of the glissandi up and down, moaning, whispering, clusters, and many other effects that you'd expect from composers such as Karel Husa or Gyorgy Ligeti.

Did I ask for full-choir block chords earlier? Here they are, arranged chromatically in major, minor, and suspended versions, with various dynamics, vowels, and registers. While you won't be able to string these together and expect decent voice-leading, they have that fabulous resonance and blend that characterizes the entire collection. The choir gets a shot at singing phrases as well, original phrases. These would be perfect for adding that human element to a track or bed. Mitch cautions however, that "some of the samples (especially the chords) are so big-sounding, you'll have to be careful how you use them in a production - they could easily overwhelm other tracks (a nice problem to have)."

BOYS' CHOIR AND CHANT

The boys' choir patches on this disc are truly amazing. Multisampled or in phrases, full choir or solo, that unmistakable haunting quality comes through loud and clear. As with all of the samples in this set of discs, the ranges represented are natural; you'll hear very little chipmunking anywhere. Some of the boys' choir phrases are so beautiful, they could inspire entire compositions by themselves.

The men-only chant choir has been multisampled extensively and programmed accordingly. In addition to the now-familiar plethora of vowels and dynamics, the guys can be heard singing intervals in the fifths, whole-steps, and half-steps, both ascending and descending. The chants, complete with all verses, and one Greek chant. Then there are several patches of shorter chant phrases, organized by office: Agnus Dei, Gloria, Kyrie, Sanctus, etc. Holy cow!

POP STACKS

The final disc in Symphony of Voices consists of multitracked vocal stacks in a studio. While they don't have that ambient resonant glory of the other three discs, they're tailor-made for pop tracks. The detail and comprehensive programming evident on the other three discs applies here as well: stacks of women alone, men alone, and the two combined have been sampled singing ah, ee, oo, mm, vv, and zz, as well as on changing vowels and mixed vowels. I found all of these patches to be very playable, and laid to tape they sound way better than your average Vox patch. In fact, when I multitracked different vowels over the same program material and added crossfades in MOTU's Digital Performer, I was able to come up with a composite track that sounded like a live group changing syllables on each note - pretty darn convincing!

If the chant guys can sing their moving intervals, then the pop vocals can scoop. Broken out into male and female versions on a variety of vowels, the scoop patches are remarkably consistent in the timing of the individual sampled ascending whole-steps. You can play a five-note chord and be pretty sure that it'll sound like five singers listening to each other as they scoop into a chord.

CONCLUSIONS

This is one awesome set of samples. You couldn't ask for a more thorough or more musical approach. The sound quality is uniformly excellent, the programming makes using the samples seem completely natural, and the documentation is extensive (two 48-page booklets!). You should have no problem finding what you need on these discs.

What you won't find in this set are scat syllables (doobees, bops, schwees, other show choir-type syllables), or jazz articulations (shakes, trills, or fall-offs). Fortunately, these techniques will be included in the upcoming Vocal Planet collection.

You may hear occasional artifacts, breaths, or odd noises in a handful of the samples, due to the nature of working with a large group of people in a very resonant space - Mitch noted a bump here and a breath noise there. But what was not edited out is the human element and the musicality of the samples.

Mitch summed it up nicely: "Overall, this set is simply stunning. The selection of material is practical and useful, the loops and programming are fine, it transposes well, and the natural church ambiance on many of the samples is luscious. For classical-flavored music, film scoring, or commercial music utilizing voice parts, I see Symphony of Voices as a must-have tool."

Symphony of Voices is without a doubt the ultimate library of choral samples. If you want to make those sounds you need this set.

-Ernie Rideout

LIFTING VOICES (sidebar)

Veteran sound developer Eric Persing knew he had a Herculean task ahead when he began the sessions that resulted in Symphony of Voices, and the upcoming Vocal Planet, but the reality of producing the discs surprised even him. "Every group had a different way of communicating, which we had to learn," Eric relates. "The classical singers in England could work very precisely for fairly long periods of time, but they would get tired after they sang a piece. You had to be careful about having them sing too much music because then their voices would start to wear out. The kids were incredible. They were so well-behaved, it was shocking."

"The gospel sessions [the samples from which will appear on Vocal Planet] were as different as you could imagine. It was a combination worship service and sampling session - and it was the most fun session I've ever done in my life! They were the opposite of the classical choir: They'd get tired doing the multisampling stuff, and they'd sing more songs to get the energy back up. When they'd do something cool, we'd stop them, isolate the part, and roll tape. Nothing was written out. It was all based on their live energy; all improvised, too."

Most of the classical phrase samples were also improvised, after a fashion. "It was difficult to find classical singers who could improvise," Eric continues. "The folks I got were great. I'd have them sing an aria or classical phrase, then I'd say, 'Great, now riff on that!'"

Getting the performances out was one challenge, and getting them on tape was another. "Isolation?" says Eric, "It was a nightmare. In Seattle, it was raining. The old cathedrals in England, they creak, they're constantly making noise. In one of those spaces, a little noise sounds like a bomb. We had seaplanes, we had the Royal Air Force. The singers would be focused and ready and then a plane would fly over."

"There were a lot of takes that just had junk in them. Almost all of the multisamples are spliced from different takes. We're talking about 10,000 samples we had to go through. All of the noises and clicks that people make, they're not a big deal when they go by, but when you loop them, they start to make a rhythm. All that stuff had to be cut out."

"Roland helped us out with some proprietary noise reduction software. With it we split it apart the harmonics of ;each sample, looped each harmonic independently and applied noise reduction to them, then recombined them."

No international sampling session would be complete without major equipment failure. The choirs were recorded with several mic combinations running to ADAT simultaneously, later mixing them to two tracks. "We almost lost all of the London samples because one of the mics was picking up radio transmissions that we couldn't here when monitoring," he says. "But there was Radio Free Europe, going to tape. Luckily, it was one of the direct mics, not the ambient mics, so we only lost the one track. If it had been one of the ambient mics, we would've lost the session."

Ultimately, then, how many artists were involved with the recordings? "Between the two projects," says Eric, "we worked with over 500 singers - and we have contacts with each one of them."