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Vocal Planet
Birth of a new Masterpiece
GOSPEL 
Vocal Planet is the ultimate way to "humanize" your tracks! The Vocal Planet CD-ROM versions also include a Mac/Windows Data CD with our new Soundfinder system for quickly finding the right phrase, a key feature for this library since there is more than EIGHT HOURS of audio material in this product! 
An extensive Groove Control™ section allows you to independently change the tempo, feel and key of more than 175 Human Percussion loops, right from your existing sequencer! A bonus Vocal Planet Rebirth mod is included too!
"The last major work from Spectrasonics was Symphony Of Voices, a tour de force of choral multisamples and vocal phrases. It was a hard act to follow, but Vocal Planet (which perfectly compliments SOV) is, if anything, an even grander project, covering every vocal style from Tibetan throat singing to doo-wop....an impressive collection...including a very good black gospel choir...The blues sounds absolutely authentic and hails from genuine Mississippi delta blues men. There are enough atmospheric phrases to create complete blues songs, if you so wish. This is real "front porch" stuff, and goes far beyond "I woke up this morning"! The World disc contains some real gems, in particular a Himalayan girl singer...the Tuvan throat singers sound not unlike people who've swallowed didgeridoos...This is no ordinary set of samples. The amount of work that has gone into its creation is enormous, and meticulous standards have been maintained throughout. The '50s doo-wop vocal ensembles are wonderful, the ethnic examples haunting, and the blues so down and dirty that you can almost smell the sawdust. The sheer amount of material is breathtaking. Having said that, the price for so much material, is surprisingly modest. This has to be the Encyclopedia Britannica of vocal samples!" -Sound on Sound Five Star review "Vocal Planet is the hip urban cousin to Spectrasonics' acclaimed Symphony of Voices...an extremely thorough representation of the earth's vast vocal talent. The over 12,000 samples of blues, jazz, R&B, soul, gospel, hip-hop, spoken word, and unusual ethnic vocal sounds immediately catapult Vocal Planet into a category of it's own. That's more than eight hours worth of material, an impressive amount for any sample collection....Vocal Planet's ethnic elements should be well received. Beginning with the rare Tuvan throat singer's growling multiple-tone chants, and ending with a good old-fashioned country yodel, the "World Voices" disc packs in the exotic as well as beautiful performances perfect for creating exotic-sounding melodies or pads.....the recordings are noise-free and perfectly intonated...rhythmic loops in the form of beatbox and vocal sound grooves are a welcome addition, complete with Groove Control...One extra cool inclusion is the Vocal Planet Mod for Rebirth 2.0 software. The addition of this new mod with human beatbox and vocal drum sounds is a unique idea. Astute producers will find plenty in the breadth of Vocal Planet to run with, both in terms of recording quality and the time, money and hassle saved by grabbing a quick "Ohh Baby!" or "Can I get a witness?" With the increasing union restrictions and escalating costs of hiring vocalists for commercial sessions, the value of Vocal Planet becomes even more concrete. While it's no fun to spend valuable session time coaching a singer, it's getting even harder to pay them. Vocal Planet offers, quite literally, a world of alternatives." -REMIX magazine review "Spectrasonics has done it again! An amazing collection. Exquisitely recorded...Stunning audio quality...Tremendous variety and selection...The attention to detail is impressive with some sections making use of "Chromazones™" and "Groove Control™," two Spectrasonics innovations designed to help samples sound and feel more musical. The R&B disc makes great use of Chromazones™ to avoid the usual "munchkin" effect...the Jazz and African sections are powerful and sonically inspiring. Almost all samples are presented without effects or reverb, making it easy to add whatever special sauce you might need...the European section includes some lovely Celtic, Gaelic, Welsh, and Scandinavian phrases with both male and female vocalists. The vocal percussion loops and effects are ripe for dance tracks and would make great additions to any basic rhythm track the Jazz samples are out of this world, moving from haunting, free-form phrasing and scats to group multi-samples that swing and sway with such class they just beg you to use them. The Gospel samples are so full of passion they made me wish I'd gone to a church like this when I was growing up. The Combo Grooves section bops and bounces so hard that it has "play me now" burned into each and every one of them. Add in the included lyric and musical reference guides, Groove Control quick tips, and full manuals for each sampler, and I'd say you've got one of the most all-inclusive vocal libraries on the market. The five discs are just bursting at the seams with creative ideas, and when coupled with Spectrasonics Symphony Of Voices, you'll have access to just about any earth-based vocal style imaginable, all from the ease and comfort of your favorite sampler....a great value." -EQ magazine review "After working with Symphony of Voices, I had extremely high hopes for the quality of the samples contained in Vocal Planet. It was not surprising to me then, to discover everything on Vocal Planet to be absolutely first rate. >From the quality of the recorded material to the performances by all of the vocalists; to the tuning that feels spot on and to the way everything performs and works with whatever I was trying to pull off - simply superb. The Gospel CD is worth writing home about...gorgeous sounding sustained (and very playable) choir "pads": very vibrant and lively...great sounding Hallelujah's...excellent for creating your own Gospel rhythm tracks - add any of the phrases or vocal pads over top and you've got yourself a pretty convincing Gospel choir...I was quite fond of some of the Soul phrases here, most specifically the "Mmms" since they seem to work nicely when used to add just a slight human presence if you will to a track...There are some outstanding a cappella loops that respond to Groove Control...The Groove Control enabled loops here are wonderful to work with. You can basically have your percussion loops or rhythmic Gospel choir loops follow along with whatever tempo you are using in your sequencer, without that all-to-common "chipmunk" effect when the speed of the loop is changed to match the tempo of your sequencer...stellar 8-way velocity split Jazz Combo doo-wop a cappella multisamples...These are probably the nicest doo-wop single "hit" samples I've ever come across in a sample library or in a hardware sound module - quite impressive, and depending on how you play them you can get some strikingly real sounding results....an extensive collection of mouth percussion samples, both male and female (in a massive kit form or available individually - they've covered pretty much everything here)...great breath and vocal wind noises and fx, some of which serve as great background pads or as creepy atmospherics....The phrases are abundant enough to build your own vocal track...Some of the bassy catch phrases could even could give Barry White a run for his money. Vocal Planet certainly does have a global feel to it...The Tuvan throat singer samples have a very unique sound (and are quite long as well)....really great drones giviing you a really guttural and bassy "growling" noise, a super cool effect!...beautiful Celtic, Gaelic, Welsh and Scandinavian phrases that sound absolutely great...an abundance of Native American phrases...There are even some Yodeling samples (both male and female), with both fast and slow performances and one patch in particular that made me think "Whoa, now there's something I haven't heard before": Yodeling Elvis....the sung phrases and FX are excellent and are completely usable for a variety of chores...some of these samples work superbly as textural sounds buried underneath music, percussion and so on. Some of the types of vocals that are here may strike you as being quite new and unique sounding....the documentation is quite extensive, continuing in the tradition of Symphony of Voices covering everything from tuning and intonation to techniques and tricks...a handy musical reference guide, which acts as a detailed index for the recorded phrases on Vocal Planet....this is what I call extensive documentation. Without this essential information, scouring through the weighty collection of samples on Vocal Planet would be like searching for pins in a haystack...Many of the patches throughout Vocal Planet are activated with Spectrasonic's "Groove Control" as briefly mentioned earlier, which opens up new dimensions for many of the grooves and loops in the library. I feel it necessary to elaborate on how cool these loops really are just a bit more, and how well they worked for me. For instance, you can have your gospel choir clapping behind your sequence - with Groove Control enabled the choir will follow your tempo as set by your sequencer. The vocal percussion loops are slick and I loved the fact that you aren't stuck with vocal loops locked at one tempo, destined to succumb to the chipmunk effect as soon as you change the tempo. Vocal Planet is packed with some gorgeous sounding and performing samples - it covers almost everything that I could have hoped for in a library that attempts to squash a worldwide representation of vocal performances and styles onto six CDs. I found the vast amount of material in this library to be stunning to say the least, although in the three months that I've had the opportunity to put Vocal Planet to work I doubt that I have discovered the musical uses for more than half of what I'll likely discover with it in the future....There's something here for everyone...the craftsmanship and quality of the material presented here should be applauded as a worthy sequel to compliment (but not replace) Symphony of Voices." -Sonic Control 5 star review |
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