FIVE STARS

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, comprising five themed CD-ROMs (Roland, Akai, Emu and Kurzweil formats) covering every vocal style from Tibetan throat singing to doo-wop.

Produced by Eric Persing and Roby Duke, Vocal Planet features both multisamples and phrases and includes over 12,000 samples, all recorded dry for maximum flexibility. Some of the vocal sounds have been fashioned into loops, and in those cases Groove Control™ is available, allowing the loop tempo to be changed without affecting either pitch or sound quality. Perhaps the best way to explore this impressive collection is just to go through the five discs. A sixth disc contains Mac/Windows Groove Control Data (for the 175 sample loops) plus a Soundfinder system that helps the user navigate through the more than eight hours of audio material this set contains.

The Gospel disc features a very good black gospel choir, plus an urban youth choir. This section comprises both multisamples and complete phrases: shouts, hums, and all other vocal flourishes associated with this genre. Itís a bit of a specialized area, especially in the UK, where such music is less mainstream than in the US, but if youíre into doing a Blues Brothers recreation, this is where to come for all those nice finishing touches.

Jazz/Blues is a very varied disc, with lots of jazz phrases, including multi-sampled doos, dahs, bahs, and effects from male and female singers. There are also bass vocal phrases and multisampled sung chords. The blues content of this disc sounds absolutely authentic and claims to hail 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. There are the Tuvan throat singers who can apparently sing multiple notes, and sound not unlike people who've swallowed didgeridoos, and also a whole raft of South American stuff. I have to admit that the Native American Indian chants made me smile. I was once asked to help produce some library music and needed North American Indian chanting over an Apache-style drum beat. In the end, my co-conspirator and I chanted the part ourselves -we just made it up, and this set of samples sounds almost exactly like our end result.

Other samples come from the Balkans and Africa, and Nordic folk song even gets a look in, but the Bavarian country yodellers have a lot to answer for! In mitigation, though (as with all phrase-based sample sets) you're limited to permutations of the original song.

The R&B/Dance disc is definitely not R&B in the "Route 66" sense of the word but something rather more street. On this disc you'll discover moody R&B phrases from LA session singers in a number of contemporary styles, including doo-wop and hip-hop, DJ rantings and acappella groups. Youíll also find a large number of human percussion grooves for those days when your drum machine doesn't quite cut it. The use of Groove Control means that these loops can be adapted to fit the tempo of your song if you use the accompanying MIDI files to trigger the loop elements.

Next in line is the Vocal FX CD. When singers run out of words, they create....well, mouth-generated effects really. Mad noises, heavy breathing, drones, animal impressions. There are lots more vocal percussion samples here, plus some processed vocal sounds. You probably wouldn't make a complete track using these effects (other than, perhaps, the loops) but they do provide some interesting punctuation.

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, to the extent that there may be a case for making these CD-ROMs available individually. Having said that, the price for so much material, is surprisingly modest. This has to be the Encyclopedia Britannica of vocal samples! (A three-disc audio set of selected phrases is also available).

-Paul White