Cinesamples Voices Of War

[Cecile Lilien]

Whenyou think about vinkings and nordic warrior chants, you think about Voices of War! This library lets you travel to the North and experience the heavy, low-voiced chants of nordic men and their battle cries.

Contrary to Voxos, Men of the North dials in a specific style of a half-voiced (sotto/mezzo voce), reserved style of cinematic singing. Special attention was paid to getting a true blended tone, perfect for pads and drones but also capable of carrying a word-based melody at a strong mezzo forte. The library excels with the modwheel set around 50-75 where holding a simple unison or fifth provides enough color to simply be its own cue. The color of the choir never formally opens up enough to be considered classical. It maintains its carefully chosen quasi-warrior (non-professional singer) tone perfect for this style.

Men of The North is a must have for video game composers and viking epic music composers. Cinesamples set up the unique KU100 head-shaped microphone, affectionately known as "Fritz," directly in the middle of the choir with singers set around it in a semicircle.

The unique binaural capabilities of the KU100 combined with a set of headphones immerses the listener in a true 360 perspective that simulates the human listening experience. Perfect for interactive video game audio engines and perspective/distance based listening.

Cinesamples' morph patches utilize long and blendy vowel morphs from the ensemble - the subtle movement it provides coats the tone with the auditory version of an oil-on-water slick - a welcome departure from static whole notes, and impossible to create without actually recording it.

Select from the menu of patches on the Presets page to change all parameters. You may scroll through the various articulations in the center of the shield from a master patch, or use the keyswitches to change the basic articulations.

By default, our convenient help-text automatically displays useful information about many features whenever you adjust a parameter on the GUI. To turn it off, click the ?question mark in the top right corner of the screen.

I`m into various metal genres, including viking metal so this library really comes handy to add that Nordic flavor with low voices. I`m also into new age music and this library has a lot of Gregorian alike patches so it can be used for those purpose too. I recommend it to anyone who need deep low voices, and choral effects.The quallity is super high and one of the best we have on the market for deep low voice singing.

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Get the TC-Helicon VoiceLive2 and warm-up the vocal chords. I love using it, and I'm no golden throat. With a little practice it's pretty damn powerful. The nice thing is it's not canned Oohs and Ahhs, it's whatever you say or sing (even crazy censored like grunts and growls). You can have up to an 8-voice choir with full MIDI control of the various pitches by MIDI note number, or you can make it autotrack. You can do kids choirs, horror choirs, mixed genders, whatever...

Interesting idea actually. I have the TC-Helicon Voice Prism Plus and sound wise I think when you go beyond a simply duet it's far too easy to tell it's a machine. So if the newer units have overcome that, I'd certainly be interested in buying one. Could be a very creative tool.

It would have to be able to product a realistic sound though. My experience with harmony machines to-date is that they all sound ultra fake. The only thing I use my Voice Prism Plus for is duet and vocal shaping.

If you're after choir sounds and are able to use hardware I recommend a Roland XP/JV box with the Vocal card as an option for you. The best choir sounds I've ever heard come out of this package. Nothing I've heard (from hardware) comes close. - J.

It's true. Sometimes you want the funky sounds (VoiceLive1 and older) and not the real ones. I'm impressed with the VoiceLive2. Laura Clapp's demos show good backing vocals, but the choirs can sound good when done right. People believed the Mellotron choirs for years and they're really grungy. I think technique+settings+signal path= whatever you want, as long as you know what the limitations are.

A killer sampled choir or other instrument sucks compared to hearing a real one, but the processed voice choir has come a long way. I didn't believe it until I played with one at NAMM. Now I use mine all of the time. Unfortunately the online demos at TC's website aren't so good. What a mistake.

As much as I like sampled choirs, it's often pretty obvious when they are being used. Quite often the keyboardist doesn't know the real dynamics of vocals and the voices go on longer without a stop (breath) than is natural. It sounds cool, but it's fake. Also the random mix of voices doesn't follow vocal standards like divisi for string sections, so the vocal mix is weird.

Sampled choirs will always be too static to me to substitute for real choirs regardless of how they are played. But they work as a "synthetic texture". I tend to feel like synthesizers are best played as synthesizers; even on pianos , organs, and other keyboard instruments (which is the closest in terms of playing), there is a difference. Pianos still feel different, and even on organs where the feel is probably similar, real pipes sound different.

I recently wanted to enhance my ability to add choir voices to my film and TV compositions. I read through forums and watched several videos. Eventually I purchased several choir sample libraries. After using these libraries for awhile I wanted to provide my thoughts on each one of them in hopes that it might help others make choir sample library choices. Some of the things that were important to me when evaluating choirs were:

As stated above, in my opinion, 8Dio makes the best choir sample libraries. Lacrimosa is an epic choir. This is a 200 voice choir with 70 Basses, 60 Tenors, 40 Altos and 30 Sopranos. This is the choir you use when you want that big, large, epic sound. It has Arcs, Phrases (Multi-Vowels), Shorts, and Sustains. This library can also be fully automated. The best thing about this choir is the sound. I have used it in several compositions. The following is a short cue in which I use Lacrimosa:

I am an Los Angeles, CA based Composer for Visual Media including Film, TV, and Video Games. I am also a Berklee Online student. I have composed music for several short films. I am an independent contractor composing music cues for companies such as Burnett Music Group and ScoreKeepers. Through those relationships my music has appeared on several television shows. I have been producing music for more than 20 years. I have produced projects for several independent artists as well as two compilation projects called Soul Cutz Vol. 1 and 2.

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