The story
I came across a CD-ROM with Csound files, containing a choir imitation using granular synthesis, which I used more than 15 years ago in a project. Csound is a powerful sound and music programming system. Csound’s FOF opcode produces sinusoid bursts useful for formant and granular synthesisis, loosely based on IRCAM’s CHANT program. Each FOF produces a single formant, and the summed output of four (or more) produces a vowel imitation.
The FOF Choir – Basic – instrument produces the 5 vowels (a, e, i o, u) which can also be used in a random fashion.
The FOF Choir – Vowel Morphing – instrument produces slow morphing textures, each note has its own permutation of 4 vowels. There are two round-robins for each note, to obtain a even more less-repeating texture.
Both instruments are available in Kontakt 6 and in DecentSampler format (split into 7 instruments: 5 individual vowels, random vowel, vowel morphing)
Developed in CSound 6.15, Kontakt 6, DecentSampler
Demo to get an impression: https://youtu.be/omNvVlBdwF4
Reviews for FOF Choir
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Soft/hard texture controllable choir library
At first I thought the male sound has a strong taste, but the voice texture is controllable and when I changed a few parameters it has turned out such a wonderful choir library! Is it basic? Wow, I think I should use this right away for the music that I am working on now!
Another great library from Peter!
This is a really fun computerized vocal library that makes me think of vocal samples on early samplers or vocoded phrases. The round robin switching is great in the Vowel switching preset, and I will definitely use the randomized vowel switching in the Basic preset. Is is the usual case, Peter's GUIs are elegant, stylish, and immediately usable. Love all of his sample libraries!
An amazing vocalizer-type instrument
This is a very well-made vocal instrument that would likely be a good fit for electronic productions. It comes with two patches, the basic and the vowel morphing one. If that doesn't give it a way, you can select a sound between different vowels, a e i o u. They can be triggered through the GUI, coloured keyswitches, or just the awesome randomizer that I loved.
The GUI is designed very well, although I can see some users needing labels for some options. There are also ADSR settings which are always welcome. Be careful with the settings though because it can get VERY loud! There is also the Matrix rendition, and though I didn't find it too helpful, but you might!
Classic Compu-Choir
This has that quintessential 90's computer voice sound and I love it! It's a little limited, and you need to load a separate instrument to get the vowel morphing. The GUI is cool, but takes a little experimentation to figure out. Also, I noticed it clips pretty easily, so might require backing off the main output level. Make sure you check out FOF Choir Matrix!
Perfect retro synth choir...
Not much needs to be said about this library other than that it is a marvelous creation. It works very nicely in both the Kontakt and DS versions and has a very usable interface. The sounds are great and fit perfect with electronic or otherwise non-traditional scores, especially when run through some basic reverbs and delays. I definitely recommend giving this library a try!
