I love working with choir libraries. There's something that feels magical about the human voice. And every once in a while, a choir library gets released & i get a hell of a good time when playing around with it. And some of them even have a Wordbuilder included. Not that necessary for me but it is a good bonus.

While looking for choir libraries on the sister site, i couldn't help but notice one member, whose name i'm not going to mention (@jewelry), comes along and starts bitching about the fact that they don't have Wordbuilder.

"WERZ MA FRIKIN WORDBUILDER" , "NO WORDBUILDER = SHEET", " KWAIR LAHBREHREE MUST AVE WORDBUILDER", and other things in the likes of "East West Symphonic Choirs is the best because it has WORDBUILDER!!11!1" (1. it's actually the worst in the universe, 2. Captain Elitist reporting for duty!)

As i said, it's not that important for me because i use them just for the sound, which is what i think people should focus on, so i can do well without.

Do YOU guys also think Wordbuilder is paramount, or do you just give it a rest and enjoy the sounds themselves?

 

Last edited: Dec 20, 2019

You answered it already with that. They 're not important for you but for those who rely on these virtual choirs to sing phrases, wordbuilder is mandatory. Cheers

 

That's another problem, no matter if the libraries have pre-recorded phrases or performances where the choir DO sing, which are a nice addition by the way, they always go back to wordbuilder. I understand they want a little freedom over what they want the choir to sing but this is just too much. That's literally the pot calling the kettle black.

 

It's cool to say: "I use EWQL SC and the WorldBuilder with 5.1 surround and all the mics".
But it's a humongous amount of work and you won't barely see (hear) half complex songs using it.

Right now there's an interesting debate on another thread about how difficult is to make a virtual guitar sound realistic. I don't think is any less difficult to use successfully the EWQL SC Worldbuilder. Its incredible power is only equal to the complexity, and that's for making sing lyrics.

There're other more balanced choir libs with Wordbuilder/Syllabuilder but they rely on cutting and combining recorded words mostly.

 

Beside it's the only real choir that actually sings what you write in english or votox instead of having a limited set of words/syllabes, I used the 1°th version of EWQL Wordbuilder and I can confirm it's pretty daunting.

Not only: it's pretty difficult to process it in a daw.
In Ableton doesn't work properly, in Reaper works fine, i don't have a clue about other daws.
Basically I had to use 5 or 6 virtual MIDI channels going from Wordbuilder to Reaper but I don't clearly remember the process inside to make it work, if I have time I'll test it again.

 

Yeah bro, i mean i 've never heard normal pop with choir/word builder unless it's some japanese Vocaloid thingie hehe. They 're mostly used in soundtrack/orchestral work.

Why is it too much. I don't understand why it's peculiar to you, people who sit and learn how to use wordbuilders with choir/vocal libs, obviously they have an important use for it, otherwise why bother :D

 

I cannot remember which one has the Italian choir and I do not think it is EWSQL.
The one that does when you make phrases has an authentic sound for more classically oriented composing. Someone else may remember.
In terms of 'mood', I agree a word builder may end up being a hindrance rather than a benefit when you only require it as a support mechanism. In a hand notated score I can see the use for word builder but not in a backing track.

 

That would be FluffyAudio Dominus Choir.

And my thoughts exactly.

 

Totally right. Besides, the old (not the Play one) one is pretty difficult to use as a MIDI plugin, which would be the best use by a long shot.
But since it's ancient, you have to wrap that MDA-FX in a MIDI-FX wrapper to be able to use as a MIDI-VSTI, then you say your prayers, light some candles and hope it works.
It doesn't and then you have the second major PITA that is to use it as standalone program and highways of MIDI vrtual channels.
At this point you probably don't remember what the f*ck you were supposed to do with the library, the track, the DAW and your life in general

The only power-user level example I've heard was a guy, probably at the VI forum, who only managed to create the "Hallelujah" in the famous classical piece. Only that, five seconds that took him like two weeks already being a veteran virtual choir user.
And still he had to use two layers because the range was not enough and he had to pitch-shift some parts of the choirs.

Like usually I agree with you. The thing is, if you want lyrics in your choirs, it's very difficult. I think I tested that Dominus choir. Well, I tried, Kontakt hasn't finished loading the wordbuilder patch yet

 

That made me laugh. I know a lot of people have been saying 'Oh but KONTAKT loads much faster since....'
The problem is that some libraries are just plain big and others were made pre-speedup so they do not load that quickly. To add to that, if a library was made pre-version 6 and is also large, it is still slow loading, even with a lot of RAM and a decent CPU.

The Dominus has one advantage for more authenticity because the phrases are pretty much in Latin. This means that creating traditional choral works while never truly accurate, will sound moderately real to Jane and John Doe (In a traditional style i.e).

 

The wordbuilder in EWQL Choir is only good for writing pseudo-Latin anyway. Then it sounds decent, but if you try to write English lyrics, it sounds terrible and you can't understand any words. Maybe one or two but it's just quite rubbish.

So it is mainly only good for making "epic trailer choirs" that sing nonsense

 

True. If you've to use (thus preload) a huge number of samples at the same time (nki patch) it will use a lot of RAM no matter what.
Without being an expert I can see the problem. If a regular legato takes a lot of samples imagine that with different vowels/consonants/intonation/accent. Crazy...

 

I tried it out in realtime.

The best thing any Kontakt user can do is learn how the maker of the module associated the program changes/triggers.
There are some traditional Latin (dead language) choir phrases built into this which is promising via a drop-down. The facility to have males and females together or separately is good. Kontakt falls down in one area being multi-loading. The facility in this to have 4-8 separated divisi choir sections would require a lot of ram and processing power with the Dominus set.
Choirs can also be percussive. This required a bit of fiddling around to get that and cutting of the default reverbs.

So the thread author is correct in that a word builder can be an inhibitor, especially if time is important.

 

"WERZ MA FRIKIN WORDBUILDER" , "NO WORDBUILDER = SHEET", " KWAIR LAHBREHREE MUST AVE WORDBUILDER", and other things in the likes of "East West Symphonic Choirs is the best because it has WORDBUILDER!!11!1" (1. it's actually the worst in the universe, 2. Captain Elitist reporting for duty!) Tutuapp 9Apps ShowBox

 

Last edited: Dec 30, 2019