It's from the OST by Trevor Jones (1998). I always thought it was a low drone with a real men's choir on top but nowadays I'm convinced it's some kind of reese bass with actually a choir'ish sounding synth on top. I'm aware of similar, but way higher, vocal pads in 90's rave music. But although this one is very low, it still sounds unique, compared to others.

Question 1: What hardware synth could it be? (just for the fun of knowing it)
Question 2: Is there a preset perhaps, from any vst instrument, that comes close? (as recreating it would be even more difficult I guess)

Starting @ 0.18

Starting @ 2:28

 

What a movie!

 

It's probably just a (real) male choir, or a sample of a male choir on a E6400 or such.

1998 would be cutting it a tad too close really for it to be a FS1R, which is about the only synth that could really make that kind of vocals, although the other 1998 oddity, the Fizmo, had some good vocal waves in it's transwave set too, but it'd need a master preset builder to sequence all the waves into something that realistic.

 

Since the credits mention synths and orchestra but no choir, I suppose this is a mix of real strings and sampled male choir.

 

The second one is def a synth-sampled male choir. I've listened it in a couple of old gothic songs, OST like this and stuff

 

This would be perfect timing for the Korg Z1. The Wavestation was earlier but still widely in use at this time too. And of course you could easily see Kurzweil being used extensively also.

 

^ Perhaps a mellotron/orchestron or Emulator/Synclavier ?

^ I would suggest to play the low registers of Omnishere & Rob Papen Blue 2 & some Arturia synths,if you want to go a bit more realistic layer the vocal synth sounds with the excellent Metropolis Ark 2 vocal samples :

 

Well I can't tell the hw but for sure I can hear a pretty stretched human voice sample, soaked in reverb or other fxs.
I will hazard an hypothesys: It could be an Akai S1000 or Korg 01/W.
At least for the last I can say I heard something very similar from the original keyboard.
Listen here from 03:12, I would bet the 01/W:

 

TRIVIA - There have been performances of Mozart's 'Requiem" where the advertisement only advertised the Conductor and the Symphony Orchestra. Everyone knows it is a choir work. However, the programme at the venue had the choir and all the members of the choir. I am not saying you are wrong by any means, just that typos and neglect occasionally happen

 

It sounds an awful lot like the Church Choir from the Roland SC-88 Pro.
Given the age of the movie and the age of the SC it wouldn't be entirely impossible.

 

Last edited: May 6, 2022

Thanks! A lot of usefull stuff in here already

The Gospel Choir @ 5:10 has some similarities indeed!
I have a nice arsenal of vst synths already so it might be a good thing to go through them first, as most of them should have some choir/vocal/vowel sounds included I guess.

Adding a real human choir after all would definitely be an option yes, but I still have to find something I like and that's affordable. EastWest for example is way to expensive (even on sale), especially for just some small adds in tracks (as I'm no orchestral producer). Although I do have Symphonic Orchestra Silver with a few choir samples included, but they're not great tbh. Maybe this one is a better option:
https://www.strezov-sampling.com/products/view/choir-essentials.html

 

Or maybe just oldschool sampling from a flac/wav version of this one

 

Grab the Roland Sound Canvas VA, set it to 88-Pro mode and search for the "Church Choir" sound. I think it might work just fine when mixed. It might even be THAT sound.

 

Starting @ 4:58

Interesting! I'm not familiar with Roland Cloud though, and don't prefer a subscription, so how does this work exactly?
I see it's $69 but haven't checked the second hand forums yet > https://www.jrrshop.com/roland-sound-canvas-va-plugin-lifetime-key

 

Test it out first by grabbing a release on the sister site. The Sound Canvas VA emulates the Roland SC modules modules and the latest one (the 88 Pro) was already available when the movie was made. Not sure how it works on ipad but you're able to switch between GM/2 and GS modes. I think GS mode is the one that has the "Church Choir" voice which sounds very similar to what you're looking for. I need to sleep now but if you want I can record a video on how to set it up later.

 

If you pay for a plugin which is part of a subscription, it is usually a "perpetual" style ownership.

 

It's not available so it seems (searched all Roland Cloud releases).

The vid was for iPad indeed but I just use my iMac friend

That's not necessary for now, the vid gives a good impression already! Just have to find a way to test/use it myself, or just pay for it because it might have more interesting sounds (90's influenced). But will check some more vids first.

Alright!

 

Starting @ 7:57 (for others that might be interested)