Help me! Death Metal Choir Synths

[MattyTerakai]

Anyone know of any awesome sounding Choir synths for black metal vocals ? I have this dark riff in a new song I am working on that could use it.. I am wondering what Black Metal bands use synthwise to achieve this.. I mean obviously Dimmu and etc. will get the real deal but I know Choir synths are used on some Metal albums and you can hardly tell the difference! Can anyone shed some light on this?

Cheers,
Matt.

 

[Vandyn]

i'd use a mellotron.

but for death/black metal, i dunno... |:

 

[Aaron Smith]

I don't know for sure what Dimmu has done in the past, but despite the fact that they are a large and successful band with big recording budgets, I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if they've used all software based choir sounds. I don't say this based on listening to Dimmu's music and judging the choir sounds, but based on the fact that there's some really, really good software out there that wouldn't be discernibly different/worse than recording an actual live choir. Are you looking to spend money on something? What's your budget? Spectrasonics' Omnisphere has a lot of really great choir sounds, and EastWest's Symphonic Choirs is awesome (better) as well. I've found that more often than not, a really pristine, clean, awesome sounding choir sound needs to be dirtied up a bit with some kind of distortion/saturation in order for it to really stick out enough...or else certain notes/frequencies tend to get kind of lost when the rest of the mix in engaged. Omnisphere has a huge list of really good quality effects that can be easily applied to whatever patch you're using.

 

[Damphire]

EWQL Symphonic Choirs is the way to go. On a lower budget and with lower expectations you may find EWQL Voices of the Apocalypse second hand (its not being produced anymore)

 

[updog]

I have lots of different choirs, better and worse, but namely I use EWQL Symphonic Choirs and even some Logic's own choirs when I'm feeling for a simpler choir in the background somewhere.

EWQL is pretty much as good as it gets, but it's pretty heavy on your system, and it's quite tricky to use, I must admit. And I've learnt how to use the WordBuilder, but I'm yet to learn how to actually RECORD the words they're supposed to sing. It's kind of difficult, might be easier on a PC though. They're supposed to fix a lot of the inconveniences in the near future though, like by integrating the WB to the plugin itself in your DAW. People have been pressuring them a lot recently about that.

You missed their Symphonic Choirs NAMM deal, it was around 140 bucks then. That's where I got my copy from.

 

[updog]

I've found that more often than not, a really pristine, clean, awesome sounding choir sound needs to be dirtied up a bit with some kind of distortion/saturation in order for it to really stick out enough...or else certain notes/frequencies tend to get kind of lost when the rest of the mix in engaged.

A great tip, thanks a lot! Wouldn't have crossed my mind to use distortion/saturation on a choir...

 

[Erlend_]

Dimmu uses the choir aah patch from the Korg X5D alot!
Its a pretty cool patch.
Check out the beginning of Relinquishment Of Spirit And Flesh to hear it.

 

[ParsonsMatt]

EWQL Symphonic Choirs is the way to go. On a lower budget and with lower expectations you may find EWQL Voices of the Apocalypse second hand (its not being produced anymore)

This. I LOVE Voices of the Apocalypse.

 

[TheDarkProject]

One thing I noticed from listening closely to some recordings is that often what you hear as the choir sound is backed up by a generic cello or string ensemble patch to give it a bit more body. Layering a male choir with a female choir helps here too.

 

[feles]

Maybe you should check this, its a pretty lightweight choir VSTi but sounds decent!

 

[beyond dead]

logics stock synth sounds have worked wonders for me. pretty much anything I would need for virtual instruments (besides kick ass drum kits)

 

[Plankis]

I've gotten some good results with voices of the apocalypse. It just needs lots of layering and different midis.

 

[Full_Tilt]

An original Korg triton with stock choirs is all you need imo .
Choirs were something that korg got right a long time ago.

 

[updog]

An original Korg triton with stock choirs is all you need imo .
Choirs were something that korg got right a long time ago.

Not sure about Triton, but the choirs in Korg X50 (supposedly a newer, smaller version of Triton of something) sound pretty much terrible. On the top of not sounding useable, they all sound the same.

 

[plague_rider]

If you have Reason (i got the adapted version with PT) theres a synth in there that does an awesome choir sound, run it through a nice verb and you get some awesome choir-esque backing

 

[Sacha]

Kontakt has a choir that can morph between vowel sounds...kinda neat. I'm no expert on choirs but it sounds pretty good to me.

 

[vespiz]

On the hardware side, I still think that Roland XV-series have the best choir sounds, even right out of the box. And expanded with the orchestral card, they're even better (samples from Spectrasonics..).
My Triton Extreme has a very bad choir sound in it, but I have to live with it live, 'cause I'll be buggered to bring anything else with me on stage. Yamaha is just blah, but still better than Korg.

I've heard some pretty impressive stuff done on Symphony of Voices that I ought to try it out.

(Mellotron and VP-330 sounds excluded, of course.. )

 

[Damphire]

You missed their Symphonic Choirs NAMM deal, it was around 140 bucks then. That's where I got my copy from.

Holly shit!

 

[sprack]

Anything closer to the beginning of Hypocrisy - Fractured Millenium?

 

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

It's been a long time I've used it, but I remember I found Miroslav Philarmonic VST's choirs very good, plus you can tweak them a lot and use it for a lot of other things than choir, too.