This is a little OT but I thought this site would be the most reliable place to ask: Which is the best software for virtual choir (and maybe even solo?) simulation? I would like something that would make a reasonable sonic simulation of various choirs (children's, male voice etc) and if possible, simulate words from entered text. Does such a thing exist? It could be a good way to finish some music I've been doing which so far is only 'songs without words' but could certainly do with choral treatment, if that were possible.

....mmmm. Seems like EWQL Symphonic Choirs would be the thing, but it's expensive (479 dollars at amazon.com) and appears to require a lot of computing power to start with. Also, it has mixed reviews including some people BEGGING you not to buy it as it's so atrocious. But it looks great on here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI5Gg2-mhmU

Why not contact a local community or church choir? They may enjoy helping out a composer with a piece of new music - and may even want to premier it at their next concert.

This is not a choir culture, I'm afraid. Entire church services normally go on with no music at all - weddings, funerals and masses included. I have worked with school children to learn simple melody-only lines, but it was up hill work to say the least. Just getting the kids to sing a note in tune can take all the effort available for one session. So the sort of arrangements I'm thinking of would be almost impossible.

Of course there may be choral societies but I've not come across any.

....but having said that, yours is a beautiful and practical idea - that would be the best way to do it.

EastWest Symphonic Choir allows you to have the choir sing words you type out using Word Builder. $400

CineSamples has VOXOS $800 which features the ability to sing phrases you type out.

VSL Vienna Choir Standard $595, Extended +add'l $595, Full $1200

8dio Requiem Professional $570

8dio Liberis $500 (children's choir)

There is a bundled deal for Requiem and Liberis $993

EastWest Voices of Passion $300 (all female)

Spectrasonics Omnisphere has some choir (male, female, children, solo and jazz among many other sounds) $500

Native Instruments Kontakt (full version) has some choir in the factory library. $400 or Komplete bundle $550

There are several sampled vocal packages available that are snippets of phrases and articulations. The trouble with this type of product is that there is only so much you can do to make them fit your project. Rather than creating a vocal for your existing musical ideas it is much easier to work with these in reverse by going through the samples and thinking of ways to use them. The available selection of products tend to be ethnic which also limits them.

8dio has the Forgotten Voices series 4 female soloists $99 each or $279 in a bundle.

Sonokenetic has Voices of Israel $80 (female)


If you sign up on the website 8dio has weekly sales called Wacky Wednesday.

thanks for the information, o0Ampy0o: still looks like symphonic choirs is the best.......very expensive this software, though, especially considering you can get a top quality piano for not much more than 100 dollars.

If you can wait until it is in stock Sweetwater is selling Symphonic Choirs at $250

Or B&H Photo has it for $300

EDIT: Don't forget it requires an ilok (not included).

There appears to be a quite a sophisticated package called "Vocaloid" for solo singer synthesis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocaloid

Looks like it's hideously expensive for the full version of the Editor (~$US10,000), but the singer libraries are only $100 or so and come with a cut down version of the editor. (the "Tiny" editor)
EDIT: Oops - I think the US＄9,333.00 is a typo. It says that here: http://en.vocaloidstore.com/index.php?gOo=goods_details.dwt&goodsid=5538&productname= but elsewhere it's listed as about US$100. I suspect that they forgot to convert Yen into US$ on that page!

I found a free choral synth which has some nice sounds FWIW:
http://www.dskmusic.com/dsk-choirz/ There's probably lots of others like that.

Greg.

http://www.soundsonline.com/Holiday-Promotion

Symphonic Choirs is 50% off ($247.50), along with a number of other EWQL libraries, until january 31. At soundsonline,com (EWQL website) and a number of their distributors. The Sym Choirs VOTA expansion is also 50% off ($39.50) if you buy it separately (the choirs bundle is not on sale...strange).

ILOK USB key required.

Purchasing off their website is not recommended. From what you can read in reviews it is difficult to complete a transaction and worse if there is any reason to contact them with a problem.

As I mentioned, Sweetwater has it at the lower price. They are out of stock at the moment but you can lock in the price by purchasing it on backorder.

If you need an iLok BH Photo has it for only $40 rather than $50.