First Look: Eric Whitacre Choir by Spitfire Audio
Nothing brings emotion to music like the human voice. After long-rumored rumblings that Spitfire Audio had a Choir library in the works, Eric Whitacre Choir has been released! The library comes with a healthy helping of vocal performances articulations as well as an Evo-Grid instrument which makes for some moving and fluid performances with minimal programming.
Jump to the Videos of Eric Whitacre Choir by Spitfire Audio
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First Look: Eric Whitacre Choir by Spitfire Audio
Nothing brings emotion to music like the human voice. After long rumored rumblings about some mystic “Spitfire” Choir choir library in the works, the cat is now out of the bag. Spitfire Audio’s latest release is a collaboration with famed choral composer Eric Whitacre.
To take on the ambitious project, the Grammy-winner composer utilized 22 of his favorite London singers. The group contained six sopranoes, five altos, five tenors and six bassess. The recording sessions took place in Lyndhurst Hall at Air Studios.
By recording in Lyndhurst Hall, users will find the Eric Whitacre Choir library blends right into the Spitfire‘s Orchestral series libraries as they were all recorded in the same space.
“In that room, with that group of singers, with that energy coming at me,” Eric Whitacre stated, “I really feel like I could go it all day. It must be my favorite recording room in the hole world”
With a goal of providing “music-makers a choral library that uses voices just like another section of your orchestra”, Spitfire has delivered 2 separate instruments delivered as 2 self-contained plugins for VST2, VST3, AU, AAX.
The first is the “Choir” instrument which contains 170 choral performance techniques.
Eric Whitacre Choir Instrument
In the Behind the Samples interview (below), Christian and Eric discuss how this instrument was designed to not only be a workhorse tool for composers for delivering traditional choral performances, but were hoping to challenge composers to open up to more uses for choral composition. This becomes obvious once you start to experiment with the Evolution samples in the Evo-Grid engine.
The Evo-Grid instrument allows users to play simple notes and chords that are interpreted into evolving, subtle, morphing textures full of movement. The Evo-Grid instrument allows user the ability to load different evolving styles of perforamnce (referred to as Evolutions) across the keyboard. Eric Whitacre Evo Grid Instrument allows access to 111 of these Evolutions.
“The idea is that you can take up to three or four of these Evolutions and combine them,” says Eric, “or cycle through them as one of them evolves, and suddenly you’re painting music in a totally different way, sculpting sound in real time. You can create minutes of profoundly beautiful music in this way.”
Once I started playing with the Evo Grid Instrument I saw just what the team was talking about.
Spitfire Audio‘s Eric Whitacre Choir Evo Grid Instrument
In the first look video up top, I took 30 minutes to share an unboxing of the instrument, loading it up for the first time to listen to some of the samples and investigate the functionality and user interface. Be sure and check out all the official videos and demos below to learn more about the Eric Whitacre Choir library from Spitfire Audio
Eric Whitacre Choir normally sells for $599 from Spitfire Audio
At the time of posting this first look, the library was on a special intro price of $449 from Spitfire Audio
Facts
Eric Whitacre Choir downloads as 164.6GB through Spitfire‘s library manager App. The library contains samples from recording sessions with 22 Singers all captured in Lyndhurst Hall at Air Studio.
Eric Whitacre Choir is delivered as 2 stand-alone VST/Au/AAX plugins and comes with a dedicated Choir instrument with 170 choral performance techniques as well as an Evo Grid instrument with 111 “Evolution” samples.
Eric Whitacre Choir normally sells for $599 from Spitfire Audio
At the time of posting this first look, the library was on a special intro price of $449 from Spitfire Audio
Demos of Eric Whitacre Choir by Spitfire Audio
Videos of Eric Whitacre Choir by Spitfire Audio
