Review: Dominus Choir by Fluffy Audio

Though limited with its incredibly specialized focus, Fluffy Audio’s Dominus Choir is easy and intuitive to use with a massive collection of ready-to-dive-in presets. This Kontakt instrument is one of the most realistic sounding choir phrase libraries on the market today.

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Review: Dominus Choir by Fluffy Audio

Cinematic choirs are basically a non-optional component to any composers template. Because of this, the market is saturated with choir libraries, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Many attempt to “do it all” do so with varying amounts of success. Recently however, a new trend seems to be emerging in the sample market where companies are electing instead to focus on a more niche aspect of the sound and do it with extreme attention to detail.

Not long ago, I reviewed Fluid Shorts, which similarly focused on string spiccatos instead of attempting to tackle everything a string section is capable of. As a result of this philosophy, they created one of the best spiccato libraries on the market. Dominus Choir by Fluffy Audio seems to have accomplished very much the same kind of thing and seem to have created one of the most realistic sounding phrase singing choirs on the market today.

Dominus Choir sells for $379.00 from Fluffy Audio

Thoughts

Digging into Dominus, I was immediately struck by just how natural and wonderful it sounded right out of the box. I had only just loaded it up and was only playing with a preset that came in the initialized patch and already I was producing choir sounds that were more realistic than most other libraries I had heard before. Not only is the programming and interface very high quality, but I was struck by the quality of the performers themselves. Looking into this a little further, I discovered the samples were recorded with two of the top choirs in Italy, which explained the exceptional performance quality.

The intuitive interface allows us to easily view and keyswitch between our created words, enable or disable the male or female sections of the choir and view our dynamic level. We can easily create new words using their clever word building system. Though the word Dominus has a special place in latin choir phrases, they actually picked it based on dominos. One plays dominos by joining the blocks together based on matching adjacent numbers. This is a perfect analogy for how their word building engine works.

We can easily create new words using their clever word building system.

You begin by selecting one of many starting syllables. The final sound in the selected syllable determines the starting sound of the next and so on. This launches you down a fun rabbit hole until your word is complete. For example starting with a selection of “do” would then allow you to pick “omi” which would then allow you to pick “inus” to create the word “Dominus”. The genius of this method is that because each adjacent syllable must begin with the last sound of the previous, they can be strung together in a remarkably realistic and natural way.

For each of the syllables in a given word, you can choose the rhythmic value. This is tempo synced to your DAW’s so right away you will find the words and phrases you create will be immediately in time and lock in with the rest of your sequence. In addition to this, your note releases are also significant to the performance. Though the transition of syllables is quantized to the rhythmic value you have assigned, some syllables end with a harsher or more notable attack. Take the word Re – I – E – Ctis for example. I have each of those syllables changing over to the next every half note. The ending of Ctis however ends with a more noticeable S sound. When I continue to hold the chord, it will sustain on the “i” sound of Ctis. When I release a key, the S sound is triggered to end the word. This allows for an incredibly realistic and flexible performance.

The library comes with a massive collection of preset words

Though the word builder is easy and intuitive, some users may prefer to simply be able to dive in and play. This is why the library comes with a massive collection of preset words allowing you to quickly jump in and create an authentic and ready to play phrase.

This choir, though wonderful at what it does, is incredibly specialized. It is great at creating realistic and playable words and phrases that sound like an authentic performance, but it can’t for example perform epic trailer staccato choir. Though you can link two identical syllables together like U and U to get a straight sustaining legato patch, it is far from ideal sounding. If you are new to the sample market and are looking to purchase your first choice library, you may be better off going with a more generalized jack of all trades library that would cover more of your bases. If your hard drives are already chocked full of the latest and greatest choirs and you are looking for an extra edge, you would most certainly not be making a bad choice by adding Dominus to your arsenal.

Facts

Dominus from Fluffy Audio is a choir library that focuses on latin syllable singing. The instrument weighs in at 30 GB. Recorded at 4 mixable mic positions, the library allows users to string together syllables in a remarkably natural way. The instrument is contained within one single patch which allows you to toggle and mix your male and female choirs as well as create, save, and modify words that can then be keyswitched between. The library requires the full version of Kontakt 5.6.8 and will not work with the free Kontakt Player.

Dominus can be purchased for $379.00 from Fluffy Audio.

Demos of Dominus Choir by Fluffy Audio