Liberis Angelic Choir Review - Reviews

Tonehammer’s ambitious new virtual instrument features a full symphonic youth choir. Keith Gemmell voices his opinion.

Price: £499.00
Manufacturer: Tonehammer
Website: http://www.tonehammer.com

Liberis Angelic Choir Review

Liberis Angelic Choir
Manufacturer Tonehammer
Price $499
Contact Via website
Web www.tonehammer.com
Minimum system requirements
PC/Mac quad-core processor, 4GB RAM, 7,200RPM SATA II hard disk

Choir libraries are proliferating right now and the latest to hit our hard drive is Tonehammer’s Liberis Angelic Choir, featuring a 45-piece symphonic youth choir. It’s a follow-up to the epic choir library Requiem and technically similar, but with a lighter, more youthful sound. Recorded in a Californian church, it provides composers and arrangers with features such as true ensemble legato and portamento with speed control, host-sync’ed Latin chants and a large vocal effects section. It’s a download-only product (12GB) and requires a full version of Kontakt 4 to run.

Vocal chords
Legatos and sustains are the mainstay of most libraries and Liberis has three separate true legato and portamento patches, enabling you to play three simultaneous legato melodies at once. The sustains have as many as eight vowel types per patch and you can switch and crossfade between these using keyswitches or CC automation.
For dynamic emphasis, six marcatos are included, which come with a phrase builder, as do the staccatos, which also feature ‘quick chant’ tools. A set of poly-sustain chants is also available, although they do require some playing practice to get the best out of them. Sustains and poly-sustains are provided with all three soloists (two girls, one boy), plus true legato and portamento for one girl’s voice.
Usefully, for horror soundtracks and so on, there’s a variety of creepy vocal effects and even complete children’s songs that can be time-stretched and tempo-sync’ed. There’s also a variety of experimental, otherworldly ambiences.
Apart from the soloists, all voices in each articulation set appear together without any range divisions (a children’s choir is limited in that respect anyway). Many of the programs can be played well into the bass range, but the results aren’t always entirely natural-sounding.

Blend it, shape it
Liberis was recorded with mics placed at three different distances – stage, mid and far – and each set can be blended or used individually. For 5.1 mixes and a rich choral sound, a blend of the three is best, but for general orchestral scoring the stage position alone is fine. If using three, Tonehammer suggests not raising the distant mics too high due to the slight extraneous noise (stained glass windows are not soundproof!) and natural room tone that creeps in.
A wide range of performance controls are available depending on which program is loaded. A Swell control, assigned to the mod wheel, appears in most of them, which is useful for crescendos and diminuendos on sustained notes. There are many more, for offsetting sample start position, syllable/consonant selection, chant and marcato layer blending, legato and polyphony adjustments, plus the usual attack and release.
A little rough round the edges in places, this is not a pristine, ultra-polished library, but the overall effect is wonderfully organic, alive and natural-sounding, which is one of its main strengths. Excellent results suitable for all kinds of media work are obtainable, although we should point out that some manual reading is required to really make it sing. Compared to some libraries, such as Voxos, it’s also quite RAM- and CPU-intensive – be sure to check the system requirements carefully, because as a download product you can’t send it back! MTM

WHY BUY
Impressive true legato/portamento
Phrase builder and chant tools
Very natural-sounding

WALK ON BY
RAM/CPU-intensive
Requires full version of Kontakt 4
Large download

Verdict
An impressive, natural-sounding but resource-hungry choral library that’s great for soundtracks, games and media projects.
★★★★★★★★★★ (7/10)

Score: 7

This review first appeared in Music Tech Magazine issue 97
Filed under Reviews, Sampling Instruments, Software

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Tonehammer Liberis Angelic Choir Review

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