Spitfire Originals Epic Choir

[Fleer]

Allez les Bleus

Allez les Bleues

Allez les Bleuettes!

Edited July 26, 2022 by Fleer

[abacab]

1 hour ago, John Maar said:

EDIT:  The online manual has been updated for v1.8.

Sorry, the v1.7 manual came up with a quick Google search. Doubt much changed with MIDI for v1.8, but that's the one to go with!

[IainT]

I have a user question about the Originals Epic Choir ( as I think quite a few people on this post have actually bought the VST ). If I have a single midi track with sections of legato and staccato singing, is it possible to switch between the “long ahh” and “short staccato” of the Epic Choir without splitting up the midi track and using multiple inserts of the VST. As far as I can tell, it is not possible to use an articulation map in CWB to drive the changes from a single midi track. Is this correct ( and if so, is there a smart way to  automate the changes in singing style)?

[TheMaartian]

1 hour ago, IainThompson said:

I have a user question about the Originals Epic Choir ( as I think quite a few people on this post have actually bought the VST ). If I have a single midi track with sections of legato and staccato singing, is it possible to switch between the “long ahh” and “short staccato” of the Epic Choir without splitting up the midi track and using multiple inserts of the VST. As far as I can tell, it is not possible to use an articulation map in CWB to drive the changes from a single midi track. Is this correct ( and if so, is there a smart way to  automate the changes in singing style)?

You are correct that two instances of Epic Choir are required, since the choir type (long ahhs or short staccato syllables) is a preset, and changing presets cannot be done via a MIDI keyswitch. It may be possible to drive both instances of Epic Choir with the same MIDI track and use volume automation (ON or OFF vs. OFF or ON) to define which of the two instances will deliver audio out.

[IainT]

Thanks John for the confirmation. Your workaround is close to what I was planning to do, which is to duplicate the midi track and use the volume automation lane to control the output from each of the inserts of the VST. My only hesitation is that my piece is for double choir ( SATB x 2 ) so that will be a lot of duplicated midi tracks!

[abacab]

1 hour ago, IainThompson said:

My only hesitation is that my piece is for double choir ( SATB x 2 ) so that will be a lot of duplicated midi tracks!

I suppose this would be a good case for building a template with multiple instances for sections and articulations, if you needed to do this more than time.

[Tim Smith]

On 7/25/2022 at 2:41 PM, lawajava said:

Here's an analogy that comes to my mind when thinking of some comparative points raised on Unify so far.

"It's the same thing statement": In my DAW I have chairs.  They are nice to sit in.  But, if I use Unify, which is a car.  It has nice seats.  I like the seats in Unify, they are comfortable, but they are pretty much the same use as the seats in my DAW.

What is missing in that statement is that the seats in Unify are in a car.  Meaning you can go  places and into other dimensions - fast.   Unify often has multiple knobs pre-wired so that you can jump to automating all sorts of sounds and filters in one knob motion.  And there are lots of knobs - and they are labeled as to what they do!  So you can really take a combination of patches and presets and get them to come alive.  It has Jitter Box, Midi Box, BlueArp, the list goes on and on.  You can assign keys in the lower range to certain sounds, a key range in the middle to other sounds/layers, and keys in a higher to still other sounds - all saved in an instantly recallable preset. Unify splits each VST into separate cores so performance can be much better than putting the VST straight in the DAW.  When you stack a combination of VSTs in layers this performance aspect really becomes a win.

So it's not so much apples to apples.  "I can do the same thing in my DAW" misses the other dimensions of where the song can go when using Unify.  And, actually, of course, you can have multiple Unify  tracks in a song, so that's something to stack!

Good way to put it. It's a toolkit for the purpose of combining VSTs in unique ways using a set of unique tools. It does that well and probably why I own it. While I guess nothing is exactly like anything else, there is often more than one way to skin a cat ( just for the record, I don't skin cats at all). As in most fairly deep programs, much of the user base only use the easiest to approach functions and don't as often look at the other capabilities it has. If you get deeper into UNIFY, I think it's really pretty amazing. I also realize I am not half the sound programmer Skippy is, so no matter what tools you give me I won't come up with many of the things he makes. Not that going deeper is a bad thing since maybe we can get to places we never imagined.

On 7/25/2022 at 3:09 PM, abacab said:

Assume that your plugins are installed and available for any host running on your PC. The same plugins will be available to Unify anywhere on your PC, in any DAW you wish.

Of course if you wanted to move projects over to another PC, regardless of whether or not you're using Unify, you would still need all of the plugins present.

You can't open that DAW template in a different brand DAW. But you can open that Unify preset in a different brand DAW and be up and running!

Yep, I could play in UNIFY for months if I had the time and probably come up with some amazing things.  If you look at what Skippy has done, some of it can be copied to other vsts using those ideas. I see it mainly as a time saver. Sure I can load up other programs and set midi key limits on different ranges for different sounds in a DAW, adjust volumes, add plugins etc. UNIFY makes the process a bit more fun and trouble free. Most stick with one or two DAWs. Any studio worth their salt will meticulously save everything. Not knocking that product, just making the point that if a person hade some of the same goals as UNIFY they could do similar in a DAW.  Not really "apples to apples" either 

......anyways, sorry to side track a thread on this Spitfire library. Not sure if Skippy did it yet, but it would be interesting to now combine the orchestra and the choir in a UNIFY patch.

[abacab]

3 minutes ago, Tim Smith said:

......anyways, sorry to side track a thread on this Spitfire library. Not sure if Skippy did it yet, but it would be interesting to now combine the orchestra and the choir in a UNIFY patch.

I think many folks probably had the same thought! Simple way would be to begin by adding a Spitfire orchestral preset as a layer in a blank Unify patch.

Then add a new Epic Choir preset layer to that current Unify patch.

Tweak and polish. Add more layers if desired, adjust key splits and layers, etc., as needed. Save as new Unify patch.

[abacab]

12 minutes ago, Tim Smith said:

Not knocking that product, just making the point that if a person hade some of the same goals as UNIFY they could do similar in a DAW.  Not really "apples to apples" either 

The thing is that Skippy is a master sound designer with decades of synth programming experience. He hired a Ph.D computer scientist to take his "what if" or "can I do this" ideas and use them to develop Unify. It's essentially the mind of Skippy in an app. Nothing else like it. Yes, time saving means money to Skippy.

[TheMaartian]

12 hours ago, abacab said:

The thing is that Skippy is a master sound designer with decades of synth programming experience. He hired a Ph.D computer scientist to take his "what if" or "can I do this" ideas and use them to develop Unify. It's essentially the mind of Skippy in an app. Nothing else like it. Yes, time saving means money to Skippy.

I'm just starting the Unify journey through the looking glass, but the more I see and read, the more I think it was $79 well spent. Spitfire LABS and Heavyocity Foundations are really the only two free instruments I use. During my 70 years on this dirt ball, I've discovered that there really is no free lunch. But there's nothing wrong with not wanting to pay more than necessary for that lunch. And I'm especially happy if my money goes directly to the farmer/developer.