Hello,
I'm looking for a sample pack/library that would offer simple vocals, female/male. No words or sentences, just notes in various intensities and coloration ranging at least one octave @ one sample per note. The idea is to load them in Redux and being able to play vocal lines over an octave or so while still sounding realistic, not pitch-stretched.
Suggestions welcomed.
Simple vocals, by tone
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- KVRAF
- 3729 posts since 3 Nov, 2015
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- KVRAF
- 2212 posts since 20 Sep, 2013 from Poland
Solo, not choral, and simple as in not much learning curve?
Most of what's out there is pretty classical in sound, which you might not want but Realivox Ladies/Blue should be a great option for the female vocals. Alter/Ego is also worth trying since it's free, and it can do a reasonable job of faking male vocals (and Bones should be released someday soon-ish too). Not really sure what to recommend for a male voice.
Most of what's out there is pretty classical in sound, which you might not want but Realivox Ladies/Blue should be a great option for the female vocals. Alter/Ego is also worth trying since it's free, and it can do a reasonable job of faking male vocals (and Bones should be released someday soon-ish too). Not really sure what to recommend for a male voice.
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- KVRAF
- 3338 posts since 18 May, 2003 from Sweden
Not an immediate solution for the OP, but I've been nagging Reali-Mike Green (Ladies/Blue) about a male vocal library, along the lines of Brett Sparks of The Handsome Family. You know, the guy who sang the leitmotif song of True Detective, Season 1 – Far From Any Road.
Male voice libs are few and far apart, so there should be an obvious market slot for a growly, raspy male voice like that.
Would be a nice change from all those Japanese Idol girls, too.
/Joachim
Male voice libs are few and far apart, so there should be an obvious market slot for a growly, raspy male voice like that.
Would be a nice change from all those Japanese Idol girls, too.
/Joachim
If it were easy, anybody could do it!
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 3729 posts since 3 Nov, 2015
Thanks for the suggestions, although I forgot to underline something important. I mentioned a sample pack/library which is made of samples, eg. wav files, for the simple reason that I use Linux. There is no such thing as Kontakt in there.
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- KVRAF
- 2212 posts since 20 Sep, 2013 from Poland
That really narrows your options down. Not many vocal libraries come with unlocked wav samples, and neither Kontakt nor Alter/Ego run on Linux. Clara's Vocal did have wav samples, but it no longer seems available.
UTAU does run on Linux, I think, and there are tons of solo voices for it, but it's not simple, even if you just want it to sing "aaaaa".
UTAU does run on Linux, I think, and there are tons of solo voices for it, but it's not simple, even if you just want it to sing "aaaaa".
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 3729 posts since 3 Nov, 2015
Although I do like the first part of Hatsune Miku's 2011 Sapporo concert, the vocaloid-like sounds are not what I'm looking for to integrate in what I do. Nice to know that UTAU runs on Linux though.
I'm surprised that wav sample packs that consists of only ooh, aahh, uuhh, etc. sung at one sample per note for an octave or so in various intonations are difficult to find. This might be the easiest thing for a singer to do, and the more generic approach to incorporate in all genres of music, to add effects, to modify using any popular sampler that accepts wav files. Instead there are a lot of "ooh babe", "I feel gooooood" and all variations thereof.
I did find one though that seems promising. Although they support Kontakt instruments, their 6.6Gb of vocal sounds consists also of PCM files that is, 8327 samples. As it is written in the documentation:
"All of the sample content is included as standard open PCM wav files to allow you easy access to manipulate, reprogram and customize the sounds however you wish. We know that it’s important for many users to be able to go beyond the limitations of any one format, so we’ve kept this library’s directories and files open for our advanced users. "
It is ' Voice of Gaia: Francesca' from Soundiron. I might look into that one.
I'm surprised that wav sample packs that consists of only ooh, aahh, uuhh, etc. sung at one sample per note for an octave or so in various intonations are difficult to find. This might be the easiest thing for a singer to do, and the more generic approach to incorporate in all genres of music, to add effects, to modify using any popular sampler that accepts wav files. Instead there are a lot of "ooh babe", "I feel gooooood" and all variations thereof.
I did find one though that seems promising. Although they support Kontakt instruments, their 6.6Gb of vocal sounds consists also of PCM files that is, 8327 samples. As it is written in the documentation:
"All of the sample content is included as standard open PCM wav files to allow you easy access to manipulate, reprogram and customize the sounds however you wish. We know that it’s important for many users to be able to go beyond the limitations of any one format, so we’ve kept this library’s directories and files open for our advanced users. "
It is ' Voice of Gaia: Francesca' from Soundiron. I might look into that one.
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- KVRAF
- 2212 posts since 20 Sep, 2013 from Poland
I suspect a solo vocal really needs legato to sound convicing, and that takes a more sophisticated sampler, so just recording a couple dozen wav files would not be useful for much.
I think Soundiron are pretty good at including wavs with their libraries, and they have various vocal ones. So, that's an option, though you'd be paying for thousands of samples just to use a few dozen.
Are there any usable vocal samples in the giant Converse Rubber Tracks free sampling project? I think they've done some gospel vocals, but not sure if there's any solo voice other than phrases. There's also some giant free sample libraries for game audio by Sonniss - seems like there might be some simple vocals somewhere in all those gigabytes.
I'm not sure how UTAU works (the Japanese locale setting thing scared me away), but it should contain sustained vowels at various pitches. Do the UTAU voices come with wav files? Even if they don't, your best bet might be to ask some UTAUloid developers nicely if you can have some raw sustained vowel data. I do have some raw wav samples for an Alter/Ego voice bank I'm working on now, but being female death metal vocals they'll also be useless to you.
I think Soundiron are pretty good at including wavs with their libraries, and they have various vocal ones. So, that's an option, though you'd be paying for thousands of samples just to use a few dozen.
Are there any usable vocal samples in the giant Converse Rubber Tracks free sampling project? I think they've done some gospel vocals, but not sure if there's any solo voice other than phrases. There's also some giant free sample libraries for game audio by Sonniss - seems like there might be some simple vocals somewhere in all those gigabytes.
I'm not sure how UTAU works (the Japanese locale setting thing scared me away), but it should contain sustained vowels at various pitches. Do the UTAU voices come with wav files? Even if they don't, your best bet might be to ask some UTAUloid developers nicely if you can have some raw sustained vowel data. I do have some raw wav samples for an Alter/Ego voice bank I'm working on now, but being female death metal vocals they'll also be useless to you.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 3729 posts since 3 Nov, 2015
Converse Rubber Tracks ? Didn't knew about this. Took a quick look, looks amazing. I'll explore. - thanks.
This is perhaps true regarding Soundiron Francesca, although thez do sound like having a lot of wav files and just a few Kontakt kits. I do not know how Kontakt works and if at the base it uses simple files such as PCM wav files. Or does it need to have specially indexed files that cannot be read by regular software.
The problem with UTAU is not much Japanese as I have a tiny bit of the knowledge of the language, but the tones themselves. Even though I like some Hatsune Miku, live that is, and only the Sapporo concert, I still find this is on the 'chipmunk' side of things and not at all for the style of music I do.
And no, death metal voices of any kind is also not the genre I'm looking for.
Est-ce que certains produits Plogue roulent sous Linux ?
This is perhaps true regarding Soundiron Francesca, although thez do sound like having a lot of wav files and just a few Kontakt kits. I do not know how Kontakt works and if at the base it uses simple files such as PCM wav files. Or does it need to have specially indexed files that cannot be read by regular software.
The problem with UTAU is not much Japanese as I have a tiny bit of the knowledge of the language, but the tones themselves. Even though I like some Hatsune Miku, live that is, and only the Sapporo concert, I still find this is on the 'chipmunk' side of things and not at all for the style of music I do.
And no, death metal voices of any kind is also not the genre I'm looking for.
Est-ce que certains produits Plogue roulent sous Linux ?
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- KVRAF
- 2212 posts since 20 Sep, 2013 from Poland
You should be able to make Francesca work in any sampler, on a basic level - the wav files are just wav files. Sustained vowels should be usable. Legato transitions, consonants etc. - that gets complicated, but if you don't want any of those, then Francesca should be adaptable to another sampler.
UTAU isn't Vocaloid, though, and has literally hundreds of voice banks that users made for it. At least a few have to be less cute. I downloaded some random one to check it and it looks like there are wav files there with reasonably clear naming. You could cut a bunch of vowels out of it, but everything in this bank I grabbed is just recorded at one pitch.
So, if there's a less cute UTAU voice that's multipitch, it looks like you could just cut some vowels out of that, map them for your sampler, and use that without ever installing UTAU - just grab a voice bank and use it as raw material. I don't think there are all that many banks recorded across a wide range of pitches, so digging through some demos of them to see if any have a more grown-up sound might not take too long.
UTAU isn't Vocaloid, though, and has literally hundreds of voice banks that users made for it. At least a few have to be less cute. I downloaded some random one to check it and it looks like there are wav files there with reasonably clear naming. You could cut a bunch of vowels out of it, but everything in this bank I grabbed is just recorded at one pitch.
So, if there's a less cute UTAU voice that's multipitch, it looks like you could just cut some vowels out of that, map them for your sampler, and use that without ever installing UTAU - just grab a voice bank and use it as raw material. I don't think there are all that many banks recorded across a wide range of pitches, so digging through some demos of them to see if any have a more grown-up sound might not take too long.
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- KVRAF
- 2212 posts since 20 Sep, 2013 from Poland
...and if you want to go the Soundiron way, they're having a Labor Day sale.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 3729 posts since 3 Nov, 2015
Do you know how Kontakt works, briefly ? Does it absolutely need to have underlying standard PCM wav files that can be played by any sampler ?
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- KVRAF
- 2212 posts since 20 Sep, 2013 from Poland
I'm not a big Kontakt user. Others would know more. But from what I see, no, it doesn't need wav files. Most Kontakt libs have big monolithic files, some have smaller ncw files with one sample per file but still only readable by Kontakt. I think they can be resaved as wav versions using Kontakt, but you still need Kontakt to do that.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 3729 posts since 3 Nov, 2015
I got the Soundiron Francesca samples. There's quite a lot in there even without Kontakt. By the way, since you work on Alter/Ego I thought you could understand French. I simply asked above if some of the Plogue products also ran on Linux.
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- KVRAF
- 2212 posts since 20 Sep, 2013 from Poland
Heh, no, I know no French at all. Or Japanese, which most people working on vocal synth stuff seem to know. AFAIK Plogue stuff is all Windows and Mac only.
And have fun with Francesca. I guess a male voice to match could be difficult to find, but there's gotta be something out there.
And have fun with Francesca. I guess a male voice to match could be difficult to find, but there's gotta be something out there.