Soundiron's New Olympus Micro Choir

[chris_soundiron]

Hey all, we've just released a new choir kit that just about everyone will find handy.

The Olympus Micro Choir is a compact, playable male/female symphonic choir that includes selected content from Soundiron's comprehensive Mars and Venus divisi choir libraries. This 80MB virtual choral instrument contains 56 samples and 20 presets and is priced at $9.99.

Olympus Micro was designed to offer a taste of the sound and features that the combined Olympus Symphonic Collection offers, but it can also serve as a basic tool set for those who just need a basic high-quality, live-sounding choir with fully automatable control features.

The interface includes real-time control over dynamic intensity, tempo, sample playback start position, attack shape, release sample decay time and volume and simulated 3-part polyphonic legato transitions. These integrated control systems allow the creation of new phonetic combinations, pure Oo vowel sustains and staccatos. Custom 5.1 mixes are even supported with the help of special cathedral presets and banks that allow multi-channel output routing.

Olympus Micro features:

• - Full Men's and Women's divisi sections, with extended ranges.
  - 100BPM Latin "Dominum" Poly-sustain w/ infinite loop and releases.
  - Use Offset to skip syllables and isolate the sustaining "Oo" vowels.
  - Use Offset, Attack & Release to simulate short staccato notes.
  - Swell control allows real-time dynamic performance shaping.
  - Independent Release decay timing and Release Volume controls.
  - Simulated 3-part polyphonic legato with speed and bend control.
  - Bonus cathedral convolution presets simulate a far mic position.
  - Kontakt 5 TM Pro tempo synching supported.
  - Bonus atmospheric FX presets.
  - Combo NKM banks for custom mixing & output routing.

Price: $9.99
56 samples
80 MB Installed
16 nki and 4 nkm Kontakt instrument presets
24 bit / 48kHz stereo PCM wav format
Open format to allow user customization
Format(s): Kontakt 4 & 5 .nki and .wav

Customers who order Olympus Micro receive a credit toward an upgrade to the full version of the Olympus Symphonic Choral Collection.

Note: This product requires the full retail version of Kontakt 4.2.4 or later. Kontakt 5.0.2 or later required in order to use all TM Pro tempo synching ("TS") presets. The free Kontakt Player does not support Olympus Micro Choir.

http://soundcloud.com/soundiron/sets/olympus-micro/

[updog]

just grabbed this; it's a great way to demo soundiron's main choir lines as they sound amazing, however all the choirs are singing the word "dominum" at around 110bpm in case someone's expecting "ahhs" (for the money that's just being delusional though ) or such.

i find these fantastic to perhaps blend with my other choir libraries, can't wait to try it. at any rate i think i might have to consider Venus in the future, these sound REALLY good.

[mellotronaut]

i'd prefer 'Obamam' (or 'mellotronautem') instead of 'Dominum'. what should i do with a single latin word?

[freewayland]

Actually, you've got pure oo vowel sustains if you just turn the offset knob all the way up.

You can also simulate staccato notes with the different integrated syllables, especially in the cathedral presets. Just use the attack and offset knobs creatively and turn the release volume knob off. Then just tap the notes instead of holding them down. It can actually sound pretty natural if you use the cathedral preset to give them a proper tail.

For example, A 'Doh' staccato can be made with an attack knob value of 0 and offset knob value of 0.
'Oh' can be made with an offset of 14.
'Ee' can be made with an offset of 50.
'You' can be made with an offset of 74.
'Oo' can be made with an offset of 100.

If you bring the releases back into it and turn them all the way up, 'Oom' can be made with an offset of 127 and the release volume at 127. With the release volume up, you can get several more staccato variants pretty easily.
'Dom' can be made with an offset of 0.
'Yoom' can be made with an offset of 74.

The BPM is 100, but if you're using the K5 tempo-synching presets, they'll stretch to your host's project tempo.

All the choral sounds you hear in the demos were made using nothing but Olympus Micro all by itself.

[updog]

^wow, i completely missed what the offset knob does!! thanks a lot!

[mellotronaut]

uff, that sounds much more interesting now.

[emulator01]

Thanks for the demo - a great way for testing !!

[Caine123]

so can you also make those "aaaaaaaaahhhhyoooooooaaaa" woman voices in the first demo startin at 42 seconds do also?

and also the wild voice on sound demo 4startin at 1:06 min

or only dominus, ooo, ooo, and staccato o o o o?

i prefer mostly naked demos to not get a wrong impression.

[freewayland]

so can you also make those "aaaaaaaaahhhhyoooooooaaaa" woman voices in the first demo startin at 42 seconds do also?

and also the wild voice on sound demo 4startin at 1:06 min

Yeah, choirs naturally drift to more of an open 'ah' sound as the move up their pitch range, even within darker vowels like oo. This is especially present on the highest notes. For short passages and staccatos, you can isolate other vowels, like 'oh' and 'ee' with the help of the offset control.

As far as the wild vocal lead you hear in demo #4 (Dirk's "Montclarion Rose"), that was made by using the choir's built-in legato system. You can connect notes together by turning the legato switch on and allowing notes to overlap slightly. You can also use the swell, offset and bend controls to shape how the transitions sound from note to note.

[freewayland]

Here's a video tutorial session to walk you through Olympus Micro with our featured composer Blake Ewing. It's got a lot of tips on how to get the most out of it: