Recording - June 2015 - 42

Soundware Showcase
Best Service Altus,
Cantus, and Shevannai
by Jon Hillman

In all of music, few elements are as evocative as a well-trained
human voice. It is with good reason we hear vocal soloists in so
many film and game scores, often singing in ancient or mythical languages. If you can regularly afford to have live, experienced, ultratalented vocalists involved with your productions, read no further. For
everyone else, Eduardo Tarilonte's latest virtual instrument series for
Native Instruments Kontakt 5.3 (or the free Kontakt Player) should be
of great interest.
The fine line
If you've been producing film or game music for any length of time,
you've no doubt been asked to conjure up some form of soaring elven
female melody, medieval tune, or heavenly/hellish chanting. We're
asked for these sounds because the impact they have on our audience
is reliably powerful. Singing is in our DNA, and moves us perhaps
more easily and deeply than any instrument of our own making.

This turns out to be a double-edged sword. Not everyone
knows what a bassoon sounds like, so we can get away
with "close-enough" approximations. However, given our
inherent familiarity with the human voice, the smallest
inconsistency is easily perceived, and that powerful soaring vocal easily turns into a cringeworthy cheesefest.

When creating sampled vocal performances, the razor-fine
line of believability is a tough one to walk.
With Altus, Cantus, and Shevannai, Tarilonte helps us
walk that line with relative ease, creating beautiful, impactful, and-most importantly-believable vocals.
Categorical fantasy
While generally characterized as "fantasy vocals", each
instrument in this series focuses on a specific vocal idiom.
Altus is "The Voice of the Renaissance" (a unique male
countertenor), Cantus is "Gregorian Chants" (monks), and
Shevannai is "The Voice of Elves" (female alto and soprano). Though the organization varies slightly, within each
intrument you'll find three basic categories: a freely
playable voice with keyswitches (vowels, consonants,
words, and inhales and releases), plus a dedicated Phrase
Arranger, pre-recorded phrases, and soundscapes.
Intuitive organization makes exploring the broad range
of content easy. Whether you're after specific elements or
searching for inspiration, you're likely to arrive at something useful quickly. Adding some vocal flair to existing
productions takes a matter of minutes, with excellent
results. This being said, I found it most gratifying to craft my
own vocal phrases using the built-in Phrase Arranger and
performance controls-time consuming, but worth it.
I was also very glad to hear that the entire series was
recorded dry, without reverb. With a few tracks currently
in production, I found it easy to blend these sounds into the
existing soundstage using the reverbs I know and love.
Sometimes missed in other libraries, this simple fact will
save you a ton of time at the mixing stage.
Phrases and soundscapes
Nearly instant results can be had with each instrument in
this series via their Phrases. With a phrase patch, holding a
single note calls forth an entire pre-recorded phrase of words.
The performance is lifelike and human, as it was actually performed end-to-end by a real, live (and talented) human.
By way of example, Cantus Phrases offers 20 different
authentic Gregorian chants broken into 400 phrases that are

RECORDING June 2015

Recording - June 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - June 2015