Choir Sound

Looking to recreate the choir sound you generally heard in the 80s bands like Pet Shop Boys, etc. Pretty sure this is not an uncommon and bound to gain interest. Any leads or ideas on how this is done on the Digitone? cheers.

You’ll probably struggle to do that on the Digitone - FM synthesis isn’t really suited to that. Choir sounds of that type are more often done with rompler synths like the Fairlight or Emulator-II or PCM type synths like a Roland D-50 or a Korg M1.

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Cheers Finalform but what makes the Digitone unsuitable? Tutorials on FM8 make it possible but find hard to transpose to Digitone.

Have you tried poking around with the pan flute preset?

I reckon the sonic characteristic is similar enough to alter it to sound like a voice.

Hey Ryan, not a bad suggestion. Will wiggle it. Was really looking to build up, but all suggestions welcomed.

How many operators is the FM8 patch using?

I mean, you can get choir-ish sounds with FM but that 80s character that I think you’re referencing is more likely a PCM/sample based type of thing.

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E.g. this sort of sound?

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I agree with @finalform that the stereotypical 80s choir sound was probably originally sourced from Fairlight or Synclavier libraries. I recall reading the Emu actually ripped off their choir samples and a few others from the Fairlight.

This reminds me, I should put together some VP-330 choir samples for the forum to use.

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I believe it’s 6 to be honest, which gives me the pointer you’re making. Yep, Fairlight originally came out with the choir/choral sound. Would love it on the Digitone.

I want choir sounds bad :slight_smile:

Has anyone made attempts at this?

I am looking for Choirs sonically as well… not an easy task. So back in the days it was done with Romplers? How is the preferred way today? Has wavetable any good choir emulations? Let‘s say the Waldorf Iridium. Or the DigiWave from Elektron (coming 2021)?

Here’s a Digitone pointer: The Digitone Experience (Dataline Vid) 14 minutes onwards

Use a mellotron Choir sample… easy

good tip! Super nice pack!

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I made these presets in Nave. In the soprano voice, like most of the presets, was a tiny sample from a real voice, ended up being a single cycle slice in Nave. I was trying to see how much of various acoustic sounds I could recreate in Nave using just a fragment of the actual sound. With the soprano I discovered that I could’ve just used any similar waveform cycle from the factory wave tables. There are a few other human sounding elements in there. Iridium (like it’s keyboard bro) uses Nave as one of its foundations. I’ve created choir like sounds on the first Minilogue as well. The basic building blocks are there.

https://soundcloud.com/chris1a-1/nave-synth-chrisg-preset-part2