Yet another Voice of Passion?
A couple of days ago I came across information on a small outfit called Tonehammer. From their site:
Tonehammer is owned by Academy Award Winning Composer, Troels Folmann and TEC Award Winning Sound Designer, Mike Peaslee. Tonehammer is specialized in creating unique- and powerful virtual instruments for feature, tv- and video games composers.
In particular I came across their latest product Forgotten Voices: Francesca. It’s damn good.
I don’t want to recreate information you can find on their site. Suffice to say that it’s a female vocal library of phrases arranged in categories that have names like Slow Chanting, Playful Chanting, Flute Singing, Lullaby, Powerful/Forte, Slow/Dark, etc. By adjusting the mod-wheel and pitch bend you can control sample start points and time-stretch/compress the phrases. There is also a bonus set of vocal ambiences that for me cinched the deal. Overall, the programming is quite evocative and usable and I really like those ambiances quite a bit.
According to Tonehammer:
The combination between sample off-set control and time-stretch/compression allows users to seamlessly morph different phrases together, which brings endless possibilities for creating new phrases.
Perhaps in theory. In practice, well, it takes practice to make the above happen. From the “happy mistakes” I made this weekend, I think there is promise.
I have to explore it more, but a poor man’s version of Quantum Leap’s Voices of Passion comes to mind. Not nearly as exhaustive (it’s just $89 afterall), but in a similar “Gladiator-soundtrackesque” vein. I have not tried using the two together yet, but am hopeful that Francesca will prove a worthy addition.
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