Reveiw: Dominus Choir from Fluffy Audio

On today’s special menu: a choir. And not just your standard epic choir that sings ‘aaaaahs’ and ‘ooohs’ for minutes on end without taking a breath. Fluffy Audio’s Dominus Choir Pro  is said to be able to sing any lyrics you throw at it, in multiple languages. All while automatically and intelligently handling polyphonic legato and connecting syllables in a natural way. Sounds about as easy as juggling chainsaws.

Has Fluffy Audio really made all this possible? Let’s find out.

…when we released Dominus Choir, we were already looking forward to enriching it with new features. Among them was the ability to sing in English and add Marcato and Staccato articulations. Today, we can proudly say that we have successfully accomplished this task!

A brief introduction

In case you haven’t met, this is Dominus Choir Pro. Dominus Choir Pro is essentially an advanced sample-based virtual choir that allows you to create beautiful legato phrases as well as dynamic marcato and staccato articulations. It is designed to cover a wide range of musical genres. It is available both as an upgrade for existing Dominus users and as a standalone library.

Tex Mex – sorry, I mean Tech Specs

Dominus Choir is available in two versions. Dominus Choir and Dominus Choir Pro. Dominus Choir has 30GB of samples, 4 microphone positions, 50 initial syllables + 150 middle/end syllables, 200+ ready-made words and true legato for all vowels. It costs €379 at the time of writing.

The Pro version includes staccato and marcato articulations, 346 syllables for legato, 60 + 60 syllables for marcato and 60 syllables for staccato. Thanks to the addition of English phonemes and diphthongs, Dominus Pro can sing not only in Latin, but also in English, Italian and other languages. It takes up 54 GB of disk space and costs €649.

The interface of Dominus Choir Pro is divided into two main areas. On the left, you can manage your phrases and key switches. The right side is divided into three sections, as follows.

Engine: This is where you set the main parameters for your instance. You can choose whether you want female voices, male voices or both. You can choose between polyphonic or monophonic legato. You also select the keyboard layout you want to work with. More on this later.

Engine Section

Mix: Adjust the microphone balance between the four microphone positions Spot, Close, Mid and Far. You can also adjust the balance between male and female choirs.

Word Edit: This section is the heart of Dominus Pro. This is where you select the words and phrases you want your choir to sing. Creating words is quick and easy, as you are only shown the syllables that can naturally follow the previous one. There is also a huge selection of Latin words that are ready to load.

Working with Dominus Pro

There are a few things to remember if you want to work efficiently with Dominus Pro. Firstly, it is important to understand the three keyboard layouts and what each of them does.

Real notes: The notes played correspond to the notes actually sung by the choir, with some overlap between tenors and altos. This is useful if you want to write scores that match the actual choir parts.

Spaced: The male choir is in the lower part of the keyboard and the female choir is in the upper part, with an overlap in the middle octave. This allows for greater clarity and separation of the voices.

Overlap: The male and female choirs overlap, with the females singing an octave higher. This places the male and female choirs in the same register on your keyboard. This is a shortcut to a rich, full choir sound, but gives you no control over how the two choirs are layered.

Fluffy Audio recommends that you do not use the Real Notes layout, as it can lead to unnatural voice-leading. This only applies if you are working with polyphonic legato. If you are writing your choir on one or two tracks, use either Spaced or Overlap. If, like me, you want four parts in a traditional SATB layout, each on its own track, then Real Notes is the right layout.

This brings us to the next important point. Dominus Pro is very good at handling polyphonic legato. In fact, the library is optimised for this way of working. You can load an instance of Dominus onto a track, define the text to be sung, and then record the entire choir onto that one track. It works so well that I’m amazed it’s even possible. With the right settings, playing two hands on your keyboard results in a full choir singing intelligible lyrics. The syllables connect seamlessly and realistically. This makes working with the library fast and intuitive.

If you want to know more about how the Legato Engine works, Fluffy Audio has an informative video about it here:

I don’t have the space to go into it here. Suffice it to say that it works amazingly well and is one of the standout features of the library.

A few special tips…

In case you are less inclined to read the manual, like many people are, here are a few tips to get you started. When working with polyphonic legato, leave a small gap between notes. This may seem counterintuitive, but you will get a legato with the right timing if you leave a gap. When working with monophonic legato, make the notes overlap slightly, as you would normally do with legato patches.

When building words with the syllables, there are two steps that will help you make words you can understand, even if you don’t have the exact wording. The first step is to always respect the vowels. Look for a syllable that contains the correct vowels, even if this means not getting all the consonants right. You can substitute a ‘D’ for a ‘T’ or a ‘B’ for a ‘P’. But you shouldn’t substitute a ‘U’ for an ‘A’.

The second step is to think about the strongest consonant in your syllable. Suppose you need a syllable containing “NT”, but it is only available with either the “N” or the “T”. “The ‘T’ is the stronger consonant, so you would choose the syllable without the ‘N’.

If you follow these rules, you can create a surprising number of words in different languages. The domino engine in the background ensures that the syllables connect naturally. It’s a fantastic idea and the most intuitive word-building system I’ve come across.

The Sound

Now you should be well equipped to work with the library, should you decide to purchase it. But to help you make your decision, you need one more crucial piece of information: how does it sound?

Amazingly good.

The two choirs recorded sound fabulous. As does the recording venue, Crema’s Sala Giardino, a warm hall. The four microphone positions give you good control. Spot (placed above the individual choir sections) and Close mics give a dry and intimate sound. Mid has a good amount of early reflections to define the room without sounding wet. And Far adds depth to the sound, again without adding too much tail. This is an amazing room for an intimate and detailed sound.

If you want a larger-than-life sound, you need to add artificial reverb. You can either choose one of the included reverb presets or add your own.

Verdict

Dominus Pro sounds wonderful. The lower dynamics are particularly beautiful. They surpass anything I have heard from other choir libraries. It also works extremely well as an ensemble patch. The library is so finely tuned to work in this way that you can get amazing results for the whole choir with just one patch. I can’t believe I’m writing this, but it’s true.

If you need convincing, listen to the demo “Magnum Misterium”. That’s the result of just one instance of Dominus Choir on one track. 

The way I work, I would benefit from having individual SATB choir sections. Fluffy Audio has taken the opposite approach – the library is optimised to be highly playable and gives amazing results quickly. This comes at the cost of not having granular control over every aspect.

HOwever, I can work perfectly well by loading two instances of just the women’s choir and two of the men’s choir. I can adjust the panning of each instance and not have them singing in unison. This is how I create my SATB choir with Dominus Pro. If you are a purist, you may be unhappy that you have sopranos and altos singing together in the middle register, and tenors and basses for the men. As this sounds great in most cases, I am still very happy with this solution.

This choir library sounds so gorgeous, and is quick and easy to use. It gets my highest recommendation.

Find out more about Fluffy Audio Dominus Choir