Autumn Choirs - Omnisphere Edition

Autumn Choirs is a beautiful, mysterious, chaotic, and haunting collection of 90 patches for Omnisphere 2.8, based on autumn wind samples and also vocal samples. The heart of the library are the 52 lush, textural pads, soundscapes and drone beds. However, there are a good number of other patches you would not expect from the sound source material – like the unique collection of syncopated, vibrant rhythm patches.

The library is based on the library of the same name for Kontakt, which was released several years ago in collaboration with Paul Lebkuchner at Sound Aesthetics Sampling. The initial inspiration for the Kontakt library was the piece called “Sirens” by Claude Debussy. The vocal arrangement and performances of that piece often reminded me of the violent autumn winds right before winter would arrive. Foley wind samples were tuned and sent through vowel filters in order to get them to be as “vocal” as possible in nature. Though the library turned out very unique and inspiring, it actually contained no samples from the human voice.

However, for this omnisphere release, there is a significant amount of new sound source material, not present in the original Kontakt release. Mainly this consists of real vocal samples, as well as samples which were heavily edited in order to create hybrid, morphed samples – A combining of voice, wind and other instruments (the hybrid techniques used in Elixer Prepared Tape and Elixer Laid In Earth). This technique involved deconstructing the harmonics of the samples separately, and then reconstructing them, interweaving them together. The result is a sample which is neither just a wind sample nor just a voice sample, but a combination of the two – in a quasi natural way. Ultimately, the effect this has on the sound can be otherworldly and haunting.