Produced by Doug Rogers and Nick Phoenix, VOICES OF OPERA is a 40 GB collection of 24-bit/44.1kHz samples recorded using up to four microphones at EastWest Studios in Hollywood, CA. With it you have the color and timbre of female and male vocals you can realize and arrange realistic choral and duet compositions. Larisa Martinez has earned rave reviews while currently performing with Andrea Bocelli as his principal soprano on his world tour. She is a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition PR district 2016, where she also received the Angel Ramos Foundation Award and Audience Prize.

Carlton Moe is currently performing as Ubaldo Piangi in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, the longest running show on Broadway. As now is a standardized layout in the other EW 'VOICES' collections, both the soprano and tenor vocal performances are arranged in well thought out groups across the keyboard. (I would recommend a full 88-key MIDI controller to use the key switching and other features) Because of the Play 6 engine and careful programming and sample recording, soprano vocal ranges are from soprano to mezzo-soprano bordering on coloratura while the tenor voices extends down towards the baritone region. Even at the extreme ends of the range, sound quality is great although a little more electronic sounding sometimes depending on contextual usage. There are Sustain, Legato, Combo collections with multiple articulations using either the Mod Wheel or Round Robin programming. You also get Staccato--32 vocal instruments with a variety of short, single syllables. The Legato vocal instruments playback true legato intervals up/down an octave and there are both Ah Legato and Oh Legato for both tenor and soprano.

EastWest VOICES OF OPERA Interface

I liked the Words collection with 42 Italian words mapped across the keyboard. The Italian accents have well-executed phonetics and include words: addio, amore, bravissimo, cara, caro, cielo, dolore, donna, ella, fiore, fortuna, forza, gloria, insieme, mai, morte, nobilta, potere, sacro, signore, and vincero. There are 36 full phrases and 84 sub-phrases from popular arias. There are 43 phrases and sub-phrases for soprano, 40 phrases and sub-phrases for tenor, and then 37 duet phrases and sub-phrases. Phrases were recorded in multiple keys and sub-phrases; separate parts that make up full phrases, can be switched using the Mod Wheel. Lastly there are 9 vocal instruments that combine multiple articulations and use key switches to activate a desired articulation.

VOICES OF OPERA includes utterances like single syllable vowels: Ah, Ee, Eh, Oh, Oo and for both soprano and tenor: Bra, Cher, Ci, Don, Fa, Goh, Joh, Ki, Kon, Lu, Na, Oo, Prey, Ra, Te, Toh, Voh.

I'm excited to hear what music composers and Pop music producers do with this collection of classic Italian opera vocalizations and timbres in modern productions! Bravissimo a tutti, fatto bene EastWest!

VOICES OF OPERA is available for purchase for $199 and as a free addition for all subscribers of EastWest's Composer Cloud.