Review: Vocal Lyrical Phrases Library by Sonuscore

Sonuscore is, of course, a name most of you will be familiar with, especially from libraries like “Action Strings” or “Action Strikes”, but Vocal Lyrical Phrases is the first voice base NI Kontakt libraries I’ve seen from them, and so I was naturally curious. So let’s dive in!

What it is?

As we can clearly see from the name, this is a phrase based library. Not surprising since those of you who’ve been around for a while will know, this is certainly one of Sonuscores strong sides.

Phrase-based libraries that remain very playable is also what I have them pinned under. And as this is a vocal library there is obviously a voice.

Only, in this case, it is not just any voice, but Conny Kollet. If you are a gamer you might have heard her before in titles like “Spell Force”, “Total War – Warhammer” or “The Elder Scrolls Online”.

So this gives you also a bit of an Idea of the character the voice in this library has.

In “Vocal- Lyrical Phrases” Conny sings a very broad selection of phrases within several tonal fields and in quite a big range, still remaining in the lyrical-fantastic realm, broadly speaking.

The phrases are categorized into several sections and laid out on the keyboard in 3 groups, in which each note within an octave corresponds to a beginning phrase, a middle part, and an ending.

What’s inside

What we actually find when we load up the library is a little over 300 recorded phrases, sorted into 17 Themes.

Extremely notable is though, that every phrase is playable in all 12 notes of an octave, and that the guys at Sonuscore took the time to record those phrases separately so that no selected phrase will be pitch-shifted more than one semitone up or down.

This is something I very much appreciate, especially considering how noticeable pitch shift is particularly in vocals.

Overall we find a total of 6 Languages if we include the “Spoken” themes. Oh yeah, and there is “Spoken” themes, which for this genre I find extremely appropriate.

So we get Elvish, Ethnic, Medieval, Witch (self-creation), Latin and Italian, as well as some themes just in pure vowels.

Something else notable is, that in contrast to most other libraries, this one is not recorded on a time grid. So no matter what tempo you track has, the phrases will always be the same.

As an alternative to the usual automatically adjusting tempo, Sonuscore added a “Speed Control”, through which you can manually or via automation control the speed at which the sample is playing back.

Maybe a bit more effort, but at the same time also quite a bit more freedom, over how a phrase is sung and where it is faster or slower.

The Interface

The Interface of “Vocal – Lyrical Phrases” is fairly simple but efficient. The main page consists basically of the theme selector and the “Speed Control”.

A cool little feature is that you can actually select multiple phrases and the control them via key-switches.

On the effects page, we find a basic four-band EQ, a delay unit, and a convolution reverb.

The delay can be tempo synced and the reverb come with 5 custom impulse responses, specifically recorded and crafted for this library.

Bellow the reverb is also the slightly hidden “Mystique” button, which switches a convolution fx chain on and off, creating an atmospheric, slightly echo-y sound.

Conclusion

Overall I see a lot of innovation in this library. Considering the relatively low price point, I’d say it is still a very specific library.

The fact that there is a “Speed Control” and very little pitch shifting add quite a bit of value, mostly because they provide something that is sounding a little different and more “alive”, even when it takes some extra work to get it there.

The wonderfully expressive voice of Conny is obviously where most of the magic of this library is. I would recommend this to everyone using this kind of sound regularly, or if you are going to branch into fantasy, adventure, cinematic sound territory.

Even when you aren’t and you have the cash to spare, I would consider this a very fun addition, with lots of potential to anyone sample collection.

If you, however, look for a more pop/rock kind of sound, this is probably not for you. Then again, times change and we can’t really tell what will be the next big hit single these days.

I’d recommend you check out what it sounds like of at the Sonuscoure website, and maybe give their well-made tutorial video a look.

It’s going to tell you right away if this well made but very specific library is up to your ally.