hardly surprising as most of these efforts, have their origins mainly in Chinese or Japanese pop music. From what I’ve heard of Cantai, it has a long way to go to be useful for sacred classical music (Latin would be an obvious starting point here). EWQL remains the only software with a VST allowing free text in any language and Cantamus is streets ahead of anything else I’ve heard for sacred music via MusicHTML upload.
But naturally, the interest in integrating it into Dorico is much appreciated and I’ll keep an eye on developments. I’m sure it won’t be too long before Cantai or something similar will become the tool of choice for mock-ups of choral music as none of the big sample library developers show any signs of producing competition to the worthy, if flawed, Hollywood and Symphonic Choirs.
According to the website, it includes Latin already.
As for the timbre, I quote, “there will be several choir types, including traditional church or classical choirs, opera choruses, chamber ensembles, children’s choirs, African choirs, and others”. This, though, is not yet ready, I guess.
Glad to see that there are not only classical choral and opera voices, but also jazz and Broadway timbres.
@turingopera Are there plans to add more styles to the cast? I’m thinking of pop and jazz choirs, mainly with creating practising tracks for choral singers in mind. For the time being, one could make do with mixing the choral with the jazz solo voices, but maybe there’s already more on your schedule.
Regarding the jazz solo voices, are their ranges by some way extended, so one could cover all voice groups of a choir? (Thinking of practising tracks, solo voices may even be sufficient for that end.) And is it possible to tweak the vocal modes (in CVT terminology, these would be neutral (with or without audible air), curbing, overdrive and edge) and the attack phase of notes? One of the major weak points of traditional generic choral sounds found in VSTs is their horrendous lack of attack and contour, which usually disqualifies them for anything but pad-like backings. Because of this, I usually use saxophone sounds or similar when creating tracks for my choirs.
It does seem far-fetched, and the lack of any UI (there’s a logo box lol) makes it nearly impossible to prove it’s function. It won’t be long now, and I will be posting a use case video that shows its exact workflow soon as well.
I also purchased Cantai at its half off price. I’m excited about what it shows to be able to do. I’m even more excited now, with the connection they’ve done with Steinberg & Dorico. Cross my fingers it actually is what it says to be.
This is really good news! I’ve been waiting for something like this for years, and now it really seems to be coming true! A big thank you to the people at Dorico, they really are a very dedicated team.
This is absolutely huge. I’m crossing all my little fingers that this can work for choral music – if it does, it’s a complete game-changer for so many of us. Not just for demos, but for rehearsal files, “one-part only” files, etc. etc. Just absolutely huge. Fantastic news.
