Eastwest Choirs/Wordbuilder

Big discovery. The Hollywood Choirs works! I’m on the subscription, so I downloaded the Hollywood Choirs and voila. However, I’m still not happy. The voices in the Symphonic Choir have greater ranges (which I need), and I think more appropriate sound for what I’m writing. There’s got to be a fixable reason that one works and the other doesn’t.

Okay…Interesting…Maybe that’s it. I’m presuming that dko22 is using Hollywood Choirs also, but that is not confirmed yet. You’d imagine that it is the PLAY VST that is the crucial element, and yet we’re all using the same version, so it is certainly strange that the newer library works, but that the older one does not. I really have no idea…Someone like Paul would have to look into it…the original Symphonic Choirs Library is part of the cloud subscription they offer so maybe he can get access.

Just to update here – firstly, I am using Symphonic Choirs and not Hollywood

Secondly, I’m on PLAY v5.0.6 because v.6 which was designed especially for the Hollywood Choirs has (or had) some issue with note lengths and repetitions in Symphonic Choirs, the details of which I unfortunately cannot any more exactly remember. It is unlikely it is relevant to this problem and later PLAY 6 updates may have fixed it but on the other hand, it can’t be ruled out the latest Play version has some issues with Dorico in SC.

I looked into HC and decided it was not for me, coming to a similar conclusion to ghilton. The fact that it seems to work when clicking on successive notes (as it does in mine) but not when you press play, is so far beyond me. Do any of you still have another notation software installed to compare against?

Quick update: I have uninstalled PLAY v.6 and have downloaded PLAY v.5.01 from here: Download Play by East West

i hope it’s okay to post this link. In any case, it now works! The problem was PLAY v.6. There are PC and Mac versions of PLAY v.5 so ghilton, you should be able to get it working now.

Many thanks to dko22 for helping to find this solution.

Yes, thank you dko22. Strange how progress can become regress.

This makes me dream of a day that Steinberg announces a WordBuilder / VST integrated into Dorico/Cubase. :sunglasses:

1 Like

one can but dream…

I’ve updated an older thread with this new info

From that, it is clear that the problem already existed in v3 of Dorico.

As others, a thrashed about for several hours trying to get Wordbuilder to play. Per advice below, I uninstalled EW Play 6 and installed Play 5.0.1, and voila, it works. Setup is Mac High Sierra, Dorico 3.5, and EW Synphonic choirs.

1 Like

I have Hollywood Choirs, which is an improved version of Symphonic Choirs, but it uses the same ‘under the hood’ technology: after loading a multi into Play, when Play receives midi information, it automatically picks one out of seven instruments loaded (the alphabet is split up over seven different instruments.

I can get it to work with Play 6 (windows 7 computer), using 4 instances of Play for a SATB score (you have to use separate Play instances for each voice, and use the pre-programmed multis).

Here is the thing: when I press the play button in Dorico, all the midi only goes to a specific channel (channel 3 for the first instance of Play, channel 2 for the second instance of Play). By contrast, if I play on my midi keyboard, or if I click on individual notes on a staff, Play works properly: it automatically picks the correct channel for the correct syllable.

I’m not that good with how the Dorico play engine works, do I have to set up something special?

Thanks!

If you read all the other posts in this thread you will see that PLAY v.6 does not work correctly. We have all experienced the same problems…You have to go back to a PLAY version 5. I am using 5.01 on a Mac and others 5.06 on PC I think…At least that is what seems to work for all of us that have been through this already. Try it and see if it helps!

Thanks Grainger2001.

Play 6 works great for me in all other programs, notably Reaper, I am not eager to go back to a previous version just for Dorico. I hope this will get resolved at some point.

1 Like

I note that Symphonic Choirs is currently discounted to $159. Worth a punt?

Ooh: Can anoyone talk me through the iLok nonsense? Can I install it on 2 computers without a dongle, or do I have to buy 2 copies?

I bought Soundiron’s Requiem Light, but it’s woefully flat (err… “highly authentic”) and I hate Kontakt.

1 Like

iLok - you have to buy two copies or sneaker net the dongle.

I have EW Choirs which I’ll be using soon, this is a useful thread. I can’t downgrade Play (too many bug fixes in that buggy AU) so I’ll have to wait for better synchronization. Which I need anyhow for other reasons (MIDI tempo).

Well, I’ve bought it … aaaand it doesn’t work. I’ve filed a support ticket. Yet another product for which I have to register an account (actually, two!), and download a downloader app.

The Play VST seems very flaky. (No standalone app?) There’s also terrible scooping on the front of every note, and if I turn on legato, it can’t handle two notes at the same time.

I don’t like Symphonic Choirs much but it’s one of very few that sings text properly in ANY language (though it’s better at English and Latin) so for me it’s essential. Certainly worth $159 if you want the Wordbuilder. Incidentally, I don’t entirely agree with the earlier post that Hollywood Choirs is better – less buggy maybe but not an overall better sound, just different. The library works better with Dorico than Sibelius on my system at any rate – hardly any of the exasperating text synch issues with tempi changes. Perhaps a new version of PLAY will become Dorico compatible but for the time being, it has to be 5.

1 Like

EastWest was my first sample vendor. Bought a ton of stuff, and became disillusioned. A Play crash on large scores they never resolved. The library is more pop oriented than classical (I mean it’s silly to have all those dumb plugins like compression embedded in the VI), and a kind of lack of simplicity and coherency to the library. Plus it’s a really dry library so doesn’t sound good out of the box.

Once BBCSO came out I switched and am much happier, it’s a very ‘tight’ and clean, bug and noise free, and I like that they did it in a big hall with a bit of natural reverb. Makes it easy to work with out of the box (but it doesn’t have that crazy stupid Air reverb!). I’m looking forward to a full pro orchestra out of Abby Road now that they’re working there.

I still use a lot of useful EastWest stuff, percussion, vocals, world instruments and the Pop Brass.

Have seen a number of choral “word builder” programs mentions. What do people do for solo voices. VOCALOID 5 is a Yamaha product, but limited, perhaps better for Asian languages than for English.

I’ve used EW products and Play for over a decade and never had any major issues, the Play engine is very stable for me. I do agree that their VSTs are inconsistent across the board in that e.g. expression sometimes controls dynamics, sometimes expression (vibrato). I have a chart of the major controls.

They use iLok copyright protection, but you don’t have to buy the dongle if you don’t want … you can activate the license on a computer. If you go back and forth between two computers this is a bit tedious to do every time, I would recommend using the dongle. The current generation is pretty small and inconspicuous (which also makes it easy to lose, for some people). Unlike the Dorico license which once moved to the dongle stays there, you can move the EW license from the iLok dongle back to a computer.

Wordbuilder is a unique program which allows you to have a choir sing whatever you want them to sing, in English / Latin / German, which is very cool. The disadvantage is that you won’t mistake it for a real choir, some consonants and vowels sound pretty fake even with lots of tweaks. It helps if you try to learn the ‘votox’ language to program WB, and mitigate your expectations. They use the same technology in “voices of soul”, which is three pop style vocalists. The ‘fakeness factor’ is more apparent there. The human voice is just super difficult to emulate realistically. I had Yamaha’s Vocaloid years ago … and that was pretty bad imo.

Play 5.01 and 5.06 both don’t work for me. And in different ways!
5.06 is the most stable, but I’m getting intermittent sounds and random syllables that don’t seem to be what I typed. (even allowing for the software’s approximation.)
v5 doesn’t show in Logic, but v6 does work in Logic, so I have to choose where I want to do my syllable work.

Bit disappointing, really.