MusicRadar Verdict
Although a tad (not as much as you might assume) hemmed in by its short range of articulations, Aeris sounds gorgeous and takes you to places far beyond the conventionally choral.
Pros
- +
Superb sounds.
Cons
- -
Very few.
MusicRadar's got your back
Weighing in at 9GB, Vir2's "hybrid choir designer" comprises three Kontakt instruments: Pads (choose two from 145 choral pad samples), User (load your own into the Aeris engine) and the Performance Patch.
The Performance patch gives you six sections to mix and match - full
male and female choirs and four soloists (SATB) - with the caveat that you can't activate the soloists in either gender without deactivating that gender's choir, and vice versa.
Each section has been recorded in two velocity layers, plus three round-robins for the soloists, singing extended 'Aah's, 'Oh's, 'Ooh's and 'Hmm's, selected using keyswitches.
The active sections can be played stacked or mapped contiguously up the keyboard, in polyphonic or True Legato mode, and shaped using individual envelopes and EQs.
As well as Reverb, Compressor, Delay, Skreamer (distortion) and Spread effects, you also get modulation and sequencing of volume, pan, pitch and filter cutoff.
Computer Music magazine is the world’s best selling publication dedicated solely to making great music with your Mac or PC computer. Each issue it brings its lucky readers the best in cutting-edge tutorials, need-to-know, expert software reviews and even all the tools you actually need to make great music today, courtesy of our legendary CM Plugin Suite.

“Everything about who you believe he is is in this movie. You get to bathe in his genius, and yet you also have to confront his humanity”: The director of Netflix’s cancelled Prince documentary speaks out

Is it time to ditch your chilled-out, 'deep focus' playlists? if you want to get down to work, you might need something 'groovier', suggests new research

“These lot aren’t ready”: Is this music's hottest hook-up? Has Damon Albarn got Noel Gallagher and Paul McCartney in the studio on a new Gorillaz collab?