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.
“It’s better in every way. The second version took what the first could do and made it five times as useful”: Waleed on Digitakt II, Ableton Live and overcoming creative block
“Why am I using this digital monstrosity when it flies in the face of all my principles that I have acquired over decades?”: Guthrie Govan makes the case for the all-digital guitar rig – it’s all about the F-word
“This is a bass that I fell in love with at a pawnshop and used to play the first Rage record”: Ernie Ball Music Man and Tim Commerford team up for a pair of limited run signature StingRay basses