The Giovani Edition

"The Giovani Edition - Voices of the Young"
Bela D Media invites you to discover an exciting and significant development in the world of sampled voice. The Giovani Edition is the first truly dedicated children’s choir library determined to strike a chord with musicians ranging from the semi-pro to the most seasoned professional.

Bela D Media has faithfully captured the glory of an authentic youth choir complete with 24-bit traditional church ambience. The Giovani Edition effortlessly produces a sincere, natural tonality alive with essential human characteristics.

Enlisting the talents of a professional 32-piece youth choir, the Giovani Edition achieves a sampling first by incorporating both ensemble and chamber sized vocal sections, finally enabling the correct composition of choral parts using a sample library. In addition, Bela D Media is the first to acknowledge and sample a complete girls’ choir.

The Giovani Edition choral groupings include
16 vocalists Boychoir ensemble
16 vocalists Girlchoir ensemble
4 vocalists Boychoir chamber
4 vocalists Girlchoir chamber
 

Systemrequirements

This Product does not include a "Kontakt" player!

A full version of Native Instruments "Kontakt" is required for unlimited functionality!
Please notice: With the free Kontakt Player 4 (or newer) you can play this library in 15 minutes demo/test mode only!

Additionally you have full access to the included WAV or AIF files.

 

System FAQs

Reviews

SOS 11/2005

Bela D Media built their reputation on the excellent Diva solo soprano library, and this new library once again aims for the unique, offering a library purely of children's voices. Girls' and boys' choirs are recorded in 24-bit on separate DVD-ROMs, each having Ensemble sections of sixteen voices and Chamber sections of four voices. Both sections boast sustain, staccato, pads, and so on, and they're packed with controllable articulations such as glottals, using release triggers and crossfades. There are also phrases — from theological 'Agnus Dei' to surreal 'Mary, Mary quite contrary'!

Finally you get a series of patches designed to take advantage of the bundled Vocal Control software. Hooked up to a sequencer, this utility allows for precise manipulation of phrases. A table allows you to construct up to four chained phrases, adjusting the time spent on each syllable and the point at which one phrase switches to the next. Whilst not as comprehensive in terms of phonemes as East
West/Quantum Leap's Symphonic Choirs, it's a far more accessible and user-friendly approach that is surprisingly effective. A built-in
Legato tool strings notes together and slurs up and down as required in a phrase.

So how does it sound? In a word, natural. It's not clinical, it's not hyper-accurate, but it is, above all, moving. Considered use of the close and ambient patches can have shivers running down your spine with a single note. Never have I heard as much emotion from a choir that I wasn't conducting live myself! Whether soaring above an orchestra or blending into the background, the voices exude pathos.

The playable range is restricted, as befits the vocal capabilities of the girls and boys in question, and there's no oversampling or
pitch-shifting at all — the intention was to construct a pure library, not in terms of perfect pitch or harmony, but rather in terms of the
naturalness of the sound. Some users might frown upon hearing one or two singers lagging behind the rest in some of the more poignant
phrases, but as the session conductor was heard to quip, 'If there is a choir who can sing at perfect zero all the time, firstly give me their
number; and secondly you can't afford to sample them!' However, far from being detrimental, this adds to the natural feel of the library.

All this realism will be off-putting for those that want absolute perfection in every note, but if all music were perfect every session muso would already have been replaced by a synthesizer. To pitch-correct every note of a choir would be rather like strictly quantising a jazz drummer — it's just not the done thing! Pardon the paradox, but it's the impurities that make it pure. I can't be the only one thinking this way, as the first production run sold out in four days!

My biggest gripe with The Giovani Edition is that it sounds so good you can't help but cry out for more — namely adult voices. Thankfully, Bela D Media are hard at work on a sister library featuring adult choirs. The two together will be a powerful combination, and now that my appetite has been whetted, I can't wait! 5 STARS"   Review: THE GIOVANI EDITION  Sound on Sound, November 2005
Bela D Media built their reputation on the excellent Diva solo soprano library, and this new library once again aims for the unique, offering a library purely of children's voices. Girls' and boys' choirs are recorded in 24-bit on separate DVD-ROMs, each having Ensemble sections of sixteen voices and Chamber sections of four voices. Both sections boast sustain, staccato, pads, and so on, and they're packed with controllable articulations such as glottals, using release triggers and crossfades. There are also phrases — from theological 'Agnus Dei' to surreal 'Mary, Mary quite contrary'!

Finally you get a series of patches designed to take advantage of the bundled Vocal Control software. Hooked up to a sequencer, this utility allows for precise manipulation of phrases. A table allows you to construct up to four chained phrases, adjusting the time spent on each syllable and the point at which one phrase switches to the next. Whilst not as comprehensive in terms of phonemes as East
West/Quantum Leap's Symphonic Choirs, it's a far more accessible and user-friendly approach that is surprisingly effective. A built-in
Legato tool strings notes together and slurs up and down as required in a phrase.

So how does it sound? In a word, natural. It's not clinical, it's not hyper-accurate, but it is, above all, moving. Considered use of the close and ambient patches can have shivers running down your spine with a single note. Never have I heard as much emotion from a choir that I wasn't conducting live myself! Whether soaring above an orchestra or blending into the background, the voices exude pathos.

The playable range is restricted, as befits the vocal capabilities of the girls and boys in question, and there's no oversampling or
pitch-shifting at all — the intention was to construct a pure library, not in terms of perfect pitch or harmony, but rather in terms of the
naturalness of the sound. Some users might frown upon hearing one or two singers lagging behind the rest in some of the more poignant
phrases, but as the session conductor was heard to quip, 'If there is a choir who can sing at perfect zero all the time, firstly give me their
number; and secondly you can't afford to sample them!' However, far from being detrimental, this adds to the natural feel of the library.

All this realism will be off-putting for those that want absolute perfection in every note, but if all music were perfect every session muso would already have been replaced by a synthesizer. To pitch-correct every note of a choir would be rather like strictly quantising a jazz drummer — it's just not the done thing! Pardon the paradox, but it's the impurities that make it pure. I can't be the only one thinking this way, as the first production run sold out in four days!

My biggest gripe with The Giovani Edition is that it sounds so good you can't help but cry out for more — namely adult voices. Thankfully, Bela D Media are hard at work on a sister library featuring adult choirs. The two together will be a powerful combination, and now that my appetite has been whetted, I can't wait! 5 STARS"