best 'choir' patches?

[V301H]

The best synthesised analog choir I've ever heard is a factory patch on the Oberheim Xpander/Matrix 12. It sounds so much like a sample but without the transpose and loop point artifacts. That patch alone sealed the deal for me on purchasing the Matrix 12.

[madtheory]

The Casio VZ choir sounds even better than that M12 preset...

[pocklefo]

The Roland U220 choirs are quite nice

[Fatbenelton]

Can't believe nobody has mentioned the Roland D50..........or maybe it's just me?? Anyway, some great choir patches including the awesome 'Star Trek Voices' on ROM card 4.........Sure there are also some cheesy, cliched, overused tones in the D50 but there are some real nice voice/choir patches too.

[garranimal]

If you're going to mention the D-50, I'll have to throw the wavestation hat into the ring (as alan partridge mentioned). These old digitals have some classic choir action not to be missed.

[Cybercardinal]

The best synthesised analog choir I've ever heard is a factory patch on the Oberheim Xpander/Matrix 12. It sounds so much like a sample but without the transpose and loop point artifacts. That patch alone sealed the deal for me on purchasing the Matrix 12.

Demo please

[nvining]

The best synthesised analog choir I've ever heard is a factory patch on the Oberheim Xpander/Matrix 12. It sounds so much like a sample but without the transpose and loop point artifacts. That patch alone sealed the deal for me on purchasing the Matrix 12.

Demo please

I can record one, but I have to actually get the original patches on the Matrix-12 again via SysEx. So this means finding my one, and only, MIDI cable. Give me a couple of hours.

(Does anybody know which patch it is?)

[V301H]

The Matrix 12 choir sound is called "2001". It may have a different name on the Xpander and some Matrix 12's seem to have a somewhat different factory patch set which may not have this sound.

I first heard the Matrix 12 in the Oberheim room at winter NAMM 1984. I recorded the demonstration on my Walkman Pro and listened to it many times afterward. Sampling was still very expensive at the time and that choir sound seemed so amazing coming from a Synth. In December 1984 I checked out the Matrix 12 at Synthony Music in Scottsdale, AZ. Upon hearing the choir sound again in person I immediately placed my order.

[nvining]

I had to create a Soundcloud for this. Anyhow, here's some lousy recordings, complete with occasional clipping. Everything is recorded directly into Reaper, via the RME Babyface. None of these things are intended as musical statements, although I think a few familiar snippets of things may have creeped into the demos.



This is the "2001" preset on the Matrix-12. The Matrix-12 has also been on the fritz today, and doing odd things; I remember this patch sounding better when I was playing it yesterday, but I don't know how much of that is psychological.

I use the Rhodes Chroma as my master controller, so at various points while recording this I kicked it into LINK UNISON MODE which has the effect of automatically doubling patches on the Matrix-12. Naturally, this creates huge choirs very fast.



Patch 45 is one of the Factory Patches, and it sounds (to my ears at least) a lot like the Mellotron choir. I don't know what it is about the Chroma, but mine always has this amazing sound that makes me feel like it might fall over and die at any minute. Patch 45 is a good example of that.


Patch 36 is from the "Cool Blue" library, which comes with the Rhodes CC+ upgrade. The release envelope was set to something absolutely ridiculous, like Seven Thousand Years, so I turned it down. You can still hear that it is, basically, so large and massive to be unfit for use musically. You can also hear that at the upper end of the keyboard, the LFO gets to be a bit too rapid and you hear some motor-boating.

Discuss! As always, this would probably all sound better with a recording made by a guy who knew what he was doing, and at the very least some reverb.

[JJQ]

Could you write down the 2001 patch?

I dont have any midi device....

[nvining]

Could you write down the 2001 patch?

I dont have any midi device....

Uh. I can try, but that might be a *lot* of information. (I don't know what the modulation routings are like.)

Entertainingly, most of the magic in the patch is probably due to the 3P+1 filter mode which it uses. In fact, a great deal of the magic in the Matrix-12 is due to that filter mode.