Dominus - The Samples

It is fairly easy to say that Dominus has over 20,000 samples and they weigh in at 28 gigs compressed (30 gigs disk space). I can tell you that every other note is sampled with two velocity layers for syllables and the vowels have heavily sample legato with 320 samples for each vowel along with groups for after legato and release samples. I can note 4 mic positions and 24/48 samples. All these can be mathed and we generally know that more is better.

What is hard to express is HOW an instrument sounds. What is its tone? Across the years I've come up with two questions about tone. Does the recording sound good? Does the instrument sound good?

Early in the history of sampling the answer to the first was almost always no. Now as we have pushed samples toward very high fidelity the answer tends to be based on the mic setup and the quality of the engineering. Happily Dominus seems to be well miced and well recorded all the way around. I will note that I don't hear quite as much of a difference between the 4 mics as I can in non-vocal instruments.  I've noticed this with other vocal instruments as well. I think this is because of the voice itself and convolution reverb. Turning off the reverb seems to emphasize the difference a bit more. Also the syllables seem a touch crisper on the closer mics.

The answer to the second is more toward personal taste, but often most folks can agree that an instrument just doesn't sound particularly good or that an instruments has a wonderful tone. In this case the instrument(s) is the combined voices of a male and female ensemble and to me they sound lovely. There is a fullness and richness to the choir that I find downright exciting. If I were to go to an Italian cathedral that was known for having a fine choir on a Sunday this is what I might expect to hear.

That leads to a third question I have dared to ask more recently. Could I imagine this to be a real instrument being played live? Are we climbing up the other side of the Uncanny Valley? With convo reverb, somewhat pro level sound interfaces and speakers or headphones along with improved recordings, legato and other developers' tricks it seems like you really can get the illusion of a live performance. Dominus gives me something of that illusion and that is intended as quite a compliment.

In my listening to Fluffy Audio instruments and demos, they seem to be exceptional at tone and legato which is a testament to skill, taste and insanely hard work. I congratulate them on the tone of Dominus as it seems to be as good if not better than any other choir on the market.

Dominus - Overview

Dominus - Legato

Dominus - Latin is a Snap