Walkthrough
Breathtaking new extremes
Transcending the boundaries of choral performance, experience the human voice in a completely new light. 245 all-new emotive, dynamic techniques performed by 19 world-class singers, captured at AIR Studios with 11 pristine signals — pushed to breathtaking new extremes in our inspiring Evo Grid and game-changing synth engine.
Curated by Grammy-winning composer and conductor Eric Whitacre, Contrast allows you to build evocative, evolving atmospheres — from visceral human vibrations to otherworldly shimmering beauty — with texture, tone and pitch evolving beneath your fingertips in subtle and dramatic shifts, subject to your own curation. The Evo Grid offers instant inspiration, creating rich, dissonant, multi-layered textures, while our eDNA synth engine transports the organic material into the electronic realm. Recombine techniques to create new hybrid vocal textures, and explore our bespoke range of warps and editable presets — plus a stunning set of bespoke presets from three acclaimed sound artists (Ryan Lott, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Clark), with a sophisticated range of in-built controls and FX.
A living, breathing machine of sonic metamorphosis opening the door to limitless sound design possibilities for any genre or setting — from media composition to contemporary electronic music.
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Listen to Eric Whitacre Contrast
Trailer Music - Homay Schmitz
Row or Fudge - Clark
Shadows in the Mist - Paul Thomson
The Offering Must Be Made - Dan Keen
Vox Automata - Mark Summerell
A new world of choral expression
Contrast transcends choral cliches to offer exciting new creative opportunities, showcasing the human voice as an instrument of boundless innovation, range and emotive power, whilst expanding on the sonic palette of Eric Whitacre Choir.
At the heart of the library are 245 experimental techniques performed by 19 members of the Eric Whitacre Singers (Soprano 5, Alto 5, Tenor 4, Bass 5) recorded with a comprehensive range of mic positions in the stunning acoustics of AIR Studios, home of countless blockbuster scores. Each technique, curated with the awe-inspiring expertise and precision of Eric Whitacre, is presented with two contrasting tones — ‘Light’ and ‘Dark’ — Light created with an open vowel shape, and Dark with a closed vowel shape. This seemingly subtle change creates a completely different tone and timbre. The techniques themselves — aptly named fragments, shards, divergences, murmuring, prisms — have been carefully curated to subtly (and sometimes dramatically) dance and move beneath your fingertips, moving at different intervals and through varying shifts in dynamic, tone, and pitch.
Scale Mode & Evo Grid Technology
On our Fragments techniques, which move in varying intervals, our Scale Mode technology allows you to select from any of the seven diatonic modes, or build your own scale. From there, it intelligently selects the samples that conform to that scale, split by velocity, developing these intervallic techniques and triggering wider intervals at higher velocities. All techniques can also be recombined and layered in our stunning Evo Grid, mappable across the keyboard in endless combinations, either manually or in pre-made configurations of rich, evolving textures. Click ‘Feeling Lucky’ to randomise these combinations for instant inspiration, breathing new life into your music.
Pushed to breathtaking extremes
The eDNA synth engine moves these stunning choral performances into the electronic sphere to create rich, multi-tonal synth textures that haunt and glisten, offering limitless inspiration whether you’re a pop producer, beat maker, sound designer, or composer writing your next sci-fi, horror or game score.
Harnessing sophisticated technology and innovative processing techniques, it features 24 warps and 92 synth presets created from the organic material, as well as a huge range of in-built controls and FX for maximum creative control and endless sound design possibilities within the plugin. The synth engine also features bespoke presets from three outstanding guest sound artists — Oscar-nominated composer Ryan Lott (Son Lux), Clark, and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith.
The engine contains two sound bays much like a mixer, with individual and independent modulators, control of trim, bend, glide, cloning, tuning, ADSR, LPFs, HPFs and wobbles that modulate pitch, volume and filters. The onboard gate sequencer allows independent gating between these two bays and unified control of amount, shape, speed and length of sequence. These two signals are then unified with a x-fader.
What I love about Contrast is that it feels alive... it offers this emotional cinematic palette that evolves under your fingers, totally different to anything we've done before. Suddenly you can create these genuinely interesting emotional worlds.
Grammy winning composer and conductor Eric Whitacre
Whether you’re looking for instantly usable sounds straight out of the box or wanting to spend hours getting lost in unique sounds, Contrast will deliver exciting, unpredictable colours and textures to your sonic palette.
Discover Eric Whitacre
The Grammy award-winning composer and conductor has had works programmed worldwide, and his ground-breaking Virtual Choirs have united 100,000 singers from more than 145 countries. To date, the Virtual Choirs have registered over 60 million views and have been seen on global TV. Born in Nevada in 1970, Whitacre spent his formative years writing electronica and listening to Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode, then went to study at The Juilliard School, and in Las Vegas and – on a whim – joined a choir. “I thought, that’s the sound that’s been in my heart my whole life. It was a singular moment and it absolutely transformed me.”
His compositions have been widely recorded and his debut album as a conductor on Universal, Light and Gold, featuring the Eric Whitacre Singers, went straight to the top of the charts, earning him a Grammy. His most recent album, Home, is a collaboration with VOCES8 on Universal Decca featuring compositions spanning his thirty-year composition career.
A sought-after guest conductor, Eric has conducted choral and instrumental concerts around the globe, including concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra. In addition to several collaborations with Hollywood composer Hans Zimmer and John Powell, he has worked with British pop icons Laura Mvula, Imogen Heap and Annie Lennox.
His composition for symphony orchestra and chorus, Deep Field, was inspired by the achievements of the Hubble Space Telescope and became the foundation for a collaboration with NASA, the Space Telescope Science Institute and 59 Productions, seen at arts and science festivals across the world. A charismatic speaker, Eric Whitacre has given keynote addresses for many Fortune 500 companies, from Apple and Google to the World Economic Forum in Davos and the United Nations Speaker’s Program. His mainstage talks at the influential TED conference received standing ovations. His first collaboration with Spitfire Audio became an instant bestseller and is used by composers the world over.
Eric Whitacre Choir
Crafted and conducted by the Grammy winner himself, showcasing his elite family of singers. This encyclopaedia of the voice will enrich your compositions.
What's Included
Techniques
Fragments
Over a short length, all singers crescendo from silence to a fixed dynamic, whilst moving in pitch together.
Shorts
Marcato - Singers perform a bright and sharp "Eh!" sound ("Eh" light, "Oh" dark).
Mist Chimes/smoke chimes
Divisi, half of group performs atonal "Ehhh" very breathy, while the other half sustains a soft airy tone over 2-4 beats at 120bpm.
Convergences semitone tone close medium etc etc
Group begins from a microtonal point up to a semitone below or above the target note, crescendo and converge to the target note over two beats, then hold note and fade out.
Divergences
Begin on the target note, then diverge to a microtonal point up to a semitone below or above. Crescendo and portamento over 2 beats, then hold divergence and fade out for two more beats.
Swells
Over 2 different lengths (crotchet, minim, semibreve, 2 bars at 120bpm), all singers swell from silence to a fixed dynamic - to hard stop.
Shards
Over an EVO length (20s), each singer individually ad libs shards (swells from "niente", up to an agreed dynamic, with a hard off).
Shadows
The counterpoint to Shards, altered for a darker, threatening tone.
Crystal
Over an EVO length, each singer individually ad libs crystals ("Tah" with accented vib). Bright and open.
Clouds
The counterpoint to crystals ("Dah"). Dark, menacing.
Chattering
One half singing sustained "Ahh"; the other slow aleatoric "cha, sa, tah" - slow and fast variations.
Murmuring
Divisi — One half singing sustained "Ohh"; the other slow aleatoric "mo, wo, doh" - slow and fast variations.
Held Mist
Divisi — One half singing very quiet "eeee", other semi random "ehhh" very breathy with high/no pitch (atonal) (slower attack on breaths).
Held Smoke
Divisi — One half singing very quiet "mmm", other semi random "ohhh" very breathy with low/no pitch (atonal).
Prism Evos
Over an EVO length, each section sings long sustained divisi. Div 1 individually ad lib moving to 1 semitone above the written note with slight cresc. Div 2 stays at written note, moving slowly between vib and non-vib.
Standard Mode
(Tutti // Soprano // Alto // Tenor // Bass - they all contain the below)
- Light Prism 1 (minor 2nd)
- Dark Prism 2 (minor 2nd)
- Light Prism 3 (Major 2nd)
- Dark Prism 4 (Major 2nd)
- Light Prism 5 (Perfect 4th)
- Dark Prism 6 (Tritone)
- Light Prism 7 (Perfect 5th)
- Dark Prism 8 (minor 6th)
- Light Shards
- Dark Shadows
- Light Crystals
- Dark Clouds
- Light Chattering
- Dark Murmuring
- Held Mist
- Held Smoke
- Eh Marcato
- Mist Chimes
- Oh Marcato
- Smoke Chimes
- Light Convergence Close
- Dark Convergence Close
- Light Convergence Distant
- Dark Convergence Distant
- Light Divergence Close
- Dark Divergence Close
- Light Divergence Distant
- Dark Divergence Distant
- Light Swells Short
- Dark Swells Short
- Light Swells Medium
- Dark Swells Medium
- Light Fragment Up (min 2nd)
- Dark Fragment Up (min 2nd)
- Light Fragment Down (min 2nd)
- Dark Fragment Down (min 2nd)
- Light Fragment Up (Maj 2nd)
- Dark Fragment Up (Maj 2nd)
- Light Fragment Down (Maj 2nd)
- Dark Fragment Down (Maj 2nd)
- Light Fragment Up (min 3rd)
- Dark Fragment Up (min 3rd)
- Light Fragment Down (min 3rd)
- Dark Fragment Down (min 3rd)
eDNA (Warps)
- Dark Pulses
- Dark Vibrations
- Delay Pad (120bpm)
- Elven Horizons
- Elysium
- Eternal Mist
- Ethereal Whispers
- Flutters
- Ghostly Artifacts
- Glitchy Transmission
- Granular Choir
- Hazy
- Heat
- Mechanical Clamour
- Mirrored Dreams (120bpm)
- Misty Moorland
- Neon Mist
- Dissonant Paradise
- Phantom Ship
- Pixies
- Radioactive Mist
- Scattered Delusions
- Solar Glimmer
- Dissonant Chatter
eDNA Tutti
- Light Prism 1 (minor 2nd)
- Dark Prism 2 (minor 2nd)
- Light Prism 3 (Major 2nd)
- Dark Prism 4 (Major 2nd)
- Light Prism 5 (Perfect 4th)
- Dark Prism 6 (Tritone)
- Light Prism 7 (Perfect 5th)
- Dark Prism 8 (minor 6th)
- Light Shards
- Dark Shadows
- Light Crystals
- Dark Clouds
- Light Chattering
- Dark Murmuring
- Held Mist
- Held Smoke
- Eh Marcato
- Mist Chimes
- Oh Marcato
- Smoke Chimes
- Light Convergence Close
- Dark Convergence Close
- Light Convergence Distant
- Dark Convergence Distant
- Light Divergence Close
- Dark Divergence Close
- Light Divergence Distant
- Dark Divergence Distant
- Light Swells Short
- Dark Swells Short
- Light Swells Medium
- Dark Swells Medium
eDNA - Spitfire Audio Presets
- Gates of Rome
- Prometheus
- Mission Discovery
- Stacked Mist
- Splitting the Atom
- Ghost Town
- Basilica
- Subdued Glow
- Voyage Through The Ether
- Static Restlessness
- Chorale Glitches
- Heaven's Choir
- Sinister Machine
- Cosmic Dust
- Amalasuntha
- Ashentown
- Attala
- Cindermourn
- Emberburn
- Flamehelm
- Hilderic
- Ripfall
- Serpenmore
- Shadowbrooke
- One Last Time
- Columbia
- Babbling Wires
- Pilgrims
- Relic Site
- Splinter
- Bermuda Triangle
- Night Drive
- Waves
- Razor
- Forest Winds
- Lone Pine
- Silent Mountain
- Sound of Jura
- White Stag
- Sheet Lightning
- Il Colosseo
- Labyrinth
- Deep Water
- Sleeping Warrior
eDNA - Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith
- Creature
- Crickets
- Raises
- Rolls
- Moving Water
- Soft Fallen
- Cicadas
- Long Wonder
- Roots
- Mint
- Together
- Mouth
- Organ
- Waver
- Community
- Low Light
eDNA - Clark
- Afters with Ltj Bukem 165 bpm
- Dry and Hopeful Minor Seconds
- Foley Craving Bliss
- Infinite Hungry Ghosts
- Ligeti's Broken Nagra
- Malevolent Heptapod
- Mud for Chimes to Float Above
- Muted Anthem
- Portal In Your Kitchen
- Robocop Alert
- Panning Dysfunction
- She Disappeared
- The Centre Fades
- Thirsty Heptapod
- Too Much Grit For Incense Sticks
- Trippp Pad Stab
- Semi Semi Tone Bubbles
eDNA - Ryan Lott
- Bog Whispers
- Cicada Swarm Heave
- Consulting Spirits
- Diced Light
- Dust To Dust
- Glass Tree Frogs
- Hovering Phantoms
- Metrists
- Mod Gusts
- Moth Wing
- Murmuration Atoms
- Myth Particulate
- Prayer Motor
- Sand Moths
- Unaligned
Evo Grid
(Tutti // Soprano // Alto // Tenor // Bass - they all contain the below)
- Light Prism 1 (minor 2nd)
- Light Prism 3 (Major 2nd)
- Light Prism 5 (Perfect 4th)
- Light Prism 7 (Perfect 5th)
- Dark Prism 2 (minor 2nd)
- Dark Prism 4 (Major 2nd)
- Dark Prism 6 (Tritone)
- Dark Prism 7 (minor 6th)
- Light Shards
- Light Crystals
- Light Chattering
- Held Mist
- Dark Shadows
- Dark Clouds
- Dark Murmuring
- Held Smoke
Mics & mixes
Mixes
- Med - A combination of close and room microphones, to give a balanced sound
- Big - A full, broad balance of the various microphone positions on a single fader
- Small - A close, intimate mix with only a hint of the room reverb, all on a single fader
Signals
Close - This is a selection of close mics, artfully balanced down to a single fader for simplicity. Use to get the closest sound of the instruments.
Tree - Situated above the conductor's head, this gives a great representation of the sound. Use as a basis to add other signals to.
Outrigger - Similar amount of room to the tree, but with added width. Use it with the tree for a great room sound.
Mid - A middle distance sound placed between the tree and the close mics. Great for a balance of direct signal and room in a single signal.
Ambient - Up in the gods! This gives the most amount of room, Great to add ambience into a mix, or even pop it into surrounds if you’re in 5.1
Gallery - The furthest distance microphone set. Use them to add some slap to your mix, or as your main pair for an ambient experience.
Wide Stereo - A wide stereo mix (only present in the Individual Sections)
Sopranos - All the Soprano close signals on one fader. Useful to highlight this specific section in the mix
Altos - All the Alto close signals on one fader. Useful to highlight this specific section in the mix
Tenors - All the Tenor close signals on one fader. Useful to highlight this specific section in the mix
Basses - All the Bass close signals on one fader. Useful to highlight this specific section in the mix
FAQs
Does Eric Whitacre Contrast contain samples from the original Eric Whitacre Choir?
No, all content in Eric Whitacre Contrast is unique to this library, there is no content from previous libraries.
Do Eric Whitacre Contrast and Eric Whitacre Choir share a plugin (like Abbey Road Orchestra, BBCSO and LABS)?
No, Eric Whitacre Contrast and Eric Whitacre Choir each have their own plugin and are loaded separately.
Does the library tempo sync to my daw?
Only specific patches/articulations will sync to your DAW's tempo. The following articulations will be tempo synced:
- Swells
- Convergences and Divergences
- Fragments