Spitfire Audio Mervyn Warren Choir

Spitfire’s collaboration with Mervyn Warren has produced a choral library that’s really very special indeed.

Adding flavour to the vocal library market is Spitfire Audio’s new release Mervyn Warren Choir, named after the five‑time Grammy award‑winning musician, producer and vocal arranger who curated and produced the project, which the literature says aims to capture “the unique timbre and expressive power of an elite Black choir”.

To that end, Mervyn Warren — who has worked with a dazzling range of artists and producers — brought together 20 highly accomplished professional vocalists for the project. The talents of this group were harnessed to create a versatile choral library, suitable for everything from film music composition to pop, jazz, neo‑soul and R&B productions.

Core Techniques

The recordings are divided into three master categories — Full Choir, Soprano & Alto, Tenor & Bass — all featuring near‑identical articulations: long and short versions of vowels (Ah, Oh, Ooh), warm, rich Mmms; percussive Doos; and powerful, soaring Yeahs. Building upon this are pre‑layered presets: Dual Longs and Shorts (two sounds per patch); Stacked Longs and Shorts (three or more sounds combined together); Morphs (transitioning from one vocal technique to another); Legatos; and Aleatoric Hairpins featuring sounds performed with variable dynamics for movement and texture. To round things off, there’s a Body Percussion kit (Hand and Thigh Claps, Stomps, Breaths, Finger Snaps and Chest Beats), and a Long Whispers & Breaths preset that brings a sound‑design element to the mix.

With a download size of 11.5 GB, the library runs in Spitfire’s Ensemble player with main controls that should be familiar to Spitfire users: Expression and Dynamics faders, and knob controls for Vibrato, Reverb and Tightness. In addition, a Morph control knob allows for morphing between articulations. For the Legato patches, the Legato Offset knob can be used to adjust the legato interval.

The Technique Switcher on the main page displays all available articulations for each preset, allowing selection either by keyswitching or simply clicking on the icon. Shift‑clicking lets you use multiple articulations within a patch at the same time. Turn on Adv to access the Advanced section, which provides keyswitch and round robin controls. Each preset contains three mic signals: Close, capturing the direct sound of the vocal; stereo Room mic; and Mix, the default setting, which is a balanced mix of the two mic signals.

Performance

As expected, from developers and creatives with experience as deep as Spitfire and Mervyn Warren’s, the quality of both the performances and sampling is top notch. The library loads and functions smoothly, and selecting presets is as simple as clicking through a list on the left of the window. There is no lag when switching between presets or when multiple instances of the Ensemble player are loaded into the DAW.

Let’s run through the core articulations in terms of the following: dynamics, layering, legato performance and morphing. The sounds have a native dynamic level just by virtue of how they are created, so a closed sound like Mmm is naturally softer and less resonant than a full‑throated Yeah; Ooh is in turn softer and less open than an Oh or Ah. That sounds rather obvious but it is worth noting, because even though the library offers you the ability to combine articulations within a preset, if you play Mmm and Yeah together, the Yeah will drown out the Mmm with no ability for you to control individual volume within the preset. Loading each articulation on its own track is much better for dynamics control. There are no multis on offer but you can work around that by setting up something like a Track Stack in Logic, for example, so that you’re triggering multiple articulations at once while still being able to control the level of each one. The sounds in the Dual and Stacked presets are quite well balanced but for precise control, you’re better off creating your own combos.

Reset On Transport allows you to further control the round robin cycle, ensuring that it triggers the same note each time so that your session doesn’t sound different with every playback.

If you’re happy with the way the samples sound at both ends of the loudness spectrum but the dynamic in the middle feels wanting, a quick tip is to turn on the Close mic signal in addition to the Mix signal to make the sample feel more present and bring it closer. This gives the sound heft without changing its tone, which is what would happen if you tried to turn it up using the Dynamics fader.

While the Full Choir does not offer legato articulations, the Soprano & Alto and Tenor & Bass presets do. To get the sound to your liking, adjust the Legato Offset and Release settings. While I didn’t notice any obvious crossfade glitches in the transition, to my ears, the Mmm legato sounded smoother than the one on the Ah sound straight out of the box. Also note, there is no vibrato control on the legato patches.

All three categories of presets have a dedicated Morph preset where you can crossfade between the long sounds. I tested the transition at varying speeds, going from very fast to super slow, and I’m pleased to note that all morphs sounded equally smooth. I found that adjusting the Tightness parameter adds more control to the sound. (Quick refresher: Tightness controls the start point of the note being played.) When going from a closed sound like Mmm to an open sound like Ah, having tightness at 100 percent sounded smoother to me. When going from Oh to Ah, it sounded wonderful at zero percent tightness and the open sound of the Ah really bloomed as it transitioned. It is very much a personal preference, though, because it depends on what you’re going for.

The samples blend well with everything from spare piano arrangements to full orchestral pieces, without needing too much additional mixing.

Application

It’s interesting to note that while the library is built on a very specific foundation — world‑class Black vocal talent — there is no one specific use case where it works best. Perhaps as a result of decades of these very tones and textures having made their way into a variety of genres, the library seems suitable for multiple styles of composition. How do you choose which patch to use and for what purpose? Interestingly, the patch chooses itself for you because the sounds define the style. For example, Long Ahs and Ohs are perfect for soaring film score pieces; Mmms work well with gospel; Oohs are straight up pop ear candy; and Yeahs invoke power and energy. It’s a fascinating exercise to lay down an instrumental and try out the various articulations over it to see how much the vibe changes depending on the vocal technique. When it’s a good match, the piece feels instantly finished. The samples blend well with everything from spare piano arrangements to full orchestral pieces, without needing too much additional mixing. They also sound great as support for a cappella pieces. The performances allow for understated vocal support as well as powerhouse backing vocals, depending on your need.

Something that may not seem obvious with such a library, but that I’d highly encourage you to try out, is adding effects to the samples; the more unusual, the better. For a bit of fun, I dropped some Soundtoys effects plug‑ins on the patches and it was a treat. With the Outer Space preset in Little Plate, you’re firmly in sci‑fi/horror territory; add a bit of EchoBoy and you can create minimalist scores with just a few notes. Finally, Devil‑Loc’s Touch Of Evil preset brings the voices to the front of the mix with just a hint of fuzz that is more felt than heard.

There’s fun to be had even without effects, by creating your own combination of tracks: combining a Soprano & Alto Aleatoric Hairpin preset with a legato preset and riding the Dynamics fader gives things an instantly surreal vibe as voices rise and fall at random intervals. I don’t know if the makers intended for the library to be manipulated in these ways, but the results are wonderful so it should be fine.

Conclusion

Mervyn Warren Choir is a library of timeless voices suitable for a multitude of uses, and while each voice is special — because everyone is supremely talented — they work together perfectly for a unified gorgeous sound.

At £349$399, it is indeed an expensive library. For comparison, Musical Sampling’s Gospel Choir, with similar (but fewer) vocal techniques, costs $149 (approximately £110). Some might also complain that Mervyn Warren Choir doesn’t contain features that some other vocal choir libraries offer, like more consonants, or word builders, for example. However, the gorgeous tone of the voices combined with the flexibility of creating epic cinematic textures and modern pop accompaniments all in one library is a big plus.

As for the question of whether it’s beginner‑friendly or requires deep knowledge of vocal arrangement... The answer is both. The vocal arranging pros can create stunning SATB arrangements with it, and the newbies can simply use it as a sonic element in the mix. But even if you don’t have much experience with vocal arrangement, don’t let the library’s pedigree intimidate you. Take the spectacular voices it offers and add your own musical fingerprint to them for a truly standout composition.