Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 4/5 Stars
If seeing ‘ASMR’ takes you back to the pandemic when the phenomenon — excuse the pun — became an Internet sensation, you needn’t worry. This new release from award‑winning composer Max Richter’s SRM Sounds is a far cry from the heavy‑whispering, lip‑smacking, tingle‑triggering trend that exploded on social media, dividing listeners strongly into one group that found it incredibly relaxing and another that furiously hit the dislike button. Things were tricky in that era. In the context of ASMR Choir, it simply refers to vocals and strings that get the close mic treatment, resulting in a collection described by the creators as “the musical equivalent of someone whispering in your ear”.
The library consists of four instruments: Choir (sopranos who specialise in Renaissance music); Strings (solo violin and cello); Choir + Strings (recorded together in the same space for added texture); Vocoder (selection of choir and string recordings put through hardware and software effects — with a focus on analogue vocoders — and re‑amped back into the live room at Studio Richter Mahr).
The result is the exact opposite of a general‑purpose choir library. Instead, across articulations like soft hums, operatic sirens, vibrato swells, flautando and more, you have choral and instrument textures well suited for layering into compositions. The voices are absolutely exquisite, with clear delivery and minimal vibrato, perfect for melodic colour and smooth blends with other instruments. What’s interesting is that they’re not restricted to pure, delicate sounds. A healthy dose of quirk runs free among the articulations, demonstrating just how multi‑faceted and complex the human voice can be.
The Sounds
While the sounds themselves are distinctive and not exactly what you would consider basic raw material, the library does offer a set of tools to manipulate the samples. A Dynamics knob linked to CC1 gives “a gentle boost with a wide Q to 3.5kHz”; a CC11‑linked Expression slider controls volume; and a basic ADSR envelope, along with filter, saturation, and reverb effects, rounds things out.
From the user’s point of view, the library supports a workflow built around creative constraints. Phrases and movement are often baked in, playable range varies across patches, sounds come layered with other sounds... you get the idea. You can control colour, tone, shape and dynamics with the ADSR envelope and effects, but you’re working within a very specific box that leans away from an all‑purpose sound and towards a more distinctive, statement piece. It’s an exciting toolbox to explore, especially to flex your more experimental muscles.
One minor quibble — having descriptors for the Mix knobs would have been useful. Currently all the UI has are knobs labelled Mix 1, Mix 2 and Mix 3, which stand for Close, Mid and Far for the first three instruments, and Direct, Room 1 and Room 2 for the Vocoder patches. These terms mean different things for different instruments: for the Choir instrument, Close refers to ‘small diaphragm condensers and vintage ribbon’; for Strings, it’s ‘large diaphragm condensers and vintage ribbon’; for Vocoder, Mix 1 is the direct sound from the control room. Once you learn the instrument, it will become second nature, of course, but in the beginning, a simple description that appears upon mouseover would be helpful. I guess the idea is to use your ears and go with ‘feel’ as opposed to choosing by label.
Also, from what I can tell, there isn’t a trial/demo version available, which is a pity because for a library that has such a strong character, it would be useful to get to know it better to help understand how it could work with your composing style.
ASMR Choir is a distinctive library of beautiful sounds, recorded and processed with a specific artistic point of view.
Overall, ASMR Choir is a distinctive library of beautiful sounds, recorded and processed with a specific artistic point of view. If you’re trying to break through the clutter, a sound from this collection would be a good tool to reach for.