Vocal Generating Plugins
If vocals aren’t your forte, or you don’t have access to a professional singer, these five vocal-generating plugin instruments are here to help.
Vocals are a key part of many styles of contemporary music. Whether they’re being used to provide the key focal point and lyrical content of a track, to add harmony or rhythm, or as an effect or background texture, vocals are a highly versatile and effective music production tool for a variety of applications.
In the past, we’ve covered the best vocal autotune plugins as well as the best vocal mixing plugins, but what about the best vocal-generating plugins? That is, software instruments that contain vocal sounds or generate sounds that resemble vocals. In this article, we’re looking at some of the very best vocal-generating plugins at your disposal.
In This Article
- Bloom Vocal Aether
- Output Exhale
- MNTRA Instruments Kymera
- Big Fish Vintage Vocals
- Ethnic Vocal Phrases
Excite Audio: Bloom Vocal Aether – £59.00
Best plugin instrument for sequencing vocal phrases and patterns
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Price: |
£59.00 (Buy now) |
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Platforms: |
Windows and Mac |
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Type: |
Virtual Instrument |
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Format: |
AU, VST2, VST3, AAX, Standalone |
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Features: |
5 inbuilt FX, integrated Phrase Player sequencer, 14 banks of assignable vocals, Main page for simplicity, Edit page for advanced sample editing, over 250 factory presets |
Bloom Vocal Aether from Excite Audio is a virtual instrument that puts a huge library of captivating vocals at your fingertips. It comes packed with eight banks of high-fidelity vocal snippets, chops and phrases that can be applied to your productions however you see fit.
Once you’ve set your project key, you can select a preset or bank of samples and begin triggering them using the white keys along your keyboard. The black keys can be used to alter the sonic properties of the instrument.
The main page lets you quickly get up and running with programming and sequencing vocal samples, while the four macro controls let you instantly tweak the characteristics and processing of the vocal sample being played. Delving further into Bloom Vocal Aether, the Edit page gives you unbridled control of your vocal sampling experience, letting you adjust playback mode, amplitude ADSR, pitching, warping and much more.
Once you’ve dialled in your vocal sample, the advanced Phrase Player lets you sequence your vocals in sync with your project. You can even assign one of the black keys to trigger a vocal sequence of your own creation. Take your vocals even further with a modular FX section containing Reverb, Delay, Modulation, Lo-Cut and Hi-Cut filters.
Output: EXHALE – £175.00
Most expansive vocal-generating plugin instrument
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Price: |
£175.00 (Buy now) |
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Platforms: |
Windows and Mac |
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Type: |
Kontakt Instrument |
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Format: |
Runs in Kontakt or Free Kontakt Player |
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Features: |
Over 10GB of raw files across over 500 presets, four editable macros, Engines page for advanced sampling settings |
If not having access to a professional singer has been a problem for you in the past, then EXHALE from Output is the solution. With over 10GB of vocal samples across upwards of 500 presets, EXHALE is a comprehensive vocal instrument with sound quality and playability at its core.
After recording multiple singers and a choir, a team of 25 experienced sound designers developed the expansive bank of vocal presets to bring you the expansive vocal instrument that is EXHALE. During the process, the team at Output used a range of industry-leading sound design practices along with vintage and analogue hardware to achieve a highly musical final product.
EXHALE gives you three self-explanatory sample playback modes: Loops, Notes and Slices, so there’s a setting for you regardless of your production and performance style. The four preset-dependent macro controls on the main page of the interface give you the ability to immediately tweak your vocal instrument, or you can edit the macro controls to create your own custom presets.
For total control over your vocal instrument, you can enter the Engines page which unlocks all of the vast control you’d expect from a sampler instrument. Add modulation with the Rhythm section, Pan or Filter your sound, or apply further processing with the inbuilt effects including Phaser, Talk, Saturate, Dirt, Pitch, Motion and more.
MNTRA Instruments: Kymera – £49.96
Best vocal instrument plugin for horror and otherworldly sounds
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Price: |
£49.96 (Buy now) |
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Platforms: |
Windows and Mac |
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Type: |
Virtual Instrument |
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Format: |
AU, VST, AAX |
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Features: |
Powered by the MNDALA 2 engine, over 30 sample maps and 14 round robins, 6 complex samplers, 3-axis expressive control, custom effects slots |
The team at MNTRA Instruments are known for developing some of the most unique and out-there software plugins that tend to focus on more obscure and even otherworldly instrumentation. Their Kymera plugin is no exception, and aims to offer a solution for those looking for dark, macabre sounds for a range of applications.
Kymera is somewhat of an outlier on this list, in that it’s the only vocal instrument that doesn’t contain human vocal noises. Instead, the plugin contains a range of vocal sound effects from monsters, canines and beyond, as well as other blood-curdling sound effects. Kymera ships with 30 sample maps and 14 round robins that cover everything from monster noises, screams, canine noises and other unpleasant vocal-based sounds.
As with many of their instruments, Kymera is powered by their MNDALA Engine, which will be familiar to anyone who has used a MNTRA Instruments device in the past. The engine features an engaging animated interface that sets the tone of the instrument’s sonics, as well as six complex samplers, three-axis performance controls and a modular effects system. Kymera is well worth checking out for horror film composers or for producers looking to score a Halloween number one.
Big Fish Audio: Vintage Vocals – €236.00
Best vocal-generating plugin for a vintage 60s and 70s vibe
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Price: |
€236.00 (Buy now) |
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Platforms: |
Windows and Mac |
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Type: |
Kontakt Instrument |
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Format: |
AU, VST, Kontakt and more |
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Features: |
Authentic vintage sound of the 60s and 70s, three distinctive female vocalists plus unison, chord and multi-modes, simple tone shaping controls as well as tape saturation and a choice of reverb circuits |
On the other side of the coin, here is a plugin that can be used for generating much more conventional vocals, particularly within the sphere of Funk, Soul, R&B, and Rock ’n’ Roll. Think classic female ‘Oohs’ and ‘Aahs’ with that authentic vintage twang of the 60s and 70s.
The primary intended purpose of Big Fish Audio’s Vintage Vocals instrument is for adding harmonised background pads, unison lines and accents, although with music production there are no limitations on what you can create with the plugin. There are six main patches, the first of which are of individual female singers. The following three are of the same three voices singing in unison, major and minor chords.
Within each of those patches, you get a number of vocal sounds and articulations which can be selected using the Kontakt Keyswitches denoted by a red marking within Kontakt’s virtual keyboard.
Sonuscore: Ethnic Vocal Phrases – £99.00
Best vocal-generating plugin for Arabic, African, Native American, and Latin music
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Price: |
£99.00 (Buy now) |
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Platforms: |
Windows and Mac |
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Type: |
Kontakt Instrument |
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Format: |
Kontakt (Full Version Only) |
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Features: |
Over 600 highly emotive vocal phrases across 12 themes each recorded in four keys, chromatically playable vocal phrases, inbuilt EQ, delay and reverb |
If you’re looking for a vocal instrument with Arabic, African, Native American and Latin influences, then Ethnic Vocal Phrases by Sonuscore should be at the top of your hit list. Ethnic Vocal Phrases contains a library of highly emotive and expressive vocal recordings that would work as well in a film score as they would in a pop track.
The instrument contains a range of vocal phrases from Egyptian singer-songwriter Hayat Selim, sung in the Classical Arabic (Fusha) language, as well as different tribal languages as reimagined by Hayat. Each language is categorised into a theme, and each theme is recorded in four keys, giving you complete flexibility to incorporate the vocals into your project.
Each theme contains over 15 phrases which are divided into starting, middle and end, so you can program the vocals in the way that is most suitable for your project. In total, Ethnic Vocal Phrases contains eight themes plus four bonus themes which are split across upwards of 600 phrases. You also get inbuilt EQ, Delay and Reverb modules for shaping the tone of your vocals or adding space.
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