Dominus Choir

“Dominus” is the latin word that stands for “Lord”. From the contraction of the female “Domina” comes “Donna”, the modern italian word for “Woman”. The same word is attested in old English Law for noble ladies who held a barony in their own right. On the other hand, “Dominoes” is the popular game, born in China, famous for its numbered tiles. Focusing on the ideas of making something both gamish and funny as well as something that is built on traditional church chants and prayers, we created Dominus Choir.

When Fluffyaudio’s adventure began and our first sample library was released, we were already dreaming of how it would have been to sample a vocal ensemble. Five years have passed since My Piano, our first domino tile. Thanks to our collaborators and friends and, moreover, our loyal supporters and fierce critics, we have gained great experience. More than as our second dominoes tile, we like to think of all those people as the vital sap, the pushing energy that helped our dominoes to keep on flowing even when it was going to stop.

When we thought to sample a choir, we had no doubt of who we wanted to conduct it. Mario Lanaro – with whom we had the pleasure of coming across during our years of study at Verona University – had all the qualities we were looking for. With more than just a solid and professional classical training, he is a renowned Choir Conductor, a great Organist, and a Composer of increasing fame. He has the right balance between leadership, authority, shine and sympathy, and the sought-after ability to put people he works with in the right mood to do their best. From one side, we wanted the mechanism to run smooth; on the other, we didn’t want to lose the freshness of the news that makes people more careful and responsive. We achieved this by choosing two choirs that had a long story of previous special commitments with Mario Lanaro – so that they already knew well each other – but that are normally held from different conductors.

Again, we wanted the right location to sample this very special instrument: something that could have been a church, a concert hall and a recording studio at the same time, without being any one of these places. This is why we chose to sample Dominus Choir at Crema, in the wonderful Sala Giardino. Its the very same place we had the pleasure to discover and to appreciate in our “Rinascimento sessions”. We started on the eleventh of July with the Female Vocal Ensemble “La Rose”. Usually conducted by Mrs. Jose Borgo, the girls came sparkling and twinkling in the morning. After an astonishing session, we were almost more confused than pleased. How could the men do such a wonderful work and how would they have sounded compared to those wondrous voices? But we were even more amazed when, after the first day with the male choir – and especially after a rich dinner, without saving wine – they kept on singing perfectly in tune and with the right mood and energy, almost resembling the natural “hellish” prosecution in the low of those angelic voices. It is amazing to notice how differently the same two things could be obtained starting for different perspectives. Just as an example, the girls were almost always waving their hands in their hair, as if they were painting or pulling magical wires, feeling somehow helped in their emission from their gestures. On the contrary, the men of the Vocal Ensemble “Novecento”, usually conducted by Mr. Maurizio Sacquegna, stood like the columns of an ancient Roman church.

One of the things we were more unsure about – even if in our preliminary meetings the Conductors reassured us – was the endurance of the singers. We thought that a voice would tire much more easily and much more quickly than any other instrument. We planned short sessions of recording with many breaks, but luckily, for once, we were wrong. Both “La Rose” and “Novecento” ensemble gave us some very intense feelings of amazement, singing not only during the session, but even just for fun after every lunch and dinner. And since we find that the human voice is one of the most moving instruments, all our meals almost ended up in tears!

Female Vocal Ensemble “La Rose”

Borgo Jose
Carraro Aline
Collareda Simona
Del Santo Chiara
Graziani Elisa
Graziani Nadia
Meda Benedetta
Sartori Anna
Scarabelli Stefania
Tribbia Gloria
Zamberlan Lucia

Official Page: ensemblelarose.it/web/it/

Male Vocal Ensemble “Novecento”

Castello Diego
Corso Fabio
Crestani Michele
Ferro Michele
Micheletti Gianluca
Piccino Nicola
Sacquegna Maurizio
Scalici Gianmarco
Signorini Piermatteo
Simeoni Marco
Stevani Gianmarco
Tosetto Alessandro
Turazza Nicola
Verzin Simone

 Official Page: gvnovecento.it/

“Dominus” in latin means “Lord” or “Master”. This word can be heard in many examples of sacred Christian Music.

Despite its noble origins, the choice of the name “Dominus” was actually inspired by Dominoes, the popular game that dates back to 13th century China and which spread out to Europe five centuries later.

In facts, the way the engine works resembles this ancient game. In Dominoes you connect the different tiles according to their value. Dominus Choir utilizes an engine which intelligently connects the different syllables by the vowels which both precede and follow the consonants.

The vowels are the glue that hold the words together. This system keeps the musicality and the realism of the original sessions intact, but also gives the user complete control over the duration of each part of the words built with the word editor.

In addition to this, Dominus features beautiful true-legato transitions for all the vowels in the library, capable of dealing with movements from the softest to the strongest dynamics, and, an intuitive polylegato engine that simply works as it should.

Important! If you have already purchased Dominus Choir and you want to crossgrade to Dominus Choir Pro, contact us and we will be glad to send you a personal coupon code worth the amount already paid for Dominus Choir!

E.g. If you bought Dominus Choir for its full price at 379 EU\USD, we will subtract that amount to the full price of Dominus Choir Pro: 649 EU\USD – 379 EU\USD = 270 EU\USD. 

Reviews & other media

Written Reviews

Joe Stevens AKA bigcat review

Mark Nowakowski review at CDN

Hispasonic (Spanish Only) review by Iskra