Hadziha - a West African choir by Karoryfer Samples

[DSmolken]

https://shop.karoryfer.com/hadziha

This has been in the works for more than a year - most of that time spent on things like recruiting singers, recruiting new singers after one moved to Togo, planning recording sessions, and waiting for a guy in New York to get vaccinated. Once the samples were recorded, it took about two months to turn them into a working virtual choir. Definitely worth it, though. This is the total opposite of big Hollywood choirs recorded in epic spaces - small and full of character.

Six singers singing six vowels plus ten playable phrases in Ewe and Ashanti, plus five extra singers for the vowels. We include information about what each phrase means, so you won't be stuck worrying that you have no idea what the choir is singing.

Walkthrough:

https://youtu.be/YrCNxcQuYds

$19 intro price until Orctober 18th, $39 regular price.

[Obsolete236871]

Interesting. Could you tell a bit more about the context of the recordings of the singers voices? For example, who recorded it and were the singers properly compensated for their work, since (even though inexpensive) this seems to be a commercial product? I cannot find that much information on the product page.

[DSmolken]

Haha, where were you two months ago when I released a cello library that the cellist wasn't paid a single penny to record? OK, I did pay her later, but being friends, she didn't want to take any money from me to record until I could prove that yeah, people are going to buy this.

Like the walkthrough says, though, Pj Daauthor, aka Percy Bansah, found the singers and recorded them and did a lot of other stuff for this. He's a rapper from Ghana who also recorded the drums for one of our freebies, and edited the samples for Unruly Drums. I could put that info on the page if it would make the whole thing seem less random.

The whole thing was actually inspired by a post on another forum where somebody was complaining that he had no idea what the lyrics he was making a choir sing might mean, and whether they might be offensive or just plain goofy. I went "hey, I should ask the guy who recorded those drums if he knows any singers..." and about a year and a half later, here we are. I pretty much said "record sustained vowels and a few phrases of a few syllables that y'all think sound cool and will be useful". I figured they know that better than I do, and I'll stick to the technical stuff. So far we're both in the hole and the singers are the ones who have made all the money, and I'm not putting that info on the page, ha.

[Obsolete236871]

Haha, thanks for the response. I'm a fan of your libraries since the Karyofer Double Bass, but I missed that story about your Cellist friend. You definitely create libraries that are very unique sounding, which I appreciate.

The choir sounds great in your walkthrough video and I hope you understand my curiosity about the "behind the scenes" stuff, since this is not an everyday sound library. I don't know how aware you are of the history of recorded music and the music industry in general on the African continent, but in the past often African creators and artists were often not properly compensated by corporations distributing and selling their creations.

One of the most famous examples: the "Lion Sleeps Tonight" song, which was originally composed by a Black South African composer. The song was stolen (without giving due credit or asking for permission) and then released in the Western hemisphere with adapted lyrics and instrumentation by various interprets. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... ht-108274/

[AnX]

is this a kontakt library?

[lfm]

is this a kontakt library?

According to this they use a SFZ compatible sample player
https://www.karoryfer.com/karoryfer-samples

This is what they use
https://www.plogue.com/products/sforzando.html

Or that WAV-files can be loaded into sampler of choice. Some work then probably first time you do it.

[AnX]

thanks

[lfm]

The guy that created SFZ once upon a time, later were hired by Cakewalk to create Dimension(Pro) and Rapture 2.0 etc - so these sample readers also do SFZ as I recall, if more familiar with those products.

SFZ is basically a text file with reference to sample files on disk, and some parameters like which midi root note to load on etc.

[AnX]

I'm very familiar with sfz and rene, it's just it was specified in the OP. Things like this come up quite often, and on closer inspection are for kontakt only (no good for me) so was just asking for clarification

[DSmolken]

Haha, thanks for the response. I'm a fan of your libraries since the Karyofer Double Bass, but I missed that story about your Cellist friend.

I didn't post that one before - now that I did eventually talk her into letting me pay her, it's got a happy ending.

The choir sounds great in your walkthrough video and I hope you understand my curiosity about the "behind the scenes" stuff, since this is not an everyday sound library. I don't know how aware you are of the history of recorded music and the music industry in general on the African continent, but in the past often African creators and artists were often not properly compensated by corporations distributing and selling their creations.

Yeah, I know people are gonna be more sensitive around any ethnic library in general, so it makes sense to give more background here instead of just talking about technical specs and sound. That, and I have been known to loudly brag about spending $26 to make Secret Agent Guitar, so I'm known to be cheap with hardware. I don't try to be cheap with humans, though, because I do want to work with them later long-term. If this sells well enough, we might make a second volume with guys, or more phrases with the girls. And definitely include a phrase with a lion in it somewhere... It's "gyata" in Ewe.

The guy that created SFZ once upon a time, later were hired by Cakewalk to create Dimension(Pro) and Rapture 2.0 etc - so these sample readers also do SFZ as I recall, if more familiar with those products.

SFZ is basically a text file with reference to sample files on disk, and some parameters like which midi root note to load on etc.

Yup. It would take quite a bit of easy but time-consuming copy-pasting to make this work in older SFZ players, if that matters to anyone, mostly because I used a lot of #include and <master> to keep the files organized, but LinuxSampler supposedly has those and might only require redoing the dynamics control and giving up on having the graphics.

The WAV files will also be useful for someone who wants to load a couple of shouts into an MPC or other hardware sampler for live hip-hop gigs etc.

[Spitfire31]

Instant, no-brainer purchase! Oodles of wonderful character and it brings happy memories from my years in Uganda (recording church choirs, inter alia) and a couple of months in Senegal and Niger.

Your walkthrough video is great entertainment in itself – not least that part about the girls dissolving into giggles…

Kind regards,

Joachim

[DSmolken]

Thanks! If it triggers memories, then we must have gotten something right. How do you like it, now that you've gotten your hands on it?

[dark water]

Very interesting and well recorded.
Congratulations on this nice project.

(If you were ever tempted to do a sample library of a Welsh male voice choir then I think you'd be onto another winner also, as there's definitely a gap in the market for such a well-loved style).

[Spitfire31]

Now that I've put a couple of hours into exploring Hadziha, the word that probably best describes the experience is – inspiring!

Hadziha is so far from any other choir lib that I've heard or tested. They're all slick and polished with perfectionist intonation – Hadziha is the opposite. You can really feel that here are six upbeat young ladies, who may be slightly unpolished diamonds but who naturally love to sing.

Also, Hadziha is surprisingly (?) playable. It's easy to build convincing (though incomprehensible) words on the fly, using the key switches; also sustaining one syllable, hitting another key switch and have voices join in with another syllable. In short, once I've practised a bit more, I'll be able to add a natural and spontaneous sounding girl ensemble to just about any song that needs spicing up.

One nitpick, though. I'd have loved to have some of that giggling as an extra effect!

Kind regards,

Joachim

[DSmolken]

(If you were ever tempted to do a sample library of a Welsh male voice choir then I think you'd be onto another winner also, as there's definitely a gap in the market for such a well-loved style).

I do have some bigger ideas about how virtual choirs should work, and sales of this are certainly making it more tempting to do more simple ethnic choirs in the future, though I'll admit the closest thing to a Welsh male choir I've ever heard is Goldie Lookin Chain.

Now that I've put a couple of hours into exploring Hadziha, the word that probably best describes the experience is – inspiring!

Wow, thanks, we'll make sure the girls see your comments too.

I think the decades I've spent playing bass for amateur church choirs has helped a lot here, because I have a pretty good idea of what "not professional singers who worked hard on this and are doing a good job by their standards" sound like, and what is too much imperfection for its own good. Same with the cello with all the harsh bowing techniques - I've done that kind of stuff a lot, and have a good feel for the right amount of crazy to still be musical.

And funny how not having the syllables advance automatically turned out to have the big advantage of letting a previous syllable sustain and already switching to another. It can make notes connect smoother, and also build up stacks of different syllables easily - a tester who's usually a Vocaloid user and therefore used to totally different workflow, also liked that unintended feature.

Should have a very nice demo soon, too.