Best Choir VSTs

Last updated on August 11th, 2022

Want To Jump Straight to the answer? Our choice for the best Choir VST is Hollywood Choirs by EastWest

One of the most beautiful tools for music is the human voice. With a large combination of voices, choirs add a different dynamic and feel to any song they are added to. A person may not have an amazing voice as a solo act but are perfectly fitting in a choir setting. To match the dramatic rises and falls of every song, many artists want to use choirs in some aspect within the track. This idea becomes difficult when you try to record a professional live choir. For one thing, the budget needed to pull this off would need to be larger than what most artists have for a song or an album. Choirs are also fantastic pieces in film scores and productions. Movies such as Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and almost any classic Disney movie utilize choirs for both their beauty and dramatic effect. This points to one of the best ways to compose and create music, Choir VSTs.

There are countless VSTs available today and many of them are in the world of pianos, synthesizers, guitars, essentially any instrument. It is not often you will see one made for the human voice, let alone a choir. For that reason, we pulled together these materials to showcase our choices for the Best Choir VSTs.

Best Choir VSTs

Our top reviewed best choir VSTs include:

1. Hollywood Choirs – EastWest
2. Exhale – Output
3. Symphonic Choirs – EastWest
4. Mosaic Voices – Kontakt
5. Voxos Epic Choirs – Native Instruments
6. Mars Symphonic Men’s Choir – Sound Iron
7. Venus Symphonic Women’s Choir – SoundIron

What To Look For When Choosing a Choir VST

Before we look at the choices directly, here are some factors to keep in mind when looking at choir VSTs or any other type of plugin. 

Pricing

Looking at the price, you will be spending a lot more on a choir VST than most others. Not only did the creators put a lot of time and effort in, but also real voices and choirs had to be captured in order to accurately depict them within the plugin itself. 

Compatibility – System Requirements

If you look through the system requirements, they will require a little bit more power than usual to be used smoothly and effectively. The OS they need will usually be fairly even between older versions and newer updates. The biggest difference you will notice on the choir VSTs is that they all require a higher amount of RAM. The average is usually anywhere from 4 to 8 GB leaning more towards 4, but with these, the lowest that you will find is 6 GB.

DAW Compatibility

Each of these VSTs is compatible with a wide variety of major DAWs. you should be able to find a list of their compatible DAWs, but more often than not they will be fine. 

Frequency of Use

Most of these choir VSTs work well in many different genres whether you are wanting to use English, Spanish, Latin, or some other language. There are some choices listed however that will be geared more towards specific sounds and genres. 

Skill Level

The skill level of using a choir VST will need to be either intermediate or above. You will need to have some understanding of music theory as well as choral arrangement. But this is also one of the best ways to learn and practice choral arrangement for yourself without an actual choir. 

7 Best Choir VSTs

1. Hollywood Choirs – EastWest

EastWest knows what creators are looking for in their VSTs and delivered it in their choir plugins. With the Hollywood Choirs, you can adjust many different parameters such as panning, volume, microphone mix, and more. One of the absolute best aspects of this plugin (or any choir plugin from EastWest) is the ability to type in unique phrases and have them sung back to you with 781 phrase presets in English, German, Italian, Spanish, and Latin.

• Who’s it for? Experienced and above
• Price:
  • Gold – $266
  • Diamond – $799
• DAW Support: All popular DAWs supported, works well with Reaper

System Requirements: macOS and Windows

	Mac	Windows
Memory	8 GB	8 GB
Operating System	10.7 or later	Windows 7 or later

2. Exhale – Output

Output is a creative company that features fantastic tools for electronic music and beyond. With Exhale you have the option to work with many different sounds, samples, and presets all while adding your own customization. These sounds can work as pads, lead lines, or whatever it is you need on your song.

• Who’s it for? Intermediate and above
• Price: $199
• DAW Support: All popular DAWs supported, works well with Logic

System Requirements: 

	Mac	Windows
Memory	4 GB  8 GB Recommended	4 GB  8 GB Recommended
Operating System	10.11 or higher	Windows 7 or later

3. Symphonic Choirs – EastWest

This VST from EastWest works very similarly to Hollywood Choirs, they have the same interface layout and most parameters work the exact same way. The way they differ is through the sounds that they are programmed for. Symphonic choirs has a larger diversity in choirs including Altos, Sopranos, Tenors, Basses, and Boys Choirs. You can also use the WordBuilder with this one just as Hollywood Choirs. Look into some tutorials when you are starting to type out phrases so you can get the plugin to complete the pronunciations correctly. 

• Who’s it for? Experienced and Above
• Price: (Expansions are available for both)
  • Gold – $399
  • Platinum – $530
• DAW Support: All popular DAWs supported, works well with Studio One

System Requirements: 

	Mac	Windows
Memory	8 GB 16 GB Recommended	8 GB  16 GB Recommended
Operating System	10.7 or later	Windows 7 or later

4. Mosaic Voices – Kontakt

If you want to create an atmospheric feel with a choir, Mosaic Voices is the perfect option. With its creative integration of sounds and effects, you can easily use Mosaic Voices in many different styles from cinematic to electronic. With, “Over 8GB of production-ready content,” you can be sure there is a sound for everything in here. 

• Who’s it for? Intermediate and above
• Price: $119
• DAW Support: All popular DAWs supported, works well with Pro Tools

System Requirements: 

	Mac	Windows
Memory	6 GB	6 GB
Operating System	10.12 – 10.15	Windows 7 or higher

5. Voxos Epic Choirs – Native Instruments

Native Instruments created their own version of a phrase builder that contains over 35,000 vocal samples and over 500 choir effects. It is perfect for creating dramatic builds within a song as well as providing a soft background to any soundtrack. Be sure to look through other choir VST options available from Native Instruments such as Voices of War – Men of the North, Voice of Wind: Adey, and Voices of Gaia. Everything from NI is amazing, but we wanted to be able to showcase some of the other amazing options out there.

• Who’s it for? Experienced and above
• Price: $499
• DAW Support: All popular DAWs supported, works well with FL Studio

System Requirements: 

	Mac	Windows
Memory	6 GB	6 GB
Operating System	10.12 – 10.15	Windows 7 or higher

6. Mars Symphonic Men’s Choir – Sound Iron

Containing perfectly captured articulations and dynamics, Mars Symphonic Men’s Choir is one of the best traditional choir VSTs on the market. Sound Iron worked hard to record the wide variety of sounds and vowels that they have. You can work with multiple combinations of voices ranging from a soloist to 30 voices together. 

• Who’s it for? Intermediate and above
• Price: $399
• DAW Support: All popular DAWs supported, works well with Cubase

System Requirements: 

	Mac	Windows
Memory	6 GB	6 GB
Operating System	10.6 or later	Windows 7 or later

7. Venus Symphonic Women’s Choir – SoundIron

This is the female vocal counterpart to the Mars Symphonic Men’s choir and provides a different type of beauty. Just as the men’s choir, this is built with 33 voices in large varieties of dynamics to work with.

• Who’s it for? Intermediate and above
• Price: $399
• DAW Support: All popular DAWs supported, works well with Pro Tools

System Requirements: 

	Mac	Windows
Memory	6 GB	6 GB
Operating System	10.6 or later	Windows 7 or later

Hearing the Final Product

Writing in any form can be frustrating to say the least. Choral production you need to know what sound you are looking for and strive for it. There will be frustration when the altos and tenors clash, or when the sopranos come in more powerfully than you had expected. It will take practice and patience to form your pieces with a choir VST but no more than any other plugin. Once you have invested time and effort, the possibilities are endless. A great exercise to familiarize yourself with your choir VST, is by trying to remake soundtracks and choral pieces. You can find the sheet music for most soundtracks online and simply work on inputting those pieces into your plugin. This will help you learn what transitions and dynamics work in a choir and how each part functions with the other. 

If you would like to learn more about other plugins and comparisons such as this, check out our index of plugin reviews and lists here.