The 7 Best Free Choir VSTs & Sound Libraries (w/Demos)

What Are The Best Free Choir VSTs?

Here’s the complete list of best free choir VSTs:

1. Spitfire Audio – Labs Choir
2. Project Sam – Luminous Choir (The Free Orchestra)
3. Fluffy Audio – Haunted Choir
4. Bigcat Instruments – Sonatina Choir
5. Rast Sound – Distant Choir
6. Angle Studios – Virgin Choir
7. Bigcat Instruments – Nst Choir

1. Spitfire Labs – Choir

So why does this library sound so good?

Well, first of all, it was recorded at Air Studios, London, one of the best studios in the UK! Secondly, it samples the Eric Whitacre Singers and the session was run by Eric Whitacre himself, one of the most successful composers of choral music around today.

This library also comes with its own built-in reverb as well as ADSR controls so can you can shape the sound of the choir to how you want. Combine that with some MIDI automation on your dynamics and expression controller lanes and you’ve got yourself a great sound.

There are a few limitations to this choir library, however.

One is that the only patch available is the ‘long’ preset, so no staccato, unique choral sounds or vowel selection can be done with this library.

Another is, Labs only has one choral patch, meaning we don’t have separate female and male choirs. Instead, the voices overlap around the middle of the keyboard, which is *okay* but slightly limits the range available for both voice types.

Despite these minor limitations, we can’t stress enough how good this choir plugin is. If you’re a beginner or someone who uses the choir more as a background texture, then spitfire labs choir is the perfect choice for you!

Sound Examples

2. Project Sam – Luminous Choir (The Free Orchestra)

For those who are familiar with orchestral libraries, the name Project Sam is probably already known to you. But did you know about their Free Orchestra pack?

With the Free Orchestra, you get 1GB of free cinematic sounds from Project Sam’s flagship libraries! Included in this is the Luminous Choir, which comes from the library Symphobia 3: Lumia.

Since it’s a selection from a professional product, the Luminous choir plugin has a very realistic and high-quality sound. The interface is also very intuitive and includes a control panel that lets you adjust envelope features such as attack and release, as well as audio effects like filter and limiter.

Like pretty much every entry on this list, this free choir VST plugin does not come with multiple articulations. Instead, there is one long patch, which may be a problem if you need different vocal articulations in your track. There is a vowel control in this plugin but what it does is a mystery to me.

In fact, it seemed to ruin sound quality when I enabled it. It also comes with dynamic layers, but the range sounds too small. Instead of the dynamics sounding like they go from very quiet to very loud, it sounds more like it starts at a medium volume when the modulation wheel is at its lowest value.

This limits the expressive capabilities of the choir but doesn’t make it unusable as it can be improved by adjusting the attack value of the envelope.

Despite a few flaws this library is seriously impressive and an incredible choice for beginners, or those who don’t have the budget for the entire library. What’s more is that by downloading The Free Orchestra, not only are you getting a fantastic choir plugin but also all the other high-quality instruments included in this library!

Sound Examples

3. Fluffy Audio – Haunted Choir

Before writing this article, we were unfamiliar with Haunted Choir by Fluffy Audio but we have to say we’re very impressed with the quality of this free choir VST.

The sound is brilliant and is great for writing ominous choral parts (hence the name) but can also sound very beautiful and angelic when used with more major tonalities.

It has a convincing sense of realism, thanks to its dynamic layers and many reverb options (large chamber, concert hall, dark room, cave, warm ambiance etc.) as well as four different mic positions, allowing you to shape its sound.

Again this is another choir library that only has long articulations, however, there are two different options here. One is ‘Female Humming Legato’ and the other is ‘Female Uuus’. We feel the latter sounds a lot better, but the former can work too if that’s the sound you’re after.

Another drawback here is the fact that there are no male choirs and perhaps the biggest problem is that it requires the full version of Kontakt Player. So if you haven’t already paid for that, which is likely the case for beginners, then you’ll be unable to use this library.

Apart from that, this is a fantastic option for beginners (if you own Kontakt) and is even worthwhile for more experienced music creators. We’re certainly going to be using this one in the future!

Sound Examples

4. Bigcat Instruments – Sonatina Choir

Sonatina Choir is the oldest choir plugin on the list and its age is really starting to show. The sound is okay in the middle register, but the lows and highs really do scream midi choir.

One of the biggest faults in sound quality here is the unnatural decay after you release a note, which sounds more like someone has just pressed a pause button while the sample is still playing. There are ADSR controls but even adjusting the decay leaves little to desire. A good reverb plugin (i.e spending money) is definitely needed with this one!

Another major issue is the fact that the samples have no dynamic layers and are instead controlled by velocity. Now, velocity-controlled samples are perfect for things like drums, plucked instruments, or anything with a naturally short attack and release, but for choirs, where a change in dynamics can happen within one note, it just doesn’t sound realistic.

On the other hand, this library is very easy to use and it also has separate female and male choir patches, as well as the option to combine the two.

For beginners, Sonatina Choir would work fine as a background texture and is more straightforward to use than some of the other libraries on this list. For anyone else, however, it might be worth it.

Sound Examples

5. Rast Sound – Distant Choir

Next on our list is Distant Choir by Rast Sound.

When looking at this plugin you’ll notice there are a lot more buttons and controls on the interface compared to our other entries. Don’t worry, this doesn’t make it complicated to use, but instead gives you easy control over the sound of the choir.

Firstly, you’ve got 5 different presets to choose from. They don’t change the articulations but rather the sound of the choir itself. Personally, our favorite preset is the ‘world choir’ patch as we feel it sounds the most realistic.

When it comes to controls, you have envelope parameters, LFO controls if you want to get a bit more experimental, and filter controls for sculpting the sound. We also really like the width control, which we suggest turning up if you want a more cinematic sound.

Finally, there are audio effects controls too, such as reverb, delay, chorus, and distortion, allowing you to get more creative with the sound of the choir.

Unfortunately, this is one of the free choir plugins that does suffer from a ‘synthy’ sound, so if realism is what you want, then this might not be the best choice for you. It has the same problems as most of the other picks on this list.

Again there are no dynamic layers, the only articulation choice is longs, and there’s no separate patch for male and female choirs.

So is this choir useable? For beginners, definitely.

But is it as good as some of the others on this list? Not by a long shot!

Sound Examples

6. Angle Studios – Virgin Choir

Download in YouTube description

The main reason that free VST plugins exist is so music creation can be available to anyone, even those with a limited budget. This is exactly what Angle Studios have set out to achieve with their Virgin Choir plugin and we thank them for it. Yet the company themselves admit that being a free plugin, it does come with some limitations.

The main issue here is the very ‘synthy’ sound, which is very reminiscent of the choir sounds you’d find on old Casio keyboards. Another problem comes from the way that this sample library was made.

To create the Virgin Choir VST, Angle Studios took pre-recorded choir songs from their Magic Series 3, then chopped them up and re-processed them to create new samples that could be looped and give the sense of continuous singing.

Unfortunately, this means that an algorithmic loop sound can be heard from the internal samples, especially when using the EE and EH vowel patches.

Another important thing to take note of is that this library can not be used for commercial purposes. If you just want to use it privately for practice or fun, then this won’t be a problem for you, but for anyone who wants to use it for more professional purposes, then unfortunately this one is a no-go.

There are some pluses to this plugin as well. As we’ve already mentioned there are different vowel options for you to choose from. These are AA, EH, and EE. Another cool feature is the sequencer mode, which allows you to combine the different vowel sounds into a pattern. Also, the plugin is very light on memory and CPU usage as it loads its samples only once in memory, even when you have multiple instances of the plugin running.

All in all this free choir VST has some cool and efficient features and could be an option for beginner music creators. However, the lack of realism means it’s best not used as a lead instrument but rather as a background texture or effect.

Sound Examples

7. Bigcat Instruments – Nst Choir

Here’s another effort from Bigcat instruments, which unfortunately doesn’t live up to their Sonatina Choir plugin. Simply put, this is just like the Sonatina Choir but without the ability to switch between male, female or combined choir presets and a much more unrealistic sound.

The main problem with it is that it sounds very ‘closed’, almost as if the choir was trapped inside a tiny box whilst recording. Again, it also suffers from being velocity controlled rather than having dynamic layers, which limits its expressive capabilities, and of course, there’s only one articulation option.

However, there are a few things about this that make it very handy for beginners. For starters, it’s very easy to use. Anyone could take one look at this and instantly understand how everything works.

The best thing, however, is that it comes with multiple patches based on range. You have the standard full patch, so the complete choir, but we also have high, mid, mid 2, and low patches, equivalent to the soprano, alto, tenor, and bass voice ranges of a real choir.

This is great for beginners because it means they can start to see the choir as 4 separate and individual voices, rather than just chords played on a MIDI keyboard, and can learn the typical ranges of each voice type.

This choir might be one of the most unrealistic sounding on our list, but we wouldn’t write it off completely. It’s probably the easiest to use, which might be preferable over sound quality at first for newcomers, and can teach them a lot about writing for the voice.

Sound Examples

Summary

To recap here’s the complete list of best free choir VSTs:

No.	Choir VST Name	Developer	Key Features	Ideal For
1	Spitfire Audio – Labs Choir	Spitfire Audio	Great sound quality, easy UI, dynamic layers, recorded at Air Studios	Beginners, Background Texture
2	Project Sam – Luminous Choir	Project Sam	High-quality sound, intuitive interface, part of The Free Orchestra pack	Beginners, High-Quality Requirement
3	Fluffy Audio – Haunted Choir	Fluffy Audio	Ominous and angelic tones, dynamic layers, multiple reverb options, requires Kontakt	Beginners with Kontakt, Varied Tonalities
4	Bigcat Instruments – Sonatina Choir	Bigcat Instruments	Older plugin, separate male and female patches, simple to use	Beginners, Background Texture
5	Rast Sound – Distant Choir	Rast Sound	Multiple presets, creative controls, cinematic sound	Beginners, Experimental Usage
6	Angle Studios – Virgin Choir	Angle Studios	Different vowel options, sequencer mode, non-commercial use only	Beginners, Practice/Fun Use
7	Bigcat Instruments – Nst Choir	Bigcat Instruments	Easy to use, range-based patches, most suitable for learning voice types	Absolute Beginners, Learning Voice Types

So that’s what we believe to be the 7 best free choir vst plugins available today. There is a difference in quality between the top and bottom of the list but we’d recommend any of these to beginners or those without the budget to pay.

For more advanced music creators, we strongly advise investing in paid-for sample libraries, if you have the means to do so. As good as these free plugins are, they are free for a reason and each comes with limitations that you’re unlikely to have with paid-for products.

That being said, we hope you’ve found this list useful and have discovered a free choir vst plugin to try out!