There’s been no shortage of innovative, and genre-blending creativity in the music being created for film, tv and video games in the past decade and beyond.
Of course, one of the most effective ways to instill genuine emotion into the score for any project from live action film, to animated movies, to viking fantasy video games is with the human voice. And one artist that composers across the world turn to when they need to quite literally breathe life into their music is Ari Mason.
Ari’s voice can be heard on the scores for films and video games that you’ve no doubt watched, played, or at least heard of. I’m talking: Fortnite, Ruby Gillman Teenage Kraken, Planet Earth III, and the first ever Grammy award winner for video game score: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok composed by Stephanie Economou.
Ari Mason describes her voice as “ranging from the basic to the bizarre” and relies heavily on improvisation to find the perfect moments to accent and enhance a score.
Recently, Mason announced that she had packaged the unique sounds of her voice into an instrument for Native Instruments Kontakt player called Fever Dreams that is available now.
WHAT IS IT?
Fever Dreams is a downloadable 7.8 GB vocal instrument library. It retails for $150 and runs in Native Instruments Kontakt player (v 6.8.0 and above) in any major DAW. Fever Dreams does run on the free version of the Kontakt player, so no additional purchases are necessary.
A note on price: while $150 may not be considered inexpensive for some folks, it’s worth taking into account that Fever Dream is entirely a solo venture for Ari. In fact, Fever Audio is the only solo woman-run company in this marketplace to the best of my knowledge.
The license and encoding fees alone to create an instrument for Kontakt Player are substantial. So, when you consider the price, also bear in mind that Ari herself with no corporate backing has fronted her time, effort, and hard earned money to bring this product to market.
Frankly, I’m amazed she has been able to accomplish this at the price point that Fever Dreams is currently available at.
IN USE:
It’s impossible to talk about Fever Dreams without first mentioning the gorgeous interface, designed by Ari Mason herself. I’ve never had a more beautiful plug-in on my screen. Fever Dreams inspires creativity simply by looking at the instrument itself. White Lotus vibes anyone?
Fever Dreams is a dual-source vocal-only instrument sampler. The controls will feel familiar to anyone who has used midi instruments.
Source A and Source B can load up unique sounds that can be played individually, or blended together. Familiar controls for volume, attack, release, as well as the ability to mod the intensity, or use your keyboard velocity sensitive controller to trigger the two different velocities recorded per patch.
Where Fever Dreams shines of course, is in the patches. Ari has divided Fever Dreams into five different sets of sounds. They are:
- Calls of the Wild
- Breaths & Whispers
- Sustained & Tremolo
- Chants
- Hums
Within these sound sets, Fever Dreams gives composers access to a wide range of incredible and unique voices. From chants and whispers, to monkey-like sounds, major and minor hums, breathing patterns, and even one called “human hi-hat”, Fever Dreams delivers an incredible variety of high quality vocals.
One of my favorite features in Fever Dreams is the ability to quickly demo different patches in the main selection window, as opposed to clicking through them one at a time from the home screen. I created a quick video as I was listening through most of the different vocal sounds available in Fever Dreams. Take a listen:
As a score mixer myself, I’m always fascinated by the tools, and workflows composers use to create their sounds. When Ari told me about Fever Dreams, I knew I had to get it into the hands of composer Forrest Gray who I frequently collaborate with to give it a go.
“You’d be hard pressed to find a more unique and user-friendly vocal sampler” Forrest told me. “What I love most about Fever Dreams is that Ari left a lot of space for the composer to use the sounds to their liking. The sheer range of samples, from other-worldly sustains, to raw percussive patches offers a creative template that’s so distinctive, yet malleable. I’m also a big fan of the interface– the ability to play two different patches at once is ideal for composers on the fly.”
When Fever Dreams first launched, I was excited to see how much extensive video and audio content Ari had created to showcase this amazing instrument. I highly recommend taking a look at the walk through video that Ari and composer Stephanie Economou created.
The walkthrough is a thorough deep dive into every part of this instrument from the interface itself, to a wide range of the patches available – as well as Steph’s personal insights into how she uses Fever Dreams in her own award-winning projects.
Composer Forrest Gray also had great insights on the patches in Fever Dreams. He told me: “I’ve been really loving the chant patches. The range of vowels and rhythms creates endless possibilities for unique vocal textures.
I’ve been using these in some of my recent demos, when I’m looking to liven my arrangements. I also love loading a sustain patch, like Rainforest Ritual Minor 3rd, in the “Source A” and a percussive patch, like Breathing 5, in “Source B”, which allows me to play the samples like an instrument: sustains in my left hand and percussion in my right.
Vocal samples are often additive elements, whereas Fever Dreams has a full compositional range within it. You could compose a whole piece with Ari’s sounds alone, and it could stand on its own.”
I created a quick demo of the exact patches Forrest mentioned: Rainforest Ritual Minor 3rd with the left hand for “Source A” and Breathing 5 for “Source B” with the right hand. In this video, (bearing in mind I am not a composer) you can hear how the patches sound both dry, and with the built in reverb, as well as examples of the two different velocities that bring intimacy, or intensity to each patch:
You can find many more amazing musical examples of Fever Dreams in use on their website. I highly recommend checking out all the ways this instrument has been used by world-class composers.
WISH LIST:
Normally, this would be where we talk criticisms, but honestly there’s really not a lot to criticize about Fever Dreams. I do however have some wish list items for possible future updates:
- More granular control over reverb. It would be amazing to have pre-delay, and decay time control on the reverb. This could add a whole new layer of creation for many Fever Dreams patches. Perhaps also access to a couple different types of reverb (hall, plate, room etc). Though I realize we’re getting further into mixing territory here. (I’m a mixer, what can I say.)
- While I love that the vocals are triple tracked, I could see situations where being able to utilize a single mono instance of any voice patch might be helpful, as opposed to always using a triple-tracked instance. The intimacy of a single track could be incredibly powerful as an alternate version of some patches.
- I also wondered if there might be a way to utilize a *note off feature set with Fever Dreams. That is, allowing the user to load one type of breath (or any patch) on the down press on the key, and another patch on the note-off release of the key.I’ve seen this technique used for example in midi foley plugins where footsteps are on the down press and clothing rustles are on the key’s release which makes for a very human sounding foley performance for walking. This could be an amazing way to maximize the sounds in Fever Dreams.
WRAPPING UP:
Fever Dreams is quite simply the most comprehensive vocal library on the market. So much thought, time, and creativity was put into both the instrument itself, and all of the incredible vocal recordings. At $150, Fever Dreams is a must own and an absolute steal, even at twice the price. If you’re creating music for any medium, Fever Dreams needs to be in your virtual instrument arsenal.
Go to: FeverAudio.com for more
Zach McNees has been a sound engineer, editor, and mixer for 24 years. Since 2011, Zach has worked primarily in audio post-production for film, television, and podcasts. His work spans both documentary and narrative projects as a dialogue editor, re-recording mixer, and score mixer.
Get in touch with Zach at zachmcnees.com
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