Louisa Arc

You may already know Louisa vocals from GROTH.

What started as a small part of another instrument has grown into bigger vocal sample library. Louisa Arc is based on the original concept with new recordings, phrases, melismas, transitions, and a dedicated engine focused on expression and creativity.

The original GROTH content was only a small part of what eventually became Louisa Arc.

Built for playability. A lot of attention was given to consistency and timing. As composers we understand how frustrating it is when notes need to be moved back and forth just to hit the right timing. Especially with legato and multiple round robins. Transitions, melismas, and offsets were carefully edited to stay stable and predictable. This helps save time, reduce constant manual adjustments, and make music faster.

Mix Ready. Louisa Arc was carefully balanced to sit naturally in a mix. It produces a soft and expressive sound while keeping the original dynamics and avoiding heavy compression.

Alternative balances are included, but the default character was designed to feel ready from the beginning. You can also turn off all processing to get a dry sound that can be used in different genres and places. Melisms and breaths bring more realism and variation.

We included a wide range of built-in effects to provide more creative options. Although the Dombra is a nylon instrument, it responds well to processing. Apply delays, reverbs, distortions, modulations, and more to create unique sounds and interesting effect chains that go far beyond the traditional tone.

More than vocal instrument. The human voice can be so much more than just singing. With 147 snapshots, rhythmic processing, reversed samples, random sample starts, and effects, Louisa Arc can move beyond traditional vocals into pads, pulses, textures, and unexpected instruments. Sometimes, it’s difficult to remember that the original source was a person 🙂

Phrases. Lots of them. 324 phrases. Complete melodic performances are designed to quickly generate ideas. Keyswitches control tonal centers while phrases stay immediately playable helping tracks come together faster and reducing time spent building foundations from scratch.

The simple built-in chord synth was added for one simple reason: inspiration. When combined with vocals it becomes possible to quickly develop ideas without leaving the instrument.

Presets window with Factory and User presets for Phrases.

Rhythm & randomization. The rhythm function inside the phrase instrument can create surprisingly interesting pulses and movement especially when combined with random sample start. Because the results are random, some may work better than others. To make sure the playback is more consistent it’s best to render the MIDI and choose the best variation. Sometimes the most interesting part of the process is when you mix things up in unexpected ways. And it turns this limitation into a creative feature.

Hmm syllable has a slightly more limited range due to its natural vocal character. Extending it further would reduce the realism, so the original performance was preserved. At the same time, this syllable works better than others in polyphonic mode when legato is disabled.

The built-in chord synth is primarily designed for sketching ideas rather than in-depth harmonic work. The available chords are limited to D minor, F major, D major and B minor. Additional tones can be reached using the tune knob. The idea was to play vocals with one hand and chords with the other at the same time to build ideas faster.

Dry recordings. All vocals were recorded dry. This makes them easier to place in different spaces and genres, ranging from cinematic and trailer music to electronic, folk and pop productions.

Dynamics over compression. Louisa Arc was carefully balanced without heavy compression.  to preserve the original dynamics and expression, while ensuring that the sound could easily be placed in a mix.

Human imperfections. We didn’t remove too many subtle variations and natural movements. These details in vocal instrument help to make performances feel alive and avoid repetitive playback.