SPITFIRE AUDIO Lea Bertucci - Xtended Vox

The outer reaches of the human voice

Explore the outer reaches of the human voice with this incredibly unique world of cutting-edge textures, rhythms and evolving drones. Curated and produced by composer and sound artist Lea Bertucci, this powerful tool captures the radical visceral vocalisations of herself and three renowned pioneers of the avant-garde — Audrey Chen, Cansu Tanrikulu & Phil Minton. From earth-shaking bass drones to window-shattering sound effects, whispers, rhythmic clicks and glissandi to haunting multiphonic choirs; these alien-like instruments will hum, hiss, heckle and haunt to create immediate tension, atmosphere, horror and beauty — a wealth of delights and terrors for any experimental producer, beatmaker or film composer.

The plugin’s radically transformative processed signal and in-built controls take the organic sounds to new sonic realms to create complex otherworldly synth textures, rhythms and sound effects beyond your wildest dreams — designed to inspire and breathe new life into your compositions.

Visceral vocalisations

Expand your sound palette with 49 original presets, bursting with invention — ideal for creating cinematic trailer music and non-diegetic sound FX, particularly for horror or sci-fi, or adding texture, atmosphere and a distinctly human element to any genre of music. Xtended Vox captures the unique voices and sonic vocabularies of Lea Bertucci and three acclaimed vocal artists, stretching across varying generations and geographies and melding free improvisation with formalised composition.

The original vocal recordings have been taken to new sonic dimensions using warped using multiple outboard and digital processing techniques, accessible via the dynamics fader — cycle through layers of varying processing, each unique to each individual preset. The library encompasses the most radical and eccentric of vocal techniques, from visceral throat singing to alien nasal sounds; from the most fragile of whispers and birdsong-like whistles to lip trills, yodels, shrieks and ululations — pushing the boundaries of what can be done with contemporary voice.

Xtended Vox

Following Bertucci’s acclaimed sample library and record release in 2020, Acoustic Shadows, Bertucci returns with her new EP,Xtended Vox.The EP features the same vocal artists as the sample library — Audrey Chen, Phil Minton and Cansu Tanrikulu — as well as Ben Vida, collaborating with Bertucci on the first single, Tulsa. Bertucci describes the compilation as “deeply human music” — celebrating the voice as the first and only innate instrument and bringing it into a contemporary context, with diverse and contrasting approaches from each of the collaborators.

Lea Bertucci

Lea Bertucci is a New York-based experimental musician, composer and performer whose work explores relationships between acoustic phenomena and biological resonance. Bertucci’s approach to music is marked by dense masses of sustained dissonance and a fascination with the sonic substance of common experience. Her work spans over a decade, with 8 full-length solo albums and a number of collaborative projects. In 2018 and 2019, she released solo albums Metal Aether and Resonant Field on NNA Tapes, and has since gone on to found her own label, Cibachrome Editions, with 2021’s A Visible Length of Light as the inaugural release followed by 2022’s Murmurations, a duo with composer, improviser and artist Ben Vida. In addition to her longstanding practice with woodwind instruments, her work incorporates spatialized speaker arrays, radical methods of free improvisation and creative misuses of audio technology. In recent years, her projects have expanded toward site-specific and spatially aware projects that initiate new access points to architecture.

This release follows her highly acclaimed 2020 release, Acoustic Shadows — a sample library and record which received praise as Boomkat’s top 5 albums of the year, and The Guardian’s contemporary album of the month.