Vastman
Orange tree works in the Kontakt Player and today started their 30% off sale

Have a fruitful holiday

Whoa. Didn't realize the 30% offer was in addition to the lowered price of $179. At $125, hard to resist now! Thanks for the heads up!

 
+1 for Orange Tree's Evolution Acoustic, great sounds and works with the free Kontakt Player
 
 

Just wondered if anyone has the Amplesound acoustic guitars? e.g. this Taylor http://www.amplesound.net/en/pro-pd.asp?id=6 
 
I was torn between OTS (quality) and Pettinghouse (value) when I discovered this and now I am thinking I might go for this instead.
 
Opinions?
Thanks
ZT

Billy86

Vastman
Have all but one (RealGuitar) of the above... and many more... as a guitar/bass player with failing/aging hands I've been on a continual search for "guitarz" for decades and I'm not shy of buying it all and giving it all a chance...
 
Both Jude and Than.... nailed it, by a WIDE margen...Orange Tree Samples OTS Acoustics!  IAO OTS products are far beyond anything on the marked... latency, best strum&playing engine and best programability, most awesome guitar/effects rack, best quality of samples, continual useful updates, one on one interaction, a local dude, right here in the free state of California, with the best bundle/rewards program ever devised.
 
You would do yourself a disservice if you went elsewhere...if you want the best... I've spent ooooodles...I Now own everything OTS makes...still buy all of Tracy's stuff (another free stater, I do believe) and Pettinghouse over in Europe is a very inexpensive way to go (he has an everything... 11 pretty awesome guitars for 99$ deal on right now, for the next couple days, which is pretty insane). 
 
However, do you want to have an intelligent discussion with the developer?  Do you wanna have the best?  OTS is the place... I have chatted with Greg many times... He'ss awesome...and has implemented things we've discussed.  He is constantly butting up against Kontakt limitations and immediately innovates when new abilities are introduced...
 
The only other real unique acoustic is Realitone's "fingerpick".  NO OTHER guitarz FINGERPICK!!!  It is amazing and I love it, although it needs EQing to bring out the luster of the Takamini (same as mine) that he sampled,...  It is still available for the intro price of $79, regular $119, which would still be a fantastic deal... Here again, Mike Green is a local free stater in Southern California, very approachable and a one man army! 
 
In summary,  

1. If your funds are limited, grab the pettinghouse and fingerpick deals; huge leg up on any other approach right away...
2. If you just want the BEST steel string or nylon, and don't wanna bother learning multiple gui's (many crappy and all others very limited), go OTS...   
3. If both of the above is true, do 1. above and save ur money/sign up for OTS's newsletter, and grab his awesome stuff in a sale... it's almost xmas...and... in the long run, if you start bundling up, $175 products become $100-125 products which for the quality and consistancy of awesome gui/instruments, is a steal!

 

 
Thanks for the great review and suggestions. Bummer I don't have (and don't have the dough to buy) the full Kontakt, which Pettinghouse site says its product requires, in addition to, a vst. The OTS sounds great, but is kinda pricey; I have my eye on some other music-making goodies to add to my arsenal, with a fixed budget. Realitone Fingerpick works in the free Kontack Player. I'm going to give it a 30-day try and see how it goes. $79 looks hard to beat. Was really most interested in good finger-picking. I'm a decent strummer, but can't fingerpick worth a lick. 
 

Why not spend the money on fingerpicking lessons.

Just a thought. It would sound WAY more realistic..

ZincTrumpet
Just wondered if anyone has the Amplesound acoustic guitars? e.g. this Taylor http://www.amplesound.net/en/pro-pd.asp?id=6 
 
I was torn between OTS (quality) and Pettinghouse (value) when I discovered this and now I am thinking I might go for this instead.
 
Opinions?
Thanks
ZT

I'm trying out some of Ample Sounds stuff and they seem to have a few issues. One is the slow lag time when playing. Sound nothing like the demos which are played pretty fast. There's other stuff not going right so I need to play with it more.
 
Some of those need Kontakt Full but will work for 15 min. in demo with the free player.

Thanks soens,
That's just the kind of thing I needed to know. 
 
Cheers
ZT

Some of this could be OE (operator error) but I've noticed a few notes do not respond to pitch bend and some fail the hammer on/pull off effect. Don't know why but I may contact them soon.
 
Those notes seem to be the standard open cord notes. Most if not all others do respond. Very odd.
 
Also, as with most Ample and Kontakt Player instruments, you need a controller with 76 - 88 keys to operate the full range of key switches when playing live or recording. 61 doesn't cut it.
 
[EDIT]
The non bending notes are one of the many limitations of the free LITE versions:
1. No capo scaling
2. All strings except the high E will only play in the 1st 4 frets. The high E plays the full neck.
(what do you want for free?)
 
According to one video the free versions used to have only 1 effect. Mine have the full lot, though there may be some limits on them.

Ample latency and their engine put me off after getting a few of their guitars... Never been back

Even with the issues the LITE versions, though limited, are free and have excellent sound compared to most others I've heard and tried. Another cool feature is you can retune the strings by.... actually twisting the tuners. You can't really go wrong with free.

ZincTrumpet
Just wondered if anyone has the Amplesound acoustic guitars? e.g. this Taylor http://www.amplesound.net/en/pro-pd.asp?id=6 
 
I was torn between OTS (quality) and Pettinghouse (value) when I discovered this and now I am thinking I might go for this instead.
 
Opinions?
Thanks
ZT

Amplesound looks and sounds awesome from the demos I've seen, but you need to pay extra if you want fingerpicking.