I am considering upgrading my Strum Session VST that comes with X2, to the Full Strum Acoustic and the Strum Electric - 
I am also considering Komplete 8 Ultimate - would the guitars and guitar strumming etc be better with Komplete or with AAS? 

Not just the sounds of the guitars, but all the strumming tools that are included with the AAS....do these same tools exist in Komplete?

Thanks

I have Komplete 8 Ultimate - I manually strum when entering guitar data, by rolling my hand right to left for an upstroke and left to right for a down stroke, and the speed and 'weight' of the slight arpeggio determines the actual approximation of a strum.

The sounds do have different stroke sounds at various places in the keyboard, depending on the sound, but I just use the above technique and it seems to work OK for what I am doing.

Sorry I do not have a better awareness of the actual strumming characteristics of the 2 products.

Bob Bone

There are some great third party guitar products for Kontakt but I don't think the factory guitars will give you much over and above the ASS stuff. Of course they will sound different an add to your sonic pallet. There are many good reasons to buy Komplete, but IMHO the factory library guitars are a long way down the list.

Check out third party Kontakt developers Orange Tree, Ilya Efimov and the cheaper but slightly less sophisticated Idiginus to see the state of the art.

For non Kontakt based products check out the Music Lab "Real Guitar" series.

If you are not up to playing the strum on a keyboard you could also consider Twiddley Bits  these short midi files can sound effective when used with, say, Dimension Pro guitars, but it does involve a lot of cut, paste and transposing,

The only guitar that comes with Komplete Ultimate as far as I know is Scarbee Funk Guitarist, which is great if you're prepared to learn how to use it, and if all you want is a very well sampled "chukka-chukka" type funk rhythm part. 

Thanks guys - what you are all saying is pretty much my conclusions as well. The thing I found with the AAS stuff is the way it auto changes notes to the actual guitar voicing..

So all I do is play say, a gm7 (b9), and instead of just playing the piano voicing notes, it not only does the strum but also revoices to how it DOES play on a guitar...(discovered this in the Session version by the way).....Which is why I was asking if the K guitars did the same as I wanted to see if the upgrade to the AAS Guitar bundle from Session ( Strum Acoustic and Strum Electric) at $199 was worth getting as well.

It would seem from replies so far that it is indeed worth getting in addition to K 8, and that apart from funk guitars, K8 does not have a lot to offer.

joden



It would seem from replies so far that it is indeed worth getting in addition to K 8, and that apart from funk guitars, K8 does not have a lot to offer.

Funk Guitarist is in Komplete Ultimate, not Komplete. There are guitars in the Kontakt factory library, these are the ones I referred to when I said I did not think they would add much over and above the ASS stuff.
 
Komplete is full goodies, Komplete ultimate even more so. There is tremendous value here, but if you buy just for the guitars, then you will be disappointed. If you are looking for a broad range of sounds from Pianos, Orchestra, drums, to some of the most advanced synths around you will not be disappointed by Komplete. It also contains Guitar Rig 5 a ultra powerful and very versatile amp and effects simulator primarily aimed at guitars. This can change even the most mundain guitar VST sound beyond recognition.  And once you have the full version of Kontakt at your disposal there are some wonderful third party guitar libraries.
 
To expand on my last reply
 
I have ASS Strum Electric and I don't rate the sound that highly, it's useful in certain circumstances, mainly highly effected guitar sounds. Orange Tree Evolution, Lap Steel and Steel strings are my main guitar libraries and have a similar type of chord voicing and strum engine to the ASS stuff. Indiginus Torch and Acoustic Guitar collection still sound a lot better than the ASS stuff (IMHO) but take a different approach to chord voicing, the limitation is 12 chord voicing per song, I do however like the velocity dependent mute to sustain used by Indiginus.  In both cases there is also a pattern sequencer for strumming patterns. Both companies have you tube videos demonstrating the products.
 
Music Labs Real Guitar series do not need Kontakt and are less resource hungry than Orange Tree. They probably have the best chord detection system of the lot. You can also setup MIDI out to send the strums to another VSTi, of course specific features such as the mute articulations wont always translate to the other VSTi.
 
The Music Lab electric guitars are completely clean and need to be put through an amp sim like Guitar Rig or Amplitube. Torch and Evolution have presets that use Kontakt's built in amp and cab simulation, or you can turn that off and send the DI to a map sim.
 
 
 
 

FYI -

Guitar Center (in store) has an Easter Weekend special ~

Komplete 8 for $349...

Thanks rivers.

And Glyn Barnes...I did look at the Orange stuff, but super expensive I thought, and the cost of getting both ML Rguitar and RStrat instruments also exceeded the bundle (upgrade) price of Strum guitars...Mind you I also thought Strum was too expensive as well, but it seems guitars (especially those that are not Kontakt specific) along with strings libraries are among the most sought vsts so I guess this is why they attract a premium price.

In the end I went for the Strum gtrs,  and I suppose time will tell if it was a mistake...but some time spent already on them has revealed the sound is not too bad (to me). I even got my son to set up his strat and tele guitars (real ones) with totally clean and flat  amp settings, and while you could tell the difference (although surprisingly close) in "bare" mode, when the same comparison was made when played with backing tracks (drums, bass, keys) it was really difficult to pick them apart...

Again this was just MY experience, others will probably disagree  


But having said all of that I DO appreciate the advice you gave...I may very well fall back on it should I become disenchanted with Strum.


Thanks


EDIT:  PS I just had a look at the Indiginus link - VERY nice pricing...I might even buy it anyway at $90 for the both if I get the full version of Kontakt. Thanks for the link, as I had not heard of Indiginus before.