The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date...

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (gregjazz)

Fri, 14 May 2010 23:53:48 GMT

Hi Huffy,

Wow, well put!! I think you described an issue MANY sample library users encounter.

Video demonstrations and tutorials are high on my list of priorities. You're right, any more people would rather watch the product being used (especially in lieu of a playable demo) than see screenshots or listen to demos.

Manuals are nice if you have a specific question about something, but if you're looking for a comprehensive overview of a product, I would agree that videos are a lot nicer--not to mention they're a lot more easily understandable than reading a manual.

Thanks so much for your comments, and I really appreciate the suggestions!

Kind regards,

Greg

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (huffy)

Fri, 14 May 2010 22:55:05 GMT

Thanks Greg and Edrummist for your responses. I do like the way the articulations' triggering can be customized. I appreciate anything that makes things flow better like that. This goes a long way toward addressing (for non-guitarists), as Monkey23 said earlier in this thread, the "where, when and how" of using articulations... ...or at least the "how".

As to the "where and when", that's where I'm afraid this non-guitarist still has some difficulty. On a certain level, I can look at a big ol' folder full of articulations and say 'Wow, I've got every scrape, squeak and squeal I'll ever need; and now, thanks to Orange Tree Samples, I know how to insert them when I want to, quickly and easily". The problem, at least for me, is that I still need to see/hear examples of where and when it would make sense to use them, musically.

For instance, at the Lyrical Distortion site right now, there are two videos by Theodor Krueger, showing how he creates guitar parts. Let me tell you, I learned so much just watching him construct a short guitar performance, with picked strings, muted strings, hammer-ons, pitch bends, etc. It's like how "A picture's worth a thousand words" - Well, a video is worth several thousand pictures! (and at least fifty user manuals)(IMO).

Heck, I'd be happy just having the resulting MIDI files he was creating in those tutorials, to learn from. [Btw, I saw where, on the KVR thread for Evolution Electric Guitar, the discussion briefly turned to whether video tutorials or MIDI files would be better, in terms of helping folks get up to speed with the product. Hey, I say why not BOTH?]

Anyway, I mean, just seeing how Krueger tweaked the velocities here and there, in order to give his guitar phrase a certain legato/non-legato variety and rhythm (and being able to then see/hear the difference immediately thereafter, as he played it back), got me so enthused that I think I'm going to now get in on this LD group buy sometime tonight or tomorrow. No joke. The mere viewing of those two short videos has made me feel confident enough to plunk down good money on a product I wouldn't have otherwise. (Even better would be if they put up a short clip for each of the remaining 42 or so articulations that come with their product. Wouldn't take long. They could do all of the vids in a single afternoon, yet they'd be helping tons of people figure out where best to put, say, a "Power Palm Hammer-On", or a "5 Fret Slide Up Vibrato"... I mean, if I can't hear such a thing in an actual song/phrase context, I'll typically just zone out, glaze over, close the articulations folder, and start to slightly resent the developer.)

Anyway, just wanted to take another opportunity to let you devs (and dev advisors) know about something that I - a non-guitarist - value in a sample library and the outfit that produces it: I seem to need not only to hear articulations in isolation (where of course they always sound great) - but also to hear them in the context of a real musical phrase/performance (in this case, a guitar phrase), and, if possible, see that phrase being constructed in PRV - if only for a snippet of video, or in a MIDI/project file...

I'm definitely looking forward to the release of Evolution at the end of the month. In the meantime, (need I say?), KEEP THOSE VIDEO TUTORIALS COMING. :)

Thanks for reading.

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (edrummist)

Fri, 14 May 2010 07:39:57 GMT

Orange Tree Samples has released more information on Evolution Electric Guitar: http://www.orangetreesamples.com/evolution-electric-guitar

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (edrummist)

Thu, 13 May 2010 13:34:15 GMT

musicman100

gregjazz

Maybe I'm dreaming but I thought I saw a 99 dollars price quoted .....over on KVR?

Okay, here's the early announcement regarding the price. You saw it here first. ;)

The list price is actually $199. , I'm going to be announcing a sale in the next few days (along with the official product announcement) which should put it in the $99 price range. You'll see--I think you'll be very happy with what I'm about to announce.

Kind regards,

Greg

thank you Greg, I am assuming it will be electronic delivery??? I ready..

Yep, that's the price, $199 list. I knew it, I just didn't have the okay to share it.

- Peter

[Edit: I started making this post before Greg, the dev from Orange Tree Samples, made his posts. He was just a lot quicker to the draw!]

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (gregjazz)

Thu, 13 May 2010 13:24:05 GMT

musicman100
thank you Greg, I am assuming it will be electronic delivery??? I ready..

Yup, it'll be instantly downloadable.

By the way, nice signature. :)

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (gregjazz)

Thu, 13 May 2010 13:22:04 GMT

BenjaminS

So, let's hear a Evolution Guitar Jazz demo like the Electri6ity one posted above. What, no Jazz guitar included yet? So let's hear a Rickenbacker Not included yet? What about a Tele? No?

Evolution Electric Guitar - Strawberry is the first product in an upcoming series of electric and acoustic guitars. I wanted to focus on a single guitar at a time--this way I can concentrate on making the sample libraries as exact replicas to the real instruments as possible. I'm really looking forward to working on upcoming libraries, because I have a lot of high-quality electric and acoustic guitars just waiting to be sampled.

As for the jazz demo, I'd love to write one... or five. I've been holding out, I actually have a degree in jazz performance, but because a majority of my customers compose rock/metal, I wanted to create demos for them first. That's not to say Evolution Electric Guitar is not capable of playing other types of music. Besides rock and metal user demos, some people have even sent me spaghetti western, ethnic, and even Hawaiian music demos. Yes, Hawaiian music. :)

Also Electri6ity comes with a Kontakt Player license (which allows you to upgrade to a full Kontakt version). So you don't need to have the full version of Kontakt. You should have mention that as well. Not everyone has Kontakt (399$) which is required to run the current Orange Tree libraries.

I polled customers and non-customers and actually discovered that KONTAKT is pretty much the top sampler out there. In fact, I've had people request that if I license the Player, I make a non-Player available also, due to the expense of licensing the Player which is reflected in the product's own price.

And as I said, it would be much fairer to compare user demos. Otherwise we don't compare libraries here, we compare the demo writing/mixing/producing skills of the developer. And here Greg clearly blows me out of the water.

Orange Tree Samples libraries have been used in a variety of media. For example I have audio samples of it used in TV shows, commercials, video games, etc. Honestly, I've been sent some pretty impressive songs, and I always love it when customers send me their music! With permission, I have posted a few songs on the Orange Tree Samples forum, but obviously I don't have the rights to post all the songs.

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (Ham N Egz)

Thu, 13 May 2010 13:08:19 GMT

gregjazz

Maybe I'm dreaming but I thought I saw a 99 dollars price quoted .....over on KVR?

Okay, here's the early announcement regarding the price. You saw it here first. ;)

The list price is actually $199. , I'm going to be announcing a sale in the next few days (along with the official product announcement) which should put it in the $99 price range. You'll see--I think you'll be very happy with what I'm about to announce.

Kind regards,

Greg

thank you Greg, I am assuming it will be electronic delivery??? I ready..

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (gregjazz)

Thu, 13 May 2010 13:01:15 GMT

Maybe I'm dreaming but I thought I saw a 99 dollars price quoted .....over on KVR?

Okay, here's the early announcement regarding the price. You saw it here first. ;)

The list price is actually $199. , I'm going to be announcing a sale in the next few days (along with the official product announcement) which should put it in the $99 price range. You'll see--I think you'll be very happy with what I'm about to announce.

Kind regards,

Greg

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (gregjazz)

Thu, 13 May 2010 12:55:57 GMT

I equally loathe the idea of trying to become adept at doing realtime keyswitching and realtime perfect mod/pitch wheel movements with my left hand every few seconds while I'm trying to concentrate on playing my solos and melodies with my right hand. Nope, I'm too spoiled by having used both of the aforementioned programs (...well, with Synful I just had a trial version several years ago, but still...). There's got to be a way to incorporate this kind of "automatic" or "smart articulation" feature into an electric guitar module (or whatever it's called - I assume 'module' is probably closer to it than 'thingy'...?)

Anyway, is this perhaps what you guys mean when you talk about these guitar programs' new "ingenious scripting"? I'm not sure what that means, sorry.

Hi Huffy,

eDrummist told me about this thread. I'd be happy to answer your question!

Like you, I prefer not using keyswitches. It makes it difficult for intuitive playing from a MIDI keyboard. Sample libraries work against you and inspiration by making you conform to the way the library is mapped--its specific keyswitches and controllers. That's why I developed Orange Tree Samples' Mind Control (TM) technology. Available as a separate plugin for KONTAKT (so you can use it for ANY sample libraries), it also is included within Evolution Electric Guitar's lead component. You can choose from preset mappings or design your own from the ground up. Even the controllers for things like vibrato are editable. For example, if you want a certain velocity range to trigger the palm mutes, you can do that. If you like keyswitches, you could make them respond to a custom keyswitch, too. Dozens of elements of the guitar can be modified using Mind Control, not just the articulation--things like the pitch bend range or vibrato depth/speed, and even more intricate controls such as the picking style can be affected.

That's the beauty of the sample library's interface. It can be as simple or complicated as you want. But the bottom line is that it conforms to how YOU want it to perform.

As for the rhythm guitar component of the library, it uses a unique method of creating ultra-realistic strumming. Sequencing single notes has it's advantages and disadvantages: it's flexible, but it takes a long time to sequence. In contrast, using loops or pre-recorded strums sound realistic, but are very inflexible (you usually have to adapt your composition around it). Evolution Electric Guitar creates a third option. Using an extensive script, and specially recorded samples, it assembles strums and strumming patterns in real-time. Every detail is captured, from the strum direction and speed to the way that not every string is strummed within the pattern. Evolution Electric Guitar models the position of each finger on the fretboard in order to create realistic chord transitions, and the chord definitions are all editable on a fretboard view. At the same time, the library is instantly playable--it includes many patches with ready-made strumming patterns and genre/style specific chord definitions.

Anyway, hope that helps! I'm really excited about releasing Evolution Electric Guitar--it unveils a lot of new technology that will not only make your guitar tracks more realistic, but make it much easier and faster to sequence.

Kind regards,

Greg

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (edrummist)

Thu, 13 May 2010 12:43:19 GMT

[EDIT: As Benjamin has since removed his remarks regarding his competitor, Orange Tree Samples' product, my post responding to his comments no longer had any meaning. Consequently, I've deleted it. ]

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (BenjaminS)

Thu, 13 May 2010 12:39:21 GMT

I deleted all my posts from this thread. Let's keep it an Evolution Guitar only thread.

Cheers,
Benjamin

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (BenjaminS)

Thu, 13 May 2010 12:14:18 GMT

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (BenjaminS)

Thu, 13 May 2010 12:04:25 GMT

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (edrummist)

Thu, 13 May 2010 12:04:14 GMT

BenjaminS

So, let's hear a Evolution Guitar Jazz demo like the Electri6ity one posted above. What, no Jazz guitar included yet?

Okay, Benjamin, I emailed Greg and I'm trying to get him to join the thread and I even told him of your challenge for him to do a jazz demo. But let's try to make this fun and more friendly (and I am will do my part too -- I haven't checked to see if you've removed me as a FB friend, I hope not!).

I realize that you guys are competitors and both have guitar libraries coming out around the same time, however, I also know that you have both, individually, shown your respect for each other's work in private comments made to me. You have told me that you really respect Greg's work -- that you even purchased his Strawberry Electric Guitar to dissect it and Greg has privately told me that he thinks your a talented individual. So, I know there is mutual respect -- keep it in mind and lets have some friendly competition!

- eDrummist

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (BenjaminS)

Thu, 13 May 2010 11:53:55 GMT

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (edrummist)

Thu, 13 May 2010 11:35:22 GMT

BenjaminS

So, let's hear a Evolution Guitar Jazz demo like the Electri6ity one posted above. What, no Jazz guitar included yet? So let's hear a Rickenbacker Not included yet? What about a Tele? No?

Electri6ity is an all in one package. If you want to compare prices you should compare 50$ per instrument (Electri6ity) with the price of one Evolution guitar. Also Electri6ity comes with a Kontakt Player license (which allows you to upgrade to a full Kontakt version). So you don't need to have the full version of Kontakt. You should have mention that as well. Not everyone has Kontakt (399$) which is required to run the current Orange Tree libraries.

My post mentioning the cost/value ratio was basically saying the same thing that you are above and I did mention that Electri6ity includes the Kontakt player which is a really nice thing for people who don't own Kontakt and a bit of hassle for those of us who do who have one more NI license hassle to deal with (although saying that, I completely sympathize with developers utilizing it to lessen piracy, I just wish NI had a better process).

There is no doubt that of all the products on the market, Electri6ity wins in terms of the pricing if one breaks the $400 price down into the individual guitars included (Vir2 also wins in the race for violating the most trademarks held by guitar makers! I think until now, Prominy and MusicLab held the record). I do find that Vir2 includes a lot of my own favorite guitar models in Electri6ity -- many models that I don't currently have as sample libraries -- which as you know from our personal email correspondence, made it super compelling to me -- I almost bought it, as you are fully aware. It's really the reason I know so much about it.

- eDrummist

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (edrummist)

Thu, 13 May 2010 11:17:05 GMT

Benjamin,

I certainly don't think that Electri6ity is a cheap product and I never stated or inferred that. So, I'll state it clearly, Electri6ity is a high end, sophisticated Kontakt based library (for those of you reading, I point that out because Kontakt is the clearly the most advanced sampler on the market, and the guitar and bass libraries we have been discussing utilize Kontakt's very sophisticated scripting, velocity layers, round robins, etc.). However, I just don't find the demos for Electri6ity sound as realistic as Evolution due to the specific reasons I described earlier in this thread.

As I've stated earlier in the thread, yes, demos always present sample libraries in their best light, so if one is researching libraries and listening to demos, one easy way to exclude a product is finding shortcomings of that product in the demos. In other words, if the flaws are there in the demos, they are certainly there in the sample library.

Anyhow, go ahead and promote Electri6ity -- although it would be great if you didn't post spec sheets and long advertisements (after all, I think being one of the largest sample developer firms in the world, Big Fish Audio can afford to purchase advertising) and instead make more readable, shorter posts to state your case. But realize that by your doing so, it fully gives everyone, including me, the right to make critical comparisons of your product based on your demos and our experience with your other products such as BASiS. Not a mean spirited comparison, but a frank, honest assessment.

- eDrummist

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (BenjaminS)

Thu, 13 May 2010 10:34:39 GMT

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (BenjaminS)

Thu, 13 May 2010 10:23:41 GMT

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (edrummist)

Thu, 13 May 2010 09:49:31 GMT

musicman100

Maybe I'm dreaming but I thought I saw a 99 dollars price quoted .....over on KVR?

I'm working hard to have this out at the end of the month. I'm releasing it at the same time as announcing/releasing some other stuff, which is why it's taking a little longer than anticipated.

For the price, I'm thinking $99.95 USD.

Combined with the lead guitar library, you'll have one killer guitar sample library.----
Greg Schlaepfer
Orange Tree Samples

Hi Musicman 100,

It seems that you and I have largely been on the same journey with all of those strumming VSTs you own. The only one you mentioned I've never owned is Rob Papens RG.

The post you quoted above was in reference to how much the upgrade price of Evolution would be for existing users of Orange Tree Sample's Strawberry Electric Guitar sample library for Kontakt. I know the list price of non-upgrade version of Evolution, and it's more than $99.95 USD. I don't have permission to share the list price until Orange Tree Samples publicly announces it. But, I can tell you that it is a great price that is lower than many Kontakt electric guitar sample libraries on the market, not to mention that they don't include a chord strumming / rhythm guitar engine. I can confidently say that you won't find anything with equivalent features or a similar level of realism at that price or even above it in any product currently on the market or coming to market (again, I'm a marketing professional and did a great deal of marketing research -- first for my personal search for such a product, and second, to make my case to the developer that there was a marketing opportunity for such a product).

Consider that I just sold my copy of RealStrat and that lists at $299 USD (although you can find it at retail outlets for $249 USD or so) and Evolution is like a super advanced, easier to use version of that product with vastly better samples and that sounds incredibly more realistic. You can compare the demos of Electri6ty for yourself and reach your own conclusions if you think that library sounds as realistic for a price of $399.95 USD, which I will tell you that Electri6ity is priced significantly higher than Evolution will be.

- eDrummist

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (BenjaminS)

Thu, 13 May 2010 09:29:09 GMT

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (Ham N Egz)

Thu, 13 May 2010 09:19:44 GMT

I will pull the trigger on it for that price.
I already own Rob Papens RG, the Musiclabs Real Guitar and Real Strat, and Steinbergs VEG. All have strengths but are still missing some mojo
I was preparing to embark on a search for rhythm guitar loops until I saw this product, now I think I will wait for the release
Come on Greg release it !!!!

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (Ham N Egz)

Thu, 13 May 2010 09:14:34 GMT

Monkey23

Speaking of price, what is the street price of Evolution expected to be? I couldn't see it on their website. All of this bickering might be for nothing if these programs are not even priced similarly. I mean nobody would compare GPO to Vienna based on the fact that they are aimed at very different markets, no?

Maybe I'm dreaming but I thought I saw a 99 dollars price quoted .....over on KVR?

I'm working hard to have this out at the end of the month. I'm releasing it at the same time as announcing/releasing some other stuff, which is why it's taking a little longer than anticipated.

For the price, I'm thinking $99.95 USD.

Combined with the lead guitar library, you'll have one killer guitar sample library.----
Greg Schlaepfer
Orange Tree Samples

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (edrummist)

Thu, 13 May 2010 09:14:24 GMT

huffy

As a non-guitarist, I'm wondering: Do any of these competing guitar programs do anything like Synful Orchestra does? Namely, take an existing MIDI performance and simply... Make It Sound Real, automatically, by matching up your existing MIDI phrases and timing with its big database full of not only notes, but also phrases and transitions and articulations, which the program then splices together according to how you played the notes in your MIDI clip to produce a real-sounding performance. Check out the explanations on the following page, especially the bits under "Realism,...Smart Articulation", "RPM Phrase Database" and "MIDI Look Ahead". Would any of these approaches be applicable to electric guitar, and are any of the new guitar products incorporating them?

http://www.synful.com/SynfulOrchestra.htm

PGMusic's "RealTracks" (used within Band-In-A-Box and RealBand) are similar, in the sense that you get these big audio folders full of very, very long audio recordings of, say, an electric guitar being played in a certain stylistic way, just strumming or picking chords, transitioning between all sorts of chords in various ways, etc. Then, once you enter your chords for your song, and choose a style that incorporates that model of guitar (and that style of playing), it pieces together a track that sounds, IMO, pretty darn real and pretty doggone seamless.

The problem is, you don't really have control at the note level - you can just choose the chords and the general strumming or picking style. But man, if I could get the effortless realism of RealTracks, but also be able to control the individual notes played as well (as with Synful Orchestra), that would be the Holy Grail of guitar software, as far as I'm concerned.

It's like, you'd no longer have to spend hours trying to paste disconnected scrapes and other isolated articulations alongside isolated notes, with the perpetually dashed hope that "maybe it'll sound convincing this time".

I equally loathe the idea of trying to become adept at doing realtime keyswitching and realtime perfect mod/pitch wheel movements with my left hand every few seconds while I'm trying to concentrate on playing my solos and melodies with my right hand. Nope, I'm too spoiled by having used both of the aforementioned programs (...well, with Synful I just had a trial version several years ago, but still...). There's got to be a way to incorporate this kind of "automatic" or "smart articulation" feature into an electric guitar module (or whatever it's called - I assume 'module' is probably closer to it than 'thingy'...?)

Anyway, is this perhaps what you guys mean when you talk about these guitar programs' new "ingenious scripting"? I'm not sure what that means, sorry.

Hi Huffy,

I can't speak for Electri6ity, as I have never used it, but I have Orange Tree Sample's Strawberry, the earlier generation product of Evolution, and it doesn't require a bunch of keyswitches to sound realistic. That is one of the aspects about it that I am so fond of. Also, Evolution has a new proprietary feature of theirs called "Mind Control" that lets you assign how the articulations operate. So, if you want an articulation to be triggered by velocity instead of say, the modwheel, you can make it operate the way you like. If you check out some of the feedback at Orange Tree Sample's support thread that its customers use at KVR, you'll get a very good idea of how the product works from its users. One of the things you repeatedly see is users commenting how easy their stuff is to use. When I'm praising the scripting -- that's a huge part of what I find so special about their libraries.

That said, I asked the developer who owns Orange Tree Samples, Greg Schlaepfer, if he could answer your questions. I especially thought he could share some insights into the various ways you can use the new strumming / rhythm guitar engine and might know about Synful or RealTracks, which I've heard of, but know nothing about, so I really couldn't provide any insights.

- eDrummist

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (huffy)

Thu, 13 May 2010 01:28:23 GMT

As a non-guitarist, I'm wondering: Do any of these competing guitar programs do anything like Synful Orchestra does? Namely, take an existing MIDI performance and simply... Make It Sound Real, automatically, by matching up your existing MIDI phrases and timing with its big database full of not only notes, but also phrases and transitions and articulations, which the program then splices together according to how you played the notes in your MIDI clip to produce a real-sounding performance. Check out the explanations on the following page, especially the bits under "Realism,...Smart Articulation", "RPM Phrase Database" and "MIDI Look Ahead". Would any of these approaches be applicable to electric guitar, and are any of the new guitar products incorporating them?

http://www.synful.com/SynfulOrchestra.htm

PGMusic's "RealTracks" (used within Band-In-A-Box and RealBand) are similar, in the sense that you get these big audio folders full of very, very long audio recordings of, say, an electric guitar being played in a certain stylistic way, just strumming or picking chords, transitioning between all sorts of chords in various ways, etc. Then, once you enter your chords for your song, and choose a style that incorporates that model of guitar (and that style of playing), it pieces together a track that sounds, IMO, pretty darn real and pretty doggone seamless.

The problem is, you don't really have control at the note level - you can just choose the chords and the general strumming or picking style. But man, if I could get the effortless realism of RealTracks, but also be able to control the individual notes played as well (as with Synful Orchestra), that would be the Holy Grail of guitar software, as far as I'm concerned.

It's like, you'd no longer have to spend hours trying to paste disconnected scrapes and other isolated articulations alongside isolated notes, with the perpetually dashed hope that "maybe it'll sound convincing this time".

I equally loathe the idea of trying to become adept at doing realtime keyswitching and realtime perfect mod/pitch wheel movements with my left hand every few seconds while I'm trying to concentrate on playing my solos and melodies with my right hand. Nope, I'm too spoiled by having used both of the aforementioned programs (...well, with Synful I just had a trial version several years ago, but still...). There's got to be a way to incorporate this kind of "automatic" or "smart articulation" feature into an electric guitar module (or whatever it's called - I assume 'module' is probably closer to it than 'thingy'...?)

Anyway, is this perhaps what you guys mean when you talk about these guitar programs' new "ingenious scripting"? I'm not sure what that means, sorry.

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (BenjaminS)

Wed, 12 May 2010 23:15:12 GMT

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (edrummist)

Wed, 12 May 2010 14:43:21 GMT

GigaGreenGad

edrummist

GigaGreenGad

I've been using Impact Soundworks' Shreddage and have been very happy with it so far.

Yeah, I thought the demos for that Shreddage demos sounded cool, but although Shreddage is an electric guitar library, it is a very different animal than Evolution or a lot of the other electric guitar libraries on the market. The dev for Shreddage (according to his posts on KVR) created it specifically for metal and as per him, it doesn't have dynamics and isn't intended to be a versatile instrument beyond the metal genre nor does it feature anything beyond basic chords (he stated that if you're looking for strumming, Shreddage is not the right product for you). That said, for $49, if you do metal, I agree, that Shreddage is worth checking into. but it isn't intended to be a versatile guitar and doesn't feature much in the way of chord strums, but that's not what people doing the style of metal it was intended for care about anyhow.

So, again, Shreddage is a completely different animal than Evolution, which is a very sophisticated and versatile guitar library with an extensive amount of articulations and intended for a full range or dynamics, as you can hear from the various demos. It is intended for all styles and includes a chord strumming engine that can create any type of chord or inversion. I'm super excited about the chord strumming rhythm guitar engine and the ability to do all sorts of chords and inversions. The dev sampled the guitar separately for use with the chord strum engine. As I mentioned earlier, I look at it as kind of a RealStrat on steroids and evolved several generations with superior samples and articulations good enough to be used in pro recordings. The lead engine is based on Orange Tree Samples' Strawberry Extended, which I think is an incredible library -- some of the demos I posted here were from Strawberry Extended and even the original Strawberry library.

You're quite the salesman " />.

HAH! Well, as I've mentioned, I am a marketing and marketing communications professional and fairly well recognized in my field, I write and do a fair amount of public speaking, so, no doubt, all of that has affected the way I write posts and my writing everywhere else (or ruined me, based on your opinion!!!). If my descriptions come off as benefit or feature oriented, in my career, I tend to think of things in that manner and express myself in that manner. It doesn't change the integrity of what I'm writing or the honesty of what I am writing.

Consequently, I tend to analyze markets, products and competitive offerings by nature. I probably know the guitar and bass sample and VST market as well as I've known consumer electronic markets I've worked in professionally -- maybe even better. As a user of guitar and bass sample libraries, I've researched the heck out of stuff before buying and I have also owned or currently own libraries from Orange Tree Samples, Lyrical Distortion, Pettinhouse, Sonic Implants, Sonic Reality and others and guitar and bass VSTs including RealStrat, RealGuitar, Raging Guitars, VirtualGuitarist, BASiS and others. As I shared earlier in this thread, I approached Orange Tree Samples with what was basically a SWOT analysis of the guitar sample and VST market showing there was still a market opportunity for an ultra-realistic, high end guitar sample library that featured extensive articulations and versatile strumming/rhythm guitar capabilities that didn't require a keyboardist to understand the guitar to get great results (which, oddly enough, is the case with most libraries and products) and was easy to use. No doubt, what I was describing was a bit of an idealized version of RealStrat. Anyhow, it is pretty hard to contain my enthusiasm now that this product is coming to market (and, don't get me wrong, I am not a part owner of the product or anything -- just a huge fan of the dev who has given him marketing advice). That said, don't get me wrong, I still think that Lyrical Distortion, for instance, makes some incredibly good electric guitar libraries that I love, and Scarbee, for example, makes some incredibly good bass libraries. And I'm still eagerly awaiting some releases from Lyrical Distortion. And, if you were to look at my Facebook profile, you'd see that most of these devs and I have come to know each other and be friends. I love the stuff the work they do. My enthusiasm for all of this is really just an extension of my love of music and making music -- which I suppose anyone who posts here can relate to.

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (GigaGreenGad)

Wed, 12 May 2010 14:14:07 GMT

edrummist

GigaGreenGad

I've been using Impact Soundworks' Shreddage and have been very happy with it so far.

Yeah, I thought the demos for that Shreddage demos sounded cool, but although Shreddage is an electric guitar library, it is a very different animal than Evolution or a lot of the other electric guitar libraries on the market. The dev for Shreddage (according to his posts on KVR) created it specifically for metal and as per him, it doesn't have dynamics and isn't intended to be a versatile instrument beyond the metal genre nor does it feature anything beyond basic chords (he stated that if you're looking for strumming, Shreddage is not the right product for you). That said, for $49, if you do metal, I agree, that Shreddage is worth checking into. but it isn't intended to be a versatile guitar and doesn't feature much in the way of chord strums, but that's not what people doing the style of metal it was intended for care about anyhow.

So, again, Shreddage is a completely different animal than Evolution, which is a very sophisticated and versatile guitar library with an extensive amount of articulations and intended for a full range or dynamics, as you can hear from the various demos. It is intended for all styles and includes a chord strumming engine that can create any type of chord or inversion. I'm super excited about the chord strumming rhythm guitar engine and the ability to do all sorts of chords and inversions. The dev sampled the guitar separately for use with the chord strum engine. As I mentioned earlier, I look at it as kind of a RealStrat on steroids and evolved several generations with superior samples and articulations good enough to be used in pro recordings. The lead engine is based on Orange Tree Samples' Strawberry Extended, which I think is an incredible library -- some of the demos I posted here were from Strawberry Extended and even the original Strawberry library.

You're quite the salesman " />.

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (edrummist)

Wed, 12 May 2010 14:08:28 GMT

That's one of the things about Evolution (and it's predecessor, Strawberry Extended, which I have) that makes it incredible, IMO, and gets me really excited is that it has a ton of articulations -- like pinch harmonics. But probably just as importantly, you can actually play OTS stuff live and it sounds realistic, it's almost mystical how it figures out your keyboard playing to guitar and bass guitar (check out the OTS forum at KVR and you'll see a bunch of customers posting about this, if you think it sounds a bit crazy). I mean, I have a number of guitar libraries I really don't use because they require a ton of keyswitches to sound realistic, which for me, stifles the whole creative process and the joy I get out of playing this stuff, as I much prefer playing live to fooling with keyswitches and hand editing midi (yeah, I'm old school, the son of a music teacher, I really love to play instruments, not score things in or put in midi notes by hand).

As I shared with you, I don't have a DAW set up right now, as my basement, where I keep my stuff is being redone, and I will be getting a new DAW PC in a month or so, so all I have is my office PC to mess with this stuff -- and though it's a Quadcore, it's a really sluggish machine, so at best, I just fiddle with my sample libraries on it and only have Acid installed, not Sonar 8. So, I'm getting anxious to get back into working with all of this stuff again. I'm also going to be moving my 5 yr old son's Ludwig Jr set down there for some jam sessions and record him and put it on tracks (yeah, that will take a lot of editing -- and I have Melodyne for fixing vocals)! I'm certain I'll eventually be uploading some YouTube videos. :)

Re:The Most Realistic Sounding Electric Guitar Sample Library to Date... (Basradaem)

Wed, 12 May 2010 13:52:37 GMT

edrummist
Yep, that's what I was referring to. Thanks, Luke, for giving me the proper term so I can actually refer to that technique using a term where other people actually know what I am talking about without my having to reference "La Grange" and make a strange noise. :)

LOL no problem, Peter. I guess I ruined it for everyone who gets a kick out of you making that strange noise " />.

I dig the pinch harmonics, too... which is something I can't currently pull off with the stock guitars in Kontakt 4.