OT: Classical guitar samples?

[Wheat Williams]

JABB has a Brazilian bossa nova nylon string guitar.

Does anybody know if Garritan is going to provide classical guitar sounds in any other products?

If you know of a decent, affordable classical guitar virtual instrument, please tell me what you recommend.

[swinkler]

I believe the free Kore player from Native Instruments has a nylon string guitar that's pretty good. They also have a free instrumental pack for a few additional sounds.
It's kind of a klunky player to use, but works pretty well.

Steve Winkler

[Wheat Williams]

If anybody is interested, I have auditioned a few demos of classical guitar virtual instruments and I have listened to a lot of audio demos.

My conclusions:

Apple GarageBand (free with every new Mac) has a very decent classical guitar sample library. It is better than the classical guitar in the Garritan JABB and also much better than the one in Native Instruments KORE.

Apple Logic Express (a complete DAW environment) includes an even better, more detailed classical guitar instrument, and the whole Logic Express package is only $180.

Vienna Symphonic Library has a classical guitar library that costs $95 for the basic and $150 for the deluxe version. This seems to be the highest-quality, most detailed and musical option, but there is no downloadable software demo available.

East West Quantum Leap Gypsy is a multi-instrument package that is highly rated for its classical guitar instrument.

Vir2 Acoustic Legends looks really good, too.

But the most intriguing option is RealGuitar by MusicLab. Not only does it sound good, but it also has an innovative system for live performance from a keyboard. It uses all kinds of tricks to emulate what a real guitarist would do, including hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, bends, finger noise, strumming and choking, and automatically creating realistic guitar chord voicings and strumming when the keyboardist holds down only one or two keys to outline the chord.

I don't need a live-performance-from-a-keyboard option, as I am a guitarist only looking to improve the sound of Sibelius playback for auditioning my guitar ensemble arrangements, but the MusicLab people have put a great deal of thought into creating a virtual instrument that goes way beyond a mere sample library. You might call it the Garritan Gofriller Solo Cello of guitars.

[ejr]

I have Real Guitar. The best thing about it is that you can play a keyboard the way you normally would and it structures the chords the way they would actually be played on a guitar. It has two steel string, one nylon and one 12 string (steel) guitars. However, the lower range of all of them is the second E below middle C. The nice thing about the JABB guitar is that it extends lower, so you don't have to play the lowest notes on a acoustic bass guitar and deal with the difference in timbre. NI does include 2 steel string guitars in Kontakt 2 (not sure about Kontakt 3). One of them covers the whole keyboard - so it is not modeling what a real guitar could do. The other (the small steel guitar) has a more realistic range, but the timbre of the low end sound just like the top - not like it's using thicker strings on the bottom.

So, I think JABB is your best choice if you are not strumming chords and you want to go low without going to the bass. Real Guitar is good if strumming is what you want. (You can play melodies without chords, too, but you can't switch easily between them). CH guitars looks good, but I haven't actually tried it and the price is a bit steep by comparison - especially if you all ready own other guitar samples or VIs.

[Wheat Williams]

However, the lower range of all of them is the second E below middle C. The nice thing about the JABB guitar is that it extends lower, so you don't have to play the lowest notes on a acoustic bass guitar and deal with the difference in timbre. Well, the second E below middle C is in fact the lowest note on the conventional 6-string guitar. I'm writing arrangements (from Renaissance and Baroque music) for three conventional guitars and no other instruments, so I don't need any lower notes for now.

[NeoDavinci]

This is perhaps a 10 years out of date opinion, but i have never heard a sampled classical guitar that even came close to Hans Zimmer's, now sold by Spectrasonics.

[tradivoro]

Actually, this is the best I've heard to date, its for kontakt, I don't know how hard it is to program to sound real...

http://www.musesamples.com/mp3demos/index.html

[rpearl]

This one is quite nice, as well:

http://www.ultimatesoundbank.com/uviscp1.html?doc=audiodemo

Expensive, though - you have to get the whole library.

[shakuman]

Hi.
Really I am looking for the best acoustic guitar samples..Any other comment ?

Shakuman.

[marce]

Yellowtools independence free, a freebie sampler with some sounds on it, has an excelent acoustic guitar, better than the Kore player one, imo.
Also, i always liked a very old soundfont made by a guy i take time to write in the past, so, not a rip-off or something, he actually recorded the thing.
Is very small, but nice, with some fret-noises according to velocity.
It`s here:
http://www.hammersound.com/cgi-bin/soundlink.pl?action=view_download_page;ID=597;Soun dFont_Location_Selected=Download%20USA;SoundFont_F ilename_Selected=ProTrax_Classical_Guitar.rar

It´s called "Protrax Classical Guitar"

[BenNichols]

i second yellow tools independance free. Its brilliant, and has a good selection of other instruments that are not often easily and freely available.

[rpearl]

The yellow tools guitar is nice - but it doesn't go as high as most real guitars will. If I remember correctly, it tops out on a G, and guitars will routinely go up another 3rd to B (octave and a fifth above the treble staff).

[carlmsmith]

To my mind there are a couple of classical guitar sounds extant-
a "theatrical" sound, a la Ottmar Liebert, with sharp fingernail (or pick!) attacks, and a more quiet, fleshy tone (e.g. Segovia).

While the former sound is what you mostly find, if you want classical realism try vrsound.com and listen to the aguados_estudio demo. (Ignore the other two). I'm an amateur classical guitarist myself and thats the best one I have come across. I confess I don't own it since I pretty much produce my own tracks.

Carl

[marce]

The yellow tools guitar is nice - but it doesn't go as high as most real guitars will. If I remember correctly, it tops out on a G, and guitars will routinely go up another 3rd to B (octave and a fifth above the treble staff).

You are right. BUT you can easily extend the range to the desired up 3rd. Yes, they are not sampled from the real guitar, only a pitch shift made by the sampler, but i believe it`s not noticeable, specially for keys not so much used.
Here is an screenshot of where can be done inside the sampler:

http://stashbox.org/530525/IndependenceFreeGuitarRange.jpg

[BenNichols]

Never thought of doing that! I always just rewrote the guitar line to fit it in :p