GUITAR QUEST --Most playable, evolved guitars?

[Avar]

JTmusic started a very stimulating discussion of current piano samples, which I found most valuable -- thank you everyone for your thoughtful and enthusiastic contributions. The richness of fine pianos is my top reason for using Giga.

Now I would like to propose a similar discussion of the current crop of guitar samples, to exchange experiences, opinions, techniques, preferences and so on.

Which guitar disks do you prefer and why? Would also like opinions on non-Giga samples such as Hans Zimmer.

Thanks to you all, you\'re a geat bunch!

--Avar

[franz]

http://www.vrsound.com/GS/NylonGtr.mp3 (\"http://www.vrsound.com/GS/NylonGtr.mp3\")

[Bardstown Audio]

Check out the \"User Comments\" and \"MP3 Files\" at www.bardstownaudio.com (\"http://www.bardstownaudio.com\")

Kip
Bardstown Audio

[Munsie]

Electric guitar playable samples havn\'t really evolved yet. Though I expect that to change within the next 6 months to a year. Acoustic samples have been done right for some time now, there is a vast variety of acoustic sample librarys, some with lead (tones) and some with chords that you can strum. A simple search on \"acoustic guitar samples\" from your favorite search engine will yield a bounty of links. I have almost all of the popular guitar libraries, however I find myself using some nylon patches from my trusty JV-1010 sound module the most. One library I\'m looking forward to is the Strat guitar library from Nick Phoenix. I have no idea when that will be available, I expect sometime early next year. I\'m in the process of creating a private rock bass and rythm guitar library. I was so frustrated with what\'s currently available.

[esteven1]

I think Hans Zimmer guitars are excellent especially the nylon string one. I can post a mp3 of a guitar duet I made. Not too ineteresting musically but you can at least hear what the guitar sounds like. Let me know....

[Z6]

Yes. I\'d like to hear your application of the the Zimmer. Is that the Flamenco guitar from Zimmer 2 you\'re talking about (or is there a nylon on Zimmer 1)? Also, if you could critique the libarary as well, that would be great.

I\'m interested in nylon and electrics - especially hearing what people have to say about the Zimmers, they\'re expensive so I\'m reluctant to jump in.

[esteven1]

www.edog-online.com/guitar2.mp3 (\"http://www.edog-online.com/guitar2.mp3\")

Please don\'t let my horrible guitar playing shame the great expressive sounds of the Zimmer library. This will at least give you an idea of the tone.

[Z6]

Thanks for the post. It was very interesting. The guitars sounded very good but a little strange. The vibrato sustain went on for \'too\' long (is this built-in or a choice - this isn\'t a criticism, it sounded good but it revealed the sound as a sample, the decay didn\'t sound totally natural). Also, it almost sounded like a nylon in the quiet parts and a steel string in the stronger parts (was it?). In fact the tone of the \'hard\' plucks reminded me of Django\'s sound.

Which guitar was it? Was it from Zimmer 1 or 2? It did sound plenty expressive - are those slides hard to perform, and did you play it or was it sequenced?

Thanks a million for that: I\'d much rather hear what \'real\' people are doing than listen to a demo (The Zimmer 2 demo sounds great, but so does everybody else\'s (except Hanz\'s Mozart - Hey Hanz give it a break with the spamming! Get some decent demos of your superb samples. Right now you chime in with your web address and open yourself up to ridicule with that crazy out of tune demo. Why not tell us why your stuff is good when people want an opinion, then point us to a page full of wonderful demos. I\'m interested in your nylon guitar but there isn\'t enough on your site to sway me - and lose the Mozart for goodness sake, at least until it\'s tuned.)):-)

Thanks again for the demo (I enjoyed it - I\'ve too much work to do today and it relaxed me). Please let us know which library/guitar(s) it was.

[Z6]

\'Franz\', not Hanz. Sorry mate.

[esteven1]

I think that was the nylon guitar sample off disc 1. It\'s been SO long ago when I made that so I could be wrong. With some careful midi programming, you can really make the guitars sound good.

They work well for background accompaniments as you saw. Some of the leads are great also.

[franz]

YO Z6
Hmm, mozart is long gone I wonder if you are looking at some cached version of my site?

This is just \"Nylon Guitar\" and if you want it I\'ll put it on a cd rom and ship it to you. I gave up pre-making cd roms. Too expensive.
Only custom orders.

This demo I played live without sequencing (sorry no midi file in existence!) on my ex5 keyboard which I use as controller.
The open strings are assigned below the range on the respective notes and the guitar has 4 velocity layers (also the open strings). Like all the new VRSound samples it was recorded with a binaural head system about 4 feet away, Neve pre amp, into a 96/24 Radar at Sony Studios Santa Monica, CA and then downsampled to 48/16 (maybe I\'ll make it available as 96/24 next year when hrd drive prices come down to $ 20 per 100GB). The samples were normalized by the highest level note, thus retaining the natural dynamics of the instrument.

The Guitar was performed by Matthew von Doran. He delivered the most precise velocity technique I have ever heard, Thanks Matthew!!

Sorry about my demos but being a one man show and engineering or producing records constantly makes it very difficult to keep things up to date. Some people hear enough to be convinced and there\'s not a lot of solo instrument demos out there. mostly I hear demos where things are mixed together and its hard to tell what the samples sound like. My musicianship is limited to writing and noodling I do not compose for TV or Film only for records. My musical back ground is Fusion (Played with BrandX for a while) and progressive stuff so I am clueless with string arrangements and orchestral stuff.
I have about 10 more completed instruments like Harp, Solo violin Hohner D6 .....that I haven\'t had a chance to even mention on my webpage.

Sorry for the \"spam\" but I am not the only one and I do have a lot of new sounds that are \"out of the ordinary\" (to some) and I believe a few people who come here might want to know about them. I refuse to sell my samples through the behemoth Distributers.
I\'d rather die poor than with an Ulcer.

best,
franZ

[Z6]

Franz (sorry about the name gaff - I was at work and a bit pushed).

This is great; very informative and helpful. I wanted to point out the \'spam\' because it really just made you look bad and I\'d noticed that people were honing in on it. Hats off to you for going it alone and many thanks for the \'more full\' description. Perhaps you could cut and paste this any time someone asks, and each time there is a question about a library that you might have, you\'ll have a full description available.

I don\'t think anyone has anything against developers weighing in here at all but posting nothing more than a link probably hurts the marketing effort more than helps it. If you do eventually have pages full of demos at your site it\'ll certainly put you ahead of the competition (the internet is still a great leveller in this respect). We just want to know what we\'re buying before we buy it.

Good luck.

[Avar]

The Hans Zimmer Guitars Vol 1 looks like a must have. I wish it were available for GS, though, since I don\'t have the gear to run it.

The demo for Max Ragan Maximum Guitar sounds to me very impressive (a gleaming Martin guitar only) for $119 at Northern.

The other demo that really impressed me is EastWest\'s Quantum Leap Guitar & Bass disk, which contains many acoustic and electric guitars for $269-

Both makers claim the guitars are very playable through velocity layers or outer MIDI Keys for switching expression samples.

Does anyone have experience using these libraries? Thanks.

[Bardstown Audio]

Check out the MP3\'s and \"User Comments\" on \"Vintage Guitars and Tenor Banjos\" at www.bardstownaudio.com (\"http://www.bardstownaudio.com\")

Thanks,

Kip
Bardstown Audio www.bardstownaudio.com (\"http://www.bardstownaudio.com\")

[Avar]

Interesting music with lots of color. You really show how to use these samples very well for these well-known styles.

I\'m looking for a pure, clear guitar library programmed for GS to permit a wide range of guitar-like articulation and expression. The fast tempo picking in these demos doesn\'t really let me hear what I guess I need to hear.

Great stuff, however -- thanks for the listen!

--Avar

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Bardstown Audio:
Check out the MP3\'s and \"User Comments\" on \"Vintage Guitars and Tenor Banjos\" at www.bardstownaudio.com (\"http://www.bardstownaudio.com\")

Thanks,

Kip
Bardstown Audio www.bardstownaudio.com (\"http://www.bardstownaudio.com\")

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Bardstown Audio]

Avar,

Thank you for your compliments. There are a few slower tunes on the MP3 page of my web site. Check out \"Slow Jazz-2.\"

I am working on some more demos, which I will be putting up on my web site in the next few days. I will make an announcement on this forum when I do.

Thanks,

Kip
Bardstown Audio www.bardstownaudio.com (\"http://www.bardstownaudio.com\")