PavlovsCat

I agree with what Fleer wrote. Spend time listening to the demos. Each guitar has something unique about it, For me, having every OTS instrument, I find myself using different guitars depending on the nature of the song. Indie is one of the recent Evolution libraries, and it's quickly become a favorite of mine. But if I'm looking for a classic rock electric guitar, the Rock Standard, which is a Gibson Les Paul, is often my choice, and/or Evoliution Stratosphere, a Fender Strat. Indie is a Fender Jaguar and I love the tone and vibe of that guitar too. I think the name for Texas Twang can create the wrong impression that it's limited to that style. The guitar is great for rock. I often find myself using the Hollowbody My Favorite Electric Guitar Sample Libraries for Rock Evolution Indie (Fender Jaguar) - A recently released OTS library, it's quickly become a favorite of mine for all kinds of rock music. Evolution Rock Standard (Les Paul) - The Les Paul is an iconic rock electric guitar. I use this A LOT. Evolution Stratosphere (Stratocaster) - The Strat. Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, David Gilmour... Need I say more? Evolution Texas Twang (Fender Mustang, I think) - Kurt Cobain. It's great for raw and indie rock. Evolution Strawberry (I forget! It starts with an S -- but it sounds awesome.) - When you want to sound like you can really play guitar leads, this is magic. Evolution Infinity (can't recall) -I think this is positioned for metal, which caused me to ignore it until one day, and since I tried it, I love it and use it all the time in energetic rock songs. Evolution Rick 12 String (Rickenbacker) - Pure Beatle-esque goodness Slide Lap Steel - Sweet. My Favorite Electric Guitar Sample Libraries for Folk or More Mellow Rock Evolution Hollowbody Jazz Electric - I really love playing this. It sounds great on slower rock songs, like my ELO cover below. My Favorite Bass Guitar Sample Libraries for Rock Evolution Vintage Violin (a Hofner like McCartney plays -- I may or may not have lobbied for OTS to make this for 10 years!!!! Okay, I did.) Evolution Roundwound Bass (Fender Precision Bass) Evolution Flatwound Bass (Fender Jazz Bass) Acoustic Guitar Favorites Evolution Songwriter Evolution Steel String -- sounds great and cuts through a rock mix. Evolution Dry Relic Evolution Flatpick 6 -- It sounds fantastic for doing single note runs and leads. Somehow, it even makes me sound like a player. Evolution Modern Nylon Evolution Slide Acoustic (I haven't downloaded Evolution Boutique Acoustic yet, but I plan to soon.) Various Acoustic Stringed Instrument Favorites Evolution Mandolin -- we had a mandolin when I was a kid and I absolutely love them and love this library Evolution Bluegrass Banjo -- I love using this on acoustic, folk rock-ish songs The recordings I make (some below) are all me playing Evolution libraries live (in real-time) and 90% of the time, using one of the presets (I sometimes create my own presets and sometimes use external guitar and bass amp sims). I have pretty bad tendinitis that stopped me from playing professionally or even as a hobbyist, until a few years ago. I had given up on playing at all, as when I play, in as little as 30 seconds of playing the drums or an arpeggio on the keyboards, I have pain. As I was once a perfectionist as a musician and it can be frustrating that I can no longer play what I want or even at any kind of decent level. Consequently, I wouldn't consider myself a musician anymore, even though I might write that in this forum to keep things simple. I've been recording very simple covers of songs that I love, and the simplest songs that I wrote decades ago. So basically, each of these songs represents me playing live -- jam style -- for better or worse. Subsequently, I think they provide a good representation of what can easily be played with these libraries -- no tricks, programming or serious MIDI editing (at most, I will go into MIDI notes and take out a sloppily bumped into note). SONGS I RECORDED EXTENSIVELY USING ORANGE TREE SAMPLES KONTAKT SAMPLE LIBRARIES This is my attempt to play a song I wrote in my youth decades ago. I did it from memory and couldn't remember all of the lyrics or the bridge, but I thought it was a pretty cool tune. It features Evolution Rock Standard, and a couple of other Evolution electric guitars, Evolution Slide Guitar for the main riff. The bass is either Evolution Roundwoud or Flatround. All guitars and the bass use the factory presets. My cover of ELO's "Can't Get it Out of My Head" features a few Evolution guitars, but the leads I do throughout the verses were improvised first takes (partially because I can only play a short while before I have pain, I tend to play a song once or twice, maybe retry some sections, but I generally use the first time I've played a song as I'm more inspired). Features Evolution Jazz Hollowbody (most of the leads during the verses), Evolution Rock Standard (rhythm guitar parts), Slide Lap Steel (some of the leads during the verses) and Evolution Vintage Violin Bass. My cover of I am the Walrus, the first song I recorded after a decade since I gave up on using a DAW and 20+ years after tendinitis stopped me from playing music, features a few Evolution electric guitars and Evolution Vintage Violin Bass (I originally used IK's MODO, Hofner emulation because OTS had not yet released their Hofner bass library at the time). All guitars and the bass use the factory presets. My cover of John Lennon's Cold Turkey featuring Evolution electric guitars and bass. The main chorus riff is played with Evolution Strawberry and the rhythm parts are Evolution Rock Standard. The bass is Evolution Vintage VIolin Bass. All guitars and the bass use the factory presets. The most popular rock band I played in did a cover of this song, and I attempted to duplicate my drumming from back then in this cover. I thought the rhythm guitar parts were pretty cool. It features a whole lot of Evolution Indie with Evolution Infinity and Strawberry doing some minor parts. The bass is Evolution Roundwound Bass.

I use Orange Tree Samples libraries in nearly every project I do. I've given advice to a few dozen sample developers and I've had several of them tell me that they look at Orange Tree Samples guitar libraries as being on a different level than other guitar sample libraries, including their own guitar libraries. Literally, developers who make guitar libraries of their own have said that plainly to me. I've given OTS advice and I'm friends with Greg,so feel free to write off my opinion if you're so inclined, but our relationship was a result of my being completely blown away by OTS libraries. My tendinitis makes the playing guitar painful. But Orange Tree Samples libraries enable me to play things I could never play on the guitar even before tendinitis. I've been trying to persuade Greg (the founder of OTS) to get permission to share some of his well known client list, because it includes some of the biggest name composers in the film, TV and games, and rock, jazz, R&B, pop, and hip hop musicians. When Greg first released Famous E, I was on the phone with him and I told him that playing the instrument brought back memories of certain songs and artists and started naming a few of them. Greg shared that a bunch of the musicians I named bought the library and he was on the phone with one of them that morning, helping walk him through the installation of the library.

As Jude77 pointed out, XLN hasn't had a new version of Addictive Drums in nearly a decade. I'm an AD2 user with most of the AdPaks. But I have good news, straight from XLN. According to a comment their official account just made on Facebook, XLN has something coming for AD2 in the Fall -- I take its a new version, but they didn't state that much. See the screenshot below.

The landing page copy reads: "Experiment by switching between seven uniquely designed saturation algorithms." But I don't really know, I suppose that they could use an algorithm and an IR, right? I just caught a pretty favorable post about the saturator at BPB and thought I'd try it out and share it here and like it. It's always cool to come across talented new developers and even better when they have a really good freebie (or a time limited giveaway plugin, in this case).

Good stuff, but the developer has been promising to make their plugins VST3 for A LONG TIME (years) with no results or even an update projecting a date. So if you're expecting them to have VST3 versions soon, I wouldn't hold my breath.

I just had a chance to try Fine Classics Saturator out and I really like. So far I tried it on electric bass and acoustic drums in a project I'm working on and I liked it so much, I'm keeping the effect on both tracks. It's a keeper, IMO. As this plugin is only free until June 26, 2024, I'd recommend downloading and installing it soon.

@Brian Walton The irony of all of this, is that while I think MConvolutionMB has enormous advantages to the cut down version (MConvolutionEZ), the main reason I was strongly considering buying it (it's on sale and I can get it for around $20 US at LootAudio), is that I expected it to have a lot more really good IRs, as I really like what's included with MConvolutionEZ) and the demos for on the MConvolutionMB on the product page -- especially for the jazz drums -- sounded really good to my ears. But if MConvolutionMB doesn't have many IRs that come with it, I'm not certain I would buy it just for the MConvolutionMB plugin, as I'm pretty happy with Convology XT and it runs well on my machine. If anyone wants to weigh in, I'd love to get some insights, pro or con MConvolutionMB. My favorite reverb is Abbey Road Chambers, but it is a total resource hog to the point where it creates latency that makes it basically on usable in real time, and that stinks because I find it so inspiring when I'm playing that I want to use it in real time.

Fine Classics Saturator (FREE until June 26th – email required) BPB refers to this saturator free as "quite a full-featured release" and adds, "it’s definitely a steal to pick it up for free. " The Fine Classics Saturator is available for Windows 7 and up as well as Mac Sierra 10.12 and up. They wrote about the developer: "Fine Classics Plugins is a two-man operation run by Canadian producer Ryan Fitz and American musician Noah Deets, who are based in Hamilton, Ontario, and Washington, DC, respectively." https://fineclassicsplugins.com/products/fine-classics-saturator

Of course, we could handle some of these controls with additional external plugins, but that misses the point of the convenience of why developers add these controls in a plugin in the first place and why so many users appreciate them. Having more controls that many of us are likely to use in a convolution reverb as opposed to having to create a plugin chain that does that (and requires more CPU resources) is important to many users like me for a number of reasons. The first of which is the ease of making adjustments to the reverb. The second is that it enables the user to easily create and save presets that s/he can easily use in other projects and easily make edits to those presets instead of having to refer back to 20 past projects to find what effects chain and settings were used on each effect. Additionally, having an effects chain on each channel, especially if you're using a lot of virtual instruments -- which is the case for me -- can end up creating serious latency and resource issues. I'm regularly using 20 something tracks of detailed Kontakt instruments and if each one has 4 effects on it, it can mean that I have to freeze tracks while still recording the song, and need to freeze and unfreeze tracks to lessen latency. It can be a major hassle. It's one of the reasons I love Superior Drummer. It's a drum library along with a mixer and a ton of effects. Sure, we could use your argument that you can use external effects to do the same thing, and sometimes I love a compressor or a reverb and will use it instead of the internal effects, but I love the speed and convenience of having all of those effects when I'm using the mixing console in SD3. It saves time and also leads to my trying things out I would never had tried if it weren't so easy to do. It also means I can easily save everything I've done as a preset I can use in other projects, and I can't even easily convey how significant that is. I suppose you can boil it down to workflow and personal preferences. I prefer to be able to use the controls in a convolution reverb, easily experiment with different settings and save everything as presets that I can easily use in other projects. So that this conversation is helpful to others who haven't used or researched these two convolution reverbs, I've included screenshots of MConvolutionMB with MConvolutionEZ so that those who haven't compared these two convolution reverbs can understand the differences in controls. MConvolutionMB has the following controls: MConvolutionEZ provides the user with 6 controls: Dry/Wet, Widenning High Pass Low Pass Pre-delay Normalize IR Loudness MConvolutionMB gives the user those controls with a lot more precision, adds additional controls and some very significant additional functionality: Dry/Wet Widenning / Width High Pass Low Pass Gain Reverse Pre-Delay Time Saturation Frequency Additional functionality: File Manager with Automatic Stitching Two impulse responses per band plus modulation File manager with automatic stitching Ability to Generate IRs

I registered for this freebie-- I already have the synth but its WUP is due, so this is like free WUP. I stopped buying Waves plugins 3 or 4 years ago, but I still use several Waves plugins pretty regularly. Especially the Abbey Road plugins. My hope is that another developer, like Softube -- which has done some plugins with Abbey Road -- or Universal Audio makes similar plugins to the ones I really like (Chambers, ADT, Plates and Saturator). I'd rather buy the same plugin from another developer than pay WUP only to be in the same state after a year. Every deal anyone posts related to Waves should come with an explanation of WUP, so those who don't understand it can be made aware. If someone just getting into digital recording asked me about whether or not they should buy from Waves, I'd strongly recommend avoiding them. Waves plugins are a potential future money pit.

Thanks. I should have updated this. Last night, I went to the dev's site and downloaded a demo. I like it. Although I'm not sure if the patches I liked were really that much different from other synths I have. I'd recommend anyone considering this to try the demo.

I started this thread and after trying the EchoThief Convolution Reverb, I think it's delete worthy. Both the free Convology XT and MConvolutionEZ are vastly superior. You can download the same EchoThief impulse responses-- they're free and available directly from the guy who made them -- and load them in those two superior plugins, both of which give you more control than the Stagecraft plugin.

Well, Erik / @Starship Krupa, you're the person responsible for my trying out Melda plugins -- and you've always been super helpful -- and I'm grateful to you for all of the above. I'm actually contemplating buying Melda's paid convolution reverb, which is currently on sale, due to my using MConvolutionEZ (the reverb used on the drums on the audio demo on their site sound great to my ears and it's only $24 USD). But when it comes to comparing ConvologyXT to MConvolutionEZ, ConvologyXT is the clear winner, IMO. MConvolutionEZ is a lightweight plugin that runs flawlessly on my Windows 10 PC. The included IR library sounds excellent. However, the plugin is a very cut-down version of Melda's for-pay convolution reverb. It's really just a teaser to promote their paid product and Melda removed so many of the controls from their paid product that a serious user is going to find this freebie insufficient as a convolution reverb. But it's a great for what it is -- an ad for Melda's paid convolution reverb, as it sounds great and the plugin runs great. I've seen a number of "best free convolution reverbs" lists recommend MConvolutionEZ for beginners trying their first convolution reverb -- basically, as a free starter convolution reverb, and that makes sense to me; but for others, it's like a taster for the paid plugin. Its only audio controls are dry/wet, widening, and high and low pass filters. If you want the kind of controls you'd expect from a paid convolution reverb, you either need to buy Melda's paid convolution reverb (which I'm actually contemplating right now, as it's on sale) OR you could turn to Convology XT, which has significantly more editing capabilities. I've included screenshots of both plugins so you and others can see the controls for yourselves. Convology XT rivals the controls that one would expect to find on a paid convolution reverb. In fact, I own a paid convolution reverb, Wave's IR-1 and I prefer, and more regularly use, Convology XT due its more extensive controls (check out the screenshot of Convology XT below; the GUI is also superior to the IR-1, which looks like it was designed in the 90s by a programmer without the benefit of a designer). Impulse Record, the developer behind Convology XT (Wave Arts is responsible for the IRs) doesn't use the plugin as a promotional device to upsell users to a paid, full product like Melda does. Convology XT is their sole convolution reverb offering and I think they could easily charge for it, but their strategy is to market paid IR libraries to the users of their free plugin. Best of all, you can download their convolution reverb for free and use it to play the included 74 IRs and any other 3rd party IRs (it reads WAV/AIF files); that's a pretty sweet deal, IMO. Consequently, I think picking up Convology XT is a total no brainer, for the plugin, and the factory library. Even so, I'd still recommend downloading MConvolutionEZ because the factory IR library is so good. However, when it comes to using third-party IRs, I find Convology XT the better choice and either of them is vastly superior to the Stagecraft EchoThief Convolution Reverb.

I'm glad you found it useful. Here are some other free IRs worth downloading Bricasti IRs https://web.archive.org/web/20190201211631/http://www.samplicity.com/bricasti-m7-impulse-responses/ Lexicon 480L: https://www.housecallfm.com/download-gns-personal-lexicon-480l Signal to Noise - Not free, but inexpensive IRs: https://signaltonoize.com/?page_id=4188

I completely agree.

@Luc and anyone else who was interested in this offer, now that the free licenses have been exhausted and I've had a chance to try this reverb, I don't think it's anywhere close to being as good as the free Convology XT convolution reverb plugin. You can download the Echo Thief impulse responses into Convology XT and have A LOT more control over them than you'd have in this Stage Craft plugin (FTR, I think the free convolution reverb from Melda is pretty nice and I love some of the included IRs -- but it's missing too many controls and you can find those controls on Convology XT). Consequently, anyone who wasn't able to get a license for the Echo Thief convolution reverb -- and even those who did -- check out Convology XT below, download the free Echo Thief impulses (there are plenty of other good quality IRs on the web too; as long as they're not in a proprietary format, you can load them too). FREE Convology XT Convolution Reverb https://impulserecord.com/convology-xt/ FREE Echo Thief impulse responses http://www.echothief.com/downloads/

You guys have me very interested in this. I'm researching it and the developers are clearly heavy hitters in the synth world. I searched YouTube and still couldn't find a list of how many presets it has or a preset play through. If there isn't an exact number anymore, would any of you venture to guess the number of presets?

It worked for me without issues. But if the website is poorly coded, that doesn't exactly inspire confidence that the developer's plugins will be well coded. I'm just saying...

DEAL OVER - ALL LICENSES HAVE BEEN TAKEN -- SEE MY RECOMMENDED ALTERNATIVE BELOW Stagecraft Software is offering EchoThief convolution reverb plugin for Mac & Win as a free download (reg. $50) until June 30. Only 400 free keys (licenses) are available. https://my.stagecraftsoftware.com/promo/echothief [EDIT] RECOMMENDED ALTERNATIVE NOTE: If you're disappointed, don't be. Since creating this thread, I've installed and used the Echo Thief Convolution Reverb and to be candid, I absolutely don't think it's even close to as good as free convolution reverb plugins like Convology XT or Melda's MConvolutionEZ. You can freely download the Echo Thief impulse (linked below) and use those and other third-party impulse responses in both of those far superior convolution reverbs. So you're really not missing out. I'm almost certainly going to delete the EchoThief plugin and only use the IRs. FREE Convology XT Convolution Reverb https://impulserecord.com/convology-xt/ FREE Echo Thief impulse responses http://www.echothief.com/downloads/

I love it! It reminds me of one of my late brother's guitars when we were young and playing in our family band (he also lived in Michigan for a time). What's the model?

Also happy Father's Day to the this forum's daddy, @cclarry, and to all of my fellow dads. I can sincerely say that being a father has been the greatest honor of my life, so why not use it as an excuse to get ourselves something that brings us so much pleasure? Okay, with that remark, I'm anticipating that my forum accountability partner is about to weigh in. But I've wanted Capitol Chambers since it was released...

I've wanted Capitol Chambers for a long time. What are some of their plugins you'd (or anyone else who wants to weigh in) recommend?

I use less cliches, my sense of humor is pretty good (says me!) and my math skills are a bit better than AI. AI is terrible at originality, humor, and math. But it's only a matter of time before it nails math.

I'm not worried about it or offended. I just find the naming idea not just sophomoric, but profoundly stupid. I'm not sure about your leveraging it for a political rant. I think we're best staying focused on music related topics than using the forum to espouse political views.

While Google has used AI for around a decade, those keywords being classified as adult products actually would have been MUCH worse pre-AI. Google has been using AI to process search results for around a decade, and it's responsible for vastly more accurate results and an understanding of semantics that would never be otherwise possible. I just did pretty much the same search on my desktop -- when I did the earlier search it was on my phone -- that was profoundly obscene, but on the desktop, Google has done a much better job of discerning that this is a search for a virtual instrument (even with Safe Search off). Part of how they can discern that is from the user's history of past searches. In my case, I've done a ton of searching for virtual instruments that include keywords like "plugin," "vst" and "reviews." But, when I was on my phone, I may have been in Incognito mode so that my search results aren't personalized when I'm checking searches related to my business, Google's Safe Search was off and the results were profoundly obscene to the point it was worse than I expected. And don't think that I'm the world's greatest AI proponent (although I do use it daily and wrote a pretty thorough piece on its use in the marketing profession earlier this year), Early this year, I learned that ChatGPT had been telling users I died. It took several months of reaching out to the OpenAI folks to finally get that changed. Just a partial except: "..Unfortunately, Peter {last name] passed away...Despite his untimely death, his contributions to the field of marketing continue to be remembered and appreciated by professionals in the industry." On one hand, it's a lovely sentiment -- and the situation definitely has humor value. On the other hand, it's telling the world I'm dead and considering that I run and own a business with clients and readers around the world, it's not great for business for people to think I'm dead. Anyhow, a few weeks ago, I became undead in the world of ChatGPT. @Eusebio Rufian-Zilbermann I am trying not to die. Check out the above story to understand why my sense of humor goes to that lately. ChatGPT has been telling people I've been dead for at least half a year that I know of.