mettelus

I am not sure why, but opening those sites always makes me cringe. The Les Paul style was one I had never owned, so I grabbed a kit from StewMac last year (they are back on sale again). The issue with Gibson's is that modifying them devalues them, but one can customize a kit to their heart's content. Many of these are simply the finish, and the kits come unfinished. The only non-kit parts I replaced were to install a roller bridge and Super Distortion in the bridge position. With a little elbow grease and patience (with complex finishing can take a few weeks to complete), they become one-of-a-kind.

That is my concern, TBH. UJAM Carbon was either a freebie (or dirt cheap) a couple years ago, but I never took to it. The sounds are sort of baked in, so you lose the flexibility of tailoring the sounds a bit. This is my bigger concern for VSTis that are "too focused." For VSTis, the articulations and samples that it comes with could be everything, since you can used those (clean) samples to feed any FX chain you choose. I have not used Heavier7Strings in so long that I forgot how complex that VSTi is. I do remember playing with that a few years ago and when you expose all the key switches, it is nuts. Probably the nicest thing is what you will want to tweak most is right on the UI, but they were very thorough with what they did. Pick attacks, muting, harmonics, doubling effect, sensitivity of each string (rare to see this one), and the algorithms they used to replicate realism are all impressive. If you expose the key switches like they did with Cubase, you can manipulate the engine as easily as they did in their videos. I need to put a full controller back on this system to get full use out of it manually, but as I was playing with that again this morning, I realized how much I appreciate what they did. I think they have a trial for it, but I cannot seem to find it (maybe need to create an account). Again, that one is overkill for chugging, but if you get into composing leads and want to use a VSTi for those, it will work in that regard as well (plus has the sampled low end). Quick edit: Once I found the trial version I remember the raucous the audio insert caused! The VSTi didn't go silent (as most do), but had an annoying wave file of people cheering. I think that was removed, but the trial is still the same it was 5 years ago (posted 25 OCT 2017).

Honestly, I would try transposing to start with and not worry for a new VSTi (I think you can do everything that one is doing with what you have now). You really have two hurdles... one being able to make the sounds (however clunky), and then streamlining your work flow to make it easier each time. My guy feel as you go, you are going to settle into a workflow focus. If the low end is going to be important down the road (I suspect it will be), getting a VSTi with samples of lower strings that you find easy to use will be your sweet spot. I would hold off on the "VSTi focus" and try what transposing will do for you for the time being. It is worth waiting, focusing on how you work, and then making one purchase you will use for years.... especially if that one VSTi can "do everything" for you.

Gotcha, someone did a Melodyne recording a while ago... riffing one string, then used Melodyne to change all of the notes. It worked. That is an option to get lower registers, but is quite clunky and not fast (especially when you want to edit). Inside a DAW you can record power chords and split them into clips and transpose to get the same effect on a full chord. When not straying too far from the original samples, they are not too bad. Going that route, you could work with chords (as clips of the proper length) and copy/paste those around as needed during composition.

They would both be overkill for chugging for sure! What you have now I bet would be sufficient, so it may be more work flow. Is there something you want to do that you feel you cannot achieve with what you own now?

How are you planning to build tracks? Are you working in a DAW? Because of the FX you can add inside a DAW, I am not sure if the VSTi would be as critical. In stand alone mode, VSTis have different FX included. For chugging, you could use a free VSTi and put a better FX chain on it and it might suit your needs. When focused inside a DAW, you can make your own FX chain regardless of VSTi. As long as the output from the VSTi is clean, you will get the same tone. A couple ways to think about what you want... if VSTi focused, you can save presets and be DAW-independent; conversely, FX chains would make you more VSTi-independent, so could focus on work flow, MIDI routing, etc. That said, for metal (which often wants the meaty low end), Ample Sound's Hellraiser (9-string), and Three-Body Tech's Heavier7Strings would be my two choices for metal work. The Hellraiser only has the bridge pickup sampled, but if I were to choose only one VSTi, I would use that, since it can be fed clean into any FX chain you want and has the most notes available. Heavier7Strings is built for metal work, so the interface and sound engine actually have switches right on the UI to play 5th/octaves (i.e., one-fingered power chords). The FX chains internal to both are very usable even from the presets alone. Both of those go on sale during the holidays. Quick edit: Both have a lot of key switches available, but Heavier7Strings has some very specific to metal (pick attack, mutes, harmonics, etc.). They do their demos in Cubase, but when you are sitting at a DAW, you can drive Heavier7Strings to do a lot of cool stuff.

That was very interesting. The end made me chuckle (tackle box for speakers, pickups and pedals)... not sure the tackle box idea would work for a pickup... that would make for one heavy guitar!

Jason sent me a reply with the same video that @MisterX posted above bookmarked at 308. as well as the pdf link @abacab posted (section 1.7.2 of https://www.amplesound.net/en/Guitar_Strummer.pdf). So, we did get the gist of everything. He also said that if there are other specific questions to reach out to the Ample Sound support team.

During the Guitar Pro 8 discussion, there was a video about LoopMIDI in there I took a look into. This video embellishes that a bit and discusses how to work with Guitar Pro 8, but allow the sounds to be played by 1) Ample Sound standalone app, 2) Cakewalk by BandLab, and 3) Studio One 6. That discussion also went into where to get free *.gp files, and there are several. The one I used in the video came from https://www.theguitarlesson.com/guitar-pro-tabs/. If you link them to Facebook or Twitter, you can download right away, but if not, you need to wait for 20 seconds each time. Studio One 6 was a bit interesting in that adding an instrument doesn't have the same options as adding a controller, but you can set LoopMIDI to be the input to a controller even if that controller is not connected. Go figure. I hope this helps some folks.

I shot off a quick message to Jason asking him to chime in if he has a moment. Rather than chasing our own tails, he would be able to give a more defined focus on how to do this.

I am with you, the OP had mentioned noise as the hurdle, so was noodling some other options. Basically AS confirmed the key switches, but they are not embedded into the strummer itself (tapped into with a DAW insert). That was what I was thinking initially, and if working in a DAW is certainly doable. I had forgotten the name of Blue Cat's Re-Guitar, but that has options to manipulate DI tracks. This video is specific to something not mentioned often enough, which is using impulse responses to get a more realistic acoustic sound. From a background noise perspective, capturing electric guitar is simplest, but I had forgotten the name of that plugin. I just downloaded the demo, and noticed the price is $99, but is $299 at some sites?? Anyone know the "regular price"?

Similar to my previous post really... I think the hurdle with the OP is stummers are inherently focused on a chord (as a whole), with variations to those notes only. The D->Dsus4 mentioned in the OP is a chord change to the strummer, so if set to ring a D could be played, and then just the G of the Dsus4 (the strummer is forced to switch chords), but whether that would sound like a hammer on would be up to the VSTi. Strummers seem more geared to simplifying backing tracks, so you can fire off the chords of the song key with one finger. If keying an entire guitar chord by hand, it undermines the strummer's basic intent. Although VSTis have gained incredible realism, the play of a real guitar allows for a lot of precision that is difficult to replicate, e.g., strings fretted, others bent in the same chord. As mentioned above, I think that is far easier on a guitar, so it is worth considering options to achieve this (tracking at odd hours, noise reduction software that allows a capture/removal, etc.). It is also a situation where an electric could be used and then converted to an acoustic once tracked. It is an eye opener to play with a VSTi then realize, "Ugh, I just spent 15 minutes making realistic chords I could have tracked in 20 seconds :("

I tend to use score editors like most use MIDI editors, constructing chords then copy/paste, then accidentals can be placed. I also use TAB view (or the fret board), because that forces the engine to specific strings, this will get the realism effect of that string reacting to whatever is done by the VSTi used. Chord progressions are not typically complex, so once done, bars or even multiple bars can be copied/pasted this way. Depending how complex that gets, some of Ample Sounds switches are then sometimes best to tweak in the DAW itself. Once inside the DAW, copy/paste will work there in the same manner. I honestly have not used Guitar Pro to make an entire score, but it can be far quicker to build things there to transfer elsewhere.

I had never thought of this question and wonder from that Renegade video if it would be any different. If strings are left to ring, the spacing can give the hammer on effect with the next chord, but won't isolate that string (strummer downside). Manually doing the hammer on is what comes to mind for me as well. I just updated Guitar Pro 8, and the last Ample Sound update has improved support for that, so will test that out when I get a chance. My gut feel would be to use GP to do the strums, then just import that file into AS (not using the strummer specifically), but this is a good point.

One of those articles said something about the "dominant red square" and all I could think of was the Frankenstrat. If only Eddie had put a tiny section of blue and yellow on it... then it might have been worth something ?

Loud is particularly bad if the venue has more going on than just the show. When you have to scream for the person next to you to hear you, it just does the venue a disservice. "Show" implies some visual content, or else you could just stare at a wall at home and listen to the same thing. It didn't occur to me until Notes mentioned it, but the only performances I have gone to in the last 20 years have been musicals, and for the same reasons. I did appreciate being drug off to see "Wicked," since I had never heard of it and was impressed with the thought that went into making a prequel to a movie that everyone knows.

LOL, I got to use SpectraLayers Pro 8 like twice. I had another program that caused issues, so restored an image, loaded Pro 8, then the other software did it again. After restoring that same image, I got the "this upgrade has already been used" when trying to install Pro 8, so it shows in the installer as owning Pro 8, but it doesn't install, and doing that disabled Pro 7 (that particular point was the last straw). The hardware never changed so the re-activation site went no where. When I sent a detailed message to Steinberg, I never heard back from them. I just did another image restore and that brought Pro 7 back, but the lack of Steinberg support led me to obliterate all other Steinberg software on this machine. I am not going to pay a company that doesn't seem to care about their product; if they don't care, I shouldn't either.

You could try the traditional method of blowing all of your hard-earned money on fast cars and young women. For guys, that is pretty common (till the money runs out).

After seeing all the numerous threads over the years of people struggling to perfect tracks, gain audiences, etc., this news piece shows it exists everywhere. Anecdote first... when in high school I saw a portrait that a girl had done of an elderly man's face for a competition. It was so detailed that it looked like a photograph and even had the pores in his nose. What shocked me most was that it was done in watercolor. Amazing talent. To contrast this... news article from yesterday... "Mondrian painting could be auctioned for more than $50 million" Just makes me wonder how the folks who walk up to a wall with a crate of spray paint cans and do realistic murals feel when they see articles like this...

From my perspective, the defaults Rebelle comes with are adequate; there is quite a bit of versatility in how brushes can be adjusted for each paint type. As some paints are thick, the paper won't affect much, but it could with water colors or thin applications. The additional items can also be purchased later on as well if needed.

Rebelle 5 was a $50 upgrade IIRC, so this is a great deal. Rebelle got its start with watercolor, so its realism is incredible and pretty much the best out there... the water content and bleed is crazy accurate (blowing on the canvas, drying it, etc). It expanded beyond watercolor over time, and has a significantly less RAM requirement than Painter, but I have shifted to Painter more due to features I use often (picture-to-painting, cloning, color tinting, etc.). Rebelle is more of a realistic painting program where you have a canvas and a truckload of tools to paint with. As with all things, check out the trial version if interested; and this is another program that a stylus gets the most out of, even more so than Painter IMO because the brush angle in Rebelle can be critical to paint application (it is that realistic).

"She" will never run out of breath, screw up her dance routine, grow old, or have to suffer from plastic surgery woes either! 100 years from now she can still look the same and sing whatever genre is en vogue then. If only Disney had thought of this, we might be attending Minnie Mouse concerts, and she would already have decades under her belt ?

I think you answered your own question and spent the rest of your post confirming it ? If the internet exploded and you never got another update ever again, CbB as it is now will exceed your needs. As with most complex programs, focus on what you want to do and learn that; it is easy to get overwhelmed/frustrated to try to learn too much at once.

I agree with this. You will probably be asked to go through an edit cycle after submission, so I would recommend thinking about your hours for initial delivery and cost/hour for editing (this will also make them think about edits since they will not be free). Definitely scope out the work you need to do and be reasonable with the delivery aspect, and agree with them on an editing rate fee, and get that in writing. In the government contracting realm, "firm fixed price" for R&D is a recipe for disaster. For companies unfamiliar with this, they can end up footing the completion on their own dime, hence the cautionary advice. As they are easy to talk to, be open and honest in discussions with them. Trust your instincts.

Unfortunately, Corel is pretty good about stripping older versions off web sites. I cannot find the trial version for 2022, but 2023 has a trial version available. For those that have never had Painter before, that would be an option to try it out before buying... you would want to check brush performance on your system for sure. There are also a lot of videos online showing it in action. Some features are similar to PaintShop Pro, and some brushes are common with Particle Shop (this is typically a freebie with PaintShop Pro, but someone could confirm if that is included).