Guitar VI suggestions for chugging/sustained power chords?

[daveiv]

I have metal needs.
 

?

[mettelus]

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.

 

Edited October 15, 2022 by mettelus

[daveiv]

3 minutes ago, mettelus said:

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.

I have Waves GTR, few ampsims (with pedals) from Audio Assault, and several freeware ones. I can get the tone I want with my guitar.

Heavier7Strings and Hellraiser would be overkill, don't you think? They sound great, but they also went over all the frets with many articulations needed for lead guitar work.

Something smaller (and cheaper) with only power chords would work for metal rhythm guitar, I guess.

 

[mettelus]

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?

[daveiv]

1 minute ago, mettelus said:

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?

I have Tele and Strat VIs from AcousticSamples, and they sound just great combined with a decent hi-gain ampsim.

But they're limited to E Standard tuning.

I should either find a rhythm guitar VI that goes down to Drop D, at least; or I should just adapt to the E Standard, which works for many metal bands.

 

[mettelus]

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.

[daveiv]

2 minutes ago, mettelus said:

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.

That's an idea. Even DAW's own transposing (usually uses zplane's Élastique algorithms) would work.

How does this one sound to your ears? https://www.iamlamprey.com/products/achromic-aggressive-rhythm-guitars

[mettelus]

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.

[daveiv]

31 minutes ago, mettelus said:

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.

You know what, you're right.

Transposing two-note guitar DI signal by one step is no biggie. There are even pedals doing that in real time.

And I don't even know I'd need to reach to that D note in every song.

I also got the JBass from AcousticSamples that plays nicely with their other guitar VIs in UVI Workstation.

[daveiv]

I'm still open to suggestions, though.

[abacab]

https://www.ujam.com/guitarist/iron/

Hard and heavy chords and riffs:

 

[abacab]

https://www.ujam.com/guitarist/carbon/

8-string metal guitar with beyond realistic custom creative effects

 

[mettelus]

13 hours ago, daveiv said:

And I don't even know I'd need to reach to that D note in every song.

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).

 

Edited October 15, 2022 by mettelus

[abacab]

UJAM guitars are available as 30 day demos, so free to look! YMMV! ?

Here is UTuber Creative Sauce's take on them...

 

[HIBI]

Have you tried Unreal Instruments - Standard Guitar and METAL-GTX? (It's free)
I think it's works sufficient as a backing guitar.

[daveiv]

6 hours ago, HIBI said:

Have you tried Unreal Instruments - Standard Guitar and METAL-GTX? (It's free)
I think it's works sufficient as a backing guitar.

I have, in the past. I actually recommend people Unreal's SFZ libraries when they need guitar/bass. I should try again thoroughly.

Thanks for reminding!

[daveiv]

7 hours ago, HIBI said:

Have you tried Unreal Instruments - Standard Guitar and METAL-GTX? (It's free)
I think it's works sufficient as a backing guitar.

Pretty good!