UJAM Sparkle 2 Released

[kitekrazy1]

$49 on anything other than food and fuel is not wise and have to pass.   I have Ujam and AAS Guitars and never bothered to use any of them.

[abacab]

Just now, Paul Young said:

fuel

Fuel = GAS!!!

[Fleer]

1 hour ago, abacab said:

Fuel = GAS!!!

Poutine!

[lawajava]

3 hours ago, abacab said:

I think that is the catch with the OTS factory strumming patterns. I have the Evolution Songwriter and Evolution Rock Standard. IMO the strum patterns are apparently examples, and I find most of them boring out of the box. You would need to study up and create your own patterns to get the most out of these excellent guitar libraries. I don't play guitar, so I tend to lean toward NI or UJAM to inspire me with interesting patterns.

Agreed - and with drag and drop Midi we can combine bits and ideas between them. I do the same thing alternating segments from EZ Bass or EZDrummer3 and UJAM corresponding apps.  Or also with Addictive Drums 2.  And assigning sounds from any of those can end up with great stuff.  Definitely like NI Session tools in all of that!

We’re in such a nice golden age where all these tools are so deluxe and fun to use!

Edited October 22, 2022 by lawajava

[Fleer]

Spitfire Audio Fink Signatures is another interesting one, now comes with a $10 gift card for purchases under $50. And half off if you’re in education. 

[PavlovsCat]

4 hours ago, abacab said:

I think that is the catch with the OTS factory strumming patterns. I have the Evolution Songwriter and Evolution Rock Standard. IMO the strum patterns are apparently examples, and I find most of them boring out of the box. You would need to study up and create your own patterns to get the most out of these excellent guitar libraries. I don't play guitar, so I tend to lean toward NI or UJAM to inspire me with interesting patterns.

I totally agree that there are times when it's great to have the dead easy ready to go loops when you're just coming up with ideas. But once you learn how to create your own patterns, once you can do it easily, you'll find yourself a lot less reliant on using pre-recorded loops -- it's so incredibly cool to be able to adjust every part of a strumming pattern.  

If Evolution had a lot more preset patterns, it would be able to do the same thing. I have given OTS feedback that it'd be great to have more preset strumming patterns.  I've been coming here so long that most of the people in this thread are people I've seen here and interacted with over the years -- and we all use virtual guitars and most of them own Evolution libraries, so yeah, it's definitely off topic -- although all of us go off topic constantly, so I figured it was the norm --  but I'm saying if you spend the time to learn the Evolution strumming system to create your own rhythm guitar patterns, you can pretty easily create these patterns and anything else you want. The big hurdle is spending the time to learn the strumming engine. Depending on your learning style and technical ability, you can learn how the engine works at a basic level in 10 minutes or spend an hour, watch the two videos below and go in for a deep dive (okay, you'll easily spend hours after you start learning how to use the engine because it's pretty fun to be able to create your own patterns and adjust all of the elements of a pattern).  Once you nail it, it's unlikely that you're going to turn to loops that often.  And you can create your own custom library of presets. 

That said, if a bunch of us all agree that Evolution would be better with more presets, I can bring that back to them. As it is, it definitely favors the person who wants to create their own strumming patterns as opposed to someone who is used to finding a loop and going. I am a believer that it would be great if it had MORE presets so that it can handle the user who prefers presets. Again, between UJAM and NI Session Strings, the pure loop virtual guitar plugins, I think Session Strings is vastly superior, but once you use the pretty limited number of presets in a UJAM plugin, that's it. To me, it's more of a toy than an instrument. But of course, I've been using virtual guitars since the 80s and I have strong opinions (like most of us!). If you or anyone feels strongly that you would like more presets in Evolution, send me a PM and I promise to pass it on and discuss it with Greg and, maybe even develop a poll to see everyone's thoughts. 

Anyhow, for those who own Evolution guitars that have never learned how to make their own chord strumming patterns, spend an hour watching these two videos below when you have a half hour to spare and it will be like you just bought a new amazing plugin -- and you already own the thing.  You might still buy loop based guitar plugins after that, but I'm betting that it will change the way your process is for using virtual guitar and you'll rely on loops a lot less. 
 

 

 

[Fleer]

Great vids. All in all, Orange Tree Samples rule the guitar library world for me. And as a keyboard player, I’m totally in love with their Famous E electric piano, while patiently awaiting the Kontakt Player version of their wonderful Rosewood grand. 

[kevin H]

11 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

That said, if a bunch of us all agree that Evolution would be better with more presets, I can bring that back to them.

Count me in

[daveiv]

I want a guitar library with many articulations, velocity layers, and round robins.

I never use strumming engines.

[PavlovsCat]

11 minutes ago, daveiv said:

I want a guitar library with many articulations, velocity layers, and round robins.

I never use strumming engines.

Do you not use them because you don't find them intuitive or you have learned how to use them and don't like the results? 

[daveiv]

6 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

Do you not use them because you don't find them intuitive or you have learned how to use them and don't like the results? 

Both.

Playing the guitar VI like a keyboard instrument gives me more control over how notes and chords played.
I can voice the same chord with different shapes easily.
I don't need to worry about strumming/soloing separation.
I can enjoy the instrument, without thinking about the software bits like chord recognition, key switches, tempo syncing...
My imperfect performances always sound more authentic than software randomization.
I can share my keyboard riffs among all the chromatic VIs.

[PavlovsCat]

1 hour ago, daveiv said:

Both.

Playing the guitar VI like a keyboard instrument gives me more control over how notes and chords played.
I can voice the same chord with different shapes easily.
I don't need to worry about strumming/soloing separation.
I can enjoy the instrument, without thinking about the software bits like chord recognition, key switches, tempo syncing...
My imperfect performances always sound more authentic than software randomization.
I can share my keyboard riffs among all the chromatic VIs.

I can relate to wanting play in real time. Most of the songs I've shared on SoundCloud are me playing Evolution libraries in real-time. But that's largely because I've written most of what I record on the piano or keyboard and guitars are constantly shifting from chords to riffs and I have this habit of wanting to play everything in real-time as I grew up focused on live performance. When I came to Greg maybe 12 years ago, before Evolution, I was telling him all my desires for a guitar library and I basically was able to have a great deal of input into the Evolution line, so it very much reflects my thinking on how a guitar plugin should work. So, it can work exactly the way you are used to playing and I play that way too, but that's not always going to give you a very realistic sound for a number of reasons, which is that unless you are playing guitar chords exactly the way you play them on the guitar, it's not going to sound authentic. Now maybe that doesn't matter to you, if so, that's all that matters. But if you're looking for authenticity then you'll understand why  the feature that transforms the keyboard chords you play into the way a guitarist would play them. For instance, if you're holding down a E major triad in the first inversion, that's not the way a guitarist would play it. Evolution translates what you play to the way a guitarist plays them -- that was on my list of features for the engine, I don't know, 12 or so years ago or whatever it's been since Evolution first came out. Because the way most guitar libraries worked before Evolution (which a bunch of other devs copied, some I've talked to directly, some I've even given consulting advice to, as I have been a super user of guitar libraries and plugins) is that developers would recommend that keyboardists learn how to play chords with the same notes guitarists use. I told Greg, I thought that was too much to ask, that he should write a script that translates keyboard chords to guitar chords and that's how that feature came about. And it's a pretty big deal and it changed the way many other developers did their libraries, copying what Evolution did.  

But that alone  isn't enough to get an ultra realistic guitar performance, of course,  because you're going to need to do upstrokes and downstrokes, so there is one of the big dilemmas if you're playing live when you're not using loops, that's pretty much not going to happen realistically in real-time without using a keyswitch  or a strumming engine. Also, you're not going to be able to switch between various types of strums -- AKA articulations -- like a real guitarist would do. With a loop library, all of that is pre-recorded and you have no way to modify that pattern, because it's a pre-recorded loop. With an engine that uses individual sampled notes you can adjust that any way you want it.  (If any of that is unclear, check out the video I shared called "strumming from scratch." Those videos are HUGE in getting a fast understanding of how the strumming engine works. And once you get it, it's really a giant breakthrough that enables you to do things you never thought you could do with guitar rhythms.  And then, after you create your patterns, then you can play whatever chord progressions you like -- the patterns are just the rhythm of the strums and the types of strums  (e.g., sustain, palm mute, half palm mute, harmonic, chug, string slap, etc.)-- , they don't define the chords played. It's really like going in the studio and telling a guitarist how you want a guitar rhythm played. You don't need to learn how to play a guitar, you just need to tell it what you want and you will get exactly what you want. Now that kind of customization, of course, requires you to understand choices, and therein lies the learning curve. And I find that the fastest and most enjoyable way to learn is to watch those two videos and go and start creating patterns and that, at least for me, was mind blowing. I had given Greg/OTS a ton of input on the strumming engine, but what he came up with was way beyond what I could have imagined. I was thinking in a lot simpler terms, whereas Greg is not only a super talented musician, he gained a reputation as a genius KONTAKT scripter among developers greatly through the work he did scripting CineSamples libraries (before he went full time with OTS). If you want to understand why Evolution is so groundbreaking, it isn't just because it has a ton of articulations. Other developers were doing that. It's because Greg's scripting so brilliantly makes it intuitive to play and automatically knows when to select the articulations. If you noticed that I've purchased a lot of 8Dio libraries and I've commented that their solo string libraries don't have intuitive scripting , contrasting them with string  libraries that do have great scripting, like the ones from Fluffy Audio.  The result is, I don't really use those 8Dio solo string libraries and wish I could resell them. And I know and like Troels, but I'm going to be candid about my take on his libraries.  Scripting is of enormous importance for string and guitar libraries whether you play them completely live and ignore strumming engines or you use strumming engines. If you listen to the guitar lead on the recent demo I did for OTS, it's super simple and played in real-time, but there's no way to get a performance that realistic without brilliant scripting -- and the scripting is selecting the articulations you hear. (FTR, I wrote the guitar lead, but was having a bunch of midi issues and I think Greg re-did the entire guitar lead trying to play my parts note for note, and then he added in these really cool harmonies and some nice arpeggios, but all of it is easily playable in real-time, it just reflects Greg's arranging skills, not midi tricks).  Now the bass part in the demo DOES reflect the use of keyswitches. I used palm mutes during the intro and there are slides that require the use of keyswitches. Your simply not going to get a truly realistic performance from any sample library without learning to use keyswitches. But you might not care. It mainly comes down to how realistic you want your performance to be. And, you and I have had a bunch of PMs, and I, of course, am not under the false impression that I'm a decent musician anymore. I was a decent musician decades ago, but I'm just a little more than a year and half of trying to play again, 20+ years after tendinitis stopped me from playing, so while I try to go for realism in my playing, I certainly don't have any technique anymore and the fact that I can only play for a few minutes at a time before I have to stop due to pain ensures I'm never going to reach any level of proficiency again, but I can get away with playing simple stuff. 

https://www.orangetreesamples.com/audio/PeterDeLegge-DearPaul.mp3

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by PavlovsCat

[X-53mph]

I own a few Ujam guitar thingies and, apart from mucking around, I've never used them for anything I've released.

The sound is so identifiably Ujam. You can hear it in songs on the radio. And it really turns me off.

Perhaps it's simply because I'm a traditionalist who wants to hear musicians play instruments rather than watch kids trigger pads on tiktonk (I'm so glad that fad seems to have finally gone away). 

I only ever see Ujam guitar stuff as a sketch pad. 

Just my 2 cents.

[daveiv]

37 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

So, it can work exactly the way you are used to playing and I play that way too, but that's not always going to give you a very realistic sound for a number of reasons, which is that unless you are playing guitar chords exactly the way you play them on the guitar, it's not going to sound authentic.

Sure, without adjusting the way you play the keyboard, it won't sound like guitar at all. You hit chords like a block, or switch between chords quickly that would be unrealistic on a guitar; then you'll get a harpsichord sound out of an acoustic guitar VI, and Rhodes/Wurli/Clavinet sound out of an electric guitar VI.

39 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

And it's a pretty big deal and it changed the way many other developers did their libraries, copying what Evolution did.  

With all respect to what Greg did following your suggestions, it's MusicLab that set the standard in guitar VIs 20+ years ago.

They started with a MIDI FX plugin for Cakewalk called Rhythm'n'Chords to create realistic guitar parts using MIDI. They released the VST version shortly after. Both came with a guitar pattern library.

Then they released RealGuitar in around 2003 as VST, and it's been used as a model for almost all the guitar VIs since then.

Here is a demonstration of RealGuitar from 2006:

 

56 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

But that alone  isn't enough to get an ultra realistic guitar performance, of course,  because you're going to need to do upstrokes and downstrokes, so there is one of the big dilemmas if you're playing live when you're not using loops, that's pretty much not going to happen realistically in real-time without using a keyswitch  or a strumming engine. Also, you're not going to be able to switch between various types of strums -- AKA articulations -- like a real guitarist would do.

You shouldn't need to use a strumming engine for that.

A guitar VI to play individual notes can (and does) have an engine to determine, in real time, which strings to fret the notes on, which direction (upstroke/downstroke) the strings will be played, and what articulation to perform; either automatically, or using the note velocity, expression pedal, mod wheel, CC fader position, etc. as a cue.

Using keyswitches while playing isn't always difficult either. I'm thinking to get a MIDI foot pedal keyboard for keyswitches.

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

https://www.orangetreesamples.com/audio/PeterDeLegge-DearPaul.mp3

It's a beautiful arrangement. Glad to hear OTS VIs work so well for you.

[daveiv]

20 minutes ago, Philip G Hunt said:

The sound is so identifiably Ujam. You can hear it in songs on the radio. And it really turns me off.

That's why I avoid anything from UJAM.

With such popularity, it's easy to sound like THAT guy who uses UJAM loops.

[PavlovsCat]

2 hours ago, daveiv said:

Sure, without adjusting the way you play the keyboard, it won't sound like guitar at all. You hit chords like a block, or switch between chords quickly that would be unrealistic on a guitar; then you'll get a harpsichord sound out of an acoustic guitar VI, and Rhodes/Wurli/Clavinet sound out of an electric guitar VI.

With all respect to what Greg did following your suggestions, it's MusicLab that set the standard in guitar VIs 20+ years ago.

They started with a MIDI FX plugin for Cakewalk called Rhythm'n'Chords to create realistic guitar parts using MIDI. They released the VST version shortly after. Both came with a guitar pattern library.

Then they released RealGuitar in around 2003 as VST, and it's been used as a model for almost all the guitar VIs since then.

Here is a demonstration of RealGuitar from 2006:

 

You shouldn't need to use a strumming engine for that.

A guitar VI to play individual notes can (and does) have an engine to determine, in real time, which strings to fret the notes on, which direction (upstroke/downstroke) the strings will be played, and what articulation to perform; either automatically, or using the note velocity, expression pedal, mod wheel, CC fader position, etc. as a cue.

Using keyswitches while playing isn't always difficult either. I'm thinking to get a MIDI foot pedal keyboard for keyswitches.

It's a beautiful arrangement. Glad to hear OTS VIs work so well for you.

I owned RealGuitar, Steinberg's VirtualGuitarist 1.0 (I actually have it in the original box in the room where I'm typing this! RealGuitar had a, IMO, less than great sound to the electric guitar samples, whereas VirtualGuitarist -- the developer's name was Peter Georges, and he's a co-founder of  UJAM.along with  Hans Zimmer. VirtualGuitarist sounded much better (I believe by the late 00s, Music Lab re-recorded the samples used for those plugins). I also used CAL scripts for Cakewalk as well as sample libraries in formats from the 90s and 00s for GIgasampler and SoundFont. I started out using hardware samplers). I had relationships with a bunch of developers back then who made guitar libraries and VSTs and gave them free marketing advice and would give them input for what I was looking for in plugins and libraries, hoping I could help them out and in return, they would act on some of my suggestions and I used to make them agree to give free plugins and libraries to KVR users in developing nations that I identified who otherwise financially struggled to afford their offerings. That encompasses several different developers. My day job back then was a Fortune 200 strategy director, then leading digital marketing, and leading a publication on marketing strategy, a major book deal and doing a lot of writing and public speaking, so I could point to magazines like Wired and Forbes were I was interviewed and dev's loved the opportunity to get free advice -- and because it was just an extension of my love of music, I didn't charge most of them and even turned down NFRs. For example, I owned every guitar library and VST on the market and communicated with the developers of almost all of them. I had an injury that stopped me from playing music professionally back in 1999, so it was a way of feeling connected to music, to be very candid. So I was always a bit obsessed with guitar sample libraries, VSTs and sample libraries. An example, if you know Pettinhouse, I owned all of his libraries except for maybe one. I gave him advice on a number of occasions and as he was a one man operation, I refused to take NFRs from him and paid for everything. When he released a new library -- I think jazz guitar -- he sent me an email saying it was a gift on behalf of my then newborn daughter (this was the 00s). Andrea/Pettinhouse, BTW, is a quality developer, a nice person and makes good sample libraries. I won't drop other names, as back around 2010 other sample library developers -- even though I had mostly given them free advice and turned down NFRs would get upset with me when they saw that when people in forums discussed guitars I would refer to Orange Tree Samples libraries as innovative and the most realistic and playable guitar libraries or plugins on the market. 

So, yes, RealGuitar was a big leap for virtual guiar it was big for hobbyist musicians;  pros weren't using it for final productions and it did not contain the intricate details that Orange Tree Samples' guitar libraries included from the beginning that made it so innovative and the brilliant combination of sampling (the sampling of the early versions of RealGuitar was less than stellar, IMO), scripting and modeling combined the law OTS did, hence why I suggested the name Evolution back in maybe 2008 when Greg started working on a library with a strumming engine.  When Orange Tree Samples came around with Strawberry guitar and Cherry bass it was a huge breakthrough, The only developer that was doing that level of articulations was out of Japan. Prominy. I, of course, bought their library but found it frustratingly unintuitive and never used it in even a single final production. It was a huge dump of articulations without intuitive scripting. Orange Tree Samples took all of those articulations and the nuances that made for an original sounding simulation of a guitar and brilliantly scripted it. At the time, Greg, the founder, was also doing KONTAKT scripting for Cinesamples and other developers for their KONTAKT libraries and every developer I knew thought of him as an innovator. Now, I can't say that names of OTS customers, because of confidentiality, but I can hint. So let's just say that they include the biggest of names -- including the very biggest  composers. I know that OTS' libraries were being used on Nick shows and various TV shows dating back to the 00s and I was aware of major pop songs that used it. So, OTS libraries began being used in movies, TV, commercials, games and pop hits going back to the late 00s that was when virtual guitars first made it into final commercial productions . NO ONE was using RealGuitar in final pro productions. It was a very cool tool that amateurs like me loved, but it didn't sound authentic enough for a final production. VirtualGuitarist was loops and was more suitable for final productions, but was pretty limited, as loop guitar libraries are by nature and once OTS came along, I abandoned RealGuitar and could never go back. No one would use that in a final production. 

I'll reference a couple of other developers who told me that they were basing their guitar libraries on Greg's innovations. One of the developers has been very successful with his sample brand and line of guitar and bass sample libraries, which are said to "shred." Another did a series of guitar and bass libraries for one of the larger sample developer companies and we had at least a dozen conversations and he shared, completely upfront that he had reverse engineered OTS' guitar and bass libraries to determine everything being done in the scripting and the various samples and modeling techniques used (because modeling is part of how OTS gets that realism). But all in all, I probably had conversations and gave some degree of business advice to several different guitar library and plugin developers because I had owned their guitar libraries and sought to have input in their products and always had the attitude that these were really small businesses -- even the largest of sample developers are small businesses. 

Now back to keyswitches, it absolutely isn't difficult -- I can do it, so anybody could! (I have tendonitis that limits me, as I otherwise am in pain in less than a minute). So, as someone very experienced with virtual guitars, the two developers that really stand out today, IMO, are Orange Tree Samples -- and I've been transparent about my relationship, but I'm friends with a bunch of other developers, including OTS' competitors -- and Ample Sounds.  Shreddage is more limited, but I've heard good things about it. As far as loop based guitar libraries/plugins, as I mentioned earlier, I think NI's Session Strings line is vastly superior to UJAM's offerings. 

I'm pretty sure this demo goes back to around 2008 before the Evolution line was developed, from the original Strawberry library. I remember a semi-pro guitarist friend of mine, who studied guitar in college, hearing this and being in disbelief that it could be sampled guitar played from a MIDI keyboard.  

https://orangetreesamples.com/audio/SlitheryTattoo.mp3
https://orangetreesamples.com/audio/Orangeholic.mp3

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by PavlovsCat

[daveiv]

It's always fun to read your posts!

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

So, yes, RealGuitar was a big leap for virtual guiar it was big for hobbyist musicians;  pros weren't using it for final productions and it did not contain the intricate details that Orange Tree Samples' guitar libraries included from the beginning that made it so innovative and the brilliant scripting, hence why I suggested the name Evolution back in maybe 2008 when Greg started working on a library with a strumming engine.

This sounds like "Seinfeld" Is Unfunny phenomenon:

Quote

There are certain shows that you can safely assume most people have seen. These shows were considered fantastic when they first aired. Now, however, these shows have a Hype Backlash curse on them. Whenever we watch them, we'll cry, "That is so old" or "That is so overdone".

The sad irony? It wasn't old or overdone when they did it, because they were the first ones to do it. But the things it created were so brilliant and popular, they became woven into the fabric of that show's genre. They ended up being taken for granted, copied and endlessly repeated. Although they often began by saying something new, they in turn became the new status quo. It's basically the inverse of a Grandfather Clause taken to a trope level: rather than being able to get away with something that is seen as overdone or out of style simply because it was the one that started it, people will unfairly disregard it because it got lost amidst its sea of imitations even though it paved the way for all those imitators. That is, a work retroactively becomes a Cliché Storm.

I wasn't satisfied with MusicLab RealGuitar's realism either. But we were talking about who started it first.

Only thing roughly comparable to RealGuitar was Wizoo's Virtual Guitarist (branded as Steinberg), but it was a loop player as you said.

 

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

NO ONE was using RealGuitar in final pro productions.

RealGuitar samples weren't great. I don't know how new versions perform today.

However, there are pros who still use Triton's guitar patches in records and media, and there are pros who'd never even do guitar comping, let alone virtual guitars.

 

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

he had reverse engineered OTS' guitar and bass libraries to determine everything being done in the scripting and the various samples and modeling techniques used (because modeling is part of how OTS gets that realism).

Understandable. Kontakt has been the industry standard for 3rd party sample library developers, and it was easy to deconstruct compared to VSTs written in C++. People would copy the first good models.

 

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

But all in all, I probably had conversations and gave some degree of business advice to several different guitar library and plugin developers because I had owned their guitar libraries and sought to have input in their products and always had the attitude that these were really small businesses -- even the largest of sample developers are small businesses.

That's cool!

I actually have some Kontakt business plans that also involve virtual guitars. I consider myself competitive in programming, but I have subpar sampling conditions: No soundproof room, no good mics, no multi-input audio interface. So I will just sample my bass and electric guitar's DI, and work with that.

Based on what I understand from your posts regarding guitar VIs; a decent player & strumming engine (like in OTS) is a bigger selling point than choking the user on many articulations like Prominy does.

[PavlovsCat]

53 minutes ago, daveiv said:

Based on what I understand from your posts regarding guitar VIs; a decent player & strumming engine (like in OTS) is a bigger selling point than choking the user on many articulations like Prominy does.

To be clear, I was talking about Prominy from around a decade ago. Back then -- I have no idea what they're up to these days -- their guitar libraries had a ton of articulations but there wasn't intuitive scripting. I was contrasting that with Orange Tree Samples libraries, which have a lot of articulations but they're scripted to make them very intuitive. So when you say, play a guitar lead or chords, the script provides you with the articulation that fits what you're playing. 

And thanks for the compliment, of course, you know I enjoy conversing with you too. Although, I realize I've over indulged in this trip back into the history of virtual guitar plugins and libraries, so my apologies to everyone who is bored. With all of the money I've spent on guitar libraries and plugins over the years, I could easily have bought a couple of Les Pauls. Sample libraries and plugins don't age as well as physical instruments. 

[X-53mph]

4 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

think NI's Session Strings line is vastly superior to UJAM's offerings. 

I totally agree with this. ?????

[abacab]

10 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I'm saying if you spend the time to learn the Evolution strumming system to create your own rhythm guitar patterns, you can pretty easily create these patterns and anything else you want. The big hurdle is spending the time to learn the strumming engine. Depending on your learning style and technical ability, you can learn how the engine works at a basic level in 10 minutes or spend an hour, watch the two videos below and go in for a deep dive (okay, you'll easily spend hours after you start learning how to use the engine because it's pretty fun to be able to create your own patterns and adjust all of the elements of a pattern).  Once you nail it, it's unlikely that you're going to turn to loops that often.  And you can create your own custom library of presets. 

Very informative discussion here! I'm going to toss in a different spin on creating your own patterns.

The same argument could be made for only creating your own synthesizer presets, instead of browsing through hundreds of factory library presets. But some musicians may just want to write a song rather than build the instrument from scratch. Just grabbing a sound that inspires, and to move on quickly keeps them in the flow. So there are definitely two correct points of view here. It's a workflow thing, not necessarily a technical challenge for the user. But somehow I frequently hear synth purists telling noobs they need to learn how to program their synth from init. Personally I would rather start from a very good preset and maybe take the time to personalize it, even though I know how to program a synth. Just don't desire to spend a lot of time doing it.

Back to the VI guitars... for me as a keyboard guy who has never strummed a guitar (although I understand the bass fretboard, which I played for a while), I would actually have the additional challenge of understanding the fundamentals of guitar strumming techniques. If I wanted to go really deep, I would probably just pick up a real guitar and learn that.

I think that VI strumming engines definitely have their place, but probably just for mock-ups and as songwriting tools. For final pro production, maybe get a real guitarist to play the part?