Musical Sampling Nylon Rustique

[Larry Shelby]

$69

https://www.bestservice.com/en/nylon_rustique.html

[Fleer]

Sounding pretty pretty good. 

[PhonoBrainer]

I've been comparing this one recently to Efimov's older Nylon at $99, or $149 with a strummer. https://www.ilyaefimov.com/products/acoustic-guitars/nylon-complete.html

 

Or a newer one by Sketch, which is $49. https://sketchsamples.com/product/sketch-nylon/

 

Any opinions?

[fret_man]

This one certainly passes as a classical guitar. But the slide fret noise seem overly loud (a common problem with other VIs, too). The attack seems overly bright (it sounds like the player is always using a rest stroke). Are there hammer-ons/pull-offs? They sound like just short slides (which sound different). This could be a big omission. If you're looking for something more authentic you'll have to wait for a summer sale and get AmpleSound or OrangeTree. IMHO those are still the best ones out there right now.

[jude77]

2 hours ago, PhonoBrainer said:

I've been comparing this one recently to Efimov's older Nylon at $99, or $149 with a strummer. https://www.ilyaefimov.com/products/acoustic-guitars/nylon-complete.html

 

Or a newer one by Sketch, which is $49. https://sketchsamples.com/product/sketch-nylon/

 

Any opinions?

Renaxxance Nylon String Guitar by Indiginus is worth a look as well.  $59.    https://www.indiginus.com/renaxxance-nylon-string-guitar

[Fleer]

Still … OrangeTreeSamples rules. 

[bitflipper]

This one might be pretty good, but it's hard to tell as there are no detailed walkthroughs. They've tried to make the interface simple by not using keyswitches and limiting the number of articulations, but I'd need to see a real demo to know if they've succeeded or just dumbed it down too much.

Either way, it'd be hard to separate me from my longtime go-to nylon guitar, Renaxxance from Indiginus. It doesn't have as many articulations and options as the OTS Nylon, but for the price of the OTS product you could buy Renaxxance plus two more instruments.

[PhonoBrainer]

Thanks for the opinions! I actually have the OTS Nylon which has a nice workflow.  But the strum engine sounds a bit artificial to me, and I would rate the others a bit more authentic or nicely stylized.

OTS Nylon sounds a bit cleaner and I guess generic. The others mentioned have a bit more Spanish or classical or western flavor in their tones. Just my opinion. 

Edited May 3, 2023 by PhonoBrainer

[Simeon Amburgey]

I have been playing with this today as Music Sampling sent over a copy to try.

The legato speed and type are dependent on velocity.
1 - 40 trigger the slide with CC1 determining the speed of the transition. The ending note has a characteristic pluck to it on the end of the transition.
The highest velocities trigger the hammer-on after the transition. 
 

I am going to feature it during my livestream Wednesday May 3rd at 3:00 PM EST.

Joyfully!

[bitflipper]

That's exactly the kind of thing I wanted to know. Thanks Simeon. I'll be checking out your video.

Slides and legato transitions are key to all string libraries' believability. Most of the time, I resort to fiddly scroll wheel tweaks to implement them. If a sampled guitar includes slides, they are usually pre-recorded samples with a fixed duration and span, which can sound quite authentic but are only useful at specific intervals and note durations.

That's why my go-to solo violin is Audio Modeling's modeled SWAM Violin: being synthesized rather than sampled, it allows you to define your own transitions. For Kontakt libraries, this requires clever scripting and doesn't always sound natural. OTS' Slide Acoustic and Slide Lap Steel do a pretty good job of this, but at the cost of being fiddly and time-consuming to program.

I'm waiting for a true modeled guitar to come along. In the meantime, my own secret trick is that many of the "guitars" in my recordings are actually Zebra2.

[bitflipper]

That was a good demo, Simeon. Unfortunately, I was not moved to make the purchase. Those variable slides are great and something my current nylon libraries don't do. But I couldn't justify $69 for just that one feature. There also doesn't seem to be polyphonic legato. I also don't like that fret noises, legato and sustains are all separate nki's rather than being keyswitched articulations. The instrument does sound really good and the vibrato sounds natural. But I'll be sticking with Renaxxance for now.

 

[fret_man]

14 hours ago, bitflipper said:

Those variable slides are great and something my current nylon libraries don't do.

FYI, AmpleSound guitars have a variable slide based on the velocity of the destination note. However, the fret noise during slides seem a little too loud to me and cannot be adjusted.