Interesting you mention Helix! I've been experimenting with Helix Native a lot lately and really loving it! The possibilities are huge and ability to turn off Hardware Compatibility mode is awesome! Haven't had my gear with me for some time so have been using DI tracks, but it's still really fun. Have an X3 Live now but will definitely get a Helix in the future. I just wish they ported over all of the models from the POD XT/X3/Farm era into the Helix so that it can fully replace the X3/Farm.

If you're into ambient stuff, I hope you've checked out the Dynamic Hall reverb from the 3.10 update. That thing is gorgeous! Sounds really lush is a definite step up from the other reverbs. On the heavier side of things, the Horizon Drive is awesome and the gate in it seems to be the best for tight riffing. The Badonk is an all-time favourite (derived from the Big Bottom) and it works surprisingly well for clean tones when the gain is turned down. Comes in handy for DSP-heavy patches.

This was a slightly off-topic comment, but I encourage users to try out the Helix Native as an amp simulator with their guitar libraries if there's an option to do so. Might yield better results!

 

Since nobody else has said it yet, NI Guitar Rig is a must try

 

naw homey trust me believe me its easy --> Neural DSP

 

For electric guitars I really like Shreddage 3 guitars especially Jupiter. It's my go to guitar.

 

NeuralDSP plugins are excellent for heavy sound.
Me - like!

 

Hi! Hope you all are having a wonderful day


Recently there have been a bunch of new releases of guitar libraries, so I thought it would be a good idea to revive this thread.

As far as I'm concerned, Odin III has been one of those new releases that is standing out among others. I haven't tried it yet, but in the demos it does sound gorgeous! It's amazing how many options it seems to have, and with so small footprint in your disk drive.

Notwithstanding the good reviews I have seen of Odin III, other releases such as Axe Machina, Axure, prominy sc electric guitar 2 or Djaa Mastaa are also worth mentioning.

What are your opinions about these guitars?


Personally, what I use the most is ample guitar LP. I love the riffer built in the sampler, for me it makes so much easier to program guitar parts as a real guitar player would do it. Nonetheless, because of how much I use it, I sometimes feel tired of it, like I can notice it's ample guitar from three miles away. Maybe because I don't usually change or random mote's velocity, and it truly kills the realism of the guitar. But with the right humanization, it could be a great guitar vi.

Thanks for reading and your answers.

 

I've only briefly tried Odin III (also because of the demos). It sounded pretty bad out of the box - IMO. It might be the best guitar VI ever, but I wasn't prepared to spend more time on it, it just didn't click with me.

Having bought a bunch of guitar VIs, I'll say that in my opinion, if it doesn't come with its own riff editor, I'm not going to bother with it anymore. There's a point at which programming inside your DAW's MIDI editor becomes unfeasibly complicated. Juggling 4 keyswitches and 2 CCs just to get one measly chord to strum at the correct speed, velocity and on the correct strings and have it slide out at the end too is a 15m+ task with ISW guitars, but is reasonably easy to program inside the Ample riffer.

At the moment, I like the Ample stuff best - for the riff editor.

 

Shreddage 3 reamped with Neural for me

 

Ohh, interesting! Maybe there's when all the articulations come to play. I'm guessing it might take a lot of work to sound as good as the demo. Still, it seems so promising!!

Yeah, sometimes the riffer is very handy. Do you happen to know any other Vst library with something at least similar to the riffer of Ample guitars?

 

Cool!

Which is your favorite Shreddage 3 guitar?

 

In my experience, for acoustic guitars, it is hard to beat the Ample stuff. The workflow is intuitive and there are enough model and design options to keep productions interesting. For electric guitars, especially high-gain stuff, it is incredibly difficult to make things sounds real and organic, no matter how detailed your MIDI programming is. The closest I have come to something believable is using Shreddage 3 Stratus / Jupiter, amped with Helix / Bogren products, with a good IR at the end of the chain. I also use EQ and light compression before going into the amp model.

 

It's usually Rogue I go with, that through Nolly gives me a really good 70s type sound (to my ear anyway) even though it has some slightly out of tune samples. Sometimes that gives it a nice realism, sometimes it just sounds... out of tune
I also like the 8 string, forget what it's called- Hydra?

 

I feel the same way and was compelled to learn guitar from the experience.
It's easy, once you learn the boxes and then venture outside of them.
And I love programming my Kemper pedal.
Play a good guitar and feel the vibrations...

 

I use programmed gtr mainly on projects where it's in the background, simple chugga-chugga stuff. Sometimes I layer it behind real electric. Occasionally I use it to play things beyond my ability when I don't want to involve other players but the extra programming and tweaking time required to "sell" it is often a pain inthe ass.

Otoh, lead guitar can be relatively easy to fake if you keep it stylistically simple; it's all in the bends and stuff usually. Keyboard players often think they know how to do guitar licks but we miss things like vibrato only going up on fretted notes or down on bends, things like that.

 

It might be interesting to do some blind tests!

Personally, I feel guitar VSTs have improved a lot these days. Still, the emotion the player transmits through the instrument is hard to replicate.


After all it's important to understand that VSTs present themselves as new tools for producers and not as a replacement of the actual players. If you're a guitarist or have one in the band, there is no reason for using a guitar Vst in the final mix.

 

Sure there is- it gave me the notes I wanted to hear the way I wanted to hear them, not a second-hand interpretation of it.

 

All the time! Once you figure out you can quickly audition the same note on all strings and you can move chords around on the strings, you never want to go back to your DAW's MIDI editor.

The Orange Tree guitars come with a strum editor. Not quite the same, but it's something. It's written for Kontakt though, so it's not the smoothest GUI experience.

 

Native Instruments Session Guitar Series have the best Kontakt options. Ample Sound has the best standalone VST options.

 

have you tried session guitarist Kontakt? why u don't like those? thanks

 

That's because a guitar is such an expressive instrument, and a lot of the sound comes from the person who is playing it. If you know what you are doing, you can make the guitar sound fit any song, instead of making the song fit a sampled guitar sound.

 

Last edited: Jul 5, 2024