I have some midi tracks wich contain guitarparts. What vST is convincing enough with distorted guitartones...?

 

I'd say Electri6ity for Kontakt or RealStrat (much smaller).. combined with either Amplitube or TH2

 

Depends on what type of music it is. If it's non-heavy rock then Electri6ity is fine, if your doing hardrock/metal then Prominy V-Metal is the only way to go.

I will say if you decide to check out Electri6ity is is complicated as all %*#&. Just customizing a multi for exact use can take hours with all the options and how many things each single options changes. I used it for over a year untill V-Metal came out and I haven't gone back but I do heavier music.

As for the distortion tone Electri6ity comes with an amp mode so no external amp sim is needed but in all honesty I don't care for the sounds. Other than that consider what type of tone you'd want from a real guitar. Electri6ity comes with 6 guitars 3 Jazz Guitars, a Rick, a Strat and a Les Paul Standard. If you do older rock then the single coil pick up sound from EL6 strat is good, even heavier than the Les Paul, however if you want active pickup sounds then nothing in electri6ity will have that. V-Metal is sampled from EMG 81's from an ESP. So regardless you'll get a fatter distortion tone.

When it comes to articulations its a mixed bag, there are many heavier articulations Electri6ity can't do well. Palm muting being one of them. The only way to use Electri6ity as a hardrock/metal guitar is to pair it with Shreddage to replace palm muting. The slide function is also not very well thought out and pitch bends from midi sound a step above laughable. But other than heavier articulations and aspects it works well even with wonky keyswitches.

V-Metal does just about everything, I'd say it does everything Electri6ity does except when you get into really high notes, I'd say V-Metal doesn't quite do light palm mutes on the high notes as well as Electri6ity, but the downfalls kinda kill it for me.

However with this being said both libraries require HUGE amounts of memory. An electri6ity standard dual track multi will load about 1.7 gigs of memory per instance and a full dual tracked V-Metal can be from a gig to 2 gigs.

If your strapped for money and requirements Shreddage/Shreddage X isn't horrible. It'll do most things a rhythm guitar should do even though the initial tone needs to be adjusted so it doesn't sound like un eq'd crap. But that's all things that can be addressed in your amp sim. I will say that slides on Shreddage X are horrible sounding...


As for amp sims, Amplitude for me is too muddy. When paired with guitar libraries it just doesn't sound very good IMO. Guitar Rig or Revalver do wonders. Especially if you put a tube screamer before it in the effects track.

 

Orange Tree Samples - Evolution Electric Guitar Strawberry sounds quite promising. You can combine it with Guitar Rig or any other VST effect.

 

I'm now testing Strawberry guitar. With THD2. It's not good enough. Two guitars and a bass gives a very mushy sound.

Doing some Dreamtheater stuff...

 

Amplitude 3 is great you should try it out if youre doing some dream theater type stuff.. you can get some great sounds out of it in my opinion.. one key thing for great sound it .. mic placement.. to find that sweet spot for the tone you want.. i use it i love it