This is a pretty decent discount for their virtual guitarists and now bass and drums. I use the guitars often as I don’t play well at all. If I played better, I surely would use these better, but out of the box this is easy to use almost immediately, and they sound pretty realistic. I find them fun to use, too!
Here’s the link, though the other instruments on the site are on sale too (bass, drums).
Really interesting concept, this. Seems to get good reviews. Anyone here own or use this?
I use them a lot, Tesgin. I own all four virtual guitarists, as I am not a guitarist. You can hear them on practically every song I’ve posted here in Bash This Recording, such as Planet of Beautiful People and Let’s Eat Out. End of Forever is in Collaborations which Big Al will hopefully soon add bass and drums.
To me, this level of VST is still a challenging instrument to use. Sure, it does a lot of the work for you, but just like a real guitar is different for each guitarist’s abilities and imagination, so is this.
In my opinion, this is a pretty easy to use approach to get quick results. I tend to use different style/patterns on different tracks, often layering the patterns with stereo to make it more fancy.
I like the Iron for rock metal guitar, and the Silk acoustic classical nylon has almost a piano vibe at times. Amber is a basic acoustic folk guitar, and Sparkle is a light electric. All are mainly rhythm guitars, which can be played as a semi lead if you work a lot harder at it.
I haven’t tried their new bass guitars, but they are probably pretty good.
For the price, owning one or two would be a bargain. I would go for Iron and Silk first, but am glad I have all four guitars for the variety.
They have a decent sound and can pass as real instruments at times.
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Thanks, Steve. I didn’t realize the guitars in your stuff were AI. Im/lpressive.
I especially like the Iron stuff. Great patterns… Very usable and nicely recorded.
You know, I downloaded the Mellow trial version. Ugh. I wasn’t impressed! A lot of the notes recorded what sounds like the clicking of a keyboard key when the note is released. Really bizarre, ugly sound. And it wasn’t my keyboard, cuz I heard it when just clicking the on-screen keyboard with my mouse. Not all the time, but if you hold the note down it repeats a loop after several bars, and it wasn’t on every note, but there was some definite clicking. Disappointing. If I have time tomorrow I’ll try playing with the other bass versions, and maybe the Iron.
I don’t have it, and the video samples are not always realistic, nothing like trying for yourself! It is true how the note loops on its patterned beat, and if you try to fight it you might get that record skip behavior, some moreso than others. For me, I have to be sure the notes I write or play are quantized for the beat I am writing in. So 4/4 or 6/8 must be in agreement especially, otherwise you might not get what you want or need. You also can use a lower register to control/change the patterns, which can make the basic pattern much more complex. Again, it is not unlimited but not overly complex and makes it sort of an interesting arpeggiator.
I have Sugar Byes and Real Strat also, and they have fairly realistic sound, and both can do pretty neat tricks, but both are limited and frustrating in their own ways, and I find I don’t use them very often. I do use Waves Bass Slapper quite a bit, it has some nice tones, but it is also just a normal VST where you just write your bass line out, no auto arpeggiating. I’m not good at playing it like a real bassist would, but if I’m lucky and careful can get a groove going that to me sounds pretty bassy.
I was just reading how Sony was developing AI for drums and maybe other instruments that will just play along with the other instruments or live playing, and this is not that! I use Jamstix for drums, which has drummer brains and fairly intelligently randomizes the actual pattern played a bit subtly, and again it doesn’t arrange itself unless you go in and edit the hits manually where you want to, which for a bad drummer like me is mostly futile!
All musicians are good or even great at some things and not so much for everything else. You might do it all except sing, or you can only sing a certain way. Nowadays many independent artists who have to do it all because there is no band, midi alone and then this “virtual” instrument thing, like early drum machines, can allow us to more fully express our ideas. And sometimes we even come up with a cool song and much faster!
But it makes me totally appreciate real guitarists, bassists, drummers, saxophonists, keyboardists, singers etc etc, whenever I collaborate, not to mention others like me who are mainly midi.
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