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  3. Concert Guitar Impressions

  • Concert Guitar Impressions

    Y
    Y
    Hi everyone,

    I needed a really good sounding nylon classical guitar and excitedly ordered/received the Concert Guitar series last week after hearing the demo. However, on loading the legato guitar I was disappointed by
    1) the sound of the basic legato guitar. It's pretty thin. not nearly warm enough in the low-mid to low-end.
    2) it sounds very artificial when playing it. I attribute it to not enough samples of the softer, warmer variety when playing notes with a low velocity value.

    As far as the rest of it, I wouldn't want to pre-judge it before downloading the performance tool, but the collection just doesn't stand on its own as a good basic concert guitar for live performances as well as recording and not usable for my purposes. Actually, for playing solo lines I think it might work.

    How do I play it? I'm actually a midi guitar synthesizerist and use a GI-10/20 midi guitar controller. I'm very experienced with emulating different instrument styles (silly isn't it that I'm emulating a guitar with a guitar. [:)] actually it makes a lot of sense when tempos/keys are subject to change or for live performing). Also, the samples are so huge I can only load a few types of guitars. Maybe I'm missing something there. However. I should be able to just load the legato guitar.

    I'm using it with gigastudio 2.54 on XP.

    Any comments or suggestions welcome.

    thanks,
    -randy
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC
    welcome randy,
    on a XP computer with 2 GB RAM you should be able to load about 50% of all samples coming with the concert guitar (ca. 8.000 from the 15.000).
    a widely used approach to get the most possible value from your loaded patches is to select single articulations (which appear clicking on the plus-sign near the name of the gig-file) instead of the complete gig-file.
    the performance elements (to be used with the performance tool, which would be really worth to do) are about half of the file size, so basically all single notes could be loaded simultaneously into a well equiped machine.
    christian
    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • S
    S
    Ohoh....
    I have considered the purchase of this guitar too, but the above comment is slowing me down a little....
    So would it be possible to know how many distinct velocity layers are provided for the most important articulations ?
    I guess that for a guitar, 8 different velocities (ppp to fff) should be a minimum.
    I already noticed, as younglv did, that the lack of very soft samples in a guitar library is really bad for a convincingly nuanced playing.
  • E
    E
    That's wierd. I found the guitar to be TOO warm. I've found this with all the VSL instruments. If I cool them off a little they sound more realistic.

    Try dipping out 3 to 6 db around 360 Hz with a wide-smooth Q.

    As far as point #2, I agree. It does sound artificial when playing it.

    The best sounding sampled guitar I have heard (and I currently use it) is the Yellow Tools Pure Guitars. If you want to finally be satisfied, grab that CD-ROM. Then at least you can feel good, like me, for having a nice performance legato concert guitar from VSL. Because for now, the VSL guitar has turned out to not be all it was cracked up to be. AT LEAST, for new works. Perhaps for baroque music it is the cat's meow.

    My 87 cents. [:)]

    Evan Evans
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC
    last edited
    last edited
    more information on the articulations can be found here
    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • S
    S
    last edited
    last edited

    @cm said:

    more information on the articulations can be found here

    Thanks cm,
    but I did not see in this list anything at all regarding the number of velocity layers for each given articulation. So is there some available information about that ?
  • H
    H
    The normal single note samples do have 4 different velocities.
    There is also a mapping variation, where a flautando is included as pp layer, so you have 5 velocities.

    For legato playing I strongly recommend working with the performance legati patches - here we are also offering 4 velocities!

    Here some tips.

    For medium and fast diatonic passages you should also check out the performance repetitions.
    Don't worry, it's very easy. You don't need the repetition tool, because you only have to trigger the last repetition. (activate the 5th/9th keyswitch).
    You will get dozens of variations, because the plugging technique of the artist is changing with the speed of the previous repetitions.

    If you need repetitions, you should work with the repetition tool activated. [[;)]]

    Also check out the alternation tool in combination with the chords.

    There are ton of possibilies and colors in this library - we had 80!! recording sessions, so the guitar is one of the most detailed instruments we've ever produced.


    best
    Herb