Official Evolution Update Progress Thread

[Gregjazz]

Hi, Greg! What's the progress in making updates? Can't wait!:)

Well, recently I added in articulation morphing--which is really awesome because it takes the current amount of velocity layers and articulations, and really helps them blend together with this new aspect.

I've also been working on CPU efficiency. I already have it at a surprisingly low CPU usage even considering when it's handling quad-tracking, each guitar with a separate humanization amount, articulation morphing, etc., but what really takes up a lot of CPU usage are the effects (distortion, reverb, amp modeling, etc.). So I want to make sure that every element is operating at the simplest, most CPU efficient level possible.

[Gregjazz]

Here's the problem I'm currently working on... How do you want to be able to tell the guitar to play legato? What's the most intuitive way?

Hmm I don't have a problem with the way it work currently. If anything, I'll just create a new layer to tell EEG NOT to play legato, it probably only happen on certain occasion I'm supposed? I'm no guitarists so I think it should work fine, maybe 2~3 layers under the same keyswitch, with 2~3 velocity layers (soft, normal, hard sustain), with legato disabled.

Or, you can make legato with a universal switch like the slide, but with the interval as individual rules within different layers, that'll be nice. The legato switch can be default as disabled, or enabled (which is better, hit a keyswitch/CC to disable it); while the slide remain the way it is - disabled by default, enable when triggered.

Hope that'll give you some ideas.

Having some sort of universal legato/slide method is great. The tough part is having a simple and easy-to-use solution that can also cover more specific instances. For example, what if you want to hold two notes and slide only one? How do you pick which note is the one that gets the slide? Also, what if you want to play an entire chord and slide the whole thing up/down the guitar neck?

Should I keep the slide mode as a type of legato, along with the hammer-ons and pull-offs? Or should I make it more of a pitch bend thing, where it would be a separate controller to ONLY control the sliding. I mean, it would work just like the string bends work in the sense that you'd have different modes which determine which note(s) get operated on--all notes, highest note, lowest note, earliest note, latest note, or only specific strings.

[tman2k (Meathook Audio)]

but what really takes up a lot of CPU usage are the effects (distortion, reverb, amp modeling, etc.). So I want to make sure that every element is operating at the simplest, most CPU efficient level possible.

Hi Greg,

Don't most people use third party ampsims anyway? There are plenty of freeware ones available now that probably blow Kontakt's amp effects out of the water...

[Dr.Gunjah]

Now that I've seen a video of the strumming engine from ilya efimovs "the strum" (which seems miles ahead in terms of useability, compared to the current EAG) I'm more than ever curious about what Greg does to the EAG engine and especially the interface

Should I keep the slide mode as a type of legato, along with the hammer-ons and pull-offs?
Or should I make it more of a pitch bend thing, where it would be a separate controller to ONLY control the sliding.

I can't imagine how this can be done in an ergonomic way with midi controllers. When you hold two notes and want to slide up only one, I think it's easier with the legato method. The engine should be able to determine the right note to slide by the limitations of the human hand (IIRC there's already a knob for legato limit)
For sliding all notes it could be more tricky since there are lots of possible "user errors"... for example, what happens if the user doesn't have correct timing at the legato played notes... or what happens if you slide 4 notes into 3 or something. Maybe use a keyswitch to toggle between bend and slide with the pitch-wheel? Since you probably won't use a bend and a slide simultaneously?

Cheers,
Doc

[bbaggins]

Maybe use a keyswitch to toggle between bend and slide with the pitch-wheel? Since you probably won't use a bend and a slide simultaneously?

This makes the most sense to me. It would be great to have two pitch-bend ranges, selectable by keyswitch.[/quote]

[Jaleo]

Interesting and not easy to solve question.
I was thinking in use the negative pitch values to slide and positive values to pitch bend/monobend. Easy to perform in realtime most of the time.

[K-Slash]

but what really takes up a lot of CPU usage are the effects (distortion, reverb, amp modeling, etc.). So I want to make sure that every element is operating at the simplest, most CPU efficient level possible.

Hi Greg,

Don't most people use third party ampsims anyway? There are plenty of freeware ones available now that probably blow Kontakt's amp effects out of the water...

Well said !

All that counts IMHO is to have a "perfectly" playable instrument with convincing sound, legato and strumming patterns adapted to the keyboard.

By the way, for the K4 version, are we talking about EEG or EAG ?

[Gregjazz]

By the way, for the K4 version, are we talking about EEG or EAG ?

Both actually--I'll probably release the EEG version first, with the EAG update following soon after. They'll both use the same Evolution K4 engine.

[K-Slash]

Thanks, great to read this.

[Capsizer]

Also, what if you want to play an entire chord and slide the whole thing up/down the guitar neck?

I really liked the idea in electri6ty that the user was able to slide an entire chord one semitone up/down with keyswitches. If you put lots of the up/down keyswitches in a row (in a sequencer) it would simply slide more semitones. If the strum palette editor will still be present in EEG, perhaps the slides could be selected as an articulation for strum keys ?

If there were slide up/down keyswitches also in Lead mode, perhaps having string selector keys could trigger the slide up/down only for the selected string(s) when both keyswitches are pressed ?

[Godseyse]

Hey Greg, I have another idea... of course... xD

So, actually I don't know if I mentioned this before, if I did forgive me, I must think it's just a really good idea...


But, what about having 6 different "String Select Keyswitches"... and this would work for selecting where the note would be played on the fret board... . . . Okay, this makes sense...

But what about this...

Selecting multiple "String Select Keyswitches" would create where the notes in a chord would be played...

So if you held down the "String Select Keyswitches" "6, 5, and 4..." Whatever chord that you may be playing on the piano, or whatever may be sequenced, that chord would be played on the 6th, 5th, and 4th string on the guitar!

You could have accurately played chords and solos! ^_^

I think this would be a great approach actually!

[Gregjazz]

I see what you're saying--so they're basically "string limiting keyswitches", which work to manually select a single string, or select only two strings, etc.

[EvilDragon]

Yep, that's a pretty cool idea!

[Godseyse]

Yep, but the chord will be played according to which strings are selected.

For example, a simple power chord played high up on the fretboard could be played towards the bottom of the fretboard as well, but on two different strings... who's to say EEG will perform the chord higher on the fretboard on lower strings, or lower, but on two higher strings?
What I would like to see is this...

String Select Keyswitch 1 - Notes Performed on the High E String
String Select Keyswitch 2 - Notes Performed on the B String
String Select Keyswitch 3 - Notes Performed on the G String
String Select Keyswitch 4 - Notes Performed on the D String
String Select Keyswitch 5 - Notes Performed on the A String
String Select Keyswitch 6 - Notes Performed on the Low E String

And the lowest note in the chord which is being played will be played on the lowest keyswitch held down...
And the highest note in the chord will be played on the highest keyswitch held down, etc...

So in order to play a powerchord on the A and D strings... You would hold down Keyswitch 5 and 4...
To play one on the D and G, you'd hold down keyswitch 4 and 3...

etc...

When no String Select Keyswitches are being used, EEG/EAG could just be in an Automatic String Select Mode, and if need be, use the String Select Keyswitches only when you need to!

Just want to make sure there's no confusion...

[Tansunn]

One thing that I'd like to see is a way to force slides. I was sequencing a lead track the other day and wanted to do a slide an octave down the neck. It should have worked since the starting note was above the 12th fret, but instead of performing a slide it struck a new note on a lower string. I could get around it by using the MIDI guitar setting, but it would have been a hassle going through and assigning each note to a particular MIDI channel, especially since the auto-detection was doing a fairly good job.