Impact Soundworks

stpete111 · Post by **stpete111** » Tue Jul 01, 2014 10:40 pm

Andrew, am I missing something or are there no natural harmonics samples in Shreddage?

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Wed Jul 02, 2014 4:48 am

Aside from the wide vib pinch squeals, correct, there are no natural harmonics. There have been requests for it; it's on the list, but not for S2X. Maybe S2X.5

stpete111 · Post by **stpete111** » Wed Jul 02, 2014 3:11 pm

zircon wrote:Aside from the wide vib pinch squeals, correct, there are no natural harmonics. There have been requests for it; it's on the list, but not for S2X. Maybe S2X.5

Cool sounds good. If you add that, I won't have any reason to use any other guitar sampler for rock. In the meantime, as a workaround I have another guitar sample library for Kontakt that I'll pull in to use just for natural harmonics.

xphen0m · Post by **xphen0m** » Mon Jul 07, 2014 1:01 pm

I've encountered a bug when making a clean part last night. I had a three note chord held down and played some other notes a few seconds later (while the chord was still held). When I do this, one or more of the extra notes played put out a muted sample. Do you need a midi file for reference?

EDIT: This is using v27, by the way, I just noticed. I'll try v28 in a few.

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 6:10 am

Please do, and yeah, upload a MIDI if you can!

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 7:11 pm

Hey guys, v30 is on the server. I think THIS is the one. I've revisited the fretting engine and I think it works much better now - there should be fewer weird jumps, and the script should 'respect' fret preference a bit more. It's a complicated engine but overall, the end result is better.

I've also fixed some bugs with portamento and script errors.

Please give this one a shot!

Download Beta 30 (Release Candidate 3) Here

Edit: Noticed some bugs with portamento. Working on it. IT NEVER ENDS!!!

Edit 2: Should be fixed, but please test!

FaytxStay · Post by **FaytxStay** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 8:47 pm

Haven't tried Shreddage 2X, yet. Let's see how it goes!

stelio_kvr · Post by **stelio_kvr** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 1:11 am

i don't hear anything with the fretting engine ? is that frets for the vibrato ? fret noise ? why and when make the script or is inposibble ? and the other things in the script are amazing... Don't change it more, one options are mising.... Please panel for the humanize section or something that.... quantize, swing, tune, volume, note on note off .................... but the verry important for real sound is the vibrato frets noise like a scarbee rickenbeker bass from native

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 2:24 am

There are infinite possibilities when it comes to adding features (i.e. humanization) - and that's a good idea for the NEXT update. As for the fret noise w/ vibrato, I'm sorry to say that I have not been able to come up with something that sounds satisfactory to me, which means it will not be in this S2X v1.0 build. Please understand though that we've fulfilled dozens of feature requests since S2 was released and we plan to fulfill many more!

Scara · Post by **Scara** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:33 pm

Andrew, you know the old saying about not being able to please all of the people, all of the time, blah, blah, blah.

I know that you guys have worked extremely hard to bring this version to us, FREE of charge and I think I can say from many of us here...Thank you very much for doing this and making Shreddage even better.
Who would have thought when S1 came to fruit that it could even be any better at all.

Brilliant, thanks again, Andrew.

Scar.

xphen0m · Post by **xphen0m** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:37 pm

zircon wrote:Please do, and yeah, upload a MIDI if you can!

I'm sorry, I forgot I even posted this (been really busy lately). I fixed the issue, it was within the MIDI but I still don't think it should've been happening. It has do with overlapping notes that are MAYBE on different strings (I didn't check the fretboard when it was playing).

Scara wrote:Andrew, you know the old saying about not being able to please all of the people, all of the time, blah, blah, blah.

I know that you guys have worked extremely hard to bring this version to us, FREE of charge and I think I can say from many of us here...Thank you very much for doing this and making Shreddage even better.
Who would have thought when S1 came to fruit that it could even be any better at all.

Brilliant, thanks again, Andrew.

Scar.

I second this post. I can tell you guys, especially you Andrew, have been working almost nonstop on this. And I commend you for that!

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 8:06 pm

Thanks guys

I really appreciate it. Between this and all other projects I've been working on (within ISW and otherwise), I've been insanely busy, but I love this instrument - it's worth the time & effort.

As I prepare to get the final update files sent out, check out a demo I wrote called "Shred the Night"! This epic track is inspired by Nightwish, S.S.H., and Revo, some of my favorite over-the-top symphonic metal artists. Take a listen, and enjoy! More details after the SoundCloud embed.

https://soundcloud.com/isworks/shreddag ... rew-aversa

Now, while most of this could be done with the previous version of S2, I found it much easier to sequence and automate things using S2X - plus, there's at least one powerchord slide in there

Overview

"Shred the Night" uses three instances of S2X: two for the rhythm doubletrack, and one for the lead. The bass is Shreddage Bass, synths are Omnisphere, Zebra 2, and Massive, and the drums are Steven Slate EX ("Slate's Hybrid" kit).

Guitar Mixing

The rhythm guitars use a standard doubletrack setup. The left channel is using Guitar Rig 5 with a rather simple Van 51 -> Gratifier custom preset. Some EQ is used to scoop the mids and boost the highs. The right channel uses the Revalver HPse "Heavy Chug" preset. Both guitars have "Bite" EQ enabled, with the left channel also using the Scream pedal. Both guitars are then combined and pretty heavily scooped, with a touch of low end boost (150hz).

The lead guitar is a bit different. It uses the Bite EQ and built in Compressor, slightly lower gain, and then Guitar Rig 5 with the "1993 Hot Solo Rig" preset. I then cut away most of the low end, rolling off <1khz, and boosting >2.5khz (particularly >6khz).

Both guitars have a bit of volume automation in FL Studio too. For example, the heavy solo part boosts the lead guitar volume.

Sequencing

Most of the sequencing here is actually not that intricate. The rhythm guitars are 100% quantized. I played in as much of the lead part as I could, and then edited by hand. Most of the cool pitch stuff is automation and not sequencing. Portamento slides are used quite a bit to add extra motion, using the classic technique of doing an octave slide but cutting off the note before it can actually hit the sustain note.

Check the files below to get a closer look.

S2X Settings / Automation

The guitars use pretty standard settings, very close to the defaults in the latest version of the library. The real fun is all the automation I used on the lead guitar. As you'll plainly hear, a lot of modwheel is used in Smooth vibrato mode for the sustained notes. There's also a lot of pitch bend automation, usually up or down 2 semitones. All of that is relatively standard.

Here's where I got creative: (1) pitch bend range automation, (2) tapping mode on/off automation (can be done with keyswitch too), (3) portamento speed automation. For example, during the heavy solo, I wanted to get some crazy whammy-like effects, so I increased the pitch bend range significantly, bringing it back down later so that I could more easily perform normal +/- 2 semitone bends. I used tapping mode for the "sweeps" at 1:22, and then altered the portamento speed a few times during the song to get either more exaggerated slides, or faster ones, depending on the context.

All of this automation was set up using Kontakt's built-in MIDI learn functionality.

Reference Files

Shred the Night FL Studio Project File. As the entire track was composed in FL, this file is the best way to take a look at how I did all the automation and sequencing. Even if you can't load all the plugins and samples, the MIDI data is there in full.

Shred the Night MIDI File. Unfortunately, FL does not do a great job of exporting MIDI automation, so while this has the NOTES, it loses a lot of other data. I definitely recommend looking at the FLP unless you're on a Mac and have no way of doing so.

Jorito · Post by **Jorito** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 8:21 pm

Sounds great! Immediately downloaded the reference files for a quick peek so I can reuse the concepts in a track I'm working on.
Looking forward to the release!

DavidN · Post by **DavidN** » Thu Jul 10, 2014 2:00 am

Thanks for a very generous free update! Shreddage just keeps getting better - I'm very excited about its possibilities, it's the one plugin that's finally got me to break free of deliberately Amiga-styled metal tracking and go for a more realistic sound.

Having an example from the author is really inspiring as well - very Nightwish-styled

Am I right in understanding the demo version of FL wouldn't allow loading this FLP project file?

emasters · Post by **emasters** » Thu Jul 10, 2014 2:11 am

Yes thanks! Really appreciate your time and effort to provide this free update.

Impact Soundworks

KVR Audio

Shreddage 2X FREE UPDATE - Now available! (May 22, 2014)