Evaluation Questions

[TJStaar]

Hi Everyone,

I've been reading for a while, and decided to sign up because I had a couple questions that I did not see addressed here or in the tutorial videos.

First, Is there a way to play a chord with just one key instead of playing the entire chord in the Evolution Guitars? I'm also looking at Real Guitar and they have this in their chord mode.

Second, how do you move information to your daw to then be able to edit the MIDI? Again, in Real Guitar they have a drag and drop feature that I didn't see here.

I know Kontakt prohibits doing trials, but the trial of Real Guitar is very helpful. I prefer the sounds of the Orange Tree guitars, but, as a guitarist that is not a great keyboard player, I am looking to what will be the most playable and usable for me.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Todd

[SirkusPi]

I don't believe there's an easy way to do one-key chords in Orange Tree guitars. To do this, I personally use a slightly complex routing of a separate one-finger-chord plugin and Plogue's Bidule along with Orange Tree's Chord Detector mode, and that works well enough for me. Perhaps others have a better solution I've missed (and I'd be delighted to learn how if that's the case). You may also want to consider Acousticsamples and/or Amplesound guitars, both of which do have this feature.

Given the lack of one-finger chords, midi drag-and-drop isn't really an issue, unless you mean with regard to the auto-pattern-strummer. I don't *think* the autostrummer has midi drag-and-drop, but I may be mistaken (I'm not at my music computer right now). It is, however, extremely cool. Acousticsamples and Amplesound both also have autostrummers, but I don't believe they have midi drag-and-drop either, although I'm not 100% sure. Perhaps it's just too complicated for reduction to bare midi.

[TJStaar]

Thanks for the info. So, if there is no drag and drop, how do you get the info into the daw? Is the only way to play it and record it live? If so, can you output as MIDI or only as audio? I was kind of hoping you could compose and create your strum patterns in Orange Tree and then move it to the daw. EZ Drummer works like this, and I think Real Guitar can do this (I haven't tried it yet).

I realize that once the info is in the daw that you can edit, but that seems like more work. I'm trying to decide between the Music Lab guitars (Real Guitar & Real LPC) and the Orange Tree Samples (Songwriter and Rock Standard). I really like the Orange Tree, but my playing limitations may make the others a better fit.

[Penelope]

First, Is there a way to play a chord with just one key instead of playing the entire chord in the Evolution Guitars?

You can map chords to a single note in the custom chords section. You'd need to use the strum keys to make sounds of course, but you can choose the chord voicing with a single key press.

[TJStaar]

Great! Thanks Penelope! Do you know anything regarding my other question about MIDI?

[Penelope]

Sure thing! The MIDI works a little differently. You can enter chord information (i.e. any chord that the "automatic chords" mode will interpret, or a custom chord trigger note or chord for your own voicings in "custom chords"), and a strum keyswitch or the individual D1/Eb1 downstroke/upstroke strum keys.

So if you're recording to your DAW, you can use one hand to trigger chords and another to trigger strum patterns.

[TJStaar]

So all recording in the DAW would have to be performed live then, correct?

[Penelope]

You can write it in as well. With strumming, the pattern exists in the engine and you'd write a MIDI note to trigger that to last for however long you need it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSf-yiLJd7w

[TJStaar]

I appreciate your help, please forgive me for being dense. I still don't see how the strumming pattern gets into the daw unless you are playing it as you record it. I don't see a "drag and drop" option like Real Guitar has. If that is the only way to get the information to the daw, that's fine, I just need to know for sure.

I'm trying to decide between these guitars and the Real Guitars, and that could be a difference maker for me.

[Penelope]

You can think of the strum section in the Evolution engine as a sequencer. Instead of writing the individual strums in your DAW's piano roll, you write them into the strum sequencer. In the thumbnail for the video I posted there are 6 slots for 6 different patterns. They operate with keyswitches (C0-F0 by default, but you can change these).

So if you want the pattern in slot 1 to play for 2 bars, write a C0 note that lasts for 2 bars into your DAW. That note tells the engine to play your strum pattern. When the note ends it also sends a little message ("note off") to tell the strum sequencer to stop.

You can also use D1/Eb1 to do downstrokes/upstrokes (see the 2 yellow keys in the keyboard). Based on velocity, it strums louder, more strings, and faster. That sort of thing can be edited in the setup. But if you want access to all of the strumming articulations, it has to be done in the editor window (see thumbnail).

[TJStaar]

Thanks for the information, it is all very helpful. I was kind of hoping that Greg would weigh in on this, as I still don't have it right in my mind.

Is the only way to get the chords and articulations into the daw is to play it live and record at the same time? I get that you can set the strumming patterns and everything before hand so that you can play things with one hand if needed, but you would still have to hit record and then play everything.

I'm looking to set everything up in the program and then drag it to the daw, where I can work with the midi data. Is this possible with OTS?

Thanks.

[rrichard63]

... I'm looking to set everything up in the program and then drag it to the daw, where I can work with the midi data. Is this possible with OTS?

Thanks.

The Evolution series guitars output MIDI as well as audio. Some DAWs can record this MIDI output. For example, Reaper can (Reaper is based on the principle that you should be able to route anything to anywhere). For another example, Mixcraft requires that you send the MIDI out to a loopback driver such as Loop MIDI and back in on another track.

Note: you have to configure Kontakt for this. In Kontakt's Options dialog, on the Engine tab, there's a drop down list for "Send MIDI to outside world". You definitely need to select "Script generated notes" and you might also need to select "Script generated CC's".

Hope this helps,
Bob Richard

[TJStaar]

Thanks Bob, that is good to know. Would you happen to know if Studio One 3 can record the MIDI like Reaper does?

Todd

[rrichard63]

... Would you happen to know if Studio One 3 can record the MIDI like Reaper does?

This might work:

viewtopic.php?f=270&t=472612

When I have some time (probably two or three days from now) I'll try it myself and report back.

[rrichard63]

Thanks Bob, that is good to know. Would you happen to know if Studio One 3 can record the MIDI like Reaper does?

Todd

It turns out that I misled you the other day. The Evolution guitars do have a MIDI output as I said, but it's not what you really want. The rhythmic pattern is there, but the notes are wrong. It's not just echoing it's MIDI input, but it's not sending the notes that would play another instrument (piano or synth or whatever) either.

Leaving aside that (more or less fatal) problem, Studio One 3 can capture the MIDI output of an instrument on a second instrument track. It's fairly straightforward.