Hi Greg/anyone,

Does anyone have any tips/advice for how to use the provided samples to get a darker/edgier Evanescence heavy-metal sound out of the guitars. I've been playing around with Guitar Rig, but while great it doesn't seem have what I'm looking for.

Much appreciated,

Seth

Make a try at:
http://www.guitarampmodeling.com

In http://www.guitarampmodeling.com some weeks ago i've found a preset in evanescence style for amplitube metal; in my opinion the presets in guitar rig 4 are not the best choice for metal rhythm guitar riffs, i prefer amplitube; but guitar rig 4 it's good for leading parts and solos.

sorry for my english -_-

The trick is to layer several tracks of playing the same distorted guitar riff, panned left and right at different amounts. That's how you get that darker, more washed out sound.

If you are trying to sound like your favorite metal record using one rhythm guitar track, you will never get there. Almost all heavy guitar records have AT LEAST 2 layers of rhythm guitar (usually playing the exact same thing) for most parts.

EDIT: Just noticed that this is a question about a sample set. In that case, you are going to have to layer more than one sample set, or do something so that the layers don't match up perfectly.

By the way, you can get a cool doubled guitar effect by using a dual amp setup. Basically you have two amps with separate gain settings panned to the left and right. Guitar Rig can do this pretty easily.

Seth, just give me an example of an Evanescence song (sorry, it's been a while since I've heard them) and I'll model a Guitar Rig patch after it. Which version of Guitar Rig do you use?

Oh, also, bear in mind that these guitars are commonly tuned down--for example to a low C. Evolution Electric Guitar has controls to alter the tuning, so try out the "Drop C" preset on the tuning page of the interface, for example.

This is using the Evolution Electric Guitar sample library for KONTAKT through Guitar Rig 4: http://www.orangetreesamples.com/audio/Essence.mp3

The guitar is played live from my MIDI keyboard. I used presets from GR4. For the rhythm guitar, I used "Puppetmaster"--though I had to change all the amp/effects to "stereo" to permit double tracking. The rhythm guitar is also detuned down to a low C# to get that deep tone. The lead guitar uses the "Corn Now" preset.

Oh, and the drums are Addictive Drums. If you have this drum sample library, I posted a bunch of my presets (the ones that come with AD aren't that great) on VDrums.com: http://www.vdrums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57467

(be sure to grab the "Rock Drums" preset at the end of that thread, too)

Whoa Greg! Why isn't that on the Evolution Electric Guitar page?! That would get tons of metal guys over there!

As for getting a great metal tone, I would check out POD Farm 2, that's what I use and it's great! It even has an Evanescence preset!

I have both Evolution and Lyrical Direct, I've been meaning to play around with quad tracking using these two sample libraries, but I just never got around to it, I hardly ever use Lyrical Direct any more.

If Evolution had quad tracking ability it would blow my pants off for sure.
I don't see why it couldn't be possible.

For example...

LEFT 100%------LEFT 80%-----RIGHT 80%---RIGHT 100%
Down Stroke A, Upstroke A... ... Upstroke B, Down Stroke B

Then they could just alternate between one another, however I'm about 99.9% sure it would create a noticable pattern.

So Greg, when you decide to take on sampling an axe meant for metal like an Ibanez or ESP... (assuming you're going to increase the Evolution line with more guitars...)

Keep quad tracking in mind.

Sounds great for the most part. I'm gonna have to notice that the first pinch right at the beginning kinda sounded a bit out of place. Hard to describe, it just didn't feel right (I don't mean in compositional sense, but more like how it didn't manage to meld well into the performance, slightly). And I kinda feel that the first descending lick right at the beginning (before the chugging) sounded a tiiiiny bit mechanical (like they're all downstrokes, where I'd expect alternate picking or hammeron/pulloffs).

And it needs more gain on rhythm guitars definitely, at least to my taste - this is more like hardened rock than heavy metal.


That being said - leads sound AMAZING! And you have a very nice AD kit there - I downloaded them all, will check them out later for sure (I know I won't be disappointed)!