I love Shreddage 2 already! But it seems to be missing a few things:

harmonics: different from pinch harmonics and i see them often in metal.

Similarly, the ability to replicate 'fake' harmonics (the kind you make by lightly touching a string and then strumming) as well as palm-mute variations for these (the difference isn't that noticeable but when I play the guitar, sometimes I mess around with that). This one might require a separate patch or keyswitch.

Apologize if some of these are already in as I've not yet fully explored Shreddage 2
Last edited by warfighter67 on Fri Dec 14, 2012 6:02 pm; edited 2 times in total

I think the long sustain squeal you mention is actually amp feedback. You'd want to model that with the amp simulation AFAIK.

Oh, right! D'oh!

I think the amp feedback would have to be implemented in Kontakt rather than the amp sim. It may be the sound of the amp that triggers the feedback, but it's still the vibrating of the guitar strings that makes the sound.


Anyway, I also have a few suggestions for things I'd like to see in a future update:

1. Pitch wheel range control. I'd like to be able to increase the range to use the pitch wheel for whammy dives and such.

2. LFO vibrato. I'm not a fan of the distinct sound when transitioning from sustain to vibrato samples, and it would be nice to have some more speed/depth customization.

3. I second the request for more types of harmonics, especially natural harmonics and pinch harmonics without vibrato.

4. This seems to be a bug. Even if I set the velocity range for sustains up to 127, any note set to 127 velocity triggers a full choke rather than a sustain when the pinch squeals are disabled.

Good suggestions folks.

Re: LFO vibrato customization, what did you have in mind for that? Basically we have recordings of non-vib and recordings of vib. We could definitely take a look at the xfade curves for that. Is there something beyond that though?

Pitch wheel range control, no problem.

Will look into that sustain bug.

For the LFO vibrato, I mean an artificial vibrato - simply shifting the pitch up and down on the non-vib sustain samples.

artificial harmonics! it would be great if in a future update this feature will be implemented.

What I noticed is that sustain pedal works like usual MIDI sustain (it just keeps notes to continue to play), which is not quite natural for guitar. I.e. if push sustain pedal, trigger a note with usual velocity (i.e. "sustain" articulation), then trigger same note with low velocity ("palm mute" articulation), the first articulation will continue to sound, and palm mute will just blend in, instead of "retriggering" the string and stopping its previous sound, like on real guitar.
This is a slight inconvenience for me, because I don't know how to play uninterrupted rhythm on keyboard without using a sustain pedal

Another suggestion/bug report. In the fretboard view, if you hold a note and trigger a hammer-on or pull-off, the H or P disappears when the initial note is released even though a note is still playing. It would be nice to keep the indicator showing while the note is still playing.

guys FEEDBACK!!!
With a control for turning on or off the fade-in of it and for configure the fade-in time and his cancellation time,like in V Metal! What about it?

Is there any chance we could see a "MIDI Guitar" mode added? I was working on a track the other day with some varied chords, and the fretboard showed some crazy stuff during playback. Having a MIDI Guitar mode to select the strings by changing the channel of each note would make it a lot easier to get things under control. I can simulate this by loading seven Shreddage 2 patches and assigning each one its own MIDI channel and string preference, but then I have seven patches I have to configure the same way, and I lose the elegance of having everything on a single fretboard display.


Speaking of playing back chords, that seems to confuse the hell out of the string selector. In All Strings mode, the chords bounce around the fret board in weird and unnatural ways, and in string preference mode, it plays multiple notes on the same string and ends up sounding really weird.

As an example, I tried playing this sequence of a basic six-string E chord. All notes in the chords have the same start time, and All Strings mode is selected.
http://i.imgur.com/YlRk4.png

The first E chord came out like this.
http://i.imgur.com/Js0Bo.png

The one right after it came out like this.
http://i.imgur.com/ik8hJ.png

The third and fourth were similar to the first, but then it looped back to the first and gave me this bit of madness.
http://i.imgur.com/eNKKg.png

(The monitor only displays a single note on each string, so there are actually multiple notes being played on the lower strings that you can't see here.)

Even crazier is that the bizarre fingering it chooses for the chords changes when I change the song's tempo. Maybe I'm the odd man out since I haven't seen this mentioned yet, but I like using more than just the stock powerchords and the lack of consistent string control is a bit frustrating.

Shreddage 2 is definitely one of the best metal guitar libraries ever made!!

The sound of the guitar is more brutal than any libraries I've used.

Here are a couple of suggestions for the upcoming update of Shreddage 2:


1. Option to assign unison bend to different CCs and/or pitch wheel such that pitch wheel would only bend the lowest note (I personally find this way of performing unison bend more intuitive)


2. Some additional string realism would be really nice.
As mentioned above, even when sustain pedal is pressed, notes played on the same strings should be retriggered instead of stacking onto previous notes. Also, it would be nice if pressing the chug key automatically mutes all sustained notes.


3. I hope this is not too much to ask, but is it possible to have the option to assign articulations not only to velocity but also midi CC or user definable (preferably non-latching) keyswitches?


4. Some sort of repeat keys or upstrum/downstrum keys will be awesome
So that I can finally strum big chords efficiently!
Also, it would be even more awesome if we can have multiple strum keys and assign different articulations to them. (I think somebody mentioned this suggestion in another thread before)


5. Lastly, not sure if this is intended or a bug, but if I hold two notes, then perform unison bend by stepping on the expression pedal, then release the notes without letting go of the pedal; if I press the same two notes again they wouldn't sound like unison bended until I move the expression pedal. In other words, when I press any notes kontakt seem to ignore the current position of the controllers until I actually move them.

My suggestion would be to include the ability to do fast portamento on chords (constructed via single sustain notes), this comes in handy in Rock and ballads when you have to switch between chords fluently.

Ran into the string selection problem J-Rokujuushi mentioned.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17038921/s2stringselector.mp3

Here is the midi file too:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17038921/fuel-fallsonmeIntro.MID

The unwanted drift to a different section of fretboard reveals some samples might be slightly muted. This happens when the g5 note is played on lower E string (at about 00:06), is the reduced ringing because of the note being more towards the neck?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17038921/s2stringselectorg5muted_.mp 3

Resetting RR on each repeat as well as isolating the string using keyswitch stops S2 from going higher but results in a different set of notes and doesn't sound natural.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17038921/s2stringselectorKSW_.mp3

I think I'm going to rewrite the string selection script entirely. Right now there are too many conditionals and it is just a little weird. However it will take a little bit to figure out the ideal logic for it. The goal will be to have a more accurate virtual 'hand' that isn't reaching unrealistically far.

Regarding unison bend, it is already assignable to a custom CC (check the Engine page)