New plug in the bundle ppl!!

[sonicsmurf]

I don't think that's a realistic approach, but I know what you mean-- I wouldn't want just 'one' perfect instrument of each, but I would like to have a limited selection of reliable sounds.

Exactly! I knew you would understand, first you are an extremely logical thinker, and second I listed to your tunes yesterday and realized that you make similar styles of music (Blues and other styles I heard).
My real name is Greg, by the way.
So, thank you for your reply! I was actually hoping you could help me.

For guitar, I can never with good conscience recommend a virtual guitar VST.

A friend of mine in Germany uses Steinberg Virtual Guitarist all the time, he's a professional guitar player and has used it on a few records in the last 2 years (producer of one of them was Frank Farian). The Steinberg guitar plugin sounds quite good and I know records where it is played as a Spanish guitar. I have not yet tried it but will soon.
Funny enough: one guitar VSTi that I find rather good (especially in dense mixes) is the free plugin "PSP Plugsound Free: A Spanish Guitar". I have recently used it in a cover of Dire Straits 'Sultans of Swing' and even added a bit of Overdrive/Distortion and it sounds quite realistic.

Better to collaborate with someone over the net or get a friend to come in and do it. Also free, if you meet the right people.

A great point. I didn't think of that! I also play (real) guitar but for composing new songs I need the flexibility of a good VSTi, so I can easily change the general pitch of the song or just an individual chord - that's so much easier and faster than to re-record the real guitar (while in the songwriting process).

BFD is the right choice for drums

Done! So it is. I will buy it now. Thanks for your advice Greg!

Greg

[diverdee]

I would reccomend you check out other options for piano mate. I have seen a multitude of threads detailing all kinds of problems with steinbergs 'the grand', maybe version 2 will be more stable & reliable - i'd personally wait for more reviews first though - or check out the other oprions also.

[Lunch Money]

The Sonic Reality one is called Studiophonik.

Regarding Virtual Guitarist -- I can see those points.

Since money doesn't seem to be an object, for the drums there are a couple of things you can do alongside BFD to make your life a bit easier or different:

1. Rayzoon Jamstix integrates (and was beta tested) with BFD in a fairly seamless way. For an extra $99 it gives your drums "Virtual Drummer"-like capability, but even better.

2. There's a MIDI drum loop collection available from... crap... what's the name... something-Monkey (not Beta Monkey, the other Monkey)... if you'd prefer using MIDI 'loops'.

3. Not really a separate option, but be aware that BFD has internal patterns that can be used, too!

Greg

[SaviorNeeded]

Thank you, my logical friend.

Tom

[ouroboros]

Groovemonkey, I think.

[sonicsmurf]

Now that you mention it. If you get a 'virtual' bass player, shouldn't he bring his own 'virtual' instrument? Problem solved!

[sonicsmurf]

Over at Sonic Reality (the SampleTank guys), Squids has mentioned a new product--not yet released--that is intended to form the perfect live five-man band sound.

WOW... Seems to be what I am looking for

Thank you, Saviour! Aloha.. and thanks for the 'welcome'!

[pdxindy]

There are various excellent instruments out there. Just as important, if not more is the attention given to playing style.

Lounge Lizard is my favorite electric piano and it works partly because it is emulating a keyboard instrument.

Playing a realistic guitar on keyboard is challenging because it is a different medium so to speak. Using Tassman I have made some electric guitar parts that fooled the casual listener but that is because I stuck to certain approach where the keyboard can more easily express like a guitar.

I also value music that has melody, feeling, and something that is human and lasting in its expression. My choice has not been to find the most realistic sample based synths. I like better the playability and musicality of physical modeled sounds. That is why I have Tassman, and an Oasys PCI. They do not give exact emulations, but they do give an exceptional playability with much complex variation. Hit a note with a note playing, and it can sound very different that the note by itself. The emulations are mostly close enough, that they provide the emotional familiarity that appeals to people with instruments they know.

I also like making sounds that people think might just be made by some 'real world' instrument they have never seen. Tassman particularly has this quality. If I could only have one single synth, that would be my first choice. That and a good sampled piano second.

[sonicsmurf]

I would reccomend you check out other options for piano mate. I have seen a multitude of threads detailing all kinds of problems with steinbergs 'the grand'

Thanks a lot for this advice. Okay I will wait with the Steinberg piano, read more reviews on it, see what the next version brings. Thanks.

For the moment, the best sounding solution I found was... again a funny one: I am using the free piano "ASC Piano" which sounds rather cheap - but I add a good amount of "PSP PianoVerb" which does the trick of integrating the piano sound into the overall mix (plus some EQ-ing at around 10KHz with the built-in EQ), plus VintageWarmer on top of it. At the moment this is the most usable piano sound I have. I think the problem is: Steinberg The Grand sounds close-to perfect when played solo, but use it in a cover version of a Dire Straits song, and it gets all covered by the drum sounds. Yes, it is difficult to find a piano sound that blends in well with a "band mix".

[sonicsmurf]

The Sonic Reality one is called Studiophonik.

You rock. Thank you for helping me.

Rayzoon Jamstix integrates (and was beta tested) with BFD in a fairly seamless way. For an extra $99 it gives your drums "Virtual Drummer"-like capability, but even better.

2. There's a MIDI drum loop collection available from...

Jamstix and MonkeyGrooove (or whatever they're called): Yes, I had already checked out exactly these two, as an addition to the actual drumkit VSTi (which will be BFD now).
However, the Jamstix does things I do NOT need or want. I used to teach drums and was drummer of a medium-level Jazzfunk band. For what I understood, Jamstix can be inserted as an 'interaction' module, e.g. make it dependent from a bass line that is already stored in Tracktion, or make it react to live input (i.e. if you play the guitar harder, the drums will go more powerful)... but this is for JAMMING (a jam session).
Sure this will on some occasions be useful, but in the standard situation of composing a new song, such a "groove humanizer" is not really needed - or not wanted! After all, Jamstix will sometimes quite radically change the selection of samples currently played: If a rhythm guitar gets louder, Jamstix changes from playing the rimshot - to playing a powerful snare. While this is all very impressive towards a future concept of VSTi's that behave and interact like real players, it can lead to wrong results -- more often than to desired and "musically correct" results.
Jamstix is great for an improvised jamming session (or for situations when the real drummer in your real band is drunk once again), but in a Tracktion-supported songwriting process it is not really needed. What is needed often, however, is a randomizing function that occasionally affects the individual drum-sample (RMIV has the built-in "varizer" for that).

And the MonkeyGroove collection (MIDI drum-loops), it is a great help if you do not know drum patterns. Just to check it out, I actually downloaded their free loops yesterday, the patterns are okay. But such pre-defined MIDI rhythm tracks are not really useful for people like me. I happen to be a drummer and therefore prefer to input the rhythms (and especially the fills!!) through my music keyboard or through those small drum pads. So, this MIDI-pattern stuff comes in handy for people who don't know how different drum patterns are structured (e.g. a Samba pattern).

... While the thread topic is still "Tracktion plugins", I might mention a little trick that I found in the past weeks and it helps me a lot: I have reorganized my plug-ins folder. You know in the folder where your VST plug-ins are? - it's simply a mess in there. Why, because you can unfortunately not organize your plug-ins logically. And when you are in the middle of arranging new tracks and you want to quickly grab a filter, you have to look up and down in the list. It's non-structured in there, you have guitar effects (such as amp simulations) and then a compressor and then a sampler and then another compresssor. So it would help if my filters were organized in a logical, easy to operate structure:
What I did is, I threw all plug-ins into ONE directory (sometimes this only worked if I also edited their corresponding preset files and directories) and then then I logically RE-NAMED the ".dll" file names of each plug-in and filter and where it is an instrument, I had to add a "-" before the new name, so that such instruments will appear together in the list, before the filters (hard to explain, easily done).

As a result, when I open my Tracktion filter list, I now see one single list that starts (normally) with the built-in filters at the top, followed by all instruments, e.g. it now says in my filter list:

-BASS Broomstick
-BASS Slayer2
-DRUMKIT RMIV
-DRUMKIT Soundfont 1 via SFZ
-E-PIANO LoungeLiz2
-E-PIANO MrRay
-PIANO ASC
-PIANO mda
-PIANO IK Sonic Reality

(this is just an example, I hope you get the idea: I just renamed the computer file name from e.g. "Mda piano.dll" to read "-PIANO mda.dll" and I needed to put the dash character in front of it in order to have a neatly sorted list of all my *instruments* when I open the Tracktion filters list.)
And this list is followed by all my guitar plugins (such as amps and wah-wahs), followed by all "room effects" grouped TOGETHER (reverbs, mono and stereo delays), et cetera.
So, by renaming and grouping my filters, it's easier for me to grab a plugin that I may need, or to make a quick comparison btw one reverb and an other.

[Sidhu]

@ Greg

I tried the Jamstix demo when it was launched. But could hardly get anything usefull out of it. the petterns sounded very artificial and I did not like the drum sound at all.
I also remember trying out the Grooveagent demo, which struck me as very appealing...

something wrong im doing with janstix ? Should i try again. I could really use something like a virtual drummer.

Sidhu

[sonicsmurf]

There are various excellent instruments out there. Just as important, if not more is the attention given to playing style.

True. Absolutely.

Lounge Lizard is my favorite electric piano

Yes, it was the one I bought first because it sounds great as a *solo* instrument or together with guitars. But in a mix of a Pop song with powerful other instruments and a strong electric bass, LoungeLizard "disappears" in the mix - and "MrRay" is much better.
That's the problem I was talking about...

Playing a realistic guitar on keyboard is challenging because it is a different medium so to speak. Using Tassman I have made some electric guitar parts that fooled the casual listener but that is because I stuck to certain approach where the keyboard can more easily express like a guitar.

Oh - I am impressed, pdxindy. I am aware that the guitar is especially tricky to make it sound "real" because fingers on strings can physically do more different things than drumsticks on drumskins or keys on a keyboard. Guitars are really, really difficult to simulate. And saxophone, and flute.

I also value music that has melody, feeling, and something that is human and lasting in its expression.

You don't know how happy it made me to read this. Sometimes I get the feeling that all "non-professional" musicians out there are only making house music and techno today. Nothing against that style, it's cool (but in my personal perspective, "cool" is not something I look for... in music)

My choice has not been to find the most realistic sample based synths. I like better the playability and musicality of physical modeled sounds. That is why I have Tassman, and an Oasys PCI.

Wow.. now this seems interesting, thank you very much! I will check these out.

I also like making sounds that people think might just be made by some 'real world' instrument they have never seen. Tassman particularly has this quality. If I could only have one single synth, that would be my first choice. That and a good sampled piano second.

THANK YOU! I will check this out then.

-And buy BFD for my "virtual drummer" (and select one, maximum 2 realistic sounding kits, because in a real band, a drummer does really not have 200 different kits but just one and if it sounds great it works for all types of music - this is my experience as a drummer
-And get Trilogy http://www.spectrasonics.net/instrument ... demos.html for my bass player
(the electric bass sounds good in the demo and I really just need one good virtual instrument so this seems okay).
- And wait with the piano (The Grand) until I've checked out possible alternatives (does not need to be Steinberg)
- And hope that all this will not eat up all my CPU reserves (luckily I have a brand new Dell with lots of power)
- And keep an eye on what seems like "the perfect solution" to my requirements: http://www.sonicreality.com/news/studioPhonik.php

Thanks again for all your help.

[Lunch Money]

I've had similar results with Jamstix to be honest with you, when I tried the demo; however, I've heard it used on a few KvR member tunes and it's obvious to me that I simply wasn't really using it right. Also, the internal sounds aren't appealing to me, but with BFD that's a good combo.

Regarding the jamming bit-- you can also use it to compose; however, I didn't know you were a drummer, so perhaps you don't need it after all, ss.

I can hear drum beats in my head, but I can never program them right. Drums are my definite weakness.

[JamminFool]

@ Greg

I tried the Jamstix demo when it was launched. But could hardly get anything usefull out of it. the petterns sounded very artificial and I did not like the drum sound at all.
I also remember trying out the Grooveagent demo, which struck me as very appealing...

something wrong im doing with janstix ? Should i try again. I could really use something like a virtual drummer.

Sidhu

actually it works really well.

you should give it another try.

the jam part is really useful for idea generation and building prototypes for yourself.

the arrangements can then be editted after initial jamming. this way you can get a more stable (less jammed) feel for a song as you go.

[lion_cub]

I am sorry for being illogical.