KVR Audio

Higher than Hope · Post by **Higher than Hope** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 1:29 pm

Hi. I'm looking for a good VST\VSTi for Rock\Metal sounds of guitars, basses and drums (though the guitar part is the most important one).
I'm writing the whole music in midi so digital amplifiers are not relevant...

Thank you!

Armadillo · Post by **Armadillo** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 1:39 pm

I think your best bet is MOR (ministry of rock) from Eastwest. It's the most complete library on the market that contains all 3 elements.
And as a matter of fact ATM they are having a "buy 1 get 1 free" sale, which is a superb offer.

http://www.soundsonline.com/product.php ... tid=EW-173

Alternatively there's plenty of VSTi's where you get drums, bass and guitar seperately.

Higher than Hope · Post by **Higher than Hope** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 1:44 pm

Except for MOR, can you tell me the names of the other VST's youv'e talked about?

dysfunctionz · Post by **dysfunctionz** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:45 pm

If you're looking for separate VSTs for each instrument rather than an all-in-one deal like, for drums there's EZdrummer which I own and love, or it's big brother Superior 2; also, Rayzoon Jamstix has decent sounds but is an excellent tool for creating realistic and compelling drum performances that can be fed to other libraries. As a guitarist, the guitar libraries that sound the most realistic to me are Prominy LPC and RealGuitar. For bass there's Trilogy, Pettinhouse DirectBass, Scarbee's various basses, and ManyBass.

jeffn1 · Post by **jeffn1** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:47 pm

dysfunctionz wrote:If you're looking for separate VSTs for each instrument rather than an all-in-one deal like, for drums there's EZdrummer which I own and love, or it's big brother Superior 2; also, Rayzoon Jamstix has decent sounds but is an excellent tool for creating realistic and compelling drum performances that can be fed to other libraries. As a guitarist, the guitar libraries that sound the most realistic to me areProminy LPC and RealGuitar. For bass there's Trilogy, Pettinhouse DirectBass, Scarbee's various basses, and ManyBass.

I agree with dys. Personally, I like EZDrummer for drums, Prominy LPC (clean) for guitars, and Scarbee for basses.

jeffn1

robogone · Post by **robogone** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:54 pm

Have you thought of finding a guitarist instead of using VSTs? I play guitar relatively well, but struggled to make anything sound good with any guitar emulations when I tried. You just can't reproduce all the nuances, and soloing and getting the right feel is near impossible.

Higher than Hope · Post by **Higher than Hope** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:56 pm

Thanks! I'll check them

Armadillo · Post by **Armadillo** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:15 pm

dysfunctionz mentioned most of it. There's plenty of good drum and bass VSTi's out there.
Guitars:
RealStrat is also quite good, but I struggle to get it to sound very heavy (metal). Might help with a good virtual amp.

Monzter guitar is very good if you are just looking for some power chords.

Prominy LPC is probably the most versatile guitar library out there but you'll need Kontakt (or Gigastudio I think) to use it.

There's also Studio B: The rock collection from Bela D, but I still think overall MOR is the best choice.

Jamstix is good to have regardless of what drum program you get.

metalifuxx · Post by **metalifuxx** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:15 pm

Broomstick Bass into an ampsim - use that all the time if I don't feel like getting out the bass guitar

archiei · Post by **archiei** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 5:33 pm

Addictive Drums is a great drum VSTi IMHO.

dysfunctionz · Post by **dysfunctionz** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 3:07 am

One thing I should mention about LPC- get the clean version and run that through a software ampsim like Amplitube or Guitar Rig. Adding distortion to sampled guitar will always sound more realistic than sampling distorted guitar; it covers up the sound a lot so stuff like fast runs won't be as noticeably fake. It's especially noticeable on palm mutes- you should get much more 'chug' by running an amp sim after clean LPC. You'll also have much more flexibility with the tone that way.

EDIT: Also, Armadillo mentioned RealStrat not being great for metal- that's because Strats have single-coil pickups, which don't get as thick a tone, and cant achieve that crunchy, chugging palm mute sound. For heavier metal styles guitars with humbucking pickups are used almost exclusively.

grinkor · Post by **grinkor** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 5:15 am

I do Metal with Kontakt 2. VSL Horizon series Overdrive Guitar, EW QL Hardcore Bass and DFH2.

Well: DFH2 is OK, but cymbals could sound better. Hardcore bass is somewhat limited (no slapping, almost no round robin) and VSL is hard to get used to..

But it sounds like this (it's processed with Izotope Trash and PSP plugins):

http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?PID=849543&t=8054
(I posted it some time ago in the music production forum)

Melkor · Post by **Melkor** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 5:26 am

I was about to start moanin about how hard it would be to get any form of realism into Programmed Distorted Midi Guitar (note capitals) .... until i heard Grinkors track ....... I thought it sounded ubertight and i just couldnt beleive you didnt play it with an axe!

Im stunned .... well done man

dysfunctionz · Post by **dysfunctionz** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 5:52 am

Sounds pretty cool grinkor, the main thing I noticed was the powerchords would sound more realistic if you didn't hit all the 'strings' all at once; perhaps you could use a midi chord strumming plugin?

EDIT: You mentioned Hardcore Bass having no round-robin as a limitation, but honestly that's a plus in my eyes. When you pick at the same velocity on guitar or bass, the attack sounds basically the same every time, but it's more difficult to record round-robin samples that recreate that; they'll sound too different every pluck. Works for drums, doesn't really work for guitars. DirectBass has this problem. Now, what would be REALLY interesting, would be to record samples for round-robin, but use some clever editing to put just the attack from one sample per velocity layer into each of the samples of that layer. The decay definitely does sound different every time. Then just use the alternate-picking samples a few octaves up the keyboard like Trilogy and Manybass.

koolkeys · Post by **koolkeys** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 6:17 am

I want to add Chris Hein Basses to the discussion. Between that and Scarbee, there is no better expressive bass guitars anywhere. You can even alter the sound quite a bit just with the included options in each library.

If you go looking for the Chris Hein bass, just keep in mind that you don't have to buy the whole package. You can do what I did and go to www.soundsondemand.com and buy one at a time. The first one is full price and all future ones are cheaper since you already have the player. Which reminds me, it comes with Kontakt Player 2, but can also load into Kontakt 2/3 obviously.

Fantastic stuff.

Brent

Looking for a good Rock\Metal music VST(i)