Best amp-modeling plugin?

[Hink]

True, there are some people that think Slayer sounds great. Of course this isn't a subjective opinion, any such people are just plain WRONG . However, benjamind seems to be one of those listeners that hears the flaws in even the best existing guitar simulators. I'm not sure if he should really get his hopes too high that this new product will really eliminate those flaws.

well to be accurate I was speaking more of consumer listeners, those not making music but listening to it and buying it.

[chilln]

LePou's new LE456 is really good ampsim for some real hi-gain mayhem! With LeCab and some fitting impulses it grunts metal! And still keeps hum and buzz levels sane.

http://lepouplugins.blogspot.com/

And it's free too!

^^ I really like this one, too.

[Sascha Franck]

Thing with guitars is, unlike with, say, so, horns or strings, there's some techniques that are used in prominent places. Good string or horn players certainly have as much articulation choices as guitarists - but others than on very few occasions, these are not used. "Special" guitar articulations however are used in thousands and thousands of rock/pop/funk/whatever tunes. And at rather noticeable mixing levels, too. In addition, a MIDI keyboard is an absolutely bad input medium to emulate guitars. It starts with the voicings, continues with stuff such as scratches, slides, slurs etc. and probably ends with double bends (which you can only achieve on a MIDI keyboard in case you send each note on different MIDI channels). And these are just some most obvious examples.

I don't see myself getting unemployed for quite a while to come.

- Sascha

[benjamind]

A proper physically modeled guitar instrument, with comprehensive control over how it interacts with the MIDI inputs, is obviously going to be fairly difficult to implement.

But I can say that it is indeed possible, you could have several modes - one for chords/strumming/rhythm, and another mode for lead parts, in both of these modes you could also determine what strings are used. It's difficult to do that, I never said it would be easy, but of course it is possible.

If you think virtual guitar cannot be done, go to the Mokafix website and listen to Best Of Dark Lady 2. That is telling enough that is indeed very much possible. But one thing I can assure you is that he is a perfectionist, just like I am, and he isn't taking any shortcuts on this one. I wouldn't take any shortcuts either if I was working on something as complex as a string-based instrument, even if it took me years to get it right. I wouldn't be happy until I perfected it, so I guess we're all going to have to wait a bit longer.

Oh well. I guess the waiting game can be painful. Well, I can say that when it is ever released, it will most certainly be worth the wait. It's been a long day, and we've only just started the week, so to speak

Ben

[Sascha Franck]

If you think virtual guitar cannot be done, go to the Mokafix website and listen to Best Of Dark Lady 2. That is telling enough that is indeed very much possible.

Pardon???
I know Mokafix is a cool dude, but that sound example comes NOWHERE EVEN REMOTELY CLOSE TO A REAL GUITAR! Not by a mile. In fact, anything I heard from Prominy and the likes was tons better. The repeated bass notes are tough to believe (ever heard about the "machinegun effect"?) and the hammer ons of the guitar are just wrong.
Well, guess if such sounds are fine for you, then they're fine for you. But I could even spot the fake guitars in case they were running as some background music in a bar.
Admittedly the metal sounds are a little better, but the clean sounds are as artificial as it gets.

As said, the day you play anything like the "Le Freak" guitar pattern in realtime on a keyboard, using no pattern based stuff and no samples, I may believe you it's possible. But right now we're MILES away from it.

- Sascha

[Mokafix]

My string model sucks but I am still a cool dude, so I guess I should be happy
But just to make sure you talk about the same thing when refering to my work :
The youtube vids are 2 years old or more.
The new engine (from 2008) is better and also harder for me to make demos from.
The demos from this new engine can be heard on my workshop page.
Also the latest best of is mp3 only, no youtubed, and it is that one :
Bestof dark lady II

Please take into account, that those demos are not made with a commercial plugin, and this plugin isn't even a guitar, just 4 strings packed in one vst that get triggered each with one midi channel. The 2 highest strings are done with an extra instance tuned differently (to give you an idea of how non intuitive and improper for actual good use it is today).
No sympathetic resonance between the strings (in the tracks at least), no tricky expressions (slaps, mutes, hammer ons).
Only open and fretted notes, slides, that's all.

So it cannot be compared to a finished product. And it doesn't sound on tracks like a finished instrument with proper midi implementation and all the fancy stuff a guitar player do will sound like.
Individual e-guitar and e-bass sounds on workshop page are pretty close to what it should sound like on individual notes though.
Most work was put into making a good string. Machine gun effect cancelation and the rest will be considered when developing an instrument out of it.

Anyway, I don't think the original topic here had much to do with it but as my work was in the middle of a debate...

...

Back on topic, I guess best amp sim is like best amp. depends on what you do with it and all.
These days I feel like the excessive choice virtual world gives both in terms of number of plugin and in terms of editing the tone of each plugin is not really good for inspiration and creativity.

Give me a pen and tell me "draw what you want", I'll be lost.
Impose me a format, a topic and tools, and I'll have fun for the next hour.

From a piece of wood/code to kick-ass-rock'n'roll, there is a instrument maker and a musician.
Musician used to trust the manufacturer and stick to what they were given.
Now there is a shift where the last part of manufacturing is kind of left to the musician.
Makes him drool and buy maybe, but I am afraid it also makes a lot of people lose to much time tweaking, skiming through their plugin list, staying tuned with latest releases, reading forums, and defending the plugin they like.
Anyway, same old topic on so many threads in the end, and I let myself caught in again...


Best amp is NoAmp! and it is free : 4 knobs, 3 switches, what else?

[Dean Aka Nekro]

Thing with guitars is, unlike with, say, so, horns or strings, there's some techniques that are used in prominent places. Good string or horn players certainly have as much articulation choices as guitarists - but others than on very few occasions, these are not used. "Special" guitar articulations however are used in thousands and thousands of rock/pop/funk/whatever tunes. And at rather noticeable mixing levels, too. In addition, a MIDI keyboard is an absolutely bad input medium to emulate guitars. It starts with the voicings, continues with stuff such as scratches, slides, slurs etc. and probably ends with double bends (which you can only achieve on a MIDI keyboard in case you send each note on different MIDI channels). And these are just some most obvious examples.

I don't see myself getting unemployed for quite a while to come.

- Sascha

There is no way i could play a guitar sample/pyshical modelling instrument on a midi keyboard for a couple of reasons. First off it would feel wrong like Sascha has pointed out so well and precsicely and even that is just the tip of the ice berg IMO and secondly (bane of my high-school days with the nasty casio things we had to learn classical pieces on as i am left handed but play right handed on guitar/bass. Im junk at piano because of this and feel like i should be crossing my arms over so the left goes for the upper right handside and the right goes for the lower left handside!

Im not that fussed that im a junk keys player mind and i will never need to use a software guitar - but being cack-handed (and footed regarding certain guitar stompbox or amp switching layouts FWIW) can be a real pain in the ass sometimes and why i agree a MIDI keyboard is a bad input medium even more so for me in general use, It takes ages mapping everything backwards so i just don't even bother anymore Not the end of the world though and it prevents soft/hardware keyboard/synth lust: as i would get into it after awhile no doubt and well that ain't a cheap path to go down either...

Nekro/Dean > Lefty

[Mokafix]

I guess you would not play a guitar rompler either then.
I say that because I often myself stumble on that argument that "it's hard to map guitar on midi = PM guitar won't cut it".
I even heard that from people in the business of guitar and bass samples.
You can imagine my speechless face "what! but... your.... erh... doesn't it also require..... ok, never mind."
PM doesn't introduce any problem any other guitar software did not face, it just adds possibilities.

Amps sims vs real amps : same users but different needs and/or situations.
Real guitar vs guitar sim : totally different users, different needs, different situations.

And obviously it is not for guitar players.
And fortunately it won't replace guitar players on stage and won't attract girls like a guitar do. But it will be usefull for some people I guess.
TB303 did not replaced bass players. - "but TB303 wasn't a bass sim"; yes it was according to roland at that time, like the clavinet was supposed to let you play classical stuff at home and was advertised as "a bass, a guitar, a piano and a harpischord in one box".
No instrument replaces another, and no virtual stuff replaces the real thing :
virtual synths didn't even replaced real synths, and TB303 is still bought by some people, when there is much less fundamental differnece be it on sound or the way you play it than there will always be between a guitar and a virtual guitar.
So really, there is much to argue on here I think.

[chj]

And fortunately it won't replace guitar players on stage and won't attract girls like a guitar do.

That settles the argument right there, learn to play guitar!

[benjamind]

Hmmm. Funny you should say that, chj. Let me ask you, is it possible to actually play a guitar when your fingers get sore too quickly from neurological problems?...I know I can't, because my hands get so sore too quickly, I've tried even playing bass and I can't do that either, same reason. I have some nerve damage in my hands from boxing when I was younger. I regret it, because it hasn't do anything for me, it was just a sport. If only I had started soccer a few years earlier than I did, I would actually be able to play a guitar today

Which is why I am not bothering with samples, and indeed I am waiting...quite patiently I might add...for Efflam to work on his instruments. I'm sure it will take a while after reading his post above regarding the demo on his website. Hopefully only a few months. The good news is that I've found one of the boys who goes to the same church as I do, who can record some guitar parts for me for free. So, what can I say? I'm stoked. With that said, I'll be able to get some of my songs finished hopefully by the middle of next year...

And fortunately it won't replace guitar players on stage and won't attract girls like a guitar do.

That settles the argument right there, learn to play guitar!

[chj]

The comment was meant just as a joke, I couldn't know you had any problems that would prevent you from playing guitar. Hope no offense was taken. I'm pessimistic, but I wish all the best for Mokafix's project. A good guitar VSTi would be a surefire hit with countless musicians.

[benjamind]

No offense taken. It's just at the moment there is really nothing out there that can satisfy my songwriting other than the real thing. I can only wish I was able to play the real thing. I am sure Efflam, when he does release his instrument hopefully in a few month or, perhaps years, will be a Godsend. He has already proven himself with his e-piano plugins. I remember him telling me he basically finished the core string models in March 2008...it's now November 2009, that's not far short of 2 years really.

Maybe he is getting close to releasing it, but for the record I'm not holding my breath anymore.

If and when he does release it, I can almost guarantee that it'll change the VST world in a very significant way. A lot more people will be interested in creating pop/rock/folk music.

At the moment, most are interested in ambient and electro music. There is a very good reason for this obviously - most anything else is just using samples and sounds either fake or very limited which is not going to be very inspiring, is it?

People are not stupid, hence the large amount of electro/ambient stuff by computer musicians compared to much less in other genres, not even orchestral music can compare to the enormous amount of ambient/electro music.

Why? Orchestral stuff typically uses samples. That's why. Now that WIVI has addressed the virtual brass and woodwind/sax instruments, only the virtual bowed strings are really missing from that genre. Once that problem is addressed, you'll see a lot more orchestral music. But for now, you won't see a lot. There isn't much inspiration in sampled bowed instruments, that's why. Discerning people are not interested in samples, and only typically use them for "mock-up" pieces, because that is all that samples are any good for.

And it goes the same for guitar and bass, whether we like it or not, that's the truth and will always remain so unless something revolutionary fills this gaping hole. That is where Dark Lady will help us all out.

Guitar and bass (and drums, of course) usually represent the guts and spine of most good pop/rock/folk music. Other instruments (eg.brass,violin,sax,synth) usually add some embellishment and decoration to the music, but the fact is the guitar and bass is the spine of most popular music. If you stuff up the spine of the music (which you will do if you use fake sounding guitar/bass sample libraries), you stuff up the music. Period. End of story. It's as simple as that. It's hard to stuff up the drum track with samples because that is one area where samples generally excel. Superior Drummer 2 sounds good enough for 99.9% of pop music. But sampled guitar/bass? Forget it.

Of course, there is also Spicy Guitar. Perhaps they will release a virtual guitar before (or after) Efflam does. I've played the Spicy Guitar (it was only an acoustic model and had limited playability) and it sounded ok, but I'm sure there is more work being done.

The main thing is that Efflam wants it to be done properly, so I'm sure that will take time, and I can only give him credit on that one - not many people would be interested in such an instrument if it wasn't done right.

His amps are the best I've ever heard. On e-piano they really change the tone in a good way.

Ben

The comment was meant just as a joke, I couldn't know you had any problems that would prevent you from playing guitar. Hope no offense was taken. I'm pessimistic, but I wish all the best for Mokafix's project. A good guitar VSTi would be a surefire hit with countless musicians.

[bobbybland]

How come some doesn't just make a keyboard guitar with real strings,but mechanically made to where when you play an F chord on keys - mechanical fingers play what would be an F chord on strings?
amp sims and midi is just getting so old now.

[SadPuppyBlues]

If you stuff up the spine of the music (which you will do if you use fake sounding guitar/bass sample libraries), you stuff up the music. Period. End of story. It's as simple as that.

Crap really?!
I hope you let all the New Wave, Dream Pop, Noise Rock, Industrial, Synth Punk, etc. bands know they're stuffing up the music. End of Story. Because man there's gonna be a lot of talent wasted under all those stuffed up, fake sounding albums, just DYING to be remastered with f**king Victor Wooten.

Hahah.
I'm just glad you could save me. As of tomorrow, I'm selling all my computer stuff and getting REAL SERIOUS with my music.

[benjamind]

Crap really?!
I hope you let all the New Wave, Dream Pop, Noise Rock, Industrial, Synth Punk, etc. bands know they're stuffing up the music. End of Story. Because man there's gonna be a lot of talent wasted under all those stuffed up, fake sounding albums, just DYING to be remastered with f**king Victor Wooten.

The synth based stuff sounds very good actually, because they are actually done with REAL instruments too. Electronic instruments of course, not acoustic ones.

In fact I absolutely love Pet Shop Boys, Moby, Depeche Mode, etc. They are amazing bands. And yes, they do use real instruments - synthesizers are real instruments. And some synthesizers can use samples as their source to generate sound. They are still real instruments in the logical sense.

Samples are not instruments, they are just samples. And sample players are not instruments either, just sample players

When I was talking about guitar samples stuffing up the music I was talking about music that has guitar and bass - typical guitar rock/pop/folk music. If you ruined the guitar and bass, you wouldn't have what I call music. They would still sound ok, but of course trying to recreate realistic rock music with samples of guitars isn't going to get you far. Fake sounding sampled guitars just scream at you through the speakers - well, at least they do on mine. That's all I was pointing out.

I'm sorry if I confused you. But in the case of synth music, anything can form the spine of the music. You can use any synthesizer to generate the bass, lead, chord, harmony parts.

Samples, on the other hand, well, that's a different matter altogether. For acoustic and guitar instruments, it's so hard to get anything remotely close to realistic from stringing static samples together.

On the other hand, you can do ANYTHING with synths, when you're writing music. That's why I use Omnisphere and RMX. But when you're writing music with guitar and bass, you'll need either the real instruments themselves or very VERY good virtual equivalents (surprise surprise, there are none because samples are useless at creating realistic guitar parts and Mokafix has a solution that will be of enormous importance in this regard).

And never confuse guitar sound with guitar performance. They are two almost entirely different things even if they are ever so related. Guitar sound - that's not a problem. If you want to do simple melodies with single picked notes, that's okay, because you can do that with samples. Guitar performance and string behaviour, on the other hand, is why physical modelling is really the only way to achieve realism. Ever tried doing truly realistic slides, hand noises, fret noises, buzzing, squeaks, bends, etc with samples?

Hope I cleared things up. Sorry if I offended you, it wasn't intentional.

Ben