KVR Audio

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 4:47 pm

Our original Shreddage: Electric Rhythm Guitar library, and its expansion, Shreddage X, have been well-loved by thousands of hobbyist and professional composers, producers and guitarists around the world. Featuring a brutal, aggressive sound and incredible realism at an unbeatable price, these libraries raised the bar for guitar libraries and spawned many imitators. Now, over two years since the original release, there has been one question among our users: what's next?

Well, I'm pleased to announce that we have just released the sequel...

Shreddage II: Absolute Electric Guitar

This library builds on the innovations we made with the original Shreddage, but has been recorded, edited, scripted and programmed from the ground up with entirely new samples. We looked at the problems with current 'advanced' guitar libraries, such as over-reliance on keyswitches for basic articulations, bloated memory usage, lack of realism for rapid passages/chugs, high cost, and weak tone unfitting of heavy genres like rock and metal.

Among the host of new features and powerful scripting within Shreddage 2, the most important difference is that the library is no longer limited to rhythm playing! We sampled every fret on every string of a 7-string guitar, including the full range of articulations and even deeper sampling than in the original library. This allows for stunningly realistic LEAD playing as well as rhythm, which of course S2 excels at as well.

Sample Features

* Deep-sampling from drop G to all the way up the neck on every string
* Up to 8x round robins per articulation, per note, including up/down strokes
* Single notes and powerchords
* Sustains and aggressive sustains
* Up to FIVE LAYERS of palm mutes
* Tremolo picking and pinch squeals
* True hammer-on and pull-off recordings & scripting
* True portamento slides up to and down from TWO OCTAVES per note
* THREE unique vibrato types (light fingered, heavy fingered, whammy bar)
* Non-muted staccato notes
* Unpitched and pitched release noises
* Fret squeaks and extra pre-attack pick noise

Despite this incredible depth and breadth of articulations (7,000+ samples), the library only takes up 4.5gb of disk space, translating to about ~500mb of RAM usage - and that's before NCW compression! But we're just getting started. Check out the incredible things we did with S2's scripting.

Library / Script Features

* Fretboard monitor
* ALL articulations accessible without keyswitches
* True double-tracking
* Easily customize articulations and velocity mapping
* Quick velocity input scaling
* Built-in preset system with one-click save/recall
* Intelligent string selection w/ virtual hand/fret position
* Forced string selection and string realism controls
* Customizable hammer-on and portamento settings
* Forced stroke direction controls (down only, up only, alt picking)
* Noise volume mixer
* Release and tightness envelope controls
* Monophonic and polyphonic modes
* Screamer pedal, 'bite EQ', and compressor with sweet-spot settings
* ... and more!

Video / Demos

The following demos have been created by myself and our wonderful beta testers. We think you'll agree this really represents the next stage of evolution in virtual guitar sounds.

http://soundcloud.com/isworks/sets/shreddage-2-demos/

Price and Availability

Shreddage 2 is available now! After all this you might be worried that given the scope and power, it will cost as much as other advanced guitar libraries - $200, $300, maybe even $400+. You would be wrong.

For existing Shreddage / Shreddage X Users: $99
For new customers, introductory price: $119

Let that sink in for a minute! Oh, and...

Did we mention it comes with Kontakt Player? :mrgreen:

Shreddage 2 @ Impact Soundworks

steakmusic · Post by **steakmusic** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 5:20 pm

So excited for this one!

I have Prominy's V-Metal, and while it is absolutely comprehensive and amazing, one area in which I've occassionally noticed just a slight shortcoming in realism is in sections of continuous alternating between palm-muting and regularly chugging a chord. That's the only time V-Metal has started to sound a little MIDI-ish to me.

So I'm really stoked that Shreddage 2 will have up to 5 layers of palm muting--that and the fact that it's a sampled 7-string with so many round-robin samples.

With V-Metal and Shreddage 2 combined I will be the Genghis Khan of sequencing Metal.

SSN688 · Post by **SSN688** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 8:56 pm

One short question.

How powerful is Shreddage 2 at rhythmic parts consists of chords other than power chords?

In other words, can I easily strum and do chukas of various chords in an intuitive way?

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:24 pm

We didn't focus on full-chord strumming capabilities, at least for the initial release. We think that to accurately simulate real strumming you need a very specific sampling approach, and possibly pre-recorded chords as well, which was beyond the scope of what we wanted to do here. You can certainly construct any kind of chord you'd like, and there's a chord threshold detection script which will make sure that strummed chords all have the proper pick direction and string fingering. There are also pre-recorded full chokes (all strings muted) in multiple positions. But we don't have a specific strumming engine, so to speak.

Here's a demo I put together showcasing S2 being used in a totally clean capacity (just some extra verb/delay) -

http://soundcloud.com/isworks/shreddage ... -by-andrew

audiosupernova · Post by **audiosupernova** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:43 pm

Wow, blown away by the price! The demos are hot, the price is hot, all the features I want and need...what's the catch? I'm really excited for this product Zircon, looking forward to purchasing it.

audiosupernova · Post by **audiosupernova** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:49 pm

steakmusic wrote:So excited for this one!

I have Prominy's V-Metal, and while it is absolutely comprehensive and amazing, one area in which I've occassionally noticed just a slight shortcoming in realism is in sections of continuous alternating between palm-muting and regularly chugging a chord. That's the only time V-Metal has started to sound a little MIDI-ish to me.

So I'm really stoked that Shreddage 2 will have up to 5 layers of palm muting--that and the fact that it's a sampled 7-string with so many round-robin samples.

With V-Metal and Shreddage 2 combined I will be the Genghis Khan of sequencing Metal.

I've been using V-Metal extensively as well, and one of the areas where I'm not crazy about it is when used in a clean setting, primarily around the middle of the playable range. A few of the notes just sound off compared to a real guitar for example (my RG471 just for comparison). Completely agree though, between these two products I'd imagine I'll be unstoppable.

steakmusic · Post by **steakmusic** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 10:15 pm

audiosupernova wrote: I've been using V-Metal extensively as well, and one of the areas where I'm not crazy about it is when used in a clean setting, primarily around the middle of the playable range. A few of the notes just sound off compared to a real guitar for example (my RG471 just for comparison). Completely agree though, between these two products I'd imagine I'll be unstoppable.

Not to hi-jack the thread, but just wanted to let you know that I listened to your tracks on SC and your Metal programming abilities are amazing! In my experience, guitar (whether it's electric or acoustic) is the most difficult instrument to emulate realistically via MIDI sequencing, so kudos to you big time. Definitely looking forward to hearing what you do with Shreddage 2 when it's out.

audiosupernova · Post by **audiosupernova** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 11:16 pm

steakmusic wrote:Not to hi-jack the thread, but just wanted to let you know that I listened to your tracks on SC and your Metal programming abilities are amazing! In my experience, guitar (whether it's electric or acoustic) is the most difficult instrument to emulate realistically via MIDI sequencing, so kudos to you big time. Definitely looking forward to hearing what you do with Shreddage 2 when it's out.

Thank you kind sir! Lets just say there's a lot more to realistically emulating a guitar via a VST plugin than just plugging away at notes. To an extent, it's helpful if not necessary to know how a guitar is played or at least what they're "supposed to sound like".

I really look forward to Shreddage 2 for a lot of reasons, that lower 7-string MusicMan they sampled for Shreddage 2 sounds really sick. I also can't wait to try out those portamento slides.

steakmusic · Post by **steakmusic** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 2:14 am

audiosupernova wrote: Lets just say there's a lot more to realistically emulating a guitar via a VST plugin than just plugging away at notes. To an extent, it's helpful if not necessary to know how a guitar is played or at least what they're "supposed to sound like".

I totally agree--and I'd argue that knowing how to play guitar is necessary for programming guitar convincingly. I use guitar virtual instruments because my interface's A-->D conversion sucks, and my playing ability isn't great. Even so, I always play a riff on my guitar before sequencing it out in Pro Tools, so that I can look at how I'm using downstrokes vs. upstrokes, where I am fret position-wise, how I'm handling vibrato, and where exactly I'm palm muting and hitting dead notes.

Funny how I have to "watch myself" play it as such...it's difficult to just visualize all the little nuances that one's muscle memory takes care of!

Hivernal · Post by **Hivernal** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 2:22 am

Wow! Great News!

I do have Schreddage. It is still currently one of the best sampled guitar for fast metal picking (mutes and opens) passages. Plus it is so easy to get a great tone out of it with high gains virtual amps.

Now, with Schreddage 2 having a greater level of control, like string selection and customisable hammer-ons and portamentos, I just can't wait!

SSN688 · Post by **SSN688** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 4:20 am

zircon wrote:We didn't focus on full-chord strumming capabilities, at least for the initial release. We think that to accurately simulate real strumming you need a very specific sampling approach, and possibly pre-recorded chords as well, which was beyond the scope of what we wanted to do here. You can certainly construct any kind of chord you'd like, and there's a chord threshold detection script which will make sure that strummed chords all have the proper pick direction and string fingering. There are also pre-recorded full chokes (all strings muted) in multiple positions. But we don't have a specific strumming engine, so to speak.

Thanks for the reply!

One more question....can I perform realtime unison bend with Shreddage 2?

(such as when two notes are held the pitch bend would only affect the lower note?)

bill45 · Post by **bill45** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 4:52 am

Sounds great! I'd like to see a round robin reset function.

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 6:45 am

bill45: We have one now. Actually, the way RR works in Shreddage 2 is this. By default, it's intelligently randomized. Very helpful for avoiding repetitious patterns. If you select "DT Guitar 1" or 2 on the front page UI, you enter a slightly different RR mode where things are effectively randomized, but the order is known in advance. Thus by entering this mode you're resetting the RR sequence while not losing randomness. You can just double-click the same button to reset again. We use this in the new double-tracking feature.

cc80536: We don't have unison bends... yet. Still trying to figure out the best way to to record + trigger them without over-burdening the user. This is a commonly requested feature though so we're looking into it!

tetsuneko · Post by **tetsuneko** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 7:30 am

Great news! Been a fan of Shreddage X, will most likely update to v2 at some point. A question though, when I do update to v2, do I still need to keep the old version around or does v2 ship with patches that are "compatible" with the old version? Preferably I'd only keep the v2 lib on my drive at that point, but recalling old projects concern me..

Cheers

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 8:01 am

S2 is an entirely new library. Different guitar, all-new recordings, scripted from the ground-up. Your MIDI sequences will be sort-of compatible; you might need to tweak octaves somewhat, but you can also fairly easily tweak velocity mapping using our articulation editor. I do recommend keeping the original Shreddage. It's also nice to be able to use it in conjunction for an even thicker sound

Shreddage 2: Absolute Electric Guitar (w/ Kontakt Player) - 24hrs left on intro price!