Shreddage 2 v2e Update - Now available!

[zircon]

Was just a graphical display error, will be fixed in the next update tonight. Let me know if anyone finds any other problems. BTW I removed the "MIDI CC Map" page because I remembered you can already MIDI CC map any control in Kontakt by right clicking on it. :B

[xphen0m]

I was playing my MIDI controller and noticed that legato on stereo (quad tracked/double tracked) guitars leads to a mono signal.

I can make an audio and MIDI file if need be.

[SSN688]

Few things that I noticed in the latest beta patch:

1. Tweaking the transpose parameter in the Engine 2 tab would cause portamento and hammer-on/pull-off to not trigger properly


2. On the virtual fretboard, hammer-on and pull-off don't display correctly. For example, the H or P letters would appear for a split second then disappear even while I hold down the key. This happens occasionally.


3. Regardless of whether palm release is enabled or not, playing full-chokes would trigger releases. I feel that if palm release is disabled, chokes should not trigger release as well.


4. If monophonic mode is not enabled, playing the same note repeatedly while holding down the sustain pedal would cause the notes to stack on top of each other, even if string realism is enabled. In my opinion, notes played on the same string and the same fret should never stack, even if monophonic mode and string realism are off. Instead, identical notes should always be killed by each other.


5. Is it possible to add a parameter GUI for the chord detection time threshold in monophonic mode? The chord detection threshold parameter in the Engine tab now seems to control only strum direction, and increasing it does not make chord detection more lenient in monophonic mode.



Finally, I have an off topic question...
Does anyone know how to control a GUI parameter of a Kontakt instrument via midi velocity? Since I can't adjust the parameters using the mouse during live performances, it would be of great help if I can control portamento speed and pre-pick length on the fly such that the softer the note the longer the portamento and pre-pick length.

[zircon]

Really appreciate the feedback guys! You're really helping to make this a highly polished and useful release.

I was playing my MIDI controller and noticed that legato on stereo (quad tracked/double tracked) guitars leads to a mono signal.

This should be fixed.

1. Tweaking the transpose parameter in the Engine 2 tab would cause portamento and hammer-on/pull-off to not trigger properly

Working on it.

2. On the virtual fretboard, hammer-on and pull-off don't display correctly. For example, the H or P letters would appear for a split second then disappear even while I hold down the key. This happens occasionally.

My system for displaying the fretboard is admittedly a little wonky, I'll see what I can do however.

3. Regardless of whether palm release is enabled or not, playing full-chokes would trigger releases. I feel that if palm release is disabled, chokes should not trigger release as well.

This is fixed.

4. If monophonic mode is not enabled, playing the same note repeatedly while holding down the sustain pedal would cause the notes to stack on top of each other, even if string realism is enabled. In my opinion, notes played on the same string and the same fret should never stack, even if monophonic mode and string realism are off. Instead, identical notes should always be killed by each other.

This is fixed.

5. Is it possible to add a parameter GUI for the chord detection time threshold in monophonic mode? The chord detection threshold parameter in the Engine tab now seems to control only strum direction, and increasing it does not make chord detection more lenient in monophonic mode.

I'm not sure what you mean here. In monophonic mode you can't play chords... you're right that the chord threshold does currently only determine the threshold in which stroke directions are placed in the same direction. It does impact fretting/fingering a bit as well though. In a future patch (2.2 maybe) I'm going to try and implement a more realistic strumming system by dynamically changing the volume of the other notes, but that's is too big for the scope of this patch.

Finally, I have an off topic question...
Does anyone know how to control a GUI parameter of a Kontakt instrument via midi velocity? Since I can't adjust the parameters using the mouse during live performances, it would be of great help if I can control portamento speed and pre-pick length on the fly such that the softer the note the longer the portamento and pre-pick length.

This is something I could potentially implement down the line... however this might be possible in your DAW. You basically would need to assign a CC to the portaspeed control, and then set up your DAW so that velocity changes that MIDI CC. I'll look into it a bit more. Worst case scenario is that you could write your parts and then overlay velocity on to a MIDI CC map and just draw the CC automation to follow your velocities...

[warfighter67]

Would it be possible to add a toggle in the GUI that changes it from multiple-articulation mode to velocity-controlled mode? e.g. lower velocities play softer notes. Good for clean sections.

[zircon]

Yes, I've just added that on the Engine2 page. The way it's set up, it does not disable the articulation switching because you can easily do that yourself, for example disable all but sustain and set that to 1-127. The script otherwise would not 'know' what you want the articulation to be.

Also the fretboard issue should be fixed, along with the hammer/pull stuff not working properly with Transpose enabled.

Shreddage 2.1 Patch (June 30th)

BTW I hope I'm making up for the delay in getting work started on this patch! It took me a little while to understand how the process worked for updating Kontakt Player instruments but I see now it's quite simple.

[xphen0m]

BTW I hope I'm making up for the delay in getting work started on this patch!

Personally, I honestly didn't even notice the delay! But it's all good, because Shreddage rocks....literally!

[SSN688]

Just tested the latest patch, and most of the bugs seem to be fixed.

The H & P letters for hammer-on and pull-off now display correctly, though in polyphonic mode (when monophonic is not enabled) the signs on the fretboard sometimes "hang" or get stuck on the display until another note from the same string is triggered.


Voices of identical single notes still stack slowly if played repeatedly with sustain pedal on. Playing multiple notes of the same string in sequence while holding sustain pedal will cause the voices to stack even more rapidly, even with string realism on.


As for chord playing in monophonic mode, turns out it may actually be a bug since I was only able to play chords under the following conditions:
1.extra pick is enabled
2.played notes are within the velocity range of extra pick.
3.played notes are within a very short time (I assume this is the internal chord detection time threshold)


I actually find this "monophonic chord mode" very useful since it allows me to play chords easily in monophonic mode without having to switch to polyphonic mode.

Please consider keeping this chord detection in monophonic mode (without the extra pick articulation restriction of course). A GUI knob then can be added to adjust chord detection time threshold, so users can control how strict or lenient the detection engine is, and those who don't want chord detection in monophonic mode can simply set the time threshold to zero.

Also, is it possible to have a toggle button that determines whether chord detection can override legato, such that notes within the legato range can be played as a chord if they are within the time threshold? (Similar to how chords are played in monophonic mode, which is not limited by legato range)
Since I use hammer-on and pull-off articulations alot, I usually set the legato range to be pretty high, but as a result I can't play chords....


I am also kinda confused about the new fretting parameters. For example, to what fret does the Fret Reset function reset the current fret to? And how is the current fret determined?

[zircon]

I can't view either video, can you make those public?

[SSN688]

I can't view either video, can you make those public?

oops, how about now?

[zircon]

Ah, I see what the problem was with the voice stacking in polyphonic mode. It relates to the anti-repetition option which technically alters the voice being used. Anyway, I've fixed that. I've also made it so that monophonic mode supports chord detection as you suggested. If you want to keep chords totally OFF you can set the chord Threshold knob to 0 now and they will never play in mono (i.e. true monophonic playing).

There is now a button on the Engine2 page called "Chord Priority". This does what you suggested; when enabled, if you play within the chord threshold, it will NOT play legato but instead play polyphonically. When disabled, legato playing (hammer/pull/portamento) will ALWAYS play on overlapping notes.

The new "Fret Reset" parameter controls the time it takes for the virtual hand to lift off the fretboard. So for example, let's say you play a low E on the low E string, and lift up the note. If you then play a new note within the Fret Reset time, the script will seek new frets in the immediate area around that original low E. If you're outside of the Fret Reset time, the script will seek a note based on other logic such as preferred minimum and maximum fret range.

Shreddage 2.1 Patch (July 4th)

New wallpaper (July 4th)
Put in root Shreddage II directory

[xphen0m]

I've been encountering some seemingly random phasing using the latest patch when quad tracking. I haven't tried double tracking, but I'll do a more extensive test maybe tomorrow.

[J-Rokujuushi]

I've been doing some experimentation with poly legato, and although I was able to get it to work, it's a really cumbersome procedure. Here's how I was able to get it set up:

- Load 12 instances of Shreddage into Kontakt (one per string, times two for double tracking).

- Assign the first six to MIDI channels 1-6, output 1, and the second six to MIDI channels 1-6, output 2.

- Set the string preference on each to the corresponding MIDI channel.

- Create six MIDI Out channels and assign them to the same input port as Kontakt.

- Assign any needed CCs to the MIDI Out channels.

- Create an automation clip for each CC and link it to the same CC in all MIDI Out channels (lets you make necessary CC changes across all six MIDI channels using only one control rather than having to copy/paste changes to all six)

It's a major pain to set up, but at least it works.


Ideally, using the MIDI Channel Split option in a single patch should provide a more elegant way to do this, but something doesn't seem to be processing correctly in the legato engine. As far as I can tell, the legato engine doesn't seem to be keeping track of which notes are on which channel, so it gets some crosstalk when it sees multiple simultaneous portamento notes on different channels. I've also noticed some non-legato notes failing to play when using MIDI Channel Split, and it seems to be related since the notes seem to play fine if I disable the portamento articulation.


Here's an example of how it should sound (done with the twelve instances method described above) - https://www.box.com/s/n34j0qm1v7p6syyhjsf4

Here's how it sounds when using the MIDI Channel Split (exact same MIDI sequence) - https://www.box.com/s/f2650hao764qen4kka8j

Those were rendered using v14, but I tried v16 and had the same results with the MIDI channel split method (I didn't want to bother loading and configuring it 12 times but I expect it would sound the same with that method as well).

Here's the FLP file of the 12 instance method for reference - https://www.box.com/s/hxdxa93hy0uqn5hd2dz9

And one for the MIDI Channel Split method - https://www.box.com/s/sxazj3nv2ynouu4eploe

(And for anyone familiar with it, yes, that is Revvin' Up by Crush 40)

[SSN688]

Ah, I see what the problem was with the voice stacking in polyphonic mode. It relates to the anti-repetition option which technically alters the voice being used. Anyway, I've fixed that. I've also made it so that monophonic mode supports chord detection as you suggested. If you want to keep chords totally OFF you can set the chord Threshold knob to 0 now and they will never play in mono (i.e. true monophonic playing).

There is now a button on the Engine2 page called "Chord Priority". This does what you suggested; when enabled, if you play within the chord threshold, it will NOT play legato but instead play polyphonically. When disabled, legato playing (hammer/pull/portamento) will ALWAYS play on overlapping notes.

Thank you so much for adding those features!
Your hard work is much appreciated.

I'll be doing more testing on the new fret engine

[zircon]

I've been encountering some seemingly random phasing using the latest patch when quad tracking. I haven't tried double tracking, but I'll do a more extensive test maybe tomorrow.

Please let me know what you find here. I definitely want to fix this.