New NI strum acoustic guitar

[JonSolo]

Compared to products like
Acou6tics
Indiginus
OrangeTreeSamples
Amplesound

These all offer, not only great strumming (some packages with a variety of different guitars).. but really nice single note play-ability and program-ability as well. All of these sound much better than NI's.. which is saying a lot. (I'm a total NI fanboy.. but they dropped the ball on this one IMO).

Acou6tics is 3 times the price. I thought the overall sound felt a bit dull compared to NI. Not that it is not good. Just dull.

Indiginus sounds thin and forced. To my ears I hear the samples being played and it feel unnatural. It is like putting samples of anything over a strum effect. If it had better samples, np...the strummer seems cool.

Orangetree- Until Strat which I have not tried, the strum system in this is so convoluted I just dropped the idea. And I own all of these products because of how good the sampling system is. But it is not, at least not yet, a great strummer. I will be getting the Strat soon and will be able to see the system.

Amplesound- Tried it, did not like it. But, with the new version coming out, it may be a great option. The bundle deal is the best way to go...but again, priced much higher than NI.

At best Acou6tics is the closest comparision at still 3 times the cost of NI. I will wait and see how this develops as I already have all of the Orangetree stuff.

[Cimbasso]

It's great only for Komplete owners, I guess. Ample Sound, Ilya Efimov and Pettinhouse guitars still sound better imo.

[jsp1979]

Pettinhouse and Ilyfa Efimov have the best current strum systems, IMO. And the cost is comparable to NI...during sales, those are much cheaper.

If Orange Tree updates their acoustic with the new strum system (as found in their strat), then they might have competition.

[BERFAB]

After listening to the examples and reading the ad copy, I'm thinking it's more like the Kontakt Akkord guitar instrument (which all you Kontakt owners already have). The full version of Akkord (I think that's the name) has something like 3,000+ samples of individual chords (maj., min., 7th, +, dim., 9th and so on) strums (up/down, etc.), ghost strums and fret noise. The patterns just take those samples and piece them together in clever ways.

The original version (Kontakt 3 or 4) had an open scripting UI that allowed you to create your own patterns, and had a couple of full song examples, IIRC. The latest version (K5) seems to have been made over for simplicity, and has only a few controls for some of the more popular strum patterns. It's very easy to play and is great for quick and dirty backing on a track. I've even used it for some spare vocal/guitar projects and, with the right FX, it really sounds great. You can even slap some electric guitar type FX on it and you've got some good electric rhythm guitar.

I own many of the other competitors in this genre (Pettinhouse, Orange Tree, Real Strat) and, for my purposes at least, the NI version really is, IMHO, the best solution.

Unfortunately, it never lived up to it's promise regarding the pattern library. Almost no one seemed to use it, and there are almost no new patterns in the NI users library for it. If the new product is, in fact, really more of the same but with a vast pattern library, it will be well worth the (nominal, IMHO) asking price. Too bad it was released AFTER the KU10 update. But I'm sure that was planned. Oh well, that's what the discount coupon is for.

As far as the sound, I really don't get the criticism of the demos as being "crappy." They sound great to me. And, ultimately, you're going to throw your own brand of FX on it anyway.

Cheers
-B

[progtronic]

Acou6tics is 3 times the price. I thought the overall sound felt a bit dull compared to NI. Not that it is not good. Just dull...

...At best Acou6tics is the closest comparision at still 3 times the cost of NI. I will wait and see how this develops as I already have all of the Orangetree stuff.

Well.. you get six different guitars with Acou6tics. Ten.. if you include all the plectrum, finger picked and finger nail picked variations. So, if you need the variety.. it's a really good deal. But, if you just need one guitar, then yeah.. go with another product.

I'll admit, some of those early demos sounded terrible.. most were done with the 1.0 version. They tweaked a lot of stuff though, to increase the realism.. in the update.

Personally, I would have initially gone with the acoustic Amplesound bundle myself.. but there were limitations with the drop tuning. I'm producing extreme metal stuff, that requires crazy, low tunings.. and, I needed a variety of guitars.. so I went with Vir2 again.

Wish I could afford all the stuff you have though.. sounds like you have a huge collection of instruments. I gotta be really picky on my (starving arteeest) budget.

[Numanoid]

Seems the first real Virtual Guitarist contender just arrived :
http://www.native-instruments.com/fr/pr ... newsletter

Looks like a Kontakt sampler library ?

[dynamitec]

I'll admit, some of those early demos sounded terrible.. most were done with the 1.0 version. They tweaked a lot of stuff though, to increase the realism.. in the update.

Progtronic is right. Acou6itcs has a very, very complex engine underneath the user interface. And the 1.1 updated is almost like a new instrument (it also went online only a short time after the 1.0 release).

Here are some examples of what Acou6tics can do (with the 1.1 update):






Acou6itcs has unprocessed, dry samples. That means you can use it as if you record a real acoustic guitar. Most processed acoutic guitar trakcs have quite a bit of EQ and compression applied. So exactly like with a real guitar, the final sound lays in your hands. Also don't forget that you can change the microphone distance and even use the piezo DI signal as an additional tracks in Acou6tics. So you have endless optiones to get the tone you like best!

[budweiser]

Seems the first real Virtual Guitarist contender just arrived :
http://www.native-instruments.com/fr/pr ... newsletter

Looks like a Kontakt sampler library ?

Yep. But unlike funky guitarist where you must enter the chords before playing, on this one you just have to play the chords with right hand while you launch patterns with left hand, ala virtual guitarist, and it's more convenient.
But i'm finally disapointed by the demo, that sound a bit robotic. I'll stick with vg2, sunbird and the excellent pettinhouse acoustic guitar 2 for the moment.

[poshook]

all products mentiones above sounds good playing single notes but when you need strumming they sound awful. NI is about chord/strumming - real performed by guitarist. To me there is only competitor - old Steinberg Virtual Guitarist

[Numanoid]

Yep. But unlike funky guitarist where you must enter the chords before playing, on this one you just have to play the chords with right hand while you launch patterns with left hand, ala virtual guitarist, and it's more convenient.

NI also do their best to "hide" Kontakt in the screen shots, on this it looks like a standalone VST



The good thing about this is that Kontakt 6 is still far away, why would they still be releasing new stuff for Kontakt 5 in case?

[JohnPativens]

Well, I've always thought Komplete did need an accurately sampled Acoustic Guitar. Yesterday I listened to the demos and I expected more from NI. Sounds fine when used as a background instrument, but sounds very robotic when left solo in the mix. A guitarist with very stiff arms comes to my mind when I listen to some of those strum patterns.
Maybe good for mockups, preproductions, TV and commercials.

So far the most impressive sampled Acoustic Guitar I've used is the Acoustic Samples Sunbird, which I bought a few months ago.

After listening to the examples and reading the ad copy, I'm thinking it's more like the Kontakt Akkord guitar instrument (which all you Kontakt owners already have). The full version of Akkord (I think that's the name) has something like 3,000+ samples of individual chords (maj., min., 7th, +, dim., 9th and so on) strums (up/down, etc.), ghost strums and fret noise. The patterns just take those samples and piece them together in clever ways.

That's also why I expected more from them. Anyway the Akkord Kontakt factory library doesn't have chord inversions, which makes it unusable for me.

[budweiser]

all products mentiones above sounds good playing single notes but when you need strumming they sound awful.

Herm... really ?

[progtronic]

...So far the most impressive sampled Acoustic Guitar I've used is the Acoustic Samples Sunbird, which I bought a few months ago.

Yeah, I just checked out their site (http://www.acousticsamples.net/sunbird). Really nice instrument. Similar to Acou6tics, up to a point. The programmable, strumming and pattern options.. are really advanced. Very in-depth. And I really like that, dry, in your face.. kind of sound you can get from it. Impressive.

Will definitely add that to my acoustic guitar recommendations in the future.

[julioelgenio]

It's great as said for backing tracks, the only thing I wish would be if you could create your own patterns.

[LFO8]

What I can NOT bloody stand about the new NI website is that there is no volume slider in their preview player. It is sooo bloody loud.