8Dio New Ambient Guitars?

[bharris22]

Hi there,

Does anyone know whether you can play these ambient sounds as notes? In other words, if I choose a particular sound, can I play it melodically using the keys of my keyboard, or are the ambient sounds limited to the original pitch at which they were recorded?

I was burned in the past by Troels with his vocal libraries, in that if you press a C, for instance, you don't necessarily get a phrase in C. I want to avoid that happening again, even at the flash sale price of $18.

Thanks!

[David]

Yes, it appears that all but one of the 30+ instruments are laid out and pitched across the entire keyboard, rather than being just phrases. There's one instrument in particular that's more straight guitar than guitar+FX, called Ambient Guitar - Plucked. Sounds good:) And they all have multiple sounds to select from or layer together…



Quite an amazing deal! The video walk-thru shows the Plucked instrument at around 7:55

[tatanka]

all but one of the 30+ instruments are laid out and pitched across the entire keyboard, rather than being just phrases

In the description (and video) I just understand it the other way round (only two multisampled instruments, one guitar, one bass) all other phrases laid out across the keyboard ? As I am wondering the same thing then bharris22 do you have bought the library ? As usual with 8dio they have cut out the piano roll so you dont see what is really happening.

I have the Aura Guitars already and this is only phrase based but you can adjust the phrases to a key which is not really satisfying.

So I really wonder HOW you can use this mixing of all phrase-based ambiences which LOOKS great if you really want to assign it to existing song key/chorprogression/notes.

[David]

I've only spent a few minutes exploring it, but so far there's only one instrument I've found with different phrases per note and a separate octave for re-pitching these, as in the Aura Guitar. All the others are the same sound pitched across the entire keyboard, whether that's simply the Plucked instruments in that one case or one of the many effected guitar "synths", presumably all or mostly built from the multi-sampled Plucked options (two: Bass and Guitar).

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Looks like a nice instrument. Any hands-on opinions with regard to the sound?

[tatanka]

All the others are the same sound pitched across the entire keyboard, whether that's simply the Plucked instruments in that one case or one of the many effected guitar "synths", presumably all or mostly built from the multi-sampled Plucked options (two: Bass and Guitar).

Thanks David , that sounds good to me, so maybe the different "ambiences" you can mix together are only different effect versions ? Or are these mix options only available in the phrase based instruments ? Sorry for lot of questions but with 8dio I am really (out of bad experiences) more careful

[Musical Gym]

I watched videos on the Aura Guitars. I wanted to like at $38, but it mostly just sounds like an uninteresting arp with mutes fading in and out. Reminded me a bit of Arpology design but not very deep.

[David]

"Or are these mix options only available in the phrase based instruments ? "

No, they're available on all the instruments, and as I said, only one of those includes an option for different phrases on each key.

The set-up seems to be this:

In the Main folder inside Instruments, there's 2 multi-sampled instruments, in "Plucked", and 5 moods, I guess you'd call them, in "Masters". You can chose between these with the blue rectangles at the top of the Masters GUI, shown below. There's a different preset variation on each key for each choice. In the screenshot below, I've chosen AWE, and each blue key on the keyboard at the bottom has a different variation and can be pitched with the green/pink keys, as in Aura, OR with the Pitch knob. The sounds on each blue key aren't exactly phrases, just sort of different flavors of pads (haven't checked ALL, but those I have are like this.) The far right choice in Masters (at the top) IS Phrases, and these ARE musical phrases, little sequences, not just FX pads.

In the Individual folder inside Instruments are, I guess, all of the single-key mood variations from Master spread out across all keys and layerable.

In the Presets folder inside Instruments are a bunch of different examples of how you can configure, effect, mix, layer, crossfade, etc. all the stuff in the first two folders, as shown in the screenshot in my previous post.

HTH!

[tatanka]

Thanks a lot David, yes, that helps and explained it far better then the discussion with the online support I had right now. I think they understand my question well (like you did), but.... .

So I think I will pass even for that prize, a multisampled guitar and a multisampled bass might be not too bad but the rest would mean to change my workflow completely for it (I really dont like to add keyswitches for something to be in the right key) even if it sounds interesting. And as I have the really ambient multisampled guitars and basses from WA Senfine already....

Thanks again

[bharris22]

Thank you very much - very helpful!

[agharta]

I watched videos on the Aura Guitars. I wanted to like at $38, but it mostly just sounds like an uninteresting arp with mutes fading in and out.

I also wanted to like it but it left me underwhelmed. A screen fall of options but I kept hearing what sounded like gated rhythms. That has its place and might be good for sound design etc but the demos which were fairly long didn't sell it to me. That's often the case with 8Dio as their demos can be long, rambling and underwhelming.
I'm wary of this company but have bought some of their cheaper stuff when heavily discounted and they have been worth the money. I doubt I'd buy any of their products at full price especially anything over $100.
The New Bazantar 39-string Acoustic Bass is one thing of theirs that stood out as being different. It might be a novelty though.

[Musical Gym]

Thanks for your perspective and confirmation of opinion.
I find the narrator of the videos becomes tedious after awhile.