10 Essential Rock And Roll VSTs

[cdbaksu]

My list would go something like this:

1 Guitar -- Orange Tree Samples Hollowbody Blues / Archtop Jazz / Stratosphere,
2 Drums -- Abbey Road 70s Drummer / Addictive Drums 2 pick your poison,
3 Electric Bass -- Scarbee MMBass / Jay / Pre,
4 Piano -- UAD Ravel / Electra 88 for Rhodes,
5 Organ -- Logic's built-in B3 Vintage = best one I've ever played,
6 String Section -- Tokyo Scoring Strings / Spitfire Aperture Strings,
7 Brass Section -- have found none that I liked so far
8 Sax -- same as above
9 Percussion -- NI Cuba
10 Synthesizer -- Zebra 3 / UAD Opal

[wagtunes]

My list would go something like this:

1 Guitar -- Orange Tree Samples Hollowbody Blues / Archtop Jazz / Stratosphere,
2 Drums -- Abbey Road 70s Drummer / Addictive Drums 2 pick your poison,
3 Electric Bass -- Scarbee MMBass / Jay / Pre,
4 Piano -- UAD Ravel / Electra 88 for Rhodes,
5 Organ -- Logic's built-in B3 Vintage = best one I've ever played,
6 String Section -- Tokyo Scoring Strings / Spitfire Aperture Strings,
7 Brass Section -- have found none that I liked so far
8 Sax -- same as above
9 Percussion -- NI Cuba
10 Synthesizer -- Zebra 3 / UAD Opal

Thanks for sharing this. Great list.

[wagtunes]

Rock and Roll doesn't get much better than this. Boy could these guys play.

[Examigan]

I am a big Rush fan.
RIP Neil Peart..

[whyterabbyt]

Rush ? Needs an Apollo Chorus VST then.

[Examigan]

Here’s a short track I made that is kind of Rush-like. Sampletank 4 guitar and MODO bass, with the Peart drum kit in Sampletank 4.

https://www.soundcloud.com/examigan/experiment

[pdxindy]

Now it's your turn. What are your essentials? What would you use? You might even give me some other ideas for myself and possibly help others out here who are also into rock and want to create rock tracks but don't have the tools yet.

I love sitting in my studio and creating electronic music on my synths by myself. It has its own creative satisfaction. But if I wanted to create rock music, I would call some peeps I know to come over with their instruments and work together on songs.

There's nothing like playing music with others live. To me, that's the spirit of rock.

[wagtunes]

Now it's your turn. What are your essentials? What would you use? You might even give me some other ideas for myself and possibly help others out here who are also into rock and want to create rock tracks but don't have the tools yet.

I love sitting in my studio and creating electronic music on my synths by myself. It has its own creative satisfaction. But if I wanted to create rock music, I would call some peeps I know to come over with their instruments and work together on songs.

There's nothing like playing music with others live. To me, that's the spirit of rock.

Can't argue with that. Some of us just aren't that fortunate. None of my friends are musicians.

[seangm]

My only input is for these 3 instruments:

Percussion - My goto is Eastern Percussion Module from Zero-G which is a Kontakt instrument (looks like they stopped selling it though). I can find a groove that fits pretty much anything out of that and like the different "eastern" percussion sounds.

Bass - Digging UVI Soul Bass lately, and don't have to deal with using Kontakt which I appreciate.

Guitar - I like the NI Session Guitarists (all of them) a lot, though again I'm trying to stay away from Kontakt as much as possible so that might change.

Other than that the rest of your list looks good.

[wagtunes]

My only input is for these 3 instruments:

Percussion - My goto is Eastern Percussion Module from Zero-G which is a Kontakt instrument (looks like they stopped selling it though). I can find a groove that fits pretty much anything out of that and like the different "eastern" percussion sounds.

Bass - Digging UVI Soul Bass lately, and don't have to deal with using Kontakt which I appreciate.

Guitar - I like the NI Session Guitarists (all of them) a lot, though again I'm trying to stay away from Kontakt as much as possible so that might change.

Other than that the rest of your list looks good.

Thanks for your input. Too bad they don't sell that Eastern Percussion anymore. I would have checked it out.

[D-Fusion]

Here's a Garage Rock tune I just did. Not much to it.

Guitar
Drums
Bass
Organ
Electric Sitar
Lead & Background Vocals

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim/out-in-the-sun

Cool tune
It has a certain 60-70s vibe to it.
If there is one thing i would pick a little bit on it would be the Audio levels between all the Instrument + the vocals.
It feels like all of them are turned to 11 so i have to turn the level down to 30 on my pc to not blow my ears out.

I enjoyed the song. Very creative and fit that Era 100%

[wagtunes]

Here's a Garage Rock tune I just did. Not much to it.

Guitar
Drums
Bass
Organ
Electric Sitar
Lead & Background Vocals

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim/out-in-the-sun

Cool tune
It has a certain 60-70s vibe to it.
If there is one thing i would pick a little bit on it would be the Audio levels between all the Instrument + the vocals.
It feels like all of them are turned to 11 so i have to turn the level down to 30 on my pc to not blow my ears out.

I enjoyed the song. Very creative and fit that Era 100%

Yeah, the LUFS on this is about 10. I really cranked it up. And yes, it is definitely 60s Garage Rock. I could spend all day just listening to those songs. They were unique.

Thanks for the listen.

[IvyBirds]

I have been playing keys in rock, folk rock, and various metal genres since the 1980s

Currently I play in a classic rock cover band, and a classic southern rock cover band

IMHO you are over thinking it to justify GAS when it comes to plugins. Nothing wrong with that of course I do it also

But if we are being honest

For rock music any Rompler gets you 90% there. The Korg Triton Extreme plugin is a great workhorse for that. That will have all your Piano, Organ, Electric Piano, Strings and most of your synth needs covered. HALion7, and UVI Falcon will also get you there

Romplers also have lots of drum samples made from real kits, it you are going to use a synth or sampler for drums this will have you covered also with no need for anything else as rock and roll almost always uses real drums and when it doesn't there will be something in the Rompler library that will have you covered

If you are gigging, something like a Yamaha Montage (which I use) or a MODX will also cover all of that and come with a plugin as well. Those also come with Yamaha's fantastic AWM2 pianos, eps, and organs

Beyond that you can add some specialized plugins that make the sounds you are looking for. For me that is the Legend HZ because so much rock music uses a Minimoog and it can also do analog poly sounds, and Repro for Prophet 5 sounds. The Minimoog and Prophet 5 were either the Synths used directly in the bulk of 70s and 80s classic rock, or especially since you can use a Minimoog Plugin that is polyphonic be used in place of other Synths

Finally will say if you are a gigging musician trying to put together plugins for live use get a copy of Gig Performer and the free Decent Sampler plugin

You will use Gig Performer to host your plugins as you play live and there are many tools inside of it for live gigging and it has a built in autosampler that makes presets in the Decent Sampler format. Many plugins have a large CPU overhead and if you autosample them and turn them into a sample based instrument the CPU hit is minimized

[wagtunes]

I have been playing keys in rock, folk rock, and various metal genres since the 1980s

Currently I play in a classic rock cover band, and a classic southern rock cover band

IMHO you are over thinking it to justify GAS when it comes to plugins. Nothing wrong with that of course I do it also

But if we are being honest

For rock music any Rompler gets you 90% there. The Korg Triton Extreme plugin is a great workhorse for that. That will have all your Piano, Organ, Electric Piano, Strings and most of your synth needs covered. HALion7, and UVI Falcon will also get you there

Romplers also have lots of drum samples made from real kits, it you are going to use a synth or sampler for drums this will have you covered also with no need for anything else as rock and roll almost always uses real drums and when it doesn't there will be something in the Rompler library that will have you covered

If you are gigging, something like a Yamaha Montage (which I use) or a MODX will also cover all of that and come with a plugin as well. Those also come with Yamaha's fantastic AWM2 pianos, eps, and organs

Beyond that you can add some specialized plugins that make the sounds you are looking for. For me that is the Legend HZ because so much rock music uses a Minimoog and it can also do analog poly sounds, and Repro for Prophet 5 sounds. The Minimoog and Prophet 5 were either the Synths used directly in the bulk of 70s and 80s classic rock, or especially since you can use a Minimoog Plugin that is polyphonic be used in place of other Synths

Finally will say if you are a gigging musician trying to put together plugins for live use get a copy of Gig Performer and the free Decent Sampler plugin

You will use Gig Performer to host your plugins as you play live and there are many tools inside of it for live gigging and it has a built in autosampler that makes presets in the Decent Sampler format. Many plugins have a large CPU overhead and if you autosample them and turn them into a sample based instrument the CPU hit is minimized

No argument about any of that. Lots of things will cover the basics. Personally, I hear the difference between some specialized synths and all around romplers. The difference, for me anyway, justified getting the specialized synth.

It has little to do with gas. I just recently bought Shreddage 3 Sitar because nothing sounds like it. Period.

[IvyBirds]

I have been playing keys in rock, folk rock, and various metal genres since the 1980s

Currently I play in a classic rock cover band, and a classic southern rock cover band

IMHO you are over thinking it to justify GAS when it comes to plugins. Nothing wrong with that of course I do it also

But if we are being honest

For rock music any Rompler gets you 90% there. The Korg Triton Extreme plugin is a great workhorse for that. That will have all your Piano, Organ, Electric Piano, Strings and most of your synth needs covered. HALion7, and UVI Falcon will also get you there

Romplers also have lots of drum samples made from real kits, it you are going to use a synth or sampler for drums this will have you covered also with no need for anything else as rock and roll almost always uses real drums and when it doesn't there will be something in the Rompler library that will have you covered

If you are gigging, something like a Yamaha Montage (which I use) or a MODX will also cover all of that and come with a plugin as well. Those also come with Yamaha's fantastic AWM2 pianos, eps, and organs

Beyond that you can add some specialized plugins that make the sounds you are looking for. For me that is the Legend HZ because so much rock music uses a Minimoog and it can also do analog poly sounds, and Repro for Prophet 5 sounds. The Minimoog and Prophet 5 were either the Synths used directly in the bulk of 70s and 80s classic rock, or especially since you can use a Minimoog Plugin that is polyphonic be used in place of other Synths

Finally will say if you are a gigging musician trying to put together plugins for live use get a copy of Gig Performer and the free Decent Sampler plugin

You will use Gig Performer to host your plugins as you play live and there are many tools inside of it for live gigging and it has a built in autosampler that makes presets in the Decent Sampler format. Many plugins have a large CPU overhead and if you autosample them and turn them into a sample based instrument the CPU hit is minimized

No argument about any of that. Lots of things will cover the basics. Personally, I hear the difference between some specialized synths and all around romplers. The difference, for me anyway, justified getting the specialized synth.

It has little to do with gas. I just recently bought Shreddage 3 Sitar because nothing sounds like it. Period.

Is a sitar sample library "essential" for rock though?