KVR Audio

Hey folks! I recently setup a dedicated recording area just for my LinnStrument to record some promotional content for my new EP. This is the guitar solo for "Music Box".

Nice solo, Zach!

I skipped a lot of the previous ones (you can still find them on the YT page) but here is Variation 3 of Synaesthetic Explorations Series 4, the last one before a while and last one with this setup.

On top of VSTs played with the Linnstrument, I'm also singing.

This one is called Cold Lonely Streets

You really have good solo guitar technique, Zach.

Thanks Roger, I feel like I'm getting satisfactory results these days. Here's one more.

Zach, what do you use for your guitar sound?

Orange Tree Samples Rock Guitar Standard for all of the guitars that you hear in all of my tracks.

Do those sounds include the amp distortion in the samples, or does the Orange Tree product include separate amp distortion? When you play multiple notes, it sounds like a single amp distortion on them, as opposed to separate recorded amp distortion on each note.

Yeah, you picked up on that. That's really something I've noticed that many other guitar sounds don't get right, the out of phase beating on a real guitar when bending up to the same note. The OTS samples are essentially as naked as they can be, totally clean sampled guitar with different articulations. The player is also smart and adjustable about how it strikes the pick, where it's hitting the pick (bridge vs neck have unique samples), how much noise it makes when you release strings, how loud it plays legato passages and what range it will try to legato over. So no FX are baked into the samples whatsoever. This is great on many levels because if you choose, you can run your own effects chain, it's like plugging any old electric guitar into a different rig.

The Orange Tree Sample kontakt player does have a whole FX section with a full stack from cab/speaker emulations, pre-amps, EQs, distortion, delay, chorus, reverb etc. They sound pretty great with presets that cover 90% of what most people would want. I use the built-in FX stack most of the time, but also disable it and plug it into Guitar Rig every now and then when I want something different.

Thanks, Zach. How does it handle independent bends, given that Kontakt doesn’t have MPE? Do you simply create multiple instances in the Kontakt player, then somehow run all the instances though a single effects chain?

Roger_Linn wrote: Wed Sep 20, 2023 6:20 pm How does it handle independent bends, given that Kontakt doesn’t have MPE?

I'm generally confused about this because things have always just worked for me. If I'm playing live (not recording or anything):

• I bring a single instance of kontakt into ableton
• Set LinnStrument to channel per note
• In ableton, right-click on the Kontakt instance and enable MPE
• In OTS, set midi to "omni mode"

Everything just works.

If I'm recording midi, I set things up a bit differently since Ableton for some reason loses pitch bends. So in this case:

• I bring a single instance of kontakt into ableton
• Set LinnStrument to channel per row
• Create 8 midi tracks mapped to the correct LinnStrument channel(s)
• Route the output of all 8 midi tracks to the input of kontakt

Now I can arm/record on the 8 midi tracks and I don't lose my bends.

Interesting. Kontact does permit scripts that can do all kinds of tricks, which OT is apparently doing. I wish Kontakt would add MPE but for some reason they don't want to. Someone told me they're waiting for MIDI 2 to become popular. If so, they may have a long wait.

Man, I'm so glad I play guitar.

But thanks for the info, Zach. I was looking for these details recently.

OTS doesn't volunteer much about the Tone section of the VST except the following:

"Built-in effects engine for instantly-usable blues guitar tones."

Cheers!

John the Savage wrote: Wed Sep 20, 2023 7:23 pm OTS doesn't volunteer much about the Tone section of the VST except the following:

"Built-in effects engine for instantly-usable blues guitar tones."

If it helps, here is the exhaustive list:

• Amp
• Cab
• Chorus
• Compressor
• Delay
• Distortion
• EQ
• Flanger
• Reverb (Pedal)
• Reverb (Rack)
• Reverb (Spring)
• Tremolo
• Volume
• Wah

The amp/cab modeling have several stock presets which sound fine, but you can't load your own IRs.