Question for anyone with Orange Tree Evolution Guitar

[Jennerstein]

I'm looking at purchasing a guitar VST, and have done a lot of research comparing the various products (AMGL, AAS, Orange Tree, Pettinhouse etc). I am leaning towards Orange Tree Evolution Guitar partly because I like the workflow for how to create strumming pattersn (you can do it within the DAW and import the pattern into the VST). It is also seems to pretty versatile for a lot of genres.

Couple questions for anyone who has Orange Tree Evolution Guitar (because there is no demo for me to try).

1. When playing keyswitches to trigger down/up strums, does the velocity affect the strike of the pick? In other words, if I program or play the keyswitch with a high velocity, will that change the sound of the strum. I'm hoping this is this case, as I want to be able to make my strums sound more natural, and some of the instruments that I've demoed seem to be purely on/off when triggering the keyswitch.

2. Second question: is there a way to load the supplied strum patterns and then edit them? If not how can I see those strum patterns so I can use them as a starting point for creating my own strum patterns.

Thanks!

[Len911]

I'm looking at purchasing a guitar VST, and have done a lot of research comparing the various products (AMGL, AAS, Orange Tree, Pettinhouse etc). I am leaning towards Orange Tree Evolution Guitar partly because I like the workflow for how to create strumming pattersn (you can do it within the DAW and import the pattern into the VST). It is also seems to pretty versatile for a lot of genres.

Couple questions for anyone who has Orange Tree Evolution Guitar (because there is no demo for me to try).

1. When playing keyswitches to trigger down/up strums, does the velocity affect the strike of the pick? In other words, if I program or play the keyswitch with a high velocity, will that change the sound of the strum. I'm hoping this is this case, as I want to be able to make my strums sound more natural, and some of the instruments that I've demoed seem to be purely on/off when triggering the keyswitch.

2. Second question: is there a way to load the supplied strum patterns and then edit them? If not how can I see those strum patterns so I can use them as a starting point for creating my own strum patterns.

Thanks!

I don't have the orange tree, but I did download and read the manual.

1) Yes, but that is probably the case with all of the guitar sample libraries. There are different samples for different velocities (velocity mapping). There's also more to it than just hitting a keyswitch. Orange tree calls it the "performance interface". For example, these are just the knobs for settings in the strummer section of the interface (from the manual)

Strum Speed - This adjusts the overall speed of the strumming.
Vel > Speed - This controls how the velocity of the strum keys affect the speed of each strum.
That way, you can make it so that playing the strum keys louder will result in faster, tighter
strums as opposed to playing them softly.
Vel > Limit - When you strum on a guitar, sometimes not all the strings are strummed. This
control lets you adjust how velocity affects the number of strings strummed. That way, lower
velocities will strum fewer strings, while high velocities will strum the entire chord. This can add
a lot of life and realism to your strumming patterns.
Velocity Decay - When strumming, the last strings played are strummed softer than the first
strings strummed. This control adjusts the amount of velocity decay. At 0%, all the strings will
be strummed at an even velocity, while at 100%, the last strings will be strummed extremely
soft compared to the first strings.

2) From the manual, "...While creating your own strumming pattern presets is more of a power-user feature, Evolution Acoustic Guitar Steel Strings features a unique and powerful solution to overcome the limitations of built-in pattern editors." So, no built-in pattern editor. Power-user, in other words, very few people will ever use this feature, but it's there because some will cry for the option,lol!

If the patterns are not midi files, my guess is that they are not, you will need to record the midi out into your sequencer. Imo, you will probably not necessarily need to change the strum patterns, as much as you will benefit from adjusting the performance and other settings. It's patterns, not sequences you are recording so keep that in mind. A quote from the manual about making your own strum patterns, "Only the strum keys and single key strums will be recorded, while any held chords or other notes will be ignored."

The thing with the ample guitar samplers, you can program your strum patterns within the vst and also save them in 8 different banks, and there are also presets. So if you have 8 different patterns in 8 different banks, you would use keyswitches in your sequencer to access the banks. I'm not sure how orange tree handles this, I don't see a keyswitch chart, so maybe you would have to stop the sequencer, load another preset, and continue recording from that point on until the next pattern change??

It seems to me that creating your own strumming patterns would be much easier in the ample guitars, because the up down, mutes.... all the articulation choices are right there in the vst itself, and makes the necessary adjustments as far as synching to your daw, and having access to all the other parameters and tweaks immediately available.