Virtual Instruments

[ljweber70]

I need some more guidance, please: (forgive me if these are dumb questions )I'm looking for the best "authentic sounding" virtual instrmentation software to work with ProTools LE on windows. Specifically, I'm looking for the following tones:Fiddle/Violin ; Steel Guitar ; Organs ; and StringsDoes anyone have some advice?Secondly, are there options out there to use virtual instrment plug-ins that don't use up my computers RAM? I use Ivory right now, and it completely bogs down my processer until I can bounce the track to an audio file. Not to mention that it took up 40GB on my hard drive!!!!!Thanks!Larry

[davewalton]

Quote:I need some more guidance, please: (forgive me if these are dumb questions )I'm looking for the best "authentic sounding" virtual instrmentation software to work with ProTools LE on windows. Specifically, I'm looking for the following tones:Fiddle/Violin ; Steel Guitar ; Organs ; and StringsDoes anyone have some advice?Secondly, are there options out there to use virtual instrment plug-ins that don't use up my computers RAM? I use Ivory right now, and it completely bogs down my processer until I can bounce the track to an audio file. Not to mention that it took up 40GB on my hard drive!!!!!Thanks!LarryAll virtual instruments are going to take processing power, RAM, and disk space. But you can't beat them for the realism and the relative ease with which they can be learned and used.I have the equivalent of a 2.2ghz Pentium with 1.5gb of RAM... nothing special. I run lots of virtual instruments with no problems.For organs (I'm assuming you're talking about Hammond, Farfisa, etc) I use a package called B4...http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=b4iiFor "strings" I think it's hard to beat EWQL Silver. Maybe it's overkill if you're just looking for "strings" because you get the entire orchestra (the expanded package even) but for $195 you can't beat the value and realism...http://www.soundsonline.com/EWQLSO-Silv ... ROB1.htmlI don't know about what's out there as far as fiddle and steel guitar.

[mazz]

Garritan Stradivarius is good for violin but I'm not sure for fiddle. It takes a lot of "fiddling" to get the hang of before you get good stuff out of it.East West RA has some fiddle sounds in it but it also has a bunch of world instruments that you may or may not be interested in, if you just want fiddle, it's probably not worth the price.I'm not sure if ProTools has a sampler instrument but if it does, I'd be willing to bet it would open samples in formats like Kontakt or Logic ES...something. There's a lot of stuff out there from many companies. Steel Guitar is a tough one. Maybe someone has some ideas on that.By the way: Reason is an amazing piece of software that doesn't run as a plug in but is accessible from Rewire, which I'm pretty sure ProTools supports. It comes with a ton of samples including orchestral samples and the NNXT sampler can import other formats as well. The synthesizers are also fantastic if you're in to electronic music as well. Version 4 just came out. Reason is fairly light on the CPU for most things. Good luck,Mazz

[fivehands]

Yes, I have been waiting for a long time for a company to come out with a Steel Guitar plugin, either loops or samples. It would be quite a challenge to get it sounding authentic as just a sample plugin. Or some liquid kind of loops would be great. And the same goes for fiddle too. Haven't heard of anything so far though.

[fivehands]

I also waited a long time for some kind of acoustic guitar plugin and then along came Vir2 instruments this year with Acoustic Legends. Some real good samples of Martins, Taylors and Ovations etc... Even has a patch for stumming chords, hit a D on the keyboard and it strums a D chord. The type of D chord is determined by keyswitches on the lowest end of your MIDI keyboard: Major, minor, minor 7th, sus4, sus2, major 7th etc... But the real strength of the program which is played through Kontakt Player is in the samples. With some work you can get a beautiful sounding acoustic track. They even included some mandolin, banjo and standup bass patches. That's a lot of high quality instruments for 300 dollars. I just could not afford to go out and buy a real good acoustic guitar so, for me, this is a good alternative. I'm not so concerned about how I arrive at the sound as long as I can get the sound for my demos.

[elser]

Quote:Yes, I have been waiting for a long time for a company to come out with a Steel Guitar plugin, either loops or samples. It would be quite a challenge to get it sounding authentic as just a sample plugin. Or some liquid kind of loops would be great. And the same goes for fiddle too. Haven't heard of anything so far though.You may have already tried this but if not, you can get a reasonable steel guitar by putting a sampled guitar of your choice on several different midi channels and use pitch bend on the ones you want to bend. The key is that with steel guitar you've got some strings that don't move at all in pitch while others are moving to different degrees, i.e., one moves a minor third while the next moves a major third etc... It's alot of work but it can be done.

[sgs4u]

What a wicked idea! Labour intensive yes, but the results are likely worth it.Quote:You may have already tried this but if not, you can get a reasonable steel guitar by putting a sampled guitar of your choice on several different midi channels and use pitch bend on the ones you want to bend. The key is that with steel guitar you've got some strings that don't move at all in pitch while others are moving to different degrees, i.e., one moves a minor third while the next moves a major third etc... It's alot of work but it can be done.

[ljweber70]

Might be easier to learn to play the steel Thanks for the info!Larry

[sgs4u]

I have tried, now I leave it to pros. It's like 3 dimensional chess. Quote:Might be easier to learn to play the steel Thanks for the info!Larry

[elser]

Actually I think the programming method is probably easier than playing steel, I have total respect for those guys, especially when you hear 'em kick on a Ratt pedal and start playing Van Halen licks or jump into a Be Bop tune, amazing.