Best sampled classical guitar

[Ihsahn1981]

Hi.

I was wondering if anyone can recommend me a samplelibrary with a really good classical guitar. I need something that I can make sound realistic.
With the IK Multimedia powergroup buy I have the option of getting Sampletank so that is my prefered sampler I guess but if there is nothing available I might consider something else. Anything to get this right!

I know that Vienna has something called Concert Guitar but Im not sure if I can use it. Gigastudio is dead and my interface doesnt have GSIF anyway so.
I see its available in EXS24 but Im not sure if there is any Windows sampler that supports this.


Any ideas?

[Beermaster]

Originally Posted by Ihsahn1981

Hi.

I was wondering if anyone can recommend me a samplelibrary with a really good classical guitar. I need something that I can make sound realistic.
With the IK Multimedia powergroup buy I have the option of getting Sampletank so that is my prefered sampler I guess but if there is nothing available I might consider something else. Anything to get this right!

I know that Vienna has something called Concert Guitar but Im not sure if I can use it. Gigastudio is dead and my interface doesnt have GSIF anyway so.
I see its available in EXS24 but Im not sure if there is any Windows sampler that supports this.


Any ideas?

My fav classical guitar is part of the 'Gypsy' East West PLAY product. Spectacular! - has a wonderful finger noise at the release of each note and just the most beautiful tone out there. ( I also have Hanz Zimmer's Guitars, Ministry of Rock and many other's to choose from but the Acc Guitar in Gypsy is the best !)


Beer

[imaginaryday]

you're looking for realistic sampled guitar?

i have yet to come across a decent nylon guitar sample library. and yes, i have experimented with all of what's available to date. they all come up short when it comes to dynamics and expressiveness...they just sound robotic and unnatural to me.

[robertshaw]

gtr is the toughest inst. to sample and make realistic. For one thing is there a library that samples every note on every string on the neck? a3 of one string does not sound the same as a3 on and other and so on and so forth..........and so forth so on?

Also none of the libraries sample the (players) velocity correctly. There should be several velocities which very few if any sample libraies incorporate. They may do 2 or 3?

Sampling a finger picking is a nightmare. I've done it. the results were ok even with a great gtr and player. We sampled every note on the neck which came to over 130 sampels just for the notes. Then we did multiple pick velocities. 3, I think?

Then the problem was how do you map almost 400 samples to a keyboard of 88 keys? or whatever? you can't
But it's not like sampling other instruments where you just sample each octave and your done. On guitar it doesn't work that way
Open A does not sound the same as 5th fret on the low E. This is why no gtr sample library sounds truly real. timbre even with notes within the same octave differ. This is what gives guitar it's sound. Other wise it would sound like a piano or a harpsichord like most gtr sample libraries sound like. Fake

What we ended up doing was bringing the samples into cubase and just building the arrangements there. It took forever but actually ended up sounding sort of realistic though not as good as what a real player could produce. It did sound a bit mechanical at close listen too

[Ihsahn1981]

Thanks for all the replies.

Seems like there is no library that will really hold up to what I want.


I tested a free one yesterday:
Guitar bass and drum sample libraries for Kontakt - Pettinhouse

Sound was alright, but 4 layers of velocity just isnt enough to make it sound realistic though.


What to do, what to do.......

[chrisdee]

Spectrasonics should do a guitar plugin. They have set the standard with Trilian.

[chrisdee]

Anyway, you got so many variations and possibilities on a guitar. Pulls, slides, bends, hammer on/off, tapping, overtones, plecter/finger positions, ++. It's maby the most difficult instrument to sample.

[imaginaryday]

Originally Posted by chrisdee

Anyway, you got so many variations and possibilities on a guitar. Pulls, slides, bends, hammer on/off, tapping, overtones, plecter/finger positions, ++. It's maby the most difficult instrument to sample.

summed up nicely :-)

[Beneficial]

Originally Posted by chrisdee

Spectrasonics should do a guitar plugin. They have set the standard with Trilian.

I've been thinking that too. I also think they should do a piano VST. I love everything they do.

[Beneficial]

Best I've ever heard is Vienna's concert guitar:
Vienna Symphonic Library

[barbital]

Originally Posted by imaginaryday

summed up nicely :-)

I'll second that.

Mokafix Audio has something very special that may indeed solve all of these problems with sampled "real" guitars.

There is no such thing as a sampled guitar that ever sounds real. Anyone who thinks otherwise shall be proven a fool time and time again. You can't do guitar with samples. You can't do violin either, or sax, or trumpet, but we won't get into an argument about those.

We'll talk about guitar...and bass.

Forget samples. I mean seriously, forget it.

Mokafix Audio is working on something that will likely blow the socks of everything out there to date.

I wouldn't invest in ANY guitar sampler/rompler. It wouldn't be worth the waste of time or money which it would no doubt prove to be so in the end when you realise you can't do realistic expressive gestures by trying to stitching samples (which can be often inconsistent across the range of the instrument's note range) together.

Sorry, physical modeling is the only solution to this problem.

Maybe Samplemodeling could be working on something guitar-wise. But I think physical modeling is better because 1/ it uses negligible RAM and 2/ allows you to change the tone/tuning/characteristics of the strings completely painlessly and effectively.

Ben

[Dr.Wu]

No doubt-PM is the wave of the future but judging from the demos at their website the Mokafix guys still have a long way to go before they release something that can compete with the sound of todays top samplelibraries.
Strings

There are quite some convincing sounding demos of sampled guitars and strings that are already abvailable for purchase to be found here
Wavelore Instruments - Demos
and there
VIENNA SYMPHONIC LIBRARY > DEMO ZONE > Special Selections**********

[Dr.Wu]

Originally Posted by robertshaw

gtr is the toughest inst. to sample and make realistic. For one thing is there a library that samples every note on every string on the neck? a3 of one string does not sound the same as a3 on and other and so on and so forth..........and so forth so on?

Also none of the libraries sample the (players) velocity correctly. There should be several velocities which very few if any sample libraies incorporate. They may do 2 or 3?

Sampling a finger picking is a nightmare. I've done it. the results were ok even with a great gtr and player. We sampled every note on the neck which came to over 130 sampels just for the notes. Then we did multiple pick velocities. 3, I think?

Then the problem was how do you map almost 400 samples to a keyboard of 88 keys? or whatever? you can't
But it's not like sampling other instruments where you just sample each octave and your done. On guitar it doesn't work that way
Open A does not sound the same as 5th fret on the low E. This is why no gtr sample library sounds truly real. timbre even with notes within the same octave differ. This is what gives guitar it's sound. Other wise it would sound like a piano or a harpsichord like most gtr sample libraries sound like. Fake

Scarbee samples each note on each string seperately for the index and the middlefinger and has a Kontakt script that chooses the proper string for you.
The scripting also takes care of the legato behaviour and things like hammerons and pulloffs. Same is true for Trilian. So it CAN be done but it needs experts like Scarbee or Spectrasonics, Samplemodeling, Orangetree and others to set it up. The user only needs to play like a bass or guitarplayer.
Just to put things in relation-400 Samples is nothing-the acoustic bass in Trilian uses over 20.000 samples and thanks to streaming technology that sound only needs like 360 mb of RAM when you load the full version! Diskspace is over 2 GB for that one instrument.

[Dr.Wu]

Originally Posted by Ihsahn1981

Hi.

I was wondering if anyone can recommend me a samplelibrary with a really good classical guitar. I need something that I can make sound realistic.
With the IK Multimedia powergroup buy I have the option of getting Sampletank so that is my prefered sampler I guess but if there is nothing available I might consider something else. Anything to get this right!

I know that Vienna has something called Concert Guitar but Im not sure if I can use it. Gigastudio is dead and my interface doesnt have GSIF anyway so.
I see its available in EXS24 but Im not sure if there is any Windows sampler that supports this.


Any ideas?

VSL libraries come with their own player these days. YOu dont need any additional software to use the sounds.

[Bullseye]

in addition to all the foregoing, playing a musical as a guitarist would play or, for that matter, "strumming" a keyboard are decidedly difficult emulations more so than the simple attack and tone. The samples are rather pretty good on the whole. Playing to sound like a guitarist playing a guitar is rather lacking on the whole.

That said, the velocity levels on virtual pianos are not quite the same as playing a piano. Close sound wise, not very close dynamic wise. HOWEVER, I noticed, oddly, since I have only owned one Roland synth (a Jupiter 80 mks module - or something like that which, I believe I practically gave away, but I digress) the new Roland "Flagship" (don't know why that term always reminds me of the TITANIC), the new Jupiter 80, as odd looking and BIG as it may be, has it seems better velocity sensing than samples.

I have not owned the instrument or played it enough for this to be authoritative or for this opinion to be the basis of someone's purchase decision, but it did seem a step in the right direction with the acoustic instruments including the acoustic and/or classical guitar.