Ambient/Drone in Guitar Rig

[Guest]

Some nice tips here on the ebow and love that track from lohaness, will listen to the others later (work and shopping call) - I also use guitar rig - not so much for the fx but more for the amped guitar sounds as I haven't had a guitar amp for years. I tend to just go through the presets until I find one I like and then barely tweak it if at all. Here are three recent guitar tracks using Guitar Rig, they are each based around a different method for pitch bending - For these tracks I used distortion type presets - the Rammstein ones are nice. Guitarwise I have not used an ebow but know someone who loves them. I use a sustainer pickup which I love - I got a Jackson Dinky DK2s specifically coz it had one. These tracks all use the sustainer and are quite noisy ( warning for those who don't like noisy tracks.) https://soundcloud.com/greghooper/sets/arthritis

For reverbs I use convolution and the fantastic valhallaroom. A neat collection of loooong impulse responses that are great for ambient is here http://www.jezwells.org/Computer_mus...ulse_responses

[CrystalWizard]

what's the plus for? how you liking it?

[ARshawn]

luv the ebow so much i have 2 and use it constantly...

[GaryG]

Couple of Guitar Rig Qs:

Does it have a slow attack kind of effect?

How's its pitch shifting? Does it do any kind of 'whammy' stuff besides the usual harmonisation stuff?

Can't see these mentioned in the specs anywhere.

Cheers.

[GaryG]

Ok, found the whammy component (cool ) but not the slow attack unless it's a case of assigning an envelope to the volume pedal or something (couldn't get it working...)

Thanks.

[GaryG]

Ah whatever, some kind soul in the KvR market place had a cheap copy of GR5 Pro up for grabs so I grabbed it. May take me a while to work my way through it's options...

Also snared the Tracktor's 12 add-on too, great fun collection of off the wall granular delays, filters etc. Not just for DJs as the marketing suggests.

[Golodkin]

Minor (?) caveat on the EBow...according to a fairly long thread I read elsewhere last week, it has a bit of a problem working with bass. The added string mass is harder for it to move, apparently. Makes sense.

[aoVI]

It's a bit harder to get one going/keep it going, but by no means terribly difficult.

The strings on my bass are too far apart to seat it properly, so it does require a bit of adaptation, but works fine.

[Seren]

I'd add my vote for E-bow and violin bow/rosin.

also a mix of reverb and delay - the usual suspects - I like to have delays with different times on them or 2 reverbs with different resonant frequencies to give subtle interactions.

Another one is to copy the original track and have it play a number of seconds later - timed right it can give floaty or pan effects rather than sound like a straight delay.

[lifespace]

Just picked up GR5. I had been using the demo for many years to process guitar, vocals, and other stuff. Finally paid for it. I was a bit disappointed with the several random user library downloads, though. Compare to Reaktor's user library, it seems pretty bad. Maybe it's because I'm not looking for the more typical rock/metal stuff. So, I found this thread tonight but it seems like it became more about ebow than GR presets. If anyone has presets or a link they would like to share, it'd be great to get me started. Soon, I hope to dig into it enough to be able to make my own and will share them here I hope. cheers!

[Golodkin]

It's a bit harder to get one going/keep it going, but by no means terribly difficult.

I dunno, never tried it -- but some guys definitely said they couldn't really get it going, others had no problem. [shrug]

What I want to know is why a ebow over a volume/expression pedal. Indefinite sustain? Several ways to accomplish the same basic sound, otherwise.

[Golodkin]

How's its pitch shifting? Does it do any kind of 'whammy' stuff besides the usual harmonisation stuff?

Interesting point here:

I got into a pretty intense public row with Digitech over hardware whammy/harmonization effects a couple of weeks ago. It turns out that none of their AudioDNA2-based MFX versions Whammy and harmonizer have adequate processing power to actually do these effects properly.

So, if you are going to use these types of effects, you are ahead if you can do them in the computer with plugins rather than with outboard MFX units, though I'm not sure how expression interfaces work with Guitar Rig.

Like most people, I had not been aware that stand-alone Whammy/harmonizer wasn't AudioDNA2-based nor that the concept was so resource-intensive to begin with. There had been a big stink about a firmware upgrade causing Whammy to be lousy in Digitech's MFX units, but it turned out to be a hopeless concept to begin with. :(

[des]

Hello everyone! Just came across this forum and thread and signed up! Looking forward to checking it out further. I compose Ambient style music on synths as well as on Chapman Stick. Unfortunately I don't have many recordings to share...yet.

WRT using Guitar Rig, I use it quite often for Stick. A number of years ago I developed a patch called Ambient Stick Pad and posted it at the Native Instruments user libraries. It's under Guitar Rig/special effects. That version was for GR3. GR4 had import issues that had control values not importing correctly and since NI basically avoided fixing it I didn't bother posting a newer version. I believe import is working correctly in GR5. Basically it's just a noise wash however by adjusting the mix between the wash and clean signal you can get some very interesting results. I actually have tweaked it a bit...added volume pedal modules and stuff to allow adjusting the blend. There is a demo song at the library site called Stellar C....live performance with Stick and GR.

I have an Ebow...it's failed on me recently...that I used a little on Stick but it didn't work great because the strings are very close to the frets...and the string spacing is different. However when it did work it was great. My latest 'love' for making noise is Valhallas Shimmer and Vintage Verb. Wow!

Ok, off to read the other threads!


Edit: I updated the link as the old library link no longer works. Note this link takes you right to their download zip file. If you like to play it safe go to Native Instruments Guitar Rig User Library and scroll down to Ambient Stick Pad...its in the Special F/X catagory.

http://www.native-instruments.com/fi...Ambient_St.zip



Dave

[Iohannes]

[lynn9]

Besides the effects like delay, reverb and chorus, it's a good thing to use open chords, letting some strings ring for as long as possible.