After watching the video Geert put together on setting up Strummer, I decided I needed a good multi-timeral AU/VST. So, I'm soon off to the local Guitar Center to buy Kontakt.
Strummer made me do it.
written by: jaself
Yes, that pretty much fixed it. Thanks again for great supportAfter watching the video Geert put together on setting up Strummer, I decided I needed a good multi-timeral AU/VST. So, I'm soon off to the local Guitar Center to buy Kontakt.
Strummer made me do it.
Multi-timbral stuff is wicked...
There are other ways to get this going:
- DC voltage and that nasty old friend MIDI...
- Multiple instances (AU/VST) inside another host or DAW (receiving MIDI each unique MIDI Ch.)...
- Multi-timbral MIDI sound modules... working on a midi out+strummer setup.
They did have a sale on recently where NI were selling KOMPLETE for about $100 more than Kontakt on it's own. I sadly missed out this time, but Komplete is definitely something that I'm going to save up for.
The strummer is the main reason for this too ;)
Guitar Center has Komplete 8 for $499 US, $100 below price on NI's website.
I just upgraded this weekend to EigenD 2.0.64. Playing Tau with strummer and Kontact. Amazing fun!
Oddities that I have noticed: pull-off goes to higher note rather than lower. Fun, but odd. Sliding fret hand up the instrument seems to have excessive damping, versus a smooth slide of notes in the other direction. Hammer-on has abnormally long note bend transition time, followed by a repeated bending of the note when same strum key is played again with same fretting key.
Can I fix these without workbench? How to proceed? Has anyone made interesting modifications to strummer setups for sharing, or example videos?
All-in-all exciting development. Thanks EigenLabs.
Hi Jaself,
You can fine-tune a lot of the Strummer behavior in Workbench: http://www.eigenlabs.com/wiki/2.0/Strummer/
However, most of what you describe sounds like behavior of the actual software instrument that you're using. Strummer merely sends notes and pitch bend messages to whatever instrument that receives them. A few work well out of the box, but most of them need additional tweaking to the instrument itself by looking over its options. The repeated bending in particular is very common in sampler instruments where hard velocities are actually artificially creating pitch bends. Out of curiosity, which software instrument and version are you using?
Best regards,
Geert
Hi Geert,
I am using Kontact 5 (Komplete 8). I selected Jazz Guitar from the instrument list where I remember you selected a harp sound in your video tutorial. For the most part, it seems to work great. Beautiful sounds and fun to jam with.
This is my first use of Kontact, so I have much to learn. Would using the harp instead make the difference? I will try it tomorrow.
The pull-off behavior seems a simple programming error. The interval is correct magnitude but wrong direction.
Hi,
I just tried the experimental Tau strummer setup that ships with EigenD with Kontakt 5 and both of the Jazz Guitars that it ships with. It work perfectly fine. Did you configure the AU/VST correctly? This is explained on this page: http://www.eigenlabs.com/wiki/2.0/Configuring_AudioUnit_and_VST_plugins/
There need to be four instruments in your multi, each on a different MIDI channel and with the pitch bends changed to -12 and 12 each time. Then you need to go into the Routing Matrix configuration to set the pitchbend calibration also to -12 and 12.
This should get it working for you.
Best regards,
Geert
Geert,
Yes, I just checked all 4 instances of the Jazz Guitar configured in Kontact with my copy of the Tau Experimental Strummer setup. All have the pitch bend at maximum (-12 and +12) in agreement with the overall AU setting in EigenD, as you instructed in the video.
It mostly works great!
Hammer-on bends up as expected. The surprise comes on the next note with the same fret/button. Instead of the expected simple note, there is a one-time whine of bending down to the note. I thought at first it was a repeat bend, but the note starts higher than expected and bends down. It is more pronounced with larger fret/button intervals. Muting the note or pausing before the next note does not matter.
The effect I interpret as pull-off bend comes from button yaw, releasing a fret/button with side pressure. I expect the pitch to drop to that of the next fret/button, but it rises instead. The magnitude of the pitch change is the correct number of semitones. The next strum gives the correct pitch for the fret/button.
The strummer is fun to play and brilliantly promising.
Jaself, that's not what happens for me. Please send your setup to customerservices@eigenlabs.com and I'll have a look at it. When I simply create 4 instances of Jazz Guitar with the said pitch bend ranges, the pull-offs bend the note down as expected.
Other though though, are you sure that you're not hitting your keys a bit to the side and cause a real pitch bend to happen? This is still active for each key, so you can easily hammer on/pull off while bending by having roll information on a key.
Geert, thanks for the help. I found the error affecting pull-off. It was mine. Sorry about that. I had set the pitch bend range down setting to +12 instead of -12 on all 4 instances of Guitar. I looked but I couldn't see the difference until after I had created several new strummer setups with different instrument sounds and compared how they played.
The issue with hammer-on remains and is present with all instrument sounds that I have tried so far: Jazz Guitar, Harp, and Marimba. The note following a hammer-on on the same course has the same twang (bending down) as I noted earlier. Doesn't seem to matter which key within the course. Any ideas?
Hi Jaself,
I see what you mean with the little twang. I'll have a look at how to best solve this. What's happening is that for the hammer on, EigenD sends a pitch bend that corresponds to the distance of the note you hammered on. The next note that's played regularly, the pitch bend is set to 0 together with a new note number. That is being interpreted by Kontakt as a fast slide from the higher pitch to the pitch you're playing. I'll have to experiment with different ordering of things to see if Kontakt behaves differently.
I'll keep you posted,
Geert
Hi Jaself,
I found a fix for this issue which should be in the next release of EigenD. Thanks a lot for letting us know about it!
Best regards,
Geert
Thank YOU, Geert and EigenLabs. Eigenharp is already amazing and fun to play. Your commitment to innovation and service with improvements big and small is deeply appreciated
Hi Jaself,
EigenD 2.0.68-stable is now available and contains the fix for this issue. Please let us know if it fixes the fast-slide problem with Kontakt and Strummer that you were experiencing.
Best regards,
Geert
Thank you. Just downloaded it.
Yes, that pretty much fixed it. Thanks again for great support
I still get some interesting whistles with the jazz guitar and marimba (the only ones I have tried so far), but I don't think of it as a problem. It's an interesting effect that happens with very special timing of near simultaneous slide and strum.
I am having so much fun with this that my fingers are beginning to ache. :)
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