Perhaps the most sought-after sounds in VST world – besides orchestral instruments – are guitars. The idea of making a guitar track with keyboard is probably blasphemy when guitarists are asked, but then again guitars have been used for ages for controlling other stuff. And as Matt Bellamy has showed with his KAOSS Pad guitar, the line between ‘traditional’ and computer instruments is sometimes thin and even nonexistent.
Naturally I am not in possession of every VST guitar or guitar-related product released, but the following entry includes some of my experiences on the field. I shall limit my focus on different electric guitars only. For those unfamiliar with them, the VST guitars presented are basically unamped, although they do have a limited set of amplifiers of their own. In order to fully use them however, a VST amplifier like Native Instruments Guitar Rig or IK Multimedia Amplitube comes in very handy (yes, it is ok connect a VST guitar with a virtual amplifier). Also, all guitars I am about to talk about require Native Instruments Kontakt as platform (there is a special NI blog post in the burner).
By far the most impressive libraries when it comes to playing a VST guitar instrument are in my opinion made by Mark Belbin and Wavelore Instruments. Especially their two latest guitars, the Glide and Glide II slide guitars are breathtakingly good renditions of dobro and the kind of whiny blues guitar familiar from for example Chris Rea’s albums. A word of warning though: the company is known of being volatile when it comes to orders. Glide II was released several months overdue after a period of discontent and threats of legal measures by for example the author of this post. But when it comes to product quality, Wavelore delivers it like no one else.
The traditional electric guitar has been put in VST form numerous times. The problem with most of them is always the same: they do not have anything that could be called an intuitive interface (Wavelore shares this problem). Rather they are like a programmer’s wet dream: dozens of empty slots to be filled with numbers between 0 and 128.
I bet a Boeing cockpit has less variables than an average VST electric guitar. This pretty much takes the playing out of the instruments and replaces it with a number game. Added to this, the keyswitch jungle – often some two dozen switches – makes it basically impossible to ‘just play’ the instrument.
Having said that, the best electric guitar I have come across is probably the Strawberry Evolution Electric Guitar by Orange Tree Samples. Yes, the keyswitch jungle is there as well as all sorts of numerical adjustments, but overall the result is quite pleasing to one’s ear. With some extra time spent on setting the controls, the Strawberry Guitar comes pretty close to being an actual instrument instead of mere library.
Another approach is to pre-record guitar phrases and use them as sort of ‘loop instruments’. 8DIO has some interesting products in this category, including Songwriting Guitar, Progressive Metal Guitar, and Post-Apocalyptic Guitar. The two latter offer the possibility to use only selected layers from the pre-recorded riff so they are pretty versatile in forming guitar tracks.
But then again this is not you playing a VST guitar but more like arranging recorded music played by someone else. 8DIO is about to release their first actual playable guitar, Deep-Sampled Steel Guitar, but since there is little information on it available, I won’t say one word or the other about it yet.
All in all, VST electric guitars have taken several steps forward in the last few years. The sound and sampling part quality is not a problem anymore. The challenge for any future releases is definitely playability: the idea of actually inventing a new keyboard VST instrument based on traditional electric guitar. Whoever comes around with a go-to solution first may expect the profits to pour in.
Missing Sample 