Using AmpleSound VSTs

[Cartman1337]

Sorry if this has been asked and answered before, but searching for "ample" gives thousands of hits on "sample", so it's difficult to find.

I recently purchased AmpleSound's Ample Metal Eclipse VST, to get a more realistically sounding guitar sound in my tracks, and oh my, does it help! I'm pretty sure its functionality is similar to their other plugins, so if you have one and know about that, it might be transferable to this one too.

I noticed that it works differently with OpenMPT than other instrument VSTs I've tried. For instance, the volume column does not actually control the volume from the instrument, but rather the length/frequency of the guitar stroke, which is actually really cool, but takes some getting used to.

But that made me wonder if other effect-commands might work differently with it as well? Does anyone have any experience with it? And does an OpenMPT Module project offer different opportunities than an IT project? Would be cool if you could control hammer-ons, stroke noise and other effects with other commands.

[Saga Musix]

All VSTs are equal to OpenMPT. If note velocity behaves differently for this plugin, then that is because of how that plugin treats it, and OpenMPT's module formats have no influence over that. You will have to study the plugin's MIDI implementation chart (if it has one) to learn how it responds to different MIDI messages.

[Cartman1337]

I found this in a manual:
4.2.2 Metal
Abbr.    Full Name                Keyswitch    Range
Sus    Sustain & Artificial Harmonic          C0       C1-C5
LS    Legato Slide (Poly Legato)          C#0       C#1-C5
HP    Hammer-On & Pull-Off (Poly Legato)       D0       C1-C5
SIO    Slide In from below & Slide Out downwards    D#0       D1-C5

Can these parameters be put into say the Zxx Macro Configuration? How would I go about defining a D#0 there? It seems the # key is not accepted.

[Saga Musix]

You can simply trigger them with regular pattern notes. Octaves may be off by one or two depending on the scheme they use, so if C-0 does not what you expect it does, try C-1 instead for example. If you don't want to trigger them with regular pattern notes, you can also send them as MIDI macros, e.g. 9c z 7F to trigger a note-on at full velocity, with the Z parameter designating which note to trigger.

[Cartman1337]

That's interesting, but I don't quite understand how that works. If I enter C-1 or C-0 in the pattern note for the instrument, won't it try to play C-1 or C-0? This particular instrument doesn't go below C-3 as far as actual notes goes, but that's besides the point I suppose. If I wanted to play say D-3 with the C-0 sustain, how would I enter that in the pattern?

[Saga Musix]

The manual goes into a bit more detail on page 8: https://www.amplesound.net/en/Main_Panel_Manual-AMH.pdf

Keyswitch is D#-1. When D#-1 is before a note, subsequent note will be Slide In. When D#-1 is
during a note, Slide Out is triggered whose velocity is determined by D#-1. Articulation will
revert to Sustain when note end

D#-1 is most likely D#0 in OpenMPT.

You enter those notes like you would enter any other notes in the pattern. There is nothing special about them, the only special thing is what the plugin makes out of them.

[Cartman1337]

The manual goes into a bit more detail on page 8: https://www.amplesound.net/en/Main_Panel_Manual-AMH.pdf

Keyswitch is D#-1. When D#-1 is before a note, subsequent note will be Slide In. When D#-1 is
during a note, Slide Out is triggered whose velocity is determined by D#-1. Articulation will
revert to Sustain when note end

D#-1 is most likely D#0 in OpenMPT.

You enter those notes like you would enter any other notes in the pattern. There is nothing special about them, the only special thing is what the plugin makes out of them.

If anyone can be helped by this, I finally figured it out by dragging a MIDI from the instrument over to OpenMPT, something I didn't realize was possible before I saw someone do it in a YouTube tutorial. The correct octave for the instrument to trigger with OpenMPT is 2, so a D#-1, D#0 or D#1 did nothing, but D#2 does. Kind of makes sense, I suppose, since the instrument only plays from C3 to B7 (I think), but now I can finally put it to some better use!

In the mean time, during all my trying and failing, I've also learned some new tricks with macros, which will also come in handy going forward.