Guitar samples

[Sylus101]

Greetings again!

So far so good, I've made a couple of simple bass beats, and snare hits that sound pretty good but I'm finding that getting a good sounding guitar is proving to be somewhat difficult.

I didn't like any of the stock stuff from the get go and have cropped a few other samples and where things seem to be falling apart is the timing.

For example, if I take a sample that has a sort of 2 beat, down-up guitar strum... the range of notes that sound decent diminishes quite a bit and playing anything close together is quite hard to get the timing right. I had to adjust the tempo just to get get a string of notes close together to sound decent and that would make just one pitch right and any others sound pretty far off.

So to the question, is this pretty much par for the course?

[bvanoudtshoorn]

Unfortunately that's the problem with using samples which are tempo-based. There are two ways around it - find non-tempo-based samples (for example, break your "up/down" sample into an "up" sample and a "down" sample), or use time-stretching. The best way to do time-stretching is with a sampler plugin like Kontakt (but look for another one, as Kontakt's probably overkill at the moment. ), although you can time-stretch the sample for every pitch you want to use it at. :?

[LPChip]

plugin like Kontakt (

OFFTOPIC: Barry you should consider applying for a job at Kontakt

[bvanoudtshoorn]

What can I say? It's probably the second-best purchase I've ever made!

Seriously, though, if you want realistic guitar sounds, you should take a look at some of the free samplers out there. I haven't used many, but here's a list of results from a quick search at KVR. Might be something in there that you could use, stylus101.

[Sylus101]

I'll be checking those out, but that's a pretty big list! Any off-hand recommendations?

And on doing time stretching, is that something that would be done inside OMPT or would I be basically creating individual samples outside first and bring in each note I need as individual samples?

BTW, at this point, I've been doing my cropping (and converting if necessary) using Audacity and have a few samples from Glooped.com and Breakbeat Paradise.

EDIT 1 - I've downloaded a few of the dll's and I'm struggling with how to use them. I'm not sure if they're supposed to affect a channel or just a loaded wav file and in either case I can't get them to play a loaded file or affect anything... I'll see what I can find for help on using them here...

EDIT - I get "stylus" so much... and there's a funny story about that. I'm programming for the Nintendo DS, so as anyone should know there is a stylus involved. There are a few programming functions that use the name Stylus and I often get errors from my compiler saying that "Sylus" is not defined...

[Dictator]

I've downloaded a few of the dll's and I'm struggling with how to use them. I'm not sure if they're supposed to affect a channel or just a loaded wav file and in either case I can't get them to play a loaded file or affect anything... I'll see what I can find for help on using them here...

I have never used samplers so I'm not sure if they work differently than VST:s. You must load the .dll into MPT plugin list first (plugin manager), then at the General tab you can add it to the current song. Samplers are effect plugins if I'm not mistaken, so then you load your sample to an instrument slot at the instrument tab and then select the sampler from the menu there. After selecting it, you can click the "editor" button and it takes you to the sampler's main screen. Then you can adjust the values and use keyboard to hear how it sounds.

So, they affect a loaded .wav file (which is added as an instrument in the song), not a channel. This is how it works with VST and VSTi plugins and this is how it should work with any effect or instrument plugin.

[bvanoudtshoorn]

Samplers are effect plugins if I'm not mistaken

Unfortunately, you are mistaken. Samplers function as instrument plugs.

...so then you load your sample to an instrument slot at the instrument tab and then select the sampler from the menu there. After selecting it, you can click the "editor" button and it takes you to the sampler's main screen. Then you can adjust the values and use keyboard to hear how it sounds.

Almost. You actually load your sample in the sampler plugin, not in OpenMPT at all. That is, the plugin is responsible for loading and playing back the sample, not OpenMPT. From there, you can adjust the values and use the keyboard.

Generally, you should apply instrument plugins to instruments, not to channels. (I also apply effect plugs to instruments, rather than channels, because it provides a lot more flexibility, IMO.) In the end, you'll have a system which works a bit like this:

<OpenMPT Instrument> ==contains==> <Sampler Plugin> ==loads&plays==> <Samples>

As opposed to what you have just with OpenMPT, which is

<OpenMPT Instrument> ==loads&plays==> <Samples>

I hope that makes sense... :?

[älskling]

I have never used samplers so I'm not sure if they work differently than VST:s.

In this case, a sampler is a VST instrument that's specialized in playing back samples.

[Dictator]

Thanks for the info, bvanoudtshoorn and älskling.

<OpenMPT Instrument> ==contains==> <Sampler Plugin> ==loads&plays==> <Samples>

Is it possible to make a "chain" like this... (not necessarily for samplers here)
<VST effect> =modifies=> <VST instrument> ==> <playback>

[LPChip]

Is it possible to make a "chain" like this... (not necessarily for samplers here)
<VST effect> =modifies=> <VST instrument> ==> <playback>

Its not possible to do this directly in OpenMPT, simply because midi information is only being sent to the first plugin in the chain, regardless if its a VST or VSTi.

Xlutop Chainer does however support this. Make sure to load in the VSTi version of the chainer. It doesn't matter that you start with a VST in the xlutop chain then.

Edit: fixed typo. Thanks for mentioning Dictator

[Sylus101]

Okay, ups and downs...

Played with a few VST effects and VSTi's (cool stuff) but the bottom line is that no matter what I do, no plugins appear to be allowed with the "player" (development library) I'm using... so back to straight samples.

Playing with Audacity, it appears to be able to make some pitch changes without drastically affecting the time of the wav. This is good, but it looks like I'll end up with several samples for any instrument that I need a decent range of notes for.

With the restrictions I'm under, would this be entirely normal or is there a final trick I might be missing?

[älskling]

it looks like I'll end up with several samples for any instrument that I need a decent range of notes for.

With the restrictions I'm under, would this be entirely normal or is there a final trick I might be missing?

That's entirely normal. It's all about making compromises.

[Sylus101]

it looks like I'll end up with several samples for any instrument that I need a decent range of notes for.

With the restrictions I'm under, would this be entirely normal or is there a final trick I might be missing?

That's entirely normal. It's all about making compromises.

Well I dug around the VST Instrument thread and found the Slayer 2 demo plugin for so far the best guitar synth I've found. I've also learned something new in recording sound in that if I just play with the plugin and have audacity open and recording it can pick it up if set correctly. I think everything's gonna be alright.

EDIT - Found miniHost too!

[Sam_Zen]

Yep. MiniHost is a nice stand-alone tool to test VST's.
I found yet another application as wav-editor capable of handling VST's : Wavosaur

[Dictator]

Xclutop Chainer does however support this. Make sure to load in the VSTi version of the chainer. It doesn't matter that you start with a VST in the xclutop chain then.

You spelled the name wrong. Fortunately, I found it. It is "Xlutop", not "Xclutop". I tried another chainer also (Acon Digital Media Effect Chainer, couldn't find any other freeware), but when I play a note, there is an error and MPT sets it to "bypass".

EDIT: the Xlutop chainer works, however. Thanks for mentioning it.