INSTALLATION

Installation for use with Cubase is mostly straightforward. The installer program scans your disks for VST Plug-Ins folders and asks you to pick one of these for the two VST instruments. Then you must manually copy a large number (over 28,000!) of WAV files from the three CD-ROMs to your hard drive. Because of this large quantity of sample files it is essential to give the host application an extra helping of RAM.

After you have set up each Virtual Guitarist instrument in the Cubase VST Instruments you will open its editor window and select a Player. You will be asked to locate the folder containing the WAV files. Having done that, you will need to re-select the Plug-In in order for the files to be available. It's easy to overlook this step, especially if you're like me and don't always bother to read the manual. Once you've followed these procedures for each of the two Instruments, you're good to go.

Unfortunately, this is the case only for Cubase and (presumably) Nuendo. Logic requires that you download a helper application from the Steinberg.net support area and use this app to help Virtual Guitarist establish the location of its files. This process doesn't work for Digital Performer, though. I was told by Steinberg tech support that in fact the VST "wrapper" applications available from Audio Ease and others do not follow the VST specification properly (although I've found them to work with other VST plug-ins). This is clearly an issue to be investigated and resolved, since Steinberg's Virtual Studio Technology has become a de facto standard and should be supported 100% by all other software designers.

GETTING STARTED

Once you've installed Virtual Guitarist as a VST instrument in the host application, getting started with it is a simple matter of providing MIDI input to the instrument, selecting a Player, and routing audio to your outputs. Virtual Guitarist selects the proper chord voicings based on incoming MIDI notes, and these can be played from a MIDI controller in real time or pre-organized in the track of a sequencing program. There are two modes of chord recognition, using full chords or single-note input. You can discover quite a lot of useful (and fun) strumming and picking patterns even at this basic level, but there are deeper levels available.

WHAT IS IT REALLY?

Virtual Guitarist is a VST plug-in, an "intelligent" sample playback instrument designed to emulate the playing of rhythm guitar parts, on a variety of acoustic and electric guitars, in a variety of styles. It includes an enormous library of real recordings of guitar performances, parsed into fragments that are then intelligently played back according to selected tempo and the settings of various musical parameters. The recorded samples are not just single notes, but are bits and pieces of performed phrases that that have been parsed in a manner reminiscent of Propellerheads' Recycle. These individual strums, arpeggios, and riffs can "slide around" to fit a variety of grooves and tempi without affecting the natural quality of the recorded samples. The ability to do this requires an enormous library of WAV files and a nimble software architecture, and Virtual Guitarist delivers on both counts.

PERFORMANCE FEATURES

Virtual Guitarist consists of two plug-in instruments, emulating acoustic and electric rhythm guitar. Each instrument has a number of Players (14 acoustic and 13 electric) and each Player has eight variations (called "Parts") on its picking or strumming pattern. The range of sounds and playing styles is quite varied. To begin with, the source recordings were made with six different acoustic guitars (Martin D-35, Amalio Burquet nylon string, National Duolian resonator, etc.) and five electrics (Fender Strat and Telecaster, Gibson ES-335 and Les Paul, etc.). The playing styles are appropriate to the instruments, and range from arpeggiation and finger picking to various open and damped acoustic strums to driving R&B, Funky Wah-wah, and power chords.

The user interfaces for the acoustic and electric versions are for the most part identical, offering real-time performance parameter controls for Tempo (half, normal, X2), Shuffle (50-66.7%), Timing ("tight" to "loose" tracking adjustable over a 50ms range), Dynamics, Decay and an assortment of effects parameters to shape the tone of the instrument. Most of these parameters can be controlled via MIDI Control Change messages.

Live control is an essential feature of Virtual Guitarist. The eight well-chosen Parts within each Player are dynamically controllable by means of either MIDI Program Change messages or MIDI Notes. In addition to this "pattern shuffling" control, it is possible to trigger fills with the modulation wheel (MIDI Controller 1), or to induce syncopation by increasing the velocity value of the incoming MIDI notes (i.e. by playing harder). These interactive features give Virtual Guitarist a real hands-on fluidity that transcends the mechanistic quality that many auto-accompaniment programs inflict on the music.

Chord selection is made through MIDI note input, and there are two mechanisms always available. "One finger" mode selects simple major, minor, and dominant seventh chords when you play one or two notes. This method works pretty well, up to a point, though I expect most musicians will find it counterintuitive. A single note sets the root of a major chord. If you then play a second note below the first, the harmony will change either to a dominant 7th (white note below) or a minor (black note below). If you play both a white note and a black note below, the harmony will change to a minor 7th chord.

The second method of chord control is simply to play the three or four notes of the chord you want-play a major or minor triad, in any inversion, and Virtual Guitarist will play a major or minor chord. Play a major 7th, a sus4, or a minor 6th chord and Virtual Guitarist will interpret your intentions correctly, as long as you "play fair" and play all the notes of the chord in root position. Fancy inversions may lead to unexpected results. For example, if you play different inversions of the notes C, E, and Bb (C7 chord with the 5th omitted) you will get Bb7, Cm7, and Em7! This "creative" interpretation of the input notes is a result of the one-finger function taking control when you really don't want it to. Specifically, the C-E-Bb chord is interpreted as a Bb root (it's the top note) with a white note below (making it a dominant 7th). In the case of the E-Bb-C and Bb-C-E inversions the root is set by the C and E, and the presence of both a white and black note below sets the chord type to minor 7th. This feature may benefit from some redesign, so that the generally useful one-finger function could be an option rather than a default. The two methods just don't play nicely together.

Because loading the many files for a Player can take some time, and because not every musical style requires a full complement of chord types, Virtual Guitarist offers the option of three chord sets of different sizes. The Economy (ECO) set provides major, major 7th, dominant 7th, minor, and sus4. The MID set ads minor+major 7th, minor 7th, 7sus4, and diminished. The XXL set offers fourteen different chord forms, including 6th and augmented chords. Creative users may discover methods of expanding this harmonic pallet by layering instruments, for instance, a C7 on one instrument and a D triad on another adding up to a Cdom13#11.

HOW DOES IT SOUND?

The short answer is "very good," but the long answer is a bit subjective. The sheer variety of guitars, amps, and effects devices available in the world of music is a clear indicator that guitar tone is entirely a matter of taste, so it is incumbent on me to disclose that my weapon of choice throughout my career as a rock rhythm guitarist was the Gibson ES-335. I'm just not as big a fan of the edginess of most Fender tones, and Virtual Guitarist has Fenders in spades. The VG electric instrument does have its share of Gibsons, but even these have a tendency toward rasp rather than growl. Maybe that's your preference, and maybe you'd be happy with these tones right out of the box. I just know that I'll be postprocessing some of them to take the edge off. The acoustic Players, on the other hand, are jus' all right with me. There is a nice range of tones, and some clean and tasty playing. I've experimented quite a lot with dynamically shuffling Parts and I've been gratified by how closely I've been able to emulate my own playing style. An especially big plus is that fact that a lot of the included styles are far beyond my meager (and largely atrophied) guitar talents, so I can look forward to putting more energy into playing producer than to nursing my bleeding fingertips.

DOCUMENTATION AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT

The Virtual Guitarist manual, though brief at 50 pages, is clearly written in English, German, and French. Once I was up and running I was able to find answers to most of my questions with no trouble. My only real problem was getting the program to run in the first place, and this proved to be a compatibility problem with Digital Performer, and the manual made no reference to this problem but rather provided installation instructions for Cubase only. Once I installed a copy of Cubase the installation and operation was simple.

The resolution of my installation problems was delayed because I initially assumed that I was doing something wrong in the installation and didn't seek help immediately. Once I did reach out for help I was able to get on track rather quickly. Steinberg maintains a support area on their Web site at , as well as the customary telephone support. From the Web site I learned that there were some technical issues with non-Steinberg host programs, and after negotiating the telephone support labyrinth I was given the straight story about the compatibility problems. I also learned that I wasn't the only one with the problem and that Steinberg was receiving many calls from disappointed Digital Performer users.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

Virtual Guitarist can be a fun toy or a serious musical tool, depending on how much effort you put into learning its unique approach to generating rhythm guitar parts. The Wizoo/Steinberg team have built a solid technical infrastructure and this initial version includes a wealth of guitar sounds and player styles in its library. Some of these I like quite a lot. Others aren't quite to my taste, but to quote Jimmy Reed, "t'ain't no big thing." There is plenty to work with right now and plenty of opportunity for the sound library to grow in the future. RZ says, "check it out."

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