Steinberg Virtual Guitarist 2 User Manual

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Low Cut
To avoid frequency masking between your guitar tracks and other 
tracks in the mix, it is often a good idea to slightly reduce the low fre-
quency content of the guitar signal. 
By turning the Low Cut knob clockwise, you move the highpass filter 
cutoff frequency from 0 Hz up to 800 Hz. When Virtual Guitarist 2 is 
used within a complex mix, the best position is somewhere between 9 
and 10 o’clock. At higher positions the sound will become thin and ar-
tificial, but we’ve provided this option for creative sound design.
Dynamics
The dynamics control is used to increase the amount of random vol-
ume and tonal change per beat, similar to a real musician who just 
cannot deliver perfect dynamics.
Presence
A presence dial is found on most guitar amps, and its function is to 
emphasize the upper-mid frequencies of the sound spectrum. Turning 
it upwards from the neutral middle position increases the bite, while 
turning down produces a warmer guitar sound.    
						

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Timing
One of the great advantages of Virtual Guitarist is that the timing is al-
ways perfect and reliable. However, given that these two words are 
rarely used to describe the timing of a real guitarist, Virtual Guitarist 2 
also allows you to add some slight timing variations to make the guitar 
track sound slightly more human. To alter the timing of Virtual Guitar-
ist, you can adjust the timing dial to set a timing deviation.
The maximum timing deviation is very modest and will hardly be audible 
if only Virtual Guitarist 2 is playing. However, in conjunction with other 
tracks, especially those that have been quantized, it will become clearly 
noticeable. 
Inversion
This control changes the playback parameters of the guitar recordings 
to produce a sound variation without effecting pitch, effectively 
changing the scale length or body size of the guitar. Play around with 
this control to make Virtual Guitarist 2 sound unnatural but interesting.   
						

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Shuffle
The Shuffle parameter adjusts the feel of the performance of Virtual 
Guitarist 2. Technically speaking, Shuffle allows you to move the off-
beats of a bar to an earlier or later position. Turning Shuffle to the left 
moves the offbeats earlier, turning it to the right makes them later. You 
can get Virtual Guitarist 2 to play exact triplets by setting Shuffle to
-100% or +100%.
Shuffle on the Play Page and the Depth parameter in the Groove sec-
tion on the Riff Page are actually the same control.
If your music has a mostly triplet-based rhythmic feel, Virtual Guitarist 
will sound better if you set shuffle to a slightly lower value than 100%.
Stereo Width
The Stereo Width dial controls a DSP effect that sets the stereo width 
of the output signal. With the dial in the normal position, the sound re-
mains unchanged. If the dial is set to the full left position, it produces 
a monophonic signal, and if it is set to the full right position, the stereo 
width is increased using a comb filter effect.
Sound engineers will be happy to note that the stereo width effect of 
Virtual Guitarist 2 is fully mono compatible.    
						

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Track Doubling
In a recording studio, guitar tracks are often doubled as another way 
to enhance the stereo image, and to produce a richer sound. To do 
this, the guitar player must record the same track twice onto two se-
parate tracks, which are panned left and right.
Virtual Guitarist doesn’t need two recordings to achieve this. Simply 
activate the Doubling switch and, as if by magic, two guitar players 
will play in unison.
The doubling feature is not a DSP effect like the stereo width feature 
because Virtual Guitarist literally plays back two different tracks. This 
means that the doubling produced by Virtual Guitarist sounds exactly 
the same as the conventional, but more cumbersome, doubling method.
Be careful not to overdose on stereo width and doubling. It might be 
tempting to let each guitar track sound rich and fat, but it can lead to a 
bad final mix.
Latch Mode
With latch mode On, Virtual Guitarist will play Parts continuously from 
the moment you play the first key until you press the stop button in 
your host application or play the A# (Latch on/off) remote key.
If you only want to play a lick here and there, set latch mode to Off and 
Virtual Guitarist 2 will only play while the keys on your MIDI keyboard 
are held.   
						

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Fret Noise
When a guitarist moves from one hand position to another, the hand 
slides over the strings and frets creating a squeaking sound. This fret 
noise is an important part of a natural guitar sound. Virtual Guitarist 2 
gives you control over the fret noise in your track. Select Off to disable 
automatic playback of fret noises when chords are changed. You can 
still add fret noises manually by playing C# in the Remote Range.
The Riff Page
On this page you can adapt existing grooves and rhythms, freely edit 
Parts and Fills in the Macro Groove Display and set the micro timing 
with the Groove Settings.
To switch to the Riff Page, click the Riff tab at the top of Virtual Guitarist.   
						

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The Riff Editor
The Riff Editor display shows a timeline of the two channels of the 
currently selected Part or Fill. It is designed to function like a mixture 
of a wave editor and a piano roll editor. The beige waveforms show 
the pitch, position and length of each individual slice in the Part or Fill. 
Parts are always one bar long and are constructed from several indi-
vidual Slices marked by the light blue, vertical lines. You can move a 
slice’s position by clicking the light blue triangle on the top. The verti-
cal position of the waveforms represents the true pitch of each slice in 
semitone steps relatively to the current root note.
Under the Riff Editor display you will find a white line showing the 
progress of the Part while Virtual Guitarist 2 is playing.
Key Follow
When the Key Follow button is active, any Part or Fill played via MIDI 
will automatically be selected in the Part Browser and its rhythmic 
structure will be shown in the Riff Editor. Turn Key Follow off to man-
ually select the Part you want to edit.   
						

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Changing the Timing of Individual Slices
The timing of all individual slices in a Part or Fill can be changed by 
dragging the timelines left or right. Click on the light blue triangle on 
top of the insertions to drag them.
When you move a slice and it overlaps with another, Virtual Guitarist 2 
automatically removes or shortens the previous slice to maintain a 
realistic Part.
Part Selection Menu
The name of the currently selected Part is displayed here. Click the 
down arrow to bring up a list from which you can select all Parts and 
Fills of the current Style. The first 16 entries are the default Parts and 
Fills, the last 16 are empty. They can be freely edited and are saved 
with the Style. You can for example select Part 3, copy and paste it to 
Part 9, and then freely edit it. Part 9 will be triggered on C2. In this list 
Fills are marked with an asterisk (*) and for every Part there’s one par-
ticular Fill. You can also rename Parts here: double-click the name 
and type in a new one, pressing [Enter] to confirm your change. The 
new name will also appear in the Parts browser on the Play Page.
Slice Selection Menu
When you select a slice by clicking in the Riff Editor display, its name 
is displayed here. Click the down arrow to bring up a list where you 
can select from all slices of the current Part. These Slices include 
stop, body, mute, and fret noises. If you own a wheel mouse, you can 
also change a slice by pointing at it in the Riff Editor display and using 
the scroll-wheel of your mouse.   
						

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Multiple Slices
You can select two or more slices for one position in a Part when 
checking the Multiple Slices option. Virtual Guitarist 2 will then alter-
nate randomly between these while playing. Alternatively you can hold 
the [Shift] key down while selecting Slices from the menu, which 
automatically activates Multiple Slices.
Decay/Pitch/Amplitude
Decay
Click and drag up/down to adjust the selected slice’s decay. You can 
also use the decay tool for this (see below).
Pitch
Click here to bring up a list where you can set the selected slice’s 
pitch relative to the root note in half tone steps. Alternatively, you can 
use the pointer tool to change the slice’s pitch (see below).
Amplitude
Click and drag up/down to adjust the selected slice’s volume. You 
can also use the volume tool for this (see below).
Grid Display
The Grid parameter refers to the different shades of blue displayed in 
the background. Use grids to let the time lines snap to a certain rhyth-
mic structure. Change the grid structure here, if you want for example 
let the timelines snap to a triplet based (Shuffle activated) timing.   
						

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Tools
Click on one of these buttons to select the corresponding tool, de-
scribed below. Right-click (Win)/[Ctrl]-click (Mac) a slice and keep 
the mouse button pressed to audition it.
Mono / Stereo
You can change a Part’s channel configuration by switching between 
mono and stereo mode. The mono setting will mix down both chan-
nels to mono, stereo will play the upper channel on the left and the 
lower on the right. Note that the doubling feature on the Play page af-
fects this setting. Virtual Guitarist 2 will only sound mono when dou-
bling is turned off on the Play Page.
Pointer
Use the pointer tool to change a slice’s vertical position and therefore 
its pitch by dragging it up and down in the Riff Editor display.
Volume
Use the volume tool to change a slice’s volume by clicking the slice 
and dragging up/down in the Riff Editor display. 
Decay
Use the decay tool to change a slice’s decay by clicking the slice and 
dragging up/down in the Riff Editor display. 
Mute
Use the mute tool to mute a slice by clicking on it in the Riff Editor dis-
play. Muted slices will appear grey. Click again to unmute.
Timeline
Use the timeline tool to add new timeline insertions to the Part by 
clicking at the particular position in the Riff Editor display. Of course 
new slices can be selected at inserted timelines.  
						

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Eraser
Use the eraser tool to delete a slice by clicking on it in the Riff Editor 
display. Delete timeline insertions by clicking on the light blue triangle 
on the top.
Copy/Paste/Clear
Use the Clear button to delete all slice and timeline information from a 
Part.
Here’s an example explaining the Copy and Paste function. Use this 
function to copy the information of factory Parts into empty Parts.
1.Select a Part from the Part selection menu or by activating Key Follow 
mode and pressing the corresponding key on your MIDI keyboard.
2.Press the Copy button.
3.Select an empty Part from the Part selection menu.
4.Press the Paste button to insert the copied Part content into the 
empty Part.
As soon as you fill an empty Part, it will be assigned to its particular key 
and its name will be shown in the Parts Browser on the Play Page.
Undo
Press [Ctrl]+[Z] (Win) or [Command]+[Z] (Mac) on your keyboard to 
undo your last step in the Riff Editor.