Steinberg Virtual Guitarist 2 User Manual
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ENGLISH Virtual Guitarist English 51 The phaser effect—as the name suggests—is created by adding a phase shifted signal to the original. Modulating the phase shift amount creates the typical swirling. Unlike the flanger or chorus, the phaser just adds movement without making the sound thicker. The quickest way to get the right phaser setting is to match the Speed and Depth controls to each other. The Depth control determines the sharpness of the effect. A slow phasing with a high Depth setting cre- ates a beautifully swirling space effect, while a high Speed setting with a lower Depth setting creates a “harmonic vibrato”. Flanger A Flanger produces a whirling, glassy sound. It is created by slightly delaying the effect signal, modulating the delay time and feeding a portion of the effect back to the input to sharpen the effect. Proceed as follows to set up the Flanger: 1.Use the Speed control to adjust the modulation speed. Higher set- tings make the Flanger sound like a vibrato. 2.Now turn up the Feedback (FBK) control until the effect has the de- sired contour (from subtle to glassy to sharp swirling). Chorus As the name suggests, a Chorus seemingly multiplies the signal, livening up the sound, making it wider and thicker. The principle of the Chorus is similar to the Flanger except for the fact that the modulation is unsynced for the left and right channels and the pre-delay time is longer making the Chorus fatter and less glassy. Proceed as follows to set up the Chorus: By matching Speed and Depth to each other, you can create a wealth of effects. As a rule of thumb: The higher you set Speed, the lower you need to set Depth and vice versa, otherwise the detuning becomes too strong. A high Speed setting creates vibrato-like effects.
Virtual Guitarist 52 English Detune This effect is a relative of the chorus. The main difference is that it pro- duces two steady pitches (lower on the left, higher on the right), whereas the chorus varies the pitch up and down. The Detune effect thickens like a chorus without any unwanted pitch-modulation, but by using extreme values, you can make the guitar sound very unnatural and out of tune. Tremolo Tremolo (also called amplitude vibrato) is commonly used to liven up clean or slightly overdriven sounds. It was most popular before Cho- rus became an alternative and it is typical for many classic songs – “Bang Bang, he shot me down…”. Programming the tremolo is pretty straightforward: You can only con- trol Speed, Intensity and (Stereo) Width. Unlike traditional hardware tremolo effects this one can be synchronized to the song tempo. This allows you to use it as a “Chopper” effect, e.g. for Metal guitars. Delay The Delay unit combines three types of a delay. It creates all types of echoes and delays from ultra-modern space effects to dusty, shim- mering 70ties delay clouds.
ENGLISH Virtual Guitarist English 53 Proceed as follows to set up the Delay: 1.First select the effect type with the effect switch. • Mono: The signal is repeated at the interval set with the time knob. • 3 tap: A delay with 3 separate circuits, forming a complex rhythmic pattern. • Multi: This is the typical tape echo effect simulating multiple playback heads. Within the time interval the signal is played back by four separate tape heads. • Stereo: The echoes alternate between left and right in the stereo panorama 2.Set the delay time with the Time knob. When Sync is deactivated, the display unit is seconds. 3.The Mix knob determines the balance between the dry and the effect signal. 4.The Feedback (FBK) knob sets the number of delay repetitions (tech- nically this is the amount of the effect signal that is fed back to the in- put). Very high feedback values can lead to an increasing delay level and finally create distortion—this can be wanted, however, for dub or psychedelic delay effects. 5.Vintage controls the “age” of the effects unit (between ultra-clean dig- ital delay and worn-out tape echo). Higher values introduce a loss of frequency response accompanied by tape flutter, leading to a slightly detuned and less brilliant effect signal. Even pseudo reverb effects are possible. Reverb This device is a dedicated guitar reverb rather than a reverb unit for general mixing purposes.
Virtual Guitarist 54 English Set the reverb length with the Time knob and adjust the effect balance with the Mix control. You can equalize the reverb tail with the Tone knob. The sound gets duller turning it to the left and more bright and open turning it to the right. The most interesting control is the Type switch. It selects between three totally different reverb characteristics: Spring The typical spring reverb found in guitar amps. The typical metallic shattering is characteristic for the classic guitar sounds of the 50ties and 60ties. Plate The reverb plate effect common in the 70ties—a classic studio reverb covering a range of classic sounds from Philly to Deep Purple. Hall This is a neutral hall ambience. Use it for adding ambience, width and dimension rather than coloring the sound. FX Routing The routing of the signal through the chain of effects is shown in the FX Routing display. You can switch effects on and of by clicking their icons, and you can also change the order of the effects by dragging them around in the display. Activated effects are highlighted in the Routing Display.
ENGLISH Virtual Guitarist English 55 The Output Section The Output Section of Virtual Guitarist 2 allows you to choose be- tween several recording setups to polish the sound of your track. Our ultra realistic algorithms put you in the chair of the producer, creating recording conditions just like in a real studio situation. When you switch off the On/Off switch in this section, Virtual Guitar- ist 2 will sound “pure” and “unprocessed”. Speaker Cabinets Virtual Guitarist 2 has four types of speaker cabinets available which cover most speaker configurations used by guitarists and offer many possibilities to shape your sound.
Virtual Guitarist 56English The following cabinets are selectable from the drop down menu: Microphone Type The Virtual Guitarist 2 speaker cabinet is recorded using either a dy- namic or a condenser microphone. The microphone can be placed on axis, meaning directly in front of the speaker cone, or off axis meaning that it is pointed more towards the speaker edge than the cone. Click the blue triangle to bring up a menu from where you can select the following set-ups: The above microphone descriptions should be treated as a general overview. The many combinations of microphone and speaker types will give you a broad choice of tones for every Virtual Guitarist 2 Style. 1 x 12” A cab with a single 12 inch speaker 2 x 12” A cab with two 12 inch speakers 4 x 12” Four 12 inch speakers in a cabinet Radio Thin and buzzy radio speaker-like cabinet Option Microphone position Description Dynamic on-axis Dynamic microphone pointed directly towards the speaker cone of the cabinet.Produces a more cutting sound with an accentuated mid range. Dynamic off-axis Dynamic microphone pointed towards the speaker edge.Produces a slightly warmer sound than the above setting. Condenser on-axis Condenser microphone pointed directly towards the speaker cone of the cabinet.Produces a clearer less col- ored sound than the dynamic microphones. Condenser off-axis Condenser microphone pointed towards the speaker edge.Produces a slightly less bright sound than the above setup.
ENGLISH Virtual Guitarist English 57 FX Management Effect Programs When you load a Style in Virtual Guitarist 2, all effects settings for the Style are automatically loaded. In addition to this, Virtual Guitarist 2 can independently save and load Effects Programs which include only the settings for the FX Page. Virtual Guitarist 2 comes with 32 preset Effects Programs, displayed in the FX Page Browser on the right hand side of the FX Page. In ad- dition to this, a virtually unlimited number of user Effects Programs can also be saved and loaded. Loading Effects Programs Proceed as follows to load Effects Programs: •Double-click the Effects program name in the Browser on the right hand side of the FX Page, or select a name in the Browser and click the Load button at the bottom of the Browser.
Virtual Guitarist 58 English Saving Effects Programs Since a Style loads and saves its effects settings automatically it is not necessary to save Effects Programs for the Styles you create. Vir- tual Guitarist 2 however allows you to load and save Effects Programs that you find particularly useful. 1.Edit the FX Page settings to your liking. 2.Click the Save button at the bottom of the Browser on the right hand side of the FX Page. 3.Set a name and location for the Effects Program using the standard Save dialog. Be careful to use different names for your Effect Programs as files with the same names will be overwritten.
ENGLISH Virtual Guitarist English 59 Plug-in Version of the Effect Board The FX Page of Virtual Guitarist 2 is also available as a separate effect plug-in for the following formats: VST, DirectX, Audio Units. You can use this plug-in on any mixer channel in your host application, for example for your keyboards, vocals or drums tracks. The plug-in version offers all of the functionality of the integrated effect board. All knobs and switches can be remote controlled using any MIDI con- troller (see “Assigning MIDI Controllers in Virtual Guitarist 2” on page 62 for more information). You may have to assign a MIDI input to the plug-in in your host application. Effect presets created and saved in Virtual Guitarist 2 can be loaded into the effect plug in (and vice versa) via the Effects Programs Browser.
Virtual Guitarist 60 English MIDI Controller Default Assignments In addition to parameter automation by your host sequencer, many of the parameters of Virtual Guitarist 2 can be controlled by MIDI control- lers. The following table shows the assignment of Virtual Guitarist 2 parameters to MIDI controller numbers. Cc# Name Virtual Guitarist Parameter 1 Modwheel Trigger Fill 4 Foot Control Wah Pedal 7 Volume Volume 11 Expression Expression 64 Sustain Pedal Sustain Pedal 67 Soft Pedal Fret Noise 70 Fill (if assigned in setup) 71 Reso Doubling on/off 72 Release Latch on/off 73 Attack Tempo half/normal/double 74 Cutoff Stereo Width 75 Decay Decay 76Vibrato Rate Vibrato Rate 77 Vibrato Depth Vibrato Depth 78 Vibrato Delay Vibrato Delay 79 Dynamics 80 Low Cut 81 Presence 82 Inversion 83 Timing 84 Shuffle/Depth 85 Compressor on/off