MOTUnation.com

http://www.sonicstate.com/news/shownews.cfm?newsid=7045

Several people have asked at various times how to get a good pedal steel guitar sound either in a ROMpler or a sample library.

I myself gave up and bought a cheap but reasonably well-made lap steel guitar last December.

At any rate, here now is a dedicated Virtual Instrument for pedal steel guitar -- though apparently in GVI format, which is now a dead end.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! And it "Runs on Windows XP as VSTi plugin or Standalone mode using your ASIO drivers." I'm gonna go get me one of them thar XPert comuter thingys, yes I am.

Amazing! And their freaking sneaky pop ups are MOST unwelcome!

But I could use a nice ped. gtr. on my next film... Maybe I'll just have to hire real musicians...

GVI format is a dead end? When did this happen?

I'm downloading the free version now - love these free demos.

The zither sounds great too.

I think we're going to see a rush of GVI/Giga-type stuff for a few months. The question is whether these "new" instruments can be successfully converted to other formats easily enough. If mapping is as problematic as it often was with converting Akai format, then it's probably not worth it-- unless one is 1- willing to get into GVI with no known recourse for tech support in the foreseeable future and/or 2. the instrument in question is rare, pretty darn good, and desperately needed right away so that the risk of getting into GVI is worth the risk come January.

On that note, pedal steel is indeed one of those instruments you just don't see everyday. How portable or convertible is GVI format to Kontakt or MachFive? I've never worked with GVI, but if it's straight-up GIGA format, I could work with it.

David Polich wrote:GVI format is a dead end? When did this happen?

RIP GIGA:

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30188

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30183

Okay, I guess I'm late to the party, then (or should I say, the wake..)

Actually, it makes sense to me. I felt the demise of Gigastudio was coming
since two years ago. They were just too late in updating to 3, never mind 4.
I had the second version of Gigastudio and have never encountered such
a skittish, buggy app in my life. The drivers were abominable.

Maybe the primary reason for their demise, however, was that Kontakt came along and kicked their butts. It did everything Gigastudio did, except that it actually worked. And it opened just about every format.

David Polich wrote: Maybe the primary reason for their demise, however, was that Kontakt came along and kicked their butts. It did everything Gigastudio did, except that it actually worked. And it opened just about every format.

Some programmers just can't conquer the code. The semi-anti Mac thing with Giga in general seemed insurmountable for them.

I've since been reading more about Sonivox and how they "came late to the table and finished early", doing what Tascam could/did not. Just makes one wonder... I'm keeping my eye out for what Sonivox does because part of their frustration was that Tascam was so slow about getting the Mac version done-- among other things PC-related in GS3 and GS4.

"you gotta know when to hold them and know when to fold them".

They say you must lead, follow, or get out of the way.

One good thing I must say about Tascam-- they got at least one of those right!

Mark Belbin, who produced that pedal steel library, has said in other forums that he is working on putting out "probably" a Kontakt format version of the pedal steel library due to the demise of GVI. Only it will take some time because the instrument was really created with the GVI unique features and filters in mind.

And...the library comes with its own GVI player...so while TASCAM has discontinued the player and format...it is not like the GVI player that comes with the pedal steel will stop working. The only problem will most likely be when the next version of the windows OS comes out AND if you have to use that new windows OS. As long as it is used on an XP or Vista machine...one should be good to go for the next couple years or as long as your system OS stays the same. And beyond that if one has to upgrade in a couple years...there will be another pedal steel format version that customers can cross grade to.

I had totally forgotten that Ensoniq "got it right" with some of these instruments that have unique playing styles. It's good when software vendors finally start picking up on some of these playability elements.

seasiderecording wrote: Use the pitch wheel to bend up (or down). Only the keys being held down will bend in this mode. The ensoniq ts series did this.

Well every time I bend the pitch wheel the damn thing breaks off!

Seriously, Ensoniq really had some great patches for their samplers. I liked the brass stuff that would growl at the touch of a button or smooth out or fall with another button combo. Nobody has really matched that, even though the sounds themselves have improved.

Frodo wrote:I think we're going to see a rush of GVI/Giga-type stuff for a few months. The question is whether these "new" instruments can be successfully converted to other formats easily enough. If mapping is as problematic as it often was with converting Akai format, then it's probably not worth it-- unless one is 1- willing to get into GVI with no known recourse for tech support in the foreseeable future and/or 2. the instrument in question is rare, pretty darn good, and desperately needed right away so that the risk of getting into GVI is worth the risk come January.

On that note, pedal steel is indeed one of those instruments you just don't see everyday. How portable or convertible is GVI format to Kontakt or MachFive? I've never worked with GVI, but if it's straight-up GIGA format, I could work with it.

I made my own FANTASTIC pedal steel patch in reason and have used it on several albums...
It can be done..

Ya know, in some ways I kinda miss that old Ensoniq sound myself. It was grainy and metallic but charming in its own way and had lots of vibe.
The Roland D50 was another synth that sounded cool in that way, even though the PCM samples were lame compared to what we have today.
I had a VFX SD and also a TS-10. Miss them both.

I run VI's on my PC so I downloaded the free version of the Wavelore
pedal steel. If it doesn't work well hey I'm not out any money.

The crazy thing is, I saw a beta version of GVI running on a Mac over one year ago at an AES show. It was running full orchestral libraries. It looked to me like it was almost ready. I can't understand why they nixed it.

Not to stay O.T. for long, but the August edition of Sound-On-Sound has a rather scathing review of Gigastudio 4, raking them over the coals for not really fixing anything.

Of course they were diplomatic about it, but mostly due to how much they like Gigastudio as an overall product -- that magazine does not mince words when they think a product is awful. The criticism of GS4 has more to do with how puny an update it is.

Of course GVI is not GS, which adds to the mystery, as GVI seemed like a fresh code base that wasn't burdened with legacy problems and bugs.

The death of Gigastudio is finally public today, after being announced in various forums over the past few weeks. Sonicstate features this announcement in their news blurbs today. GVI isn't discussed in-depth.

Anyway, back to the Pedal Steel Guitar, I look forward to Dave Polich's review. He spent a great deal of time helping Yamaha Motif owners to better understand (both through voice programming and through playing technique) how to get a good pedal steel guitar sound from a ROMpler, so if anyone can get the best out of this new VI, it would be him.