Evolution Electric Guitar Stratosphere - AVAILABLE NOW!!

[Gregjazz]

“Stratosphere is the best guitar library I’ve ever used for leads. The interface is intuitive and quick—customization is a breeze. Superb.” - Bill Evans, Executive Producer/Engineer, Flying Colors (Steve Morse, Dave LaRue, Mike Portnoy, Casey McPherson)

“What a BADASS instrument! It sounds terrific. The GUI is intuitive and everything is really clear.” - Pieter Schlosser, Composer (additional music for Gears of War 2, Gears of War 3, The Sims 3, Friday the 13th, Desperate Housewives)

"My friends all think I'm joking when I tell them the guitar on my songs were played by me on a keyboard. The new Orange Tree Samples Evolution Electric Guitar - Stratosphere is simply amazing. Pitch bends, vibrato, and strumming are a breeze.” - Robert Williams, Drummer (Captain Beefheart, Hugh Cornwell)

When we introduced our line of guitar sample libraries in 2008, it represented a stunning leap forward in sampled guitar realism. Today, you’ll find the Evolution line of guitars and basses in final productions of numerous movie and television scores, trailers, games, even pop hits. Evolution Electric Guitar - Stratosphere represents the fifth generation of the Evolution guitar engine and incorporates refinements that provide unparalleled realism and more intuitive play.

For example, Stratosphere has an intuitive, powerful strumming pattern editor. We felt it was important to make something that represents strumming better than the traditionally-used step sequencer approach, so we came up with a more powerful system that’s fast and easy to use. It gives you control over which strings get strummed, the direction of the strum, and the speed of the strum. Plus, you can use many articulations within a single strum pattern, and even incorporate special effects like string slaps as part of the pattern.

Next, all the factory presets are available directly inside Stratosphere’s interface, meaning that you can see the preset name at all times as well as use convenient arrow buttons to scroll through the included collection of factory guitar tones and strumming patterns.

Evolution Electric Guitar - Stratosphere comes with a robust guitar effects engine, including a vast collection of over $8,000 of modeled guitar pedals. Additionally, you have selectable guitar cab sizes with several options for microphones and mic placement. All together, you have a comprehensive guitar effects suite at your fingertips without external guitar effect processors necessary to get amazing-sounding tones.

But don’t just take our word for it, let your ears decide.

Audio Demos:
Demo #1: Wayfarer
Demo #2: Infrablue
Demo #3: Squad Car
Demo #4: Time Traveler



Key features:

• Multitracking up to quadruple tracking.
• Adjustable pick position using our proprietary physical modeling technology.
• Various vibrato styles, from classic vibrato to rock and metal vibrato with adjustable depth/speed. Vibrato can be assigned to MIDI CCs or aftertouch.
• Powerful mapping system that lets you set how you want to trigger articulations, using conditions such as velocity ranges, MIDI CCs, latching and non-latching keyswitches, and more.
• Built-in strum pattern editor for authentic guitar strumming.

Sampling specifications:

• Over 10,000 samples, recorded in 24-bit, 48khz.
• Articulations such as sustains, half palm mutes, full palm mutes, mutes, squeals, tapping, natural harmonics, plus special effects such as chugs, scratches, string slaps, and much more. The articulations amount to 144 unique samples per note, although because each string was sampled individually, in certain cases there are many more based on your ability to play the same note on different strings.
• MIDI articulations for instant upward/downward grace notes, buzz trills, whole-step slides, whole-step hammer-ons, slides (velocity-based and tempo-synced), octaves, and powerchords.
• Legato samples for slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs.
• The articulations have 3 dynamics, 2 pick directions (when applicable), and 2x round-robin.
• Modeled pickup selection for bridge, bridge + middle, middle, middle + neck, and neck pickups.

Pricing:
$139 USD (regularly $179), instantly downloadable purchase. This $40 OFF introductory discount expires on January 31st, 2015.

Format:
Due to the extensive scripting, this sample library is available in KONTAKT 4 / 5 format only. The sample library requires the full retail version of KONTAKT 4 / 5, so it is not compatible with the free KONTAKT Player.

Downloads:
User's Guide (PDF)

Visit the product page here: Evolution Electric Guitar - Stratosphere sample library for KONTAKT

Or you can click here to order Evolution Electric Guitar - Stratosphere directly

[bigcat1969]

Grats on a truly impressive instrument.

[BERFAB]

Great Demos. Sounds like another excellent product.

Other than the intro pricing, will there be any other crossgrade discounts for those of us who already own the other Evolution products?

Cheers
-B

[lingyai]

Congratulations, having read the manual and watched around 6 of the videos you're just posted on youtube, I am so impressed at how much thought you have put into this. And, having listened to the demos, and owning several of your libraries, I know they will sound pretty much best-in-class. So I am quite likely to fork out for this for Xmas.

Having said that, a general observation and two specific questions..

Observation:

The videos I've watched (except for the one where you just shut up and play yer guitar ) are all telling and no showing -- over the 15 minutes or so which I've watched, you give great, detailed descriptive walk throughs of menus and sub-menus, but we never hear a note. Things like the dynamic morphing, among others, would be great to see in action. We do of course hear the instrument in the audio demos, but it is impossible to know how you have reached those sounds.

Now, I can imagine that you are keen to get the word out before Xmas, and so simply haven't had time to do any demo (i.e. walk-through) videos, which could probably take quite a while to produce given the number of features. But I hope you will eventually.

For one reason, as a likely customer, they'd be great guidance (as the manual is on the sparse side); I know we can explore for ourselves, but with so many features, an overview of some of them in use, e.g. strumming, would be nice.

For another reason, as an Orange Tree Samples supporter, I offer the idea as marketing advice. I think the videos leave too much to the imagination. This might not matter to people who already know the quality of your libraries, but newbies might get impatient with the "prose-only" videos.

My 2 cents anyway, only well-intended.

Questions:

--How easy / time-consuming is it to achieve something as nice and dynamic sounding as the lead guitar in your demo tune "Time Traveler"? Are there presets which can sound like that, or close to it? I can't see what if anything you have tweaked. It's great that you give the user control over so many parameters, but sometimes I am too time-pressed / frankly lazy to explore all options to sculpt a sound.

--Some guitar libraries, like RealGuitar, are -- despite the lack of top sampling quality -- great for non-keyboard experts to strum a repetitive pattern with because, they do not require precise timing, i.e. when in latch mode, if I change the chord before the next beat,it will wait until the start of that beat to start playing. Whereas I've seen another library which would start playing the pattern whenever the chord changed, meaning if your keyboard timing is off, the original pattern ends abruptly and the new one starts just as abruptly, and no longer in sync. I could always program the midi to fix the timing, but it is not fun to play. I hope this is clear. Basically I'm asking, how klutz-proof the rhythm patterns are to play?

Anyway, I wish you a lot of success with this.

[bill45]

What is the dowload size? Do we to set Daw project and interface sample rates to 48k?

[kbaccki]

Just watched the youtube video. Me wanty.

[kbaccki]

Oh and when is that horn library due?

[Gregjazz]

Other than the intro pricing, will there be any other crossgrade discounts for those of us who already own the other Evolution products?

There'll probably be a competitive crossgrade discount (like Strawberry/Steel Strings currently have) after the introductory discount is over. Also, the Evolution bundle has been updated to include the new Stratosphere guitar.

As for updates/crossgrades between Evolution guitars, I don't have anything set up currently. Eventually it might be nice to do something like FabFilter does, where the prices are based on what you already own.

What is the dowload size? Do we to set Daw project and interface sample rates to 48k?

The download size is around 2 GB--it uses Kontakt's lossless NCW compression, so it's nice and compact.

As for the sample rates, I believe Kontakt should convert it for you, whether you have your DAW set at 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96khz, etc. I haven't done performance tests, but I guess setting your DAW at 48khz (which is what Stratosphere's samples are at) so that no sample rate conversion is necessary might improve performance.

The videos I've watched (except for the one where you just shut up and play yer guitar ) are all telling and no showing -- over the 15 minutes or so which I've watched, you give great, detailed descriptive walk throughs of menus and sub-menus, but we never hear a note. Things like the dynamic morphing, among others, would be great to see in action. We do of course hear the instrument in the audio demos, but it is impossible to know how you have reached those sounds.

Good point--the current videos are pretty utilitarian, just quickly describing how everything works and how to use each control. I'd like to make additional videos that go into more depth on how to practically apply the strumming patterns, chord modes, etc., when writing guitar tracks, with more playing/listening during the videos. Someone also suggested doing a video playing through all the factory presets, which would also be valuable.

For one reason, as a likely customer, they'd be great guidance (as the manual is on the sparse side); I know we can explore for ourselves, but with so many features, an overview of some of them in use, e.g. strumming, would be nice.

Yeah, the manual is pretty much a reference guide. It covers what every control on the interface does and how to use them, but doesn't really go into applying them when writing guitar tracks. There are a few tips and tricks interspersed in the manual, but videos would probably be a better medium for conveying those anyway.

--How easy / time-consuming is it to achieve something as nice and dynamic sounding as the lead guitar in your demo tune "Time Traveler"? Are there presets which can sound like that, or close to it? I can't see what if anything you have tweaked. It's great that you give the user control over so many parameters, but sometimes I am too time-pressed / frankly lazy to explore all options to sculpt a sound.

I should mention that the MIDI files as well as all the presets used are included with EEG Stratosphere (they're in the "Demo Songs" folder).

What I did for all the guitar tracks, including the leads, is to start out with one of the factory presets and tweak them as needed. That could be small changes to the tone, and also adding articulations mapped to keyswitches, for example.

Then I record the guitar track in through my MIDI keyboard. Actually, ALL the guitar tracks in all the demos were played in through my MIDI keyboard.

I usually do a little quantizing after recording. In the case of the leads, I spend more time tweaking articulations, punching in places that I'm not happy with, etc.

--Some guitar libraries, like RealGuitar, are -- despite the lack of top sampling quality -- great for non-keyboard experts to strum a repetitive pattern with because, they do not require precise timing, i.e. when in latch mode, if I change the chord before the next beat,it will wait until the start of that beat to start playing. Whereas I've seen another library which would start playing the pattern whenever the chord changed, meaning if your keyboard timing is off, the original pattern ends abruptly and the new one starts just as abruptly, and no longer in sync. I could always program the midi to fix the timing, but it is not fun to play. I hope this is clear. Basically I'm asking, how klutz-proof the rhythm patterns are to play?

The timing of the pattern is based on when you press the strum pattern key to initiate the pattern. With that key held, changing the chords are pretty forgiving because they only change the notes strummed without changing the rhythm of the pattern. You don't have to worry about gaps between chords, while changing from one chord to the other, since the strumming remembers the last chord even after you've released it.

I usually slightly anticipate chord changes. It's almost like using keyswitches--it's fine if the keyswitches happen at the same time as the note, or slightly before, but if it happens slightly afterwards, it'll be too late to affect that note.

[BERFAB]

Is the strum engine for Stratosphere the same as the engines for EAG and EEG? If not, is there an upgrade contemplated for those?

Cheers
-B

[EvilDragon]

This is a new engine. EAG and EEG updates will be coming later.

[EvilDragon]

--Some guitar libraries, like RealGuitar, are -- despite the lack of top sampling quality -- great for non-keyboard experts to strum a repetitive pattern with because, they do not require precise timing, i.e. when in latch mode, if I change the chord before the next beat,it will wait until the start of that beat to start playing. Whereas I've seen another library which would start playing the pattern whenever the chord changed, meaning if your keyboard timing is off, the original pattern ends abruptly and the new one starts just as abruptly, and no longer in sync. I could always program the midi to fix the timing, but it is not fun to play. I hope this is clear. Basically I'm asking, how klutz-proof the rhythm patterns are to play?

This is a good point. Greg, sounds like input quantize might be a good option (have it available at 1/16, 1/4 and 1 Bar).

[Gregjazz]

Ah yeah, just to make sure the strumming patterns start exactly where you want them to. That wouldn't be too tough to add...

[Gregjazz]

Here's a run-through of all the factory tone presets included in Evolution Electric Guitar - Stratosphere: http://youtu.be/Jc73va5hsQU

[bill45]

Thank s Greg,These presets sound great.Some of the best overdrive sound, i've heard from a guitar vsti.
The flangers, and wah presets sound real good too.Did you get the wah sounds via automation or auto wah?
Can you post some hi gain clips through revalver. I'd like to hear how it does long sustained notes and chords
and fast repeated notes and chords.

[Gregjazz]

The wah is just set to an automatic speed, but you can automate it to a MIDI CC to manually control the wah pedal. That's what I did for the wah guitars in the demo song Squad Car.

Do you have any particular ReValver presets that you'd like me to try?