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What are best and most playable E-Guitar vsts? (With a rich, intense sound)

What really helps is running the audio through something like Guitar Rig 4. You can take an okay guitar vst and turn it into a great metal guitar using the right amps and effects.

For basic strumming, there is also Virtual Guitarist Iron and Rob Papen's RG. Both do a metal sound. Though I do like both MusicLab's RealStrat and OT's Dracus.
 
What really helps is running the audio through something like Guitar Rig 4. You can take an okay guitar vst and turn it into a great metal guitar using the right amps and effects.

For basic strumming, there is also Virtual Guitarist Iron and Rob Papen's RG. Both do a metal sound. Though I do like both MusicLab's RealStrat and OT's Dracus.

You can actually get arguably way better tones by using free plugins. Lepou amps + good IR's. But tonecrafting is indeed another rabbit hole...

I've seen a video on VG Iron and RG. I don't own them but from what I've heard there they seem to be more suitable for pop and way less suitable for what robdrmz is asking for. Or maybe for scoring where the guitar is the least focused instrument but some grit is called for. Same for RealStrat. Dracus, I really want to like it but I have not had a good experience getting it to play convincing doubletracked strumming rhythm. Fantastic clean tone though, it still has a purpose in my arsenal.
 
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You can actually get arguably way better tones by using free plugins. Lepou amps + good IR's. But tonecrafting is indeed another rabbit hole...

Dracus, I really want to like it but I have not had a good experience getting it to play convincing doubletracked strumming rhythm. Fantastic clean tone though, it still has a purpose in my arsenal.

Agreed, tone crafting IS another time leech. I have revalver & the sound is ok, not even close to the East West sounds. I really like the tone shaping MOR2 gives you. Selecting cabinets & mics then reverbs. I've worked in East West's studios so maybe I'm a bit biased.

The drumkits not so much. I use Slate drums currently.
 
Agreed, tone crafting IS another time leech. I have revalver & the sound is ok, not even close to the East West sounds. I really like the tone shaping MOR2 gives you. Selecting cabinets & mics then reverbs. I've worked in East West's studios so maybe I'm a bit biased.

The drumkits not so much. I use Slate drums currently.

My ears tell me MOR2 is way more orchestral focused, not too suitable for decent authenticity. Well, the leadwork is nice but that's about it.
ReValver HPSE is fine for leads/solos, but absolute rubbish for anything else IMO.

Drums are yet another rabbit hole. I personally feel like I've gotten great mileage out of Slate drums but its not for everyone. Most metal folk seem to trust either Toontrack stuff, some other samplers, or some more specific scope drum samples with NKI's.

Here's some of my small examples of what you can achieve. These will be made into full songs eventually but I think they make alright proof-of-concept clips.

Falling Down Excerpt (Nu Metal/Metalcore)
Funhouse Mayhem Excerpt (Rock)
Zombie Tragedy Excerpt (Rock)
Happy Djent Thing (Prog)
 
For heavy rhythm tasks the Uproar RAW has proven the most easy to use and fantastic result library. For more intricate (and even solo) work it's Prominy's V-Metal or the Orange Tree Sample stuff for me. Although I have to admit, the time it takes to program a decent and somewhat realistic guitar solo is ridiculous compared to a short call to your guitarist of choice and have it done live.
 
You can actually get arguably way better tones by using free plugins. Lepou amps + good IR's. But tonecrafting is indeed another rabbit hole...

I've seen a video on VG Iron and RG. I don't own them but from what I've heard there they seem to be more suitable for pop and way less suitable for what robdrmz is asking for. Or maybe for scoring where the guitar is the least focused instrument but some grit is called for. Same for RealStrat. Dracus, I really want to like it but I have not had a good experience getting it to play convincing doubletracked strumming rhythm. Fantastic clean tone though, it still has a purpose in my arsenal.
I was just using Guitar Rig as an example because I believe there is a free version. Though maybe it is an IK Multimedia one that is free. I have a few that came with other things I bought (bundled) so i don't remember which are free and which are paid for.

And? Some of the guitar vsts do come with amps and distortion, but most aren't that great to my ears.

Yes, RG and Iron are Rhythm guitars. This is true. But if you want a strumming pattern, I have had good luck with Iron. Not so much RG, but RG allows for more programming.
 
I was just using Guitar Rig as an example because I believe there is a free version. Though maybe it is an IK Multimedia one that is free. I have a few that came with other things I bought (bundled) so i don't remember which are free and which are paid for.

And? Some of the guitar vsts do come with amps and distortion, but most aren't that great to my ears.

Yes, RG and Iron are Rhythm guitars. This is true. But if you want a strumming pattern, I have had good luck with Iron. Not so much RG, but RG allows for more programming.

Ah! Good point about the free versions. Didn't think about that. Those in particular left much to be desired for me... but then again that's how the business model works. Not bad products and I have my own uses for them.

Yep, generally from what I've observed, the built in tone stuff with guitar VST's end up a bit mediocre for rhythm. My only exception is H7S' tone stuff. I was skeptical at first but it completely schooled me.
Overall mishandling of the freeware tone plugins has left misleading bad impressions to those who don't delve. They're definitely used in professional environments. I remember seeing a video or two with Andrew Wade using LePou amps.

Yeah, I shouldn't discredit the abilities of RG and Iron if I don't own them. Maybe I'll try them sometime if they have a demo, but I'm finding it difficult to believe I'd get much use out of them.
 
Here's some of my small examples of what you can achieve. These will be made into full songs eventually but I think they make alright proof-of-concept clips.

Falling Down Excerpt (Nu Metal/Metalcore)
Funhouse Mayhem Excerpt (Rock)
Zombie Tragedy Excerpt (Rock)
Happy Djent Thing (Prog)

Wow those are great, all shreddage huh? Does shreddage 2 have a chord engine like OTS evolution engine?
I need shreddage 2 to upgrade as you were saying.
My composer cloud subscription renews Monday & I want to buy a guitar vst before then.
 
Shreddage SRP is my go-to now. The Shreddage articulations engine takes 3rd party amp sims well and the SRP in specific is very versatile. Find a very good amp sim plugin that responds well to dynamics and you're good to go. Scufham S-gear comes to mind but nowadays i use the Waves PRS amps which replaced S-Gear as my go-to amp sim plugin. They're that good.
 
Can’t get past OrangeTreeSamples myself. Best of the best in my book. Huge selection, wonderful sound and amazing playability. IK amps sims are quite good as well.
 
Guitar is probably the easiest instrument to record for bedroom producers or small studio owners. Even the cheapest interfaces come with 1/4in inputs, some of which are Hi-Z, and there's a ton of amp and cabinet simulators out there.

If you find you're using a lot of guitar in your compositions, especially for basic chord progressions, you'll save a ton of time learning to play. I doubt it'll take more than a month practicing for 20 minutes a day to pick up power, barre and open chords, which you can just slap a capo on whenever you need to change keys. As a guitar player, programming MIDI guitar to get some feel into it seems like an absolute nightmare, so not only will you have better results it'll end up saving you brain power to spend on much better pursuits.

The money investment is less than most of these libraries if you already have an interface. Finding decent used guitars isn't very hard if you do a little digging. For amp sims, I haven't found anything even close to Scuffham S-Gear, but Guitar Rig 5 will do fine if you have that already from Komplete. I know some people like Thermionik for heavier stuff but I haven't had much luck with them.
 
Guitar is probably the easiest instrument to record for bedroom producers or small studio owners. Even the cheapest interfaces come with 1/4in inputs, some of which are Hi-Z, and there's a ton of amp and cabinet simulators out there.
As a guitar player, programming MIDI guitar to get some feel into it seems like an absolute nightmare, so not only will you have better results it'll end up saving you brain power to spend on much better pursuits

I appreciate your sentiment. Actually, I have quality studio gear. Great interfaces,pre's etc. You are right, playing blues progressions with a drop C Schecter thru a triple rec sounds great, I just can't play the guitar. My fingers just don't work. I've tried for years.

"to get some feel into it" build arragements, then hand them to my studio guys & mixing, for final production.
 
Wow those are great, all shreddage huh? Does shreddage 2 have a chord engine like OTS evolution engine?
I need shreddage 2 to upgrade as you were saying.
My composer cloud subscription renews Monday & I want to buy a guitar vst before then.

I'm actually not sure if it has a strum engine. I'm curious on that also. H7S does, though.

Honestly the chords I threw in the piano roll weren't even humanized when I rendered those clips and were still able to give that lively of a sound. There is opportunity to have these sound a bit better than what I showed you, being just WIP's. Humanizing notes isn't entirely necessary, but encouraged.

I messed a bit with Dracus and I felt like its chord features had my writing grind to a halt. Not that its bad or anything. I'm sure I'd find more usage if I messed with it more. To be fair, I'm very used to just throwing on MIDI and expecting most things to work right off the bat. I really appreciate it when libraries are built like this, which is why I instantly became a fan of Shreddage 2.

The clips you showed earlier did lean me towards recommending Heavier7Strings, Ample Metal Eclipse, or RealLPC. Worth noting that the last two are 6 string guitars and H7S is... well yeah. This is important to know for a ballpark estimate of how strong the low chugs will be. If you plan on doing such a thing. Generally a better idea with going for a 7 string than a 6 because just pitching a 6 down will result in loss of timbre. Not that it'll sound terrible, it just won't sound as good.

If you have a guitarist that can play your parts already, it may matter less how good the VST you choose is. But if you want one consistently good if your guitarist is ever unavailable, I'd say go with Shreddage 2 IBZ/SRP or H7S. Just my two cents from years of VST guitar experience.
 
If you want to hear the difference amp sims can make to a guitar library, I invite you to go to the Impact Soundworks site, go to the Archtop page, and listen to Brad Jerkins "The King and His Blues". In that piece Brad took the sound of the hollowbody and turned into the most amazing sounding blues guitar using plugins. I can't quite recall now what plugins/sims he had used, but I don't think it was any of the ones I've noticed here. So perhaps if he (@guydoingmusic) sees this thread, he might be able to offer some valuable tips.

https://impactsoundworks.com/product/archtop-hollowbody-electric-guitar/
 
Shreddage SRP is my go-to now. The Shreddage articulations engine takes 3rd party amp sims well and the SRP in specific is very versatile. Find a very good amp sim plugin that responds well to dynamics and you're good to go. Scufham S-gear comes to mind but nowadays i use the Waves PRS amps which replaced S-Gear as my go-to amp sim plugin. They're that good.
Do you use external impulse responses with PRS or what it comes with.
 
If you want to hear the difference amp sims can make to a guitar library, I invite you to go to the Impact Soundworks site, go to the Archtop page, and listen to Brad Jerkins "The King and His Blues". In that piece Brad took the sound of the hollowbody and turned into the most amazing sounding blues guitar using plugins. I can't quite recall now what plugins/sims he had used, but I don't think it was any of the ones I've noticed here. So perhaps if he (@guydoingmusic) sees this thread, he might be able to offer some valuable tips.

https://impactsoundworks.com/product/archtop-hollowbody-electric-guitar/

Really good guitar although I'm not so sure that's the kind robdrmz is looking for, given his examples.
 
Heavier7Strings is awesome, and i believe they are updating it to a 9string.

Common misconception. They are still doing updates for H7S but the 9 stringer will be a different product.
Due to mixed signals on ThreeBody's part, it is uncertain whether it will be a 9 string or 10 string.
Given anything past 8 is ridiculous, they may have intention to market it as both an electric guitar and bass. But that is speculation on my part since users have expressed interest in a bass product from ThreeBody. I appreciate lower strings, I like to have the option to go super low.
 
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