GR4, impressions?

the Ultrasonic sounds different to me, it had this great Meatal Sound in GR3 and now in GR4 it sounds ...unfat?... especially with palm muted fast rhythm strokes...
Can anyone else hear this?

 

Agreed. I think playing metal rhytms sounds fater and more true to a amp in guitar rig 3 =/

 

I have noticed the difference in volume levels... that's the first thing I had to do with all my presets. Import them into GR4, set the cab to non-GR3 mode and then re-learn the cab and the preset volume... I personally think they sound a lot better, but only once you've optimized the volumes... If the volumes are low - it loses a lot of the "bite"...

 

well, I just bought it.

What I couldn't get past was how much fun it is!. Not that I didn't already have good sounding sims, but this adds to my collection.

Probably the number one selling point is the control room. It's simply beautiful, and with amps/dist/etc the possibilities seems endless. I demoed it from pretty close to the moment the demo was released and never tired of it. I did a/b comparisons to many AT/ik sims I have and found it really has a place in my selection (very hard to do without saving btw!)

If NI still only had the full version (with the rig) I probably wouldn't have been interested (I like my soundcard as is) but at 199 usd, it's not going to put a big dent in the wallet.

So I'm on board

 

Been playing with it for about 2 hours. It's leaps and bounds above GR3. Much livelier, more realistic sound. Responds better to how hard or soft you play. Amps and well as cabs have been improved.

My ONE COMPLAINT. The advanced control knobs are difficult to see. It's the all silver color. The old knobs were black and white and easy to read at a glance. The new ones you have to really look at to see. Plus the background to the knobs is checkered by really small pixels. That a sure way to make a viewer get dizzy.

EDIT: OK a second complaint, maybe this I just haven't figured out yet. Any way to keep the metronome, tape decks, gate and limiter off? Every time I start up Guitar Rig they pop up again.

 

Been playing for 20+ years now.
I've had so much fun playing with this my finger tips are actually sore... not been like that for many moons
I have got a great Rammstein sound coming along, using the tape decks as a reference.

And yes to widescreen option as I have a 40" screen with a small image in the middle :/

 

In demo mode they are going to come up as the plain/default every time. As a now proud owner (big smile) I cannot delete the tape decks or metronome, I can however "close" them with the little minus sign and it comes back up that way when restarted

 

I have a fully registered version. Even if I delete, minimize, "close" whatever you want to call it, both tape decks, the metronome, and the preset volume come back full size when I first load up GR4 every time. Also the Noise Gate and Limiter are on every time.

In GR3 if you removed or turned off any of these items, they would not come back up when restarted. Very annoying, I never use any of them except for the preset volume.

 

I'm not getting these problems myself. If i delete the tape decks they stay deleted when i restart GR4 and the noisegate stays in the minimum position.

Are you closing the tape decks from the top panel by clicking on their icons?

 

I'm relative new to guitar (I'm learning right now) and I have to say that I notice a notable improve of the sound compared to Guitar Rig 3. More powerful sound, more rich. I really love this software, thank you N.I !

 

I'm with you, Scott. After stuffing around for hours I've decided I just can't re-jig my presets to emulate the ease of snapshots I've been using. It'll be GR3 live until they bring back snapshots. Bloody annoying, really. I wanted the GR4 feature to LOCK the tap delay button across snapshots...

Cheers, Bag.

 

Well I'm completely new to guitar rig, I wonder why they changed something like that?

I can't even delete the tapedecks or metronome at all, all I can do is minimize them, however they do stay minimized after doing that.

I wonder if this shouldn't be a technical issue question?

 

Yes I'm clicking on the icons in the top panel. They keep popping up.

Actually, I should clarify, in standalone mode it seems to be working properly, GR4 starts up the same way I left it. But in VST mode it starts up with the metronome, tapes decks, preset volume, noise gate and limiter all maximized and on.

Hey Hibidy, er dippy. Yeah I think a post in technical issues may be the better place for my question.

 

You blew my cover

:lol:

 

First impressions

I'm a long time GR user since 1.0 and I agree with many of the above first impressions:

PROS
* Much improved sound
- Better sounds faster -- I got some great sounds out of GR3 but spent many hours tweaking speakers, mic/speaker phase alignments (via distance and placements), amp internals like sag and variac controls, etc.
- Better sounding presets
- Better sounding matching cabs (I didn't care for GR3's matching cabs at all)
- Control Room is excellent and really brings GR incredibly close to the real thing
- New delays/reverbs/amps (while small in number) are nice additions

CONS
* Overall not pleased with the new interface
- Difficult to see settings, scroll bars, etc. due to overly dark colors, small typefaces, excessive highlight rendering, etc. (I HATE the dark scroll bars -- I have to lean forward and squint every time to grab them).
- Inconsistent mouse behavior -- single click to activate/expand in some cases, in other cases it does nothing and double-click is needed (e.g. selecting presets)
- Too easy to get unexpected results, e.g. adding too many of the same component to a rack when double-clicking a component's preset (in the side-kick lower pane) because selection focus on current component was lost after clicking on component's preset "drop-down" list (which no longer shows presets in-situ but only in side-kick pane -- I understand this will be addressed in an update)
- Everyone's favorite complaint -- removal of "X" (delete) from components (I personally always use drag-drop, but 100% agree this should not have been removed -- would be easy / not confusing to add back). Related: When dragging component "off" the rack, back to components list the cursor turns into the "Not Allowed" symbol -- obviously it can, and the cursor should display appropriately as it did with GR3.
- Non-descript component colors/appearance compared to previous versions
- Dislike over-use of orange color for highlighting components, etc. (versus white in GR3 or grey/blue in GR2) -- reminds me too much of the Hallmark card store during Halloween season

As I said, nothing new, just agreeing with previous posters.

Would love a preference to increase size of visuals as well as brightness, but I'd be happy just to see the brightness of GR3's UI return so I can forget about the UI and focus on the sound. I know dark/moody UI's may be all the rage in the designer world, but I imagine most of us sound hounds would prefer to expend our energies and efforts with our ears, not squinting with our eyes.

Cons/UI aside, I applaud NI for focusing on sound quality in this rev rather than just adding a bunch more amps and effects (the handful they've added are cool). Sure, I'd love yet even more amps and effects (e.g. more/better treble boosters and compressors to start) but the existing selection is already broad and solid. Focusing on the sound may have been risky (I'm in software marketing so I can imagine the debates about this decision), but it's EXACTLY what I was hoping NI would do, and what I believe will keep GR very competitive. Thanks NI! Now do please make those UI fixes in a 4.0x update pretty please.

 

So as a vst, cubase 5.01 , PC it comes back up that way I left it.

 

Definitely agree here, at first glance it looks cool, but over time it gets in the way of workflow and causes eye fatigue. GR3 was clear and simple.

While this was annoying at first, I understand why it was done. With the old "X" it was very easy to accidentally delete a component when you just meant to minimize it. With the new system, it's pretty much impossible to accidentally delete a component. Once we all get used to it, I think everyone will forget about the "X" button.

 

The only thing is that there is still the "Edit--> Undo" function in case that happened. And I would totally agree with you if there wasn't an Undo function...

That's just my thought. It seems like a strange function to eliminate...

 

The VST version does not have the edit/undo option. Also removing a component in the GR4 VST cannot be undone using the DAW/host's undo function. So the new system is necessary to prevent accidental component deletion when using the VST. I think people are missing the "X" only because they're used to it being there. Once you get used to the new system, there is really little difference, you'll forget it was ever there. Good benefit, small price to pay in my opinion.

 

Ahh.... I don't use it very much as a VST... That would be the difference for me... For me, I'm much more interested in the stand alone version and the live view setups and such...

Thanks for your clarification... I wasn't using the software in that way very much, but I can see your point.