GuitarRig 4 wishlist

Yuletide is over and Santa's gone home, but here is my GuitarRig 4 wishlist:

Preset search (even more) à la Kore
Preset search was much improved over v2 in GR3, but I feel it still is much hit & miss, and you need to lay down quite a bit of work in library management routines to exploit it fully. Library management is booooring for most of us, so it is important to make this as quick & easy as possible. In the Kore video demos it seems much smoother than the manual search I can do now in GR3. I also want to be able to create my own keywords (my most used pickup setting isn't there now, for instance), and delete those irrelevant for me. A rating system with stars à la iPod would also be nice, and an optional ’hide all 1 & 2 star sounds’ would be a useful automated cleanup thing. Please incorporate this NI technology even better in our NI product as well.

A more 'fun' version of preset searching is to have some kind of jukebox where you go thorugh song titles for where there's specific GuitarRig presets made. Maybe you should filter this with the choice of guitar you have, i.e. if you have a Les Paul, then only the 'songs' made with that guitar will appear. GuitarRig is ideal for cover band guitarists, and as Dweezil Zappa demonstrated in his video it is a great study tool when trying to nail 'that' tone from a recording. Not least: some users are only looking to sound like their idol anyway. This would be a helpful tool / concept in certain situations, and more for some users than others.

VST hosting
Competition has it. Nuff said, really. (I have plenty of arguments for this)

Routing to more than a single stereo output (when available)
Surround guitar, separate mix for monitor and FOH, one signal with metronome, another without. . . Lots of professional applications for this, and some just adventurous.

MIDI command component
MIDI implementation must be much improved, but this topic has been raised by so many now that NI must have taken notice, so I don’t bother. A MIDI command component would be entirely ’dummy’ in that it produces no sound, but it would be a command pad and a visual cue when you want to switch amp channel on your real amp together with your preset, trigger some external VST or otherwise do something MIDIish in tandem with your GuitarRig preset. In the future RigKontrol will send MIDI commands out its MIDI socket, and GuitarRig will broadcast MIDI commands to its host as well. Sure! Again, they will have to since the competition is moving away from the idea of exclusive playgounds like the GR/RK combo is now.

Exchange component button (or menu option)
GuitarRig have many variants of the same effects (i.e. seven distortion stomp boxes etc.). It would be nice with a ’Quick compare’. Looking up and dragging in other variants of the component you’re working on, and turning knobs to make the new one sound comparable takes time and is distracting. Instead, with this you could choose related components from a list and it would just pop in, ready with settings as-close-to the one you’re working on as possible. Such a ”try a differnt” function is novel, productive and can be a great creative inspiration.

Shred-o-matic Instant gratification push button for great guitar sound
I suggested this as a joke after listening through the entrants in the GR competition on YouTube, but it was actually only half a joke. Building a sound in almost any environment now requires quite some skills in reverse engineering, i.e. you have to de-code the sound you have in your head and translate it to amp model, tone settings, modulation type, delay time etc. – and it can (actually it will!) take your mind off the musical vision you had in your head entirely. A couple of large dials or even some matrix UI with more associative sound describing terms could be great sometimes to get away from this very technical process. Want ”punch” or ”air”? ”Dry” or ”Spacious”? ”Grit” or ”Smooth”? etc. Personally I love retro sci-fi designs but here it must appeal to the shredders; it's a shred-o-matic!

Rhythmic delay
I love the sequencers in GuitarRig (but could we have numeric input on the sliders here as well?). What about coupling it with delay. The delays in GR sound fine, but very exciting they are not. I’d love to dive into handcoding echoes; make a panogram and rhythm patterns. The sequencers are already an established interface so why not make a similar interface for programming up to 16 individual echoes.
- I’d like to see a simple ’ducking’ button on the delay component. Ducking (or ’dynamic’) delay can be made with help from the Input modifier now, but it’s not intuitive.
- I would want a simple loop function, i.e. an instant infinite loop while the button is in.

The looper have been adressed by many others. One thing I’d suggest is that when the Looper is in synch with the metronome (or external clock), you could pre-set a given loop length, i.e. 4 – 8 – 16 bars and so on, and it would trigger without hitting any button at that exact moment at all.

Simplified display for live use
The Live view in GR3 is a step in the right direction. I wish for an even more simplified interface with even more contrast (bright bold fonts on black background), larger fonts visible from a larger distance (can anyone see Live view from more than 2 meters?). Mini PCs are becoming powerful enough for GuitarRig now, and these small screens (8 – 10”) only need very clear graphics to be ideal for playing on stage wihtout your face hidden in the screen.

Another display thing is to modify the 'stack' concept a little, since most users do have widescreen monitors (more or less). Input and output sections could perhaps be moved to the left side, leaving the main column / stack for actual effects only, with more of them visible on an ordinary screen without scrolling.


The obvious stuff:
- Loopmachine anywhere
- Better pitchtracking, heftier pitch based effects (aka harmonizing)
- Numeric input is vital on timebased effects. Once upon a time not long ago all you could do with computers was to enter numbers into them. Now NI has taken that away when we need it! Stop being silly.
- Tuner display on RigKontrol


Others have made great suggestions here for ”GuitarRig 4”. I support many of them although I don’t mention it on this ’wishlist’ of mine. Also ideas here are inspired by others.

Cheers!

 

Lots of great ideas there, i give the obvious mention of a harmonizer a big thumbs up, the preset searching ideas sound excellent, and widescreen interface layout options would rock my 30" monitor's world. But even more than them...

oooooooh yeah. due to very limited space at home I rarely have my footpedal attached to the pooter, but loop machine is my number one all time favourite composition tool of all time, and trying to start and stop loops with the mouse is a real drag. this feature would be utterly excellent.

some optional way of bouncing the metronome to a looper track might be nice too. I set the metronome up to play kick and closed hats to give a (admitedly rather dull) drum track to play to rather than generic blips. keeping a reference of this in the sound files of all my little musical ideas would be handy. oh, and being able to save a bit of text with loops too, so we could keep track of what setting were used on tracks, notes about how to play it, inspiration and ideas behind it, bpm etc.

and a way to modify the volume and pan settings of recorded tracks, and maybe selectively remove them, rather than only being able to delete the last one.

 

How about a simple checkbox marked "Save patch with loop" so when you re-load the loop in two weeks time all the effects and settings are restored with it.

And obviously another marked "Load patch with loop" so you have the option to load loops without changing your current settings.

 

nice idea, but have the patch for each layer saved, not just the current patch when you save, so you could have your nice clean left rhythm and your crunchy right rhythm, your high gain lead, and the couple of wibbly wobbly fx layers all saved in and viewable in a little listbox of layers, with preset names where available if the user hadn't tweaked any settings. that would mean that you wouldn't really need the tickboxes.

 

a Dynamic Delay (ala 2290 would be cool).
Amp wise i'd want more boutique stuff as opposed to commercial amps.. since Revalver and others have covered the mesa and marshall gainers.. would like something similar to all the plexi clones floating around there... or perhaps an actual proper plexi. and perhaps some proper bogner amps too...

Pedal wise, more choruses, and more boutique OD pedals. No distortion boxes, the current selection is fine.

Rack wise, a decent verb (with modulation), Definately a H3000 type unit,

I'm not sure. Lately i realised that i don't really use that stuff that much, atleast for live stuff. Mostly just an OD, amp&cabs, and delays.

I guess an updated cab module, a more advanced matched cab module (bit more tweakable, and more cabs available). The IR thing that peavey does is cool, but i don't neccessarily need it in GR, unless it's implemented in a more powerful way.

I think what i'd REALLY love though, is a customisable LIVE view... so we can add info (setlist, notes,etc.) have the tuner visable on it's own section regardless of loop machine or metronome.

 

I would still like to see a tuner IN the Rig Kontrol. That would make me upgrade in a flash.

It would be so easy. The tuner could be one of those cheap $10 digital ones you see in the music shops. It wouldn't have to tune perfectly. If I need a better tune, I can look to the screen. But for quick on stage tune ups, as reference tuner built into the Rig Kontrol would be amazing.

I mean, the digital screen can show me and E an A etc. Just add 6 little lights that look just like the level meters on the RK3 right underneath the LCD screen, and we're in the money.

Also, I love the matched cabinets, but I hate the fact that we've only got the 57 and the Senn as options to toggle. A little drop down to the side of the mic image that would let me choose the Nuemann etc. would be stellar.

 

you know what would be cool? on the RK unit, LCD screens ontop of the buttons, which would tell you what they're assigned to. along with a lcd screen that tells you the preset name along with the number.

couple that with Jays idea of the tuner on the rk, and you don't need to look at the screen for anything... which would be ideal if you didn't want to look geeky and have a laptop open on stage.

Naturally this would increase the price of the RK unit, but quite frankly, since i'm using my laptop and rk3 to replace my amp and rack rig, i'd be willing to shell out the extra bank for those nice extras.

Oh, and more buttons would be handy... four is good, but with the snapshot feature and wanting to switch stuff on and off along with snapshoting... it would be nice.

 

As for the RK4, I like the idea of the lcd screens. I would like expandability. Many people have asked if they could plug in 2 RK2s and have them both work. I say why not? I don't want the size of the rig kontrol to get any bigger, since it currently fits perfectly into my laptop bag. But I do want more switches and expression pedals. so how about the ability to plug in multiple rig kontrols?

one more thing...3 knobs per swtich for more control while editing your tone live. As soon as you drop in an effect it automatically assigns the first open switch and 3 knobs to a default setup, i.e. Mezone gets volume, mid, distorition. if no switches are open, then no assignment.

 

I mean, the new Maschine is EXACTLY what I'm looking for from Rig Kontrol 4.

Another great revenue stream for NI in these tough times is an extension box for additional footswitches. A small black box that can be connected to RK4 and it has 4 additional footswitches. Make it really thin and low profile so it doesn't add to much bulk.

Slap a little NI sticker on it, charge us a hundred bucks, presto! I'm sure making a switch box like that wouldn't cost too much for NI and the numbers could be easy to deal with production.
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Honestly, I think if NI can make GR4 better than what we have now sound wise, they will be at the top of the class when it comes to amp modeling. And guitarists looking to make the jump to the digital realm can bear the brunt of the cost of replacing their heavy tube amps.

4 knobs right beneath an LCD screen exactly like Maschine. Perfect.

The one thing I need quick acsess to is the amp Treble/Bass/Volume/Gain. 4 knobs.

I also need to adjust my stomp box,
Tone/Gain/Volume/(X parameter)

 

How about a distortion like Anderton's old QuadraFuzz where the signal was split into 4 frequency bands and each could be distorted individually. Add that to GR modulation capabilities, and I could see some pretty wild tones coming out.

In general, I think we have enough emulation of existing pedals. I want stuff that's new.

edit: And vst hosting. pleeeeeeease.

 

Hmmm. I'm not sure about the VST hosting. Really? How could it work with the UI? and then we'd get into stuff like importing presets like Kore.

It's a bit of a burden it would seem.

 

Other guitar sims can do vst hosting. The burden is solvable, it seems

 

Hahaha... I guess I didn't mean it so much as I meant doing VST hosting in GR would require a certain UI overhaul. Probably changing the way I see GR now.

 

You can already do this, using the Frequency Split component. You need to have a couple of splits inside splits to have four independent bands, but yeah I have done it with great result; some massive 'walls' of distortion where there's still definition in the bass (I use a 'dry' distorion type in that band) and not too shrill (I use a 'soft' distorion in the up-most band). Where you dial in your transition frequencies will play a great role.
Darn - I just gave away my secret
In GuitarRig you can have five or eight band distortion if you like - or any other effect melange.
It can be done now, but I think it should be easier, so I agree with your request! Why not just choose how many bands you want in the Split Component, instead of resorting to splits inside splits - it becomes really messy. Simplifying things is a good wish for GR4 I think. The same goes for having some dedicated 'Ducking Delay' controls on the deley component(s), as I mentioned initially. You can create Ducking Delay now using a combination with a modifier, but it certainly isn't obvious.
As for VST hosting - what will NI prefer? I buy say Peavy Revalver, and run GuitarRig as a plugin inside it, or: I use "GuitarRig 4 with VST host capability" and run Revalver as a plugin inside the NI product. The host is the visible one, and will be concidered the top tool for most.
GuitarRig "Standalone" should mean "all you need for playing guitar on your computer". It shouldn't imply "isolated one" even if it nearly rhymes - as in "I won't cooperate with anyone else". Today "all you need. . " includes the possibility of combining the best from your plugins.

 

all it really needs to be is a tiny module with a dropdown to select the plugin from those that are installed on your system and a button to open up its interface. you could maybe add a few simple things like level to send, level after send, and maybe some more fancy stuff like wet/dry mix, panning and whatnot, but it'd be very very simple from the ui perspective.

 

indeed revlaver MKIII has it, and it's awesome being able to use my favourite compressor, distortion, or other plugin. THere are allot of great guitar plugins that are free (lots of distortion boxes, a tube driver, the wagner preamp) and that are great to use with amp sim softwares. It's not hard.. i think though NI didn't originally do it because of the potential for bugs. I don't think a UI overhaul would be required... since the Revalver one is simply a rack module which loads up the plugin, has input and output controls, and a button to open up the plugin GUI.

I'd like the ability for the RK4 (if they do one) to be able to send midi messages to other softwares... sucks that it only does GR3....

 

Ahhhhh... I've never used revalver. This option sounds really interesting.

 

Revalver III is a lot better sounding then GR3 too!

Although GR3 has more options on terms of 'extras' & of course the Rig Control itself.

They should collaborate and make an Über Amp simulator software package...

 

-"DIEZEL VH4" Amp Please !

-When you have 2 Cabinets with Delays, One Mic can take the other Cabinet in accordance with the distance between the Cabs.
(Like The Edge)

 

amp sims:
Diezel VH4 & Herbert
Peavy 5150 or 6505
Engl Powerball

FX:
another synth module similar to a boss bass synth
a custom wah(so one can tailor to the personal specs)
Harmonizer
Pitch Shifter

anything that could improve latency issues that i have not yet discovered.