Table of contents
Welcome to Virtual Guitarist IRON
Start Playing with Virtual Guitarist IRON1!
Installing to a different drive
Speech Bubble icon - About Page
I Have Questions! Where Can I Send Them?
Welcome to Virtual Guitarist IRON
Virtual Guitarist IRON is a software instrument doubling as a professional guitarist in a music studio, with you being in the producer chair.
Virtual Guitarist IRON focuses on Power Chords, the key ingredient of Metal, but
generically used for powerful sounding distorted rhythm tracks in almost every
genre of modern music.
Quick Reference
Start Playing with Virtual Guitarist IRON1!
Before we look at things in more depth, let’s first explore how to play Virtual Guitarist IRON, as that may be all you need for now.
The top half of the Virtual Guitarist IRON window is dedicated to the guitarist’s performance – in other words: How he plays. Here, you’ll find two musical core aspects you can control: Phrasing and Notes. The Interactive Keyboard is split between a Phrase Range (left) and a Chord Range (right).
The basic principle is simple:
- When you press keys from C4* upwards, Virtual Guitarist IRON will start playing a phrase with the chord determined by the notes you play. When you release the key(s), playback will stop.
- MIDI notes below C4 don’t represent musical keys but switches varying the phrasing of your player in realtime. This is a powerful way of making your performance more interesting and dynamic.
- By turning up the Modulation wheel, you can morph from normal to shorter to dead notes – another powerful way of varying phrases.
If you know these things and can switch presets, you know all you need to start producing with Virtual Guitarist IRON.
*C4 is one octave above middle C. The MIDI note number is 72. Some DAWs
refer to it as C5.
The actual guitar goodness of Virtual Guitarist IRON – the audio content - is
packed into a so-called blob file named VG_IRON.blob which is about 3 GB big.
You can keep the blob file anywhere you like (e.g. on a separate content drive).
During standard installation, it will be put into the following locations on your
main system drive:
OSX
/Library/Application Support/UJAM/IRON
Windows
/ProgramData/UJAM/RON
If you can not find "Program Data" you most likely have disabled the display of hidden folders.
Installing to a different drive
If you wish to install the blob file onto a separate drive, you can set a different content installation folder in the installer. Just click the “Change Install Location” button in the “Installation Type” page of the Virtual Guitarist IRON installer and point to your desired location. You can always change the location afterwards (see below).
Changing the content location after installation
You can always move the VG_IRON.blob file after you have installed Virtual Guitarist IRON:
- Move your file to the desired location (different folder or different drive)
- Launch your DAW and open Virtual Guitarist IRON. It will present you with a dialog asking for the file location. Simply point to the new location of the IRON.blob file – done
Menu Bar
Menu Bar
The top bar of the Virtual Guitarist IRON interface lets you load and save presets. It also contains important management functions from checking your trial status to contacting support.
Loading Presets
Preset Browser
A preset in Virtual Guitarist IRON is a complete setting of the entire plug including style selection and all control values. Here’s how you can switch presets:
- Advance to the next preset by clicking one of the arrows left and right of the PRESET name
- Click on the name of the current preset in the PRESET menu to open the Preset Browser (see image above).
As you can see, the Preset Browser is a clean, organized list of presets, categorized by simple musical terms.
Virtual Guitarist IRON ships with over 150 Factory Presets. Take your time exploring them, as this is the quickest way of getting an overview of what Virtual Guitarist IRON can do!
If you have freshly installed Virtual Guitarist IRON, there will be only Factory Presets. User Presets will appear once you have saved your first own preset.
Save / Save as ...
You can of course save your own Virtual Guitarist IRON presets. You can name them and assign a category too.
The difference between the Save and Save as ... buttons:
- Save overwrites the preset with the changes you just made.
- Save as ... lets you assign a name and a category, so does not replace the
current preset.
Factory Presets can only be saved using Save As ..., they cannot be overwritten.
Moving, renaming and deleting presets
You can rename, move or delete presets directly in your operating system. You will find Virtual Guitarist IRON presets in these folders:
Bell icon - Notifications
When you launch Virtual Guitarist IRON, it will automatically check for updates. If an update is available, the bell icon will be illuminated.
Clicking it will open a dialog that lets you choose whether you want to download the update now or later.
We built this mechanism to save you the pain of manually checking for updates
in order to stay current and stay current on the latest improvements of Virtual
Guitarist IRON.
Speech Bubble icon - About Page
The About Page is the place for information about your version and licensing status of Virtual Guitarist IRON. It is also a portal to other services:
Visit Product Site takes you to ujam.com with regularly updated news, videos, tutorials, and other helpful stuff.
- Contact Support lets you report problems and ask questions.
- Read User Manual opens this document.
- Acknowledgments – the people behind Virtual Guitarist IRON.
- License Agreement – legalese stuff for gourmets.
Interactive keyboard
The interactive keyboard is both a display of received MIDI notes and an actually functional on-screen keyboard. The left side of the keyboard doesn’t make any sound by itself. Here, you control the performance of the guitarist by switching between 34 different phrases. 11 of these phrases are set by the style, the rest are always available.
Interactive Keyboard
Common Phrases
The lower left of the MIDI keyboard (C#1 – B2) is reserved for a collection of so- called “Common Phrases”. These phrases are “hard-wired” and won’t change with the STYLE selection.
Common Phrases complement the Style Phrases by phrasings that are more generic and applicable to multiple contexts.
Phrases are what you make of them. Virtual Guitarist IRON lets you switch phrases in realtime without interrupting the performance. That’s a great way to create dynamic and interesting phrasings of your own. For example, insert Common Phrase #14 every now and then for a beat to add accents, or lead froma bridge to a chorus with a build-up.
Style Phrases
Keys in this area select phrases of the currently selected Style.
Phrases in the Style Range start with the lowest density/intensity on C3 and get
more agitated as you move towards Bb3.
You could generally work your way through a song going from left (intro, verse) to right (chorus), but of course this greatly depends on the style and your song. Just know you always have 11 different rhythms plus the common phrases at your immediate disposal.
The highest key of the Style Range - B3 – is the Stop key. In Latch mode,
pressing this key will stop playback (whereas the Silent Key - C1) will keep
playback going, just with an empty phrase.
Chord Range
Keys in the Chord range function like a regular musical keyboard: You start and stop the guitarist’s performance and you determine the notes played. It’s like playing keyboard, except that instead of notes you play rhythms.
Virtual Guitarist IRON creates a special kind of chords: Power Chords. These sound like full chords, but don’t consist of three or more notes as usual. Power Chords are two-note intervals that sound like chords because harmonics get added by the distortion produced in the tube amp, creating the impression of full chords.
Unlike other instruments, Virtual Guitarist IRON will almost* always play a two- note interval, no matter whether you play one or four notes. This is because three or more notes - when sent through distortion – would sound mushy and often unpleasant.
*almost ... because there are single notes in selected styles.
You can hear the original intervals clearly when you set the Amp to Clean and the Drive control to minimum position.
Fingering scheme
The schematic on the next page shows you which intervals you can play with Virtual Guitarist IRON.
Here’s how to read it:
- A black dot on the stylized keyboard means “required”, a grey dot means “optional” (for example, if you use the MIDI file of a synth pad to control Virtual Guitarist IRON)
- Chord displayed: The resulting musical chord as displayed by Virtual Guitarist IRON
Performance controls let you adjust the musical performance of Virtual Guitarist IRON to your song’s feel and tempo.
Perfomance Controls
Latch
When Latch is activated, once you press a key in the Chord range, Virtual Guitarist IRON will keep playing until you press the Stop key.
When Latch is off, Virtual Guitarist IRON only plays as long as you hold at least one key in the Chord range. Latch is convenient when testing or setting up sounds, and is more practical if you build a track by manually entering notes into your MIDI track.
on.
You can use an optional Sustain Pedal as a temporary Latch. Lifting the sustain
pedal unlatches any notes that are no longer held, even if the Latch switch is still on.
Speed
The Speed switch lets you halve (0.5x) or double (2x) Virtual Guitarist IRONs tempo relative to the song tempo.
This way you can extend the style range to 4th- or 32nd-note-based, or have Virtual Guitarist IRON styles play at normal grooves even if you use extremely low or high song tempi.
Swing
This function, often also called “Shuffle”, delays the off-beats. Virtual Guitarist IRON will automatically switch the Swing resolution to 8th or 16th note depending on the selected Style.
At maximum position, the off beat will have the same timing as the last note of a
triplet.
Use this control to match the timing of Virtual Guitarist IRON to a shuffled or triplet-based song.
Not all phrases contain 8th or 16th note off-beats. In these cases the Swing
control has no effect.
Feel
You can tweak the feel of your guitarist’s performance either towards relaxed or rushed using this control:
As you move the slider to the left, the player will play off-beats slightly earlier, leading to a rushed or driving feel.
In the opposite direction, off-beats will be slightly delayed, creating a laid- back or relaxed feel.
the off-beat drums (usually Hi-Hats or snares) as you turn the control. Feel has a stronger effect when listened to against other tracks. If you’re not sure what it does, try playing a drum loop along with Virtual Guitarist IRON and tweak the control. You will notice that the off-beats will play earlier or later than
To create advanced doubling, create two instances of Virtual Guitarist IRON, pan both extremely left and right, set different GUITAR and AMP settings and set the FEEL slightly differently.
Effect Section
Virtual Guitarist IRON features three guitar-typical on-board effects. They provide
for a greater sonic palette and allow you to create presets that sound perfect “out of the box” – because often you need that little reverb or delay for a particular sound.
The onboard effects are not meant to replace dedicated plug-in or outboard
effect processors, and we encourage you to route Virtual Guitarist IRON into
external plugins or outboard gear if you need more advanced tweaking options.
Delay
Delay Section
The Delay effect in Virtual Guitarist IRON offers five different, guitar-optimized stereo delay presets from 32th to 4th note resolution, as well as a mix control (left knob). From Slapback echoes (32th setting) to rhythmic duplication using the longer resolutions – subtle delay adds width and ambience to Virtual Guitarist IRON without adding too much wash to the mix.
Chorus
Adds a guitar-optimized Chorus effect. As you turn the knob, the chorus will go from a subtle slow flanging to a fast, deep, almost ensemble-style effect. Try the Chorus particularly for adding depth to cleaner or crunchy rhythms. Be careful not to overdo it – there’s just a fine line between a nicely animated guitar rhythm and a sticky mush of 80s kitsch.
Reverb
Virtual Guitarist IRON onboard reverb is – deliberately - not a high-end cathedral simulation. It is a so-called spring reverb (because in actual guitar amps metallic springs create the reverberation) and has a nicely percussive and open character to it that’s just perfect for guitar sounds. Turn up the knob for more reverb level.
Master Volume
The Volume knob adjusts the master output volume of Virtual Guitarist IRON. Levels inside Virtual Guitarist IRON are usually auto-adjusted, so you will never have to level-compensate for Doubling or switching amps, but you may want to use this control to adjust the gain of Virtual Guitarist IRON before sending it into subsequent audio processors or effect devices.
In the following part of this user guide, every feature of Virtual Guitarist IRON will be explained in depth.
Style Bar
In the Style Bar, you choose a STYLE (selection of phrases) and a KEY. It also contains the CHORD display.
Style
A STYLE in Virtual Guitarist IRON is the counterpart to a particular phrasing style that you ask your guitarist to play. Styles are the “rhythmic vocabulary” of Virtual Guitarist IRON, which is why we have included 100 of them.
You can select styles by either clicking the small arrows to skip to the previous/next style, or by clicking the name of the current Style to bring up the full list.
Style List
Every style is a set of eleven phrases that you can access via the Style Phrases area of the Interactive or MIDI keyboard.
In most Styles, Phrases are ordered by intensity/density from left to right.
KEY
This parameter lets you define a Key (scale). With a pre-selected Key, Virtual Guitarist IRON offers a reduced chord selection consisting only of chords that work well in this key.
Exemplar chord mapping for the Key of C
Setting a key is useful if you want a simplified method of playing chords or if you’re controlling Virtual Guitarist IRON from a non-keyboard controller and have only so and so many pads or buttons assignable.
CHORD
CHORD is not a parameter but a display. It shows the chord corresponding to the keys you play (see also Fingering Scheme).
Low/High
For the note range between D4 and G5, the Chord display may show a Low or High indicator. This happens when there a chord is available in two octaves (Low and High). This is also affected by the Drop D status.
Chords available in only one octave will show no indicator.
Low/High
For the note range between D4 and G5, the Chord display may show a Low or High indicator. This happens when there a chord is available in two octaves (Low and High). This is also affected by the Drop D status.
Chords available in only one octave will show no indicator.
This area is where you tweak the sound of guitar and amp. Virtual Guitarist IRON offers a large range of sounds from twangy and clean to massively distorted metal.
THRUST
The THRUST knob is a very unique feature of Virtual Guitarist IRON that lets you change the sound in realtime. It adds a sense of boosted velocity and energy to the sound - hence the name.
THRUST adds harmonics that increase in pitch as you turn the knob. In the real world, these harmonics are created by a special playing technique and are physical sub-vibrations of the guitar strings. While a real guitar would “skip” to these harmonics, Thrust adds them.
The THRUST effect depends greatly on the settings of the GUITAR, AMP and DRIVE controls - from a flanger-like effect in clean settings to very pronounced harmonics at heavily distorted settings.
THRUST becomes even more interesting when you move the control during
playback. Thrust is assigned to the Aftertouch MIDI controller. Increasing pressure to your keyboard ''turn'' the THRUST knob from it's set position to maximum.
Advanced tip: Press and hold the Stop key, then play chords while using the Stop key for finer Aftertouch control.
Be aware that using THRUST in combination with odd intervals can lead to clashing pitches. True to the nature of string harmonics, the harmonics added by THRUST resemble third, fifth and octave intervals of the base note. If you set THRUST to a fifth interval but play an augmented fifth, the result will sound “interesting”, but not necessarily correct.
GUITAR
Electric guitars have one or more pickups – the electromagnetic parts that pick up the vibrations of the strings and convert them into electric signals. By choosing and combining pickups, guitarists have a lot of influence over the characteristics of the guitar sound. Virtual Guitarist IRONs GUITAR parameter offers you the four most suitable pickup combinations for power chord guitars:
Those descriptions provide just guidelines and technical info. We encourage you
to always try out all pickup positions for any given track.
AMP
Virtual Guitarist IRON features a sophisticated guitar amp and speaker simulation. In other words: The amp sound is not baked into the guitar performance. Instead, as you play, the clean guitar signal is sent to an amp and speaker where the final sound is produced. Not only does this give you full control and flexibility over the sound, it also means that the complex interactions between guitar and amp are produced in realtime for a dynamic and realistic result.
The AMP knob lets you choose between five amplifier presets for a large range of musical styles. Each preset is a pre-configuration of an amp and a speaker cabinet, including pre-set internal parameters that provide the right character and range of sonic possibilities for each preset:
DRIVE
The DRIVE knob adjusts the overdrive level of the tube amp.
Simply put: The lower the DRIVE setting, the cleaner, and the higher the DRIVE
setting, the more distorted the sound of Virtual Guitarist IRON.
The effect is very different depending on the AMP you've chosen. Naturally, cleaner AMP settings such as Clean or Crisp will work better with lower Drive settings, whereas Crunch or Metal benefit from a higher dose of clean signal.
GUITAR MODES
The two knows underneath the THRUST control allow you to retune and duplicate the guitar.
Drop D
Activating this button tunes the strings of the entire guitar down by two semitones. This has two effects:
- You can play chords down to the low D.
- The guitar sound becomes fatter and less sharp as in the normal settings. In combination with Metal and high Drive settings this helps creating typical fat and evil sounds.
Doubling
Activate this button has the same effect as if two guitarist played your track at the same time, with minimal variations. Technically, Doubling adds a second guitarist with a separate amp setup and places both at the outer positions of the stereo spectrum.
We recommend to use Doubling with care – it’s great to give more weight to
tracks that are a key foundation of your song. On the other hand, a mix gets
mushy pretty quick if you have 2 or 3 doubled guitar tracks playing at the same time.
Two handy tips:
- To create the impression of two guitarists playing even differently, instead of using Doubling set up two instances of Virtual Guitarist IRON with different settings amp settings and pan positions, and pick different phrases for both.
- Add a single guitarist with a sharper sound and less distortion to a doubled “wall of doom”, place it in the middle, EQ it slightly to attenuate high and low frequencies but pronounce the mids around 2-3 kHz, and you have a very effective way of controlling the presence of that guitar track in the mix by adjusting the single track against the doubled one.
I Have Questions! Where Can I Send Them?
Please submit a request to our support staff! Don’t hesitate, we’re eager to help you out and learn about your opinions and suggestions. Many improvements and products have been influenced by our user community.
Comments
0 comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.