Steinberg Virtual Guitarist 1 Manual

							VIRTUAL GUITARIST
“ELECTRIC EDITION”
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ENGLISH
Multi-effect board
The fully-featured effect board is an important and integral component 
of Virtual Guitarist “Electric Edition”. Its functionality, sound and design 
is a true reproduction of the floor box collection guitarists use to take 
on stage or to the studio. We’ve put a lot of focus on an authentic look 
and feel in every detail. Note for example that even the LEDs of the 
modulation effects flash in sync—like in the good old times.
Since effects are an important part of electric guitar sounds, the multi-
effect board in Virtual Guitarist “Electric Edition” is seamlessly inte-
grated into the VSTi. No less than eight different effect devices are 
nicely arranged on the floor panel.
• To switch to the effect page from the play or setup page, click the 
phone plug labelled FX.  
						

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Effect management
All functions for managing the effects are clearly organized in the 
menu bar at the top of the FX page.
Here you can select and save effects, bypass the FX board and deter-
mine the mode of FX switching by part or player.
Switching effects on or off
The bypass switch in the menu bar completely deactivates the effect 
board.
Effects are bypassed when the button is pushed and the green LED is 
lighted.
Apart from the global bypass, every effect device has its own on/off 
switch. The wah switch is located top-right above the pedal, all other 
switches are stylish metal pedal switches with a red indicator LED.
Effect bank
On startup, Virtual Guitarist automatically loads a default bank of 32 
effects. This bank is totally independent from parts or players, it rather 
is a pool of effect settings. By selecting an effect from the bank, you 
load it into a part or player buffer. Changes are stored in the buffer 
only and saved with the song. To permanently save them in the bank 
for use in other VG instances and songs, you need to manually save 
the effect program into the bank.
❐Managing several effect banks using the standard fxb format is only possible 
in the separate plug-in version of the effect board since fxb files in Virtual 
Guitarist are already in use. More on this in the “Plug-in version of the effect 
board” section on page 42.   
						

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Selecting effects from the bank
An effect program in Virtual Guitarist always stores the setting for the 
entire board—at the push of a button you can switch and set all effect 
devices at a time.
• To step through the 32 effect programs one-by-one, click the little 
arrow buttons left to the effect menu.
• To open the effect menu for selecting an effect, click the larger metal 
button to the right of the menu.
Renaming effects
To rename an effect program, just click its name and type a new one. 
Save the program afterwards in order to make the change permanent.
Saving effect programs to the bank
Changes to effect programs are usually stored with the song and are 
only available within the current Virtual Guitarist instance. To make 
effects re-usable in other instances or songs, you have to save them 
to the bank file:
1. Edit the effect to your like.
2. Click the Save button. The red LED lights up.
3. Now choose a location in the menu where you want the effect pro-
gram to be saved to. Done.
Of course you can use the save function to copy an effect from one location to another 
before altering it.
❐The bank file on disk gets overwritten each time you save an effect program. 
All saved changes to the effect bank are permanent. However, the existing 
part buffers will not be affected until you re-select the effect from the bank.
Loading another effect bank
With the Load Bank option at the bottom of the effect menu you can 
load another effect bank created with the separate plug-in version of 
the effect board. More on this later.  
						

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Effect handling for parts
Effect setting
In Virtual Guitarist each of the 8 parts has its own effect buffer (set-
ting). These settings are independent from the effect bank and are 
stored with the song. 
When the button Part is active, selecting a part also calls the effect 
setting for this part. Alternately, you can retain the same effect setting 
for the entire player by clicking the Player button.
Switching effect settings within one part
As a bonus feature you can even select effect settings of other parts 
for the active part. For this purpose, MIDI program change numbers 9 
to 16 are reserved, while numbers 1 to 8 select parts.
❐Example: To select part 2 with the effect setting of part 7, send program change 
numbers 2 immediately followed by 15.
Tempo-syncing effects
You can synchronize time and speed parameters of all effects devices 
to the song tempo, e.g. to let the phaser rotate in 2-bar cycles or to 
create complex rhythmical patterns with the delay unit.
To synchronize an effect unit to the song tempo…
1. activate its Sync switch,
2. select a note resolution with the time or speed control. 
The note value is shown in a little display underneath the knob. 
T stands for triplets, D for dotted.  
						

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Wah pedal
The Wah effect has been named by its sound. It adds a filter move-
ment sounding like a morphing between the vowels U and A.
❐Playing a wah pedal is an art of its own. Therefore Thomas Blug has recorded 
special Wah players with built-in wah effects. Here, the wah is part of the 
signal and doesn’t need the Wah pedal of the effect board.
In non-virtual life, a Wah pedal is inserted between guitar and amp. 
The Wah pedal in Virtual Guitarist is designed to work well when 
applied to the amplified signal.
Basic sound character
The Q knob controls the sharpness of the Wah effect. The higher this 
knob is turned up, the narrower the frequency band becomes and the 
sharper filter movements sound. High Q values help clean sounds cut 
through.
The filter can be moved by both the pedal and an automatic modulation.  
						

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Foot Control
To control the wah effect manually, just click-hold on the pedal and 
move the mouse up and down. Of course this movement can be writ-
ten into automation tracks if you wish.
Additionally, you can control the pedal with the modulation wheel. For 
this purpose you just have to not assign the wheel to any of the two 
destinations (Fill, Vibrato) in the setup page—it gets automatically 
routed to the pedal.
Of course you can also control the wah pedal using an external foot 
control. Virtual Guitarists accepts the MIDI Foot Controller (cc# 4).
Auto Wah
When you turn the speed control up (i. e. when it is not at zero), you 
activate the Auto Wah and set its speed. The foot pedal controls the 
center frequency of the Wah.
AutoFilter
The AutoFilter follows the amplitude of the input signal (envelope fol-
lower)—resulting in the signal level controlling the sound color. 
❐Wah and Autofilter exclude each other. Switching on AutoFilter automatically 
deactivates Wah and vice versa.  
						

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This is how you set the AutoFilter:
1. Play the guitar phrase you want to autofilter. Switch on the AutoFilter 
and set the Freq knob to a medium value.
2. With the knob switch select the direction of the filter movement. In the 
left position (positive) the filter frequency follows the signal level, in 
the right position it moves in the opposite direction (higher level = 
sound gets darker), e.g. for underwater soundscapes.
3. Now turn up the Threshold knob until the filter reacts to signal peaks. 
The more you turn up the knob, the more sensitive the filter becomes.
4. Now set the modulation range for the filter frequency with the Freq 
control. Higher values result in more “envelope depth”.
Delay
The Delay unit is a combination of a digital delay and a vintage tape 
echo. It creates all types of echoes and delays from ultra-modern space 
effects to dusty, shimmering 70ties delay clouds.
Here’s how to set the delay:
1. First select the effect type with the knob switch. There are two mono 
(MD, MH) and two stereo delay algorithms:
• MD: Mono Delay—the signal gets repeated with the interval set with the time 
knob.
• MH: Multi Head—this is the typical tape echo effect simulating multiple play-
back heads. Within the time interval the signal gets played back by multiple 
tape heads, therefore the complex pattern.
• PP: Ping Pong Delay—the signal jumps between left and right channel.
• Tap: Multi Tap Delay—today’s version of the Multi Head, great for creating 
complex rhythmical delay patterns.  
						

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2. Set the delay time with the time knob. When Sync is deactivated, the 
display reads milliseconds.
3. The mix knob determines the balance of dry and effect signal.
4. The feedback knob sets the number of delay repetitions (technically 
this is the amount of the effect signal that gets fed back to the input). 
Very high feedback values can lead to an increasing delay level and 
finally create distortion—this can be wanted, however, for dub or 
psychedelic delay effects.
5. The Character control adjusts the “age” of the effects unit (between 
ultra-clean digital delay and worn-out tape echo). Higher values intro-
duce a loss of frequency response accompanied by tape flutter, lead-
ing to a slightly detuned and less brillant effect signal. Even pseudo 
reverb effects are possible.
Reverb
This device is a dedicated guitar reverb rather than a reverb unit for 
general mixing purposes.
Programming is dead easy: Set the reverb length with the Time knob 
(sync it to the song tempo if you wish) and adjust the effect balance 
with the Mix control.
The more interesting control is the Type switch. It selects between 
three totally different reverb characteristics:
• Spring: The typical spring reverb found in guitar amps. The typical metallic shat-
tering is characteristic for the classic guitar sounds of the 50ties and 60ties.
• Plate: The reverb plate effect common in the 70ties—a classic studio reverb 
covering a range of classic sounds from Philly to Deep Purple.
• Hall: This is a neutral hall ambience. Use it for adding ambience, width and di-
mension rather than coloring the sound.  
						

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Phaser
The Phaser is the absolutely typical effect of the 70ties. Apart from 
being used with guitar sounds, it added the characteristic gargling and 
bubbling to keyboard and synthesizer sounds—even drums weren’t 
exempted. No funk, electronic or progressive rock album and no crime 
score of the 70ties would be imaginable without the phaser.
The phaser effect—as the name suggests—is created by adding a phase 
shifted signal to the original. Modulating the phase shift amount creates 
the typical swirling. Unlike the flanger or chorus, the phaser just adds 
movement without making the sound thicker.
The quickest way to get the right phaser setting is to match the Speed 
and Color controls to each other. The color control determines the 
sharpness of the effect. A slow phasing with a high color setting cre-
ates a beautifully swirling space effect, while a high speed setting with 
a decent color setting creates a “harmonic vibrato”.  
						

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Tremolo
Tremolo (also called amplitude vibrato) is commonly used to liven up 
clean or slightly overdriven guitar sounds. It was most popular before 
Chorus became an alternative, and it’s typical for many guitar track 
classics.
Programming the tremolo is pretty straightforward: You can only con-
trol Rate and Intensity. Tip: Play Long Chords rather than rhythmical 
phrases when setting the Tremolo. Unlike hardware tremolo effects 
this one can be synchronized to the song. This allows you to use it as 
a “Chopper” effect e.g. for NuMetal styles.
Flanger
The Flanger—also called jet effect—adds a whirling, glassy and plastic 
character to the sound. It is created by adding a slightly delayed signal 
(