As we mentioned in the previous part of this tutorial, acoustic guitar is not easy to emulate. Evolution Modern Nylon by Orange Tree samples did an outstanding job capturing all the essential characteristics of an acoustic guitar while providing a lot of options to tweak. Having this in mind, we will continue to guide you through its interface in Part 2 of this tutorial and follow everything with more audio examples.
If you followed the prequel of this tutorial, you have probably noted that we explained the main “PLAY” tab and the contents regarding the mapping of articulations over the keyboard. Evolution Modern Nylon has more things to offer, so we will continue from the second tab named “STRUM.”
Strum
The Evolution guitar engine has a sophisticated built-in strumming pattern editor. Moreover, there are six available slots for strum patterns within a single instance of the instrument. You can select the slot to edit using these six buttons. Each strumming pattern slot has a key switch that it’s assigned to by default. They are set to C0 through F0, although you can click on the value to enable a MIDI to learn mode, and after pressing the new key on your keyboard, the pattern will be mapped to that key instead.
There are 4 controls that can be used to alter the loaded patterns. And those are:
Length – The length in measures of the strumming pattern
Beats – The number of beats in a measure, allowing you to create patterns in a variety of meters
Division – Shows the division of each beat into separate units the strumming pattern.
Swing – The amount of swing applied to the strumming pattern. At 0%, the rhythm plays evenly, while at 100% the strumming pattern uses the maximum amount of swing available.
So, let’s hear a couple of patterns from the preset menu.
~EMN – Strumming Pattern Editor 1
~EMN – Strumming Pattern Editor 2
Articulation
Furthermore, there is an “Articulation Selection” section. You can find it on the right of the strumming patterns.
Adding effects
Clicking on the small circles at the top of the strumming pattern display opens up a dropdown menu with a list of available articulations to use for the strum. You can also add one-shot effects such as string slaps to the pattern here. What’s more, bear in mind that if there is no articulation selected for the particular strum, the previous strum will continue to ring. Additionally, If you wish to mute the strum, use the “rest” articulation. You can also use one-shot effects, such as a string slap effect to mute the currently playing notes.
Download the project here.
