Evolution Acoustic Guitar Steel Strings - User's Guide - Orange Tree ...

User's Guide 

Evolution Acoustic Guitar Steel Strings 

Preface ............................................................................................................................................ 4 

Installation ...................................................................................................................................... 5 

Extracting the RAR Files.............................................................................................................. 5 

Loading in KONTAKT ................................................................................................................... 5 

KONTAKT Sample Library Organization...................................................................................... 6 

Interface .......................................................................................................................................... 7 

Navigation Menus ...................................................................................................................... 7 

Load/Save Preset ........................................................................................................................ 7 

Section Lock ................................................................................................................................ 7 

Interface: Performance ................................................................................................................... 8 

Fretting ....................................................................................................................................... 8 

Picking ........................................................................................................................................ 9 

Tuning ......................................................................................................................................... 9 

Strumming ................................................................................................................................ 10 

Chords ...................................................................................................................................... 10 

Resonance ................................................................................................................................ 11 

Interface: Mapping ....................................................................................................................... 12 

Articulations ............................................................................................................................. 13 

Strum Keys ................................................................................................................................ 13 

Strum Patterns ......................................................................................................................... 14 

Pitch Wheel .............................................................................................................................. 14 

Vibrato ...................................................................................................................................... 15 

Interface: Effects ........................................................................................................................... 16 

Guitar Tone ............................................................................................................................... 16 

Stompbox 1, 2, and 3 ............................................................................................................... 16 

Amp / Cab ................................................................................................................................. 16 

Delay ......................................................................................................................................... 16 

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Reverb ...................................................................................................................................... 17 

Strumming Patterns ...................................................................................................................... 18 

Recording Your Own Patterns .................................................................................................. 18 

Automation ................................................................................................................................... 19 

Built-in Automation System ..................................................................................................... 19 

Credits ........................................................................................................................................... 20 

Contact .......................................................................................................................................... 21 

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Thank you for purchasing the Evolution Acoustic Guitar - Steel Strings sample library! The Steel 

Strings library features over 6.4 gigabytes (compressed to 3.36 GB using Kontakt's lossless NCW 

compression) of 24-bit acoustic guitar samples, powered by KONTAKT’s extensive scripting 

engine. 

The acoustic steel string guitar sampled for this library boasts a solid Sitka spruce top and East 

Indian Rosewood sides and back, giving the guitar a warm, organic tone. The neck is crafted 

from solid Spanish cedar, with a striped ebony fingerboard. Its unique bracing pattern 

incorporates a hybrid scalloped and “A frame” bracing, providing a rich resonance to the 

guitar’s tone. 

The acoustic guitar was recorded with a stereo mic pair, carefully positioned to allow adjustable 

stereo width without any phase cancelations. 

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The first thing you need to do when installing Evolution Acoustic Guitar Steel Strings is to 

extract the RAR files that you downloaded, which can be done using 7-Zip (Windows), or 

UnRarX (Mac). The main thing you need to bear in mind when extracting the RAR files is that all 

the files need to ultimately extract into the same "Evolution Acoustic Guitar - Steel Strings" 

folder. 

Begin with extracting the "SteelStrings-Engine.rar" file, which includes all the core files 

necessary to play Evolution Acoustic Guitar Steel Strings, including the main patch to load in 

KONTAKT, documentation, and the preset files. 

Next, extract the "SteelStrings-Samples.part1.rar" file. You only need to extract this first part 

and none of the other parts, because the RAR extraction software will automatically draw the 

files from these other RARs in the process. In the event that the files get extracted into a 

different folder (with an alternate name, with a "1" at the end, for instance), just move the 

"Samples" subfolder back into the main "Evolution Acoustic Guitar - Steel Strings" folder. 

After extracting the RAR files by following the above instructions, your installation is now 

complete! 

After launching KONTAKT in standalone or as a plugin in your DAW, click the "Files" dropdown 

at the top of KONTAKT's interface, and click "Load...". Navigate to the "Evolution Acoustic 

Guitar - Steel Strings" folder that was created during the extraction of the library, and open the 

"EAG Steel Strings.nki" file. 

TIP: If the extraction process was successful, the library should load without displaying a 

"missing samples" dialog. If that does happen, please refer to the previous section in this guide 

and ensure that you followed the installation steps exactly. Usually this error occurs when the 

RAR files don't get extracted all into the same folder. 

TIP: If the patch doesn't load, displaying an error, please ensure that you have the very latest 

version of KONTAKT. Updating KONTAKT is a quick and easy process using the Native 

Instruments Service Center. 

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As your collection of KONTAKT libraries expands, it's important to keep them organized. For 

example, keep them all within a main "KONTAKT Sample Libraries" folder rather than scattered 

around your hard drive. Backing up the installation files for your sample libraries is also a good 

idea. 

The next step in organizing your sample libraries is in KONTAKT itself. One of the benefits of 

storing your sample libraries all in the same place is that it makes finding them faster when 

manually loading them. For KONTAKT Player instruments, there's the library tab, which is also a 

useful shortcut to access instruments, but unfortunately is limited to only the libraries that 

license the KONTAKT Player. One of the best library organization methods that KONTAKT 

includes is the Quick Load menu. This allows you to sort shortcuts to your libraries in any 

folder/subfolder format you wish, and can be quickly accessed with a single right-click in any 

empty area of the multi-rack (the large portion of KONTAKT's interface that displays the loaded 

instruments). 

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The controls in Evolution Acoustic Guitar Steel Strings have been organized into different 

sections, which can be navigated through by using the two section dropdown menus. The 

leftmost menu is the main section ("Performance", "Mapping", and "Effects"), and the menu to 

the right of this selects the page within this section. 

Evolution Acoustic Guitar has the ability to store presets as external files, making it easy to 

share presets and copy presets between separate projects. It also means that when updating 

Evolution Acoustic Guitar, your external presets will remain compatible and not become 

obsolete. 

Clicking the lock icon will toggle the section lock for the currently selected main section (the 

leftmost section menu). When loading a preset, it will not overwrite the settings in any locked 

sections. That way you can preserve the mapping, effects, or performance settings while 

auditioning other presets. 

TIP: The section lock is indispensable if you already have a guitar track sequenced, and want to 

load a different guitar preset without altering your articulation setup, any special effect keys 

you've mapped, and so forth. 

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Play Mode - While Evolution Acoustic Guitar Steel Strings models the physics of a real guitar, 

this control lets you bypass the monophonic nature of each guitar string, allowing you to play 

multiple notes on a single string. That way non-guitarists can easily sequence guitar tracks 

without having to worry about the natural limitations of the guitar. It's great when playing the 

sample library from a MIDI keyboard as well. 

Fret Position - Because of how guitars naturally work, you can play the same pitches in multiple 

areas of the guitar's neck, which results in very distinct tonal differences. The notes are brighter 

and sustain longer when they are closer to the base of the neck (toward the right side of Steel 

Strings' interface), and warmer and punchier higher up on the neck of the guitar (towards the 

left on the interface). Usually lead guitar parts are played with a higher fret position and 

chordal parts are played lower, but you can determine the exact position of the notes using this 

control. 

Legato Range - This sets an interval value as a threshold for playing legato. That way when you 

play overlapping notes within this interval, they will always get played as legato rather than 

being played harmonically. 

MIDI Guitar - There are two main MIDI guitar modes: single channel and multi-channel. The 

multi-channel MIDI guitar mode accepts MIDI channels 1-6 as the input to each separate string, 

so if you're using the multi-channel option, be sure to set the MIDI input for Steel Strings to 

"Omni" (the setting for this can be found in the instrument's header in KONTAKT's interface). 

The single-channel mode is for using a MIDI guitar that outputs all its data to a single MIDI 

channel. Both these MIDI guitar modes recognize muted notes from the MIDI guitar. When you 

play a muted note on a MIDI guitar, it outputs it as an extremely short MIDI note, which 

Evolution Acoustic Guitar Steel Strings recognizes when in either MIDI guitar mode. These 

muted notes are then properly translated to use the muted articulation. 

Fret Noise - Unless disabled, this sets the volume of the automatic fret noises. These fret noises 

are played every time the fret position control is changed. If you need to manually trigger fret 

noises, you can map a fret noise key to Evolution Acoustic Guitar Steel Strings's mapping. See 

the "Extended Effects" section of the mapping section of this manual for more information on 

how to accomplish this. 

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Pick Position - This adjusts the location where the string is picked. Closer to the bridge of the 

guitar will return a brighter, more nasal sound, while picking close to the neck gives you a 

warmer, long sustain. 

Style - This changes the style of picking, which determines whether the strings are picked as 

downstrokes or upstrokes. Downstrokes have a meatier tone, while upstrokes are slightly 

weaker and brighter sounding. This is a pretty subtle control, but useful for power users who 

really want to get an exact sound out of the guitar. 

Alternate - The "Alternate" picking mode strictly alternates between down and 

upstrokes. 

Economy - "Economy" picking takes into consideration the last pick direction with which 

the next string to pick in order to determine a more ergonomic decision for which pick 

direction to use. This picking technique is commonly used for fast playing and arpeggios. 

8th / 16th Notes - The 8th and 16th note modes alternate picking based on when the 

note is picked relative to your host, meaning that it syncs to the timing, with 

downstrokes being used for downbeats and upstrokes being used for upbeats. These 

two modes are useful for rhythmic playing. 

Downstroke / Upstroke - Finally, there are "Downstroke" and "Upstroke" only modes, 

which allow you to limit the picking to a single direction. 

Pick Noise - This adjusts the volume and general length of the pre-pick noises. Pre-pick noises 

are a proprietary technology that contribute a lot of realism to your guitar track by adding pick 

scrape and tap noises which occur before the string is actually plucked. These noises that 

anticipate the sustains can add a great deal of realism, particularly when using distortion or 

compression in your guitar tone, which would emphasize extraneous noises such as these. 

Noise Type - This lets you select between single pick noises and strummed pick noises. The first 

is best for leads and arpeggiated chordal parts, whereas the latter option is best for strumming 

parts. 

Capo - A capo essentially transposes the entire guitar upward. This is useful for chordal playing, 

because many guitar chords use open strings for a fuller sound. So by transposing the open 

strings (that is, the root pitch of the strings), these full-sounding guitar chords are available in 

other keys. 

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Tuning Preset - This control lets you select between a large variety of commonly used alternate 

tunings. 

Individual Tuners - These six controls allow you to individually tune the strings, coming up with 

your own alternate tuning. 

Strum Speed - This adjusts the overall speed of the strumming. 

Vel > Speed - This controls how the velocity of the strum keys affect the speed of each strum. 

That way, you can make it so that playing the strum keys louder will result in faster, tighter 

strums as opposed to playing them softly. 

Vel > Limit - When you strum on a guitar, sometimes not all the strings are strummed. This 

control lets you adjust how velocity affects the number of strings strummed. That way, lower 

velocities will strum fewer strings, while high velocities will strum the entire chord. This can add 

a lot of life and realism to your strumming patterns. 

Velocity Decay - When strumming, the last strings played are strummed softer than the first 

strings strummed. This control adjusts the amount of velocity decay. At 0%, all the strings will 

be strummed at an even velocity, while at 100%, the last strings will be strummed extremely 

soft compared to the first strings. 

Chord Mode - There are three chord settings available, "Disabled", "Held Notes" and, "Auto 

Detect". The general playability of the latter two chord modes is to hold the desired chord in 

the main playing area and then use the strumming keys, or strumming pattern keys to achieve a 

guitar strumming part. 

Disabled - Although the chord system is disabled, you can still use the strumming keys, 

but manually played notes are still audible. This essentially allows you use the 

strumming keys to repeat whichever notes you have just played--making it simple to 

play fast repeating single notes or even chords (powerchords, for example). 

Held Notes - This mode lets you strum the currently held notes as the exact chord 

voicing. This is useful if you have very specific notes that you want strummed. The only 

difference between this chord mode and having the chord mode disabled is that notes 

that you play in the main playing area are silent. 

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Auto Detect - The auto detect mode figures out a real guitar voicing to use, interpreting 

whichever notes you have held. The inversion in which you play the chord makes a 

difference, and it will search for a guitar voicing closest to the fretting position. 

TIP: Automating the chord mode control allows you to easily switch between strumming and a 

traditional style of sequencing--for example, it could be used for a rhythm guitar part that 

momentarily includes single-note guitar riffs. 

Chord Position - By default, the chord detection system finds chord voicings closest to the 

fretting position as set in the "fretting" section of Evolution Acoustic Guitar Steel Strings's 

interface. This control allows you to bypass the usual fretting position to set a specific position 

to use only for the chord detection system. 

Open Strings - When enabled, this allows open strings to always be available for use in chord 

voicings, despite the current fretting position. 

Low Limit - This allows you to set the low limit for the chords if you want to limit the strumming 

to a certain range of strings. 

High Limit - This allows you to set the high limit for the chords. 

Amount - This sets the volume of the sympathetic resonance samples. This can add a realistic 

body to the tone of the guitar, which is useful for chordal playing. However, be careful when 

applying it to lead sounds that it doesn't add unwanted extraneous noises. 

Muting - This controls how fast the resonance is muted when releasing notes. 

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The mapping interface gives you the power to enable any articulations you need for your guitar 

track. You can even set how you want to access the articulation, be it a custom non-latching 

keyswitch, MIDI CC number, or even simply a velocity range. 

The section of this interface labeled "Articulation" has dropdown menus which allow you to 

first select the articulation you wish to edit, and then assign it to a velocity, MIDI controller 

number, or keyswitch. If you don't need an articulation, you can disable it, which unloads the 

articulation's samples from memory, saving you RAM and loading time. Underneath this 

condition dropdown are the parameters for the condition, be it the velocity range, MIDI 

controller number and range, or keyswitch note. 

Here's a list of the articulations that are included in Evolution Acoustic Guitar Steel Strings: 

Fingered Sustain - Regular fingered sustain. 

Fingered Palm Mute - The string is muted near the guitar's bridge with the side of the 

guitarist's palm, creating a slightly muted tone. 

Fingered Mute - The string is fully muted with the fretting hand. 

Fingered Harmonics - The fretting hand rests on a harmonic note while the string is 

plucked, producing a harmonic an octave above. 

Picked Sustain - Regular picked sustain. 

Picked Palm Mute - The string is muted near the guitar's bridge with the side of the 

guitarist's palm, creating a slightly muted tone. 

Picked Mute - The string is fully muted with the fretting hand. 

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Picked Harmonics - The string is picked while the fret hand rests on a harmonic node. 

Tapped Sustains - Tapped notes aren't picked, but are notes played directly on the 

fretboard. This is achieved by fretting the notes with enough force to make them ring. 

Tapped Harmonics - The strings are struck directly at their harmonic nodes. 

Below this section are the extended effects. These are special effects such as scrapes, scratches, 

and fret noises. The first dropdown menu allows you to select the special effect to edit. You can 

use the speaker icon button to enable auto-auditioning of the selected effect--that way you can 

preview the effect before assigning it to a key. Lastly, the button below this dropdown menu 

lets you assign the selected effect to a MIDI note. To do this, press the button and then play the 

MIDI note you want the effect to reside on, either by playing the note on your MIDI keyboard or 

clicking it on KONTAKT's keyboard graphic. To unassign an effect, simply click the "X" button. 

The right-side display acts as an overview of your entire mapping, along with a display showing 

details about the articulation or effect currently playing. That way you can see the entire 

mapping for the guitar at once. 

Vel Morphing - Enables the velocity morphing feature, which smooths out the changes 

between velocity layers, at the expense of extra CPU and polyphony usage. 

Vel Bias - Decreases the threshold for both the loud dynamic as well as the soft dynamic. 

Essentially, it makes the loud dynamic accessible at a lower velocity, and the soft dynamic 

accessible at a higher velocity. 

Release Vol - Sets the volume of the release samples. 

Alt Release - Selects an alternate release sample style. 

Alt Chance - Sets the percent chance that the alternate release sample will be played instead of 

the normal release sample. 

Downstroke - Sets the keyswitch for the downstroke strum key. 

Upstroke - Sets the keyswitch for the upstroke strum key. 

Single Strings - This sets the range of seven single strum keys. The first strum key plays the 

lowest fretted note in the detected chord, while the next six keys play each string from the 

lowest to highest pitch (E, A, D, G, B, high E). When in the "held notes" chord mode, these 

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single strum keys do not correspond with individual strings, but the notes in order of their 

pitch. It works this way so that the strumming patterns retain compatibility whether you're in 

the detected chord voicing mode or the held notes mode. 

TIP: You can use the "L" button to MIDI learn the value for any these controls. 

TIP: In order to use the strum patterns, you must have the strum keys mapped. 

Octave - This sets the octave that the strumming patterns are mapped. 

TIP: You can use the "L" button to MIDI learn the octave for the strum patterns. 

Start Timing - You can use this control to set whether you want the strumming patterns to sync 

with your DAW's position, or use the "free" setting so that the strumming pattern starts exactly 

when you press the key. The "sync" mode is not only useful if you want to ensure that the 

pattern plays in perfect sync with your DAW, but also if the strumming pattern doesn't start on 

the first beat of the measure. 

Speed - This controls the playback speed of the pattern, whether you need it to play at the 

same tempo it was written in, double time, or half the tempo. 

Load Pattern - You can use this dropdown menu to load external pattern files into the various 

strumming pattern keys. You can also remove patterns from this menu, too. 

Mode - This sets whether the pitch wheel creates a bend, or whether it acts as a slide. Bear in 

mind that you can automate this control if you need to switch between these options in 

realtime. 

Affect - Selects which notes are affected by the pitch wheel. That way you not only have the 

power to bend or slide all the held notes, but can bend/slide single notes as well. 

Distance - Sets the distance of the bend or slide. 

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Amount - Sets the width of the vibrato--this control is automated to CC #1 (mod wheel) by 

default, because the mod wheel is traditionally used to control vibrato amount. Of course, you 

can always remove this automation if you prefer otherwise. 

Speed - Sets the speed of the vibrato. 

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Stereo Width - Adjusts the width of the stereo field in the guitar's tone. 

Tracking - Selects how many guitar tracks you want for double/triple/quadruple tracking. 

Double/triple/quadruple tracking is a recording technique that allows you to create thicker, 

wider guitar tones by recording the same guitar track multiple times and layering the takes. 

Each guitar track is automatically panned in opposite, balanced directions. 

Humanization - Sets the timing humanization between the different guitar tracks when using 

double/triple/quadruple tracking. 

Output Volume - Sets the overall output volume of the guitar in order to equalize the volume 

between presets or prevent clipping in high-gain effects setups. If you need to create volume 

swells, it's better to use the volume pedal stompbox, which consumes less CPU than 

automating the output volume control. 

Type - Selects between a variety of available stompboxes. 

Bypass - Enables/disables the stompbox. 

Bypass - Turns off all environment impulses. 

Type - Lets you select from a variety of environment impulses for more intricate acoustical 

space models and convolution reverbs than solely available using Evolution Acoustic Guitar's 

standard reverb effect. 

Wet Amount - Adjusts the amount of wet signal from the environment impulses. 

Dry Amount - Controls the amount of dry signal that gets mixed in. 

Size - Sets the relative length of the environment impulses, for stretching or compressing the 

length of these impulses. 

Amount - Sets the overall volume of the delay rack effect. 

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Time - Sets the delay time--essentially the time between each echo in the delay effect. 

Damping - Controls the high frequency attenuation in the delayed signal. 

Pan - Adds a ping-pong effect to the delay, by panning each delayed signal in opposite 

directions. 

Feedback - Controls the decay of the echos in the delay effect. 

Amount - Sets the overall volume of the reverb rack effect. 

Pre Delay - Adds a delay before the reverb takes effect. 

Size - Controls the length of the reverb. 

Damping - Sets the amount that the high frequencies are attenuated to simulate absorption in 

the reverb. 

Width - Sets the stereo width of the reverb. 

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While creating your own strumming pattern presets is more of a power-user feature, Evolution 

Acoustic Guitar Steel Strings features a unique and powerful solution to overcome the 

limitations of built-in pattern editors. This is achieved by letting you work in your own DAW's 

sequencing environment and then recording that data into Evolution Acoustic Guitar Steel 

Strings. 

To record your strumming sequences into Evolution Acoustic Guitar Steel Strings, open 

KONTAKT's back-end interface by clicking on the wrench icon in the upper left corner of the 

instrument's interface. Located in the script editor portion, you'll find the strum pattern 

recording interface. You may have to open the script editor if it is hidden from view, by clicking 

on the "Script Editor" button in the upper right corner of the backend interface. Also, make sure 

that the script editor has the "Pattern" tab selected, which is the very leftmost tab. 

Arm - Arms the pattern recorder to accept input. After arming the recorder, the next step is to 

press "play" in your sequencer and let the entire pattern play so it inputs the data into 

Evolution Acoustic Guitar Steel Strings. Afterwards, stop your sequencer, and the pattern 

recorder will automatically halt recording. Only the strum keys and single string strums will be 

recorded, while any held chords or other notes will be ignored. 

Save Pattern - After recording your pattern, use this button to save the pattern as an external 

strumming pattern preset, which can be shared or loaded into the available strumming pattern 

keys in your current and future projects. 

TIP: In order to allow the strumming pattern to properly loop, make sure to not let the last 

strumming key hold past the end of the last measure. 

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Evolution Acoustic Guitar - Steel Strings has the ability to integrate with KONTAKT's powerful 

automation system, which means that you can assign a MIDI continuous controller to directly 

affect a control, whether used for real-time playing or for sequencing. Most of the controls in 

Steel Strings' interface can be automated. This is achieved by two methods. Firstly, you can 

right-click on any automatable knob and use the MIDI learn option to assign the MIDI CC #. The 

second method is to manually drag a MIDI CC # from the listing of CCs in KONTAKT's 

automation section on KONTAKT's left sidebar onto one of the knobs on Steel Strings' interface. 

This is accessed in the "Auto", then "Midi Automation" tab. 

TIP: You can also set the automation ranges for MIDI CCs in KONTAKT's MIDI automation tab. 

This is helpful if you want to limit the range of controllers. 

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Production, scripting, graphics: 

Greg Schlaepfer 



Beta testing: 

Alejandro Tiscornia, James Michael Wolk, Jani Kaataja, Perry D'Armond, Geert Bevin, Blake 

Robinson, Frederic Moueza, Bob Bergen, Bill Thompson, David Reinstein, Richard Penrose 

Special thanks to: 

Oriana Schlaepfer, Peter DeLegge 

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We’d love to hear from you! If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for the 

improvement of our products, please don't hesitate to contact us. For the latest updates on 

what's going on at Orange Tree Samples, you can subscribe to our newsletter from the Orange 

Tree Samples website, and visit us on Facebook. 

Email: admin@orangetreesamples.com 

Website: orangetreesamples.com 

Social: 

orangetreesamples.com/facebook 

orangetreesamples.com/googleplus 

orangetreesamples.com/twitter 

Thank you once again for supporting Orange Tree Samples! It is our sincere pleasure to provide 

you with high-quality, affordable sample libraries. 

Orange Tree Samples, Evolution Acoustic Guitar Steel Strings are trademarks property of Orange Tree Samples. 

Native Instruments, KONTAKT, 7-Zip, UnRarX, are trademarks property of their respective owners. 

© 2008-2012 Orange Tree Samples. All Rights Reserved. 

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