I am wokring on a remix and am looking for an effect that will transform a very standard strummed acoustic guitar track into a washy, ambient texture that retains the harmonic information of the original guitar part while stripping out all of the percussive transients, leaving only a pad-like drone.

Anyone have any suggestions? I'm sure there's something like this for Reaktor in the user library, but I'm still looking...

have you tried laserbrew, or the space master reverb (reaktor .ens)? Not sure if that'll preserve all the character you want but they do create good washes at the right setting.

Funny you should mention Laserbrew -- I was just screwing around with it! Very impressive, but I haven't quite been able to get what I'm after with it. I'll try Space Master next.

100% wet long diffuse reverb. No dry signal. Then shift the result back on the timeline a bit to "anticipate" changes.

You could also take that output through a frequency splitter and then treat those frequency ranges with different effects like phasing, flange, chorus. Maybe even pitch-shift the results an octave up or down and mix a little of that into the on-pitch signal.

Lots of ways to do it: fun stuff!

- m

Try the Spektral relativity impulse responses in a convolution reverb (eg SIR). You can get some lovely washed out effects with that.

I like Laserbrew too though.

If you have Komplete(and if I remember you have it),Spektral Delay's your answer.Try the inner beauty or cosmic consciousness presets as a starter
A lot of times,it's the ONLY effect in my ambient meanderings
ew

orange grains into space master stereo ...

normal wrote:

orange grains into space master stereo ...

Ooh...now there's an idea
ew

Yeah, I've been overusing Spektral Delay since I got Komplete. Hence this search for new ideas -- keep 'em comin'! Great ideas so far.

actually , for guitar ( i use loops ) , i've had a lot of fun with 'pitchcloud'...

also ...
you couldn't go wrong by checking in w/ har ...

normal wrote:

also ... you couldn't go wrong by checking in w/ har ...

???

KvR member ...
ambient guitarist par excellence ...

Ah...

here are some other things that you might find useful for this.

white noise audio's dopplemangler
tobybear's funbag
anarchy's FX
delaydots spectrum worx or spectral plugin pack
tweakbench mashup

-ugo

Space Master (set on the "Space Temple Back" preset) at 100% wet on the insert sent to two hard-panned sends, both loaded with Nuendo's chorus effect at slightly different (both very slow) rates. Putting a smile on my face!

Depending on how much of the original notes/timing you want to keep, or if you are just looking for retaining timbre, you could try some extreme time stretching and then mess with some volume envelopes. Too much time stretching will give echoes or really choppy sound, which won't work for a wash, but try doubling the length the shaping the sound with some fades and the like. I've been using this technique lately and gotten some nice sounds, like turning a note from TickyClav into a long bell sound.

Else some convolution will work well.

Cheers,
Steve

KTGranulator
Granulab
Transverb
2Warpdelay
Bubbleblower*
DLGranulator*
Nebulizer*

*can be found in AudioMulch.

Groet, Erik

if you own Komplete, you can do considerable timestretching, spectrum and delay mangling in Intakt.

i would think a nice chorus like Big Tick's Hexaline or Dodecaline might open up and thicken what might get thinned by time stretching

Lazlo Minimart wrote:

Space Master (set on the "Space Temple Back" preset) at 100% wet on the insert sent to two hard-panned sends, both loaded with Nuendo's chorus effect at slightly different (both very slow) rates. Putting a smile on my face!

Thanks all, but this right here is the sound I want. I'll try the other suggestions at a later date, but the tone I'm getting with the combo quoted above is really bringing this track together.

you'll be posting that track , i hope ...

normal wrote:

you'll be posting that track , i hope ...

I might post just the guitar sound, but even to do that the guy I'm remixing would have to grant me permission. But I'll ask!

I think you lot forgot the greatest ambient washer...SPECTRAL RELATIVITY!!!

normal wrote:

KvR member ... ambient guitarist par excellence ...

Interesting idea...I don't have an acoustic guitar, but I imagine you could run one through the same array of effects and get some pretty interestingly "organic-sounding" results from an acoustic instead of an electric.

Much of the suggestions already mentioned would definitely do the trick for what you're looking for. Perhaps try a signal path something like this as a starting point:

guitar -> detune or flanger -> KTGranulator -> long dense reverb

The trick is largely based on how much of the "real" guitar tone you want mixed in with the end results: experimenting with the wet/dry mix of the detuner, KTGranulator and reverb can give you things ranging from subtle "colorizing" of the natural sound of the guitar, all the way through to "what the hell is that??" kind of extremes.

(good example of the latter can be heard on Mystahr's latest tune at http://www.kvr-vst.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=47415&start=0&highlight=  )

One thing I like to do is record a take. Load up the take as a stereo file in a wave editor, then reverse the left or right channel.

Then detune each channel by a few cents.

Throw this through a reverb (RV7000 in my case) and a lot of delay.

The trick to getting a good wash from a guitar is more in the playing than the processing... plucking your strings like a biatch wont give you a good wash at all.

purator wrote:

I think you lot forgot the greatest ambient washer...SPECTRAL RELATIVITY!!!

Um - except I mentioned it a page ago.

I hear a good method is to run your guitar through a tape delay. Add reverb and a chord become a long ambient texture. Maybe add some loop points.

As for suitable delay units, I was told that Electroharmonix make a great one. Apparently it uses a low bit rate which results in delays merging into one long wash of sound! You could then try running that through a vocoder, or mabye granulate it.

Har wrote:

normal wrote: KvR member ... ambient guitarist par excellence ... = )

what are you so embarressed about its true
you know i only work with the best

Amberience wrote:

The trick to getting a good wash from a guitar is more in the playing than the processing...

Definitely can be true, yep...if anything, the whole point of using a guitar as the raw sound source for such things versus a synth might be the fact that you can really get in there and better articulate the notes with fingers-on-strings with finger-vibrato and other playing techniques....perhaps make it a little more "organic" sounding on the whole.

Amberience wrote:

plucking your strings like a biatch wont give you a good wash at all.

Sometimes true, sometimes not.
Often I'll "bow" the notes played using a volume pedal to blur the attack, or by using a heavy pedal-steel slide bar "bowed" at right-angles to the direction of the strings. Definitely no audible plucking there, true.

But on the other hand, I've also managed to get some very good ambient washes by playing with a pick or tapping the strings to get a very percussive attack...and then using whatever heavy processing to blur the resulting tone. While the actual hard attack sound of the pluck or tap itself might not actually make it through to the final resulting sound, the percussive attack transients do sometimes serve another purpose to the overall whole sound: for example, perhaps to trigger an initial blast of reverb in a way similar to what happens when you kick an old spring reverb ...that then itself gets further processed and added to total resulting sound along with the more sustained components of the note played.

As an example, the ambient washes I did on that tune with Mystahr was a a bit of a combination of all of the above...but I'd still say the resulting sound was still pretty nice and wash-y.

vurt wrote:

what are you so embarressed about its true

Well, you know how it is: since I've got a shaved head, it already tends to look a little too big...

vurt wrote:

you know i only work with the best

And vice vurt-sa!
(speaking of which, we definitely should again sometime soon...PM me! )

aMUSEd wrote:

Try the Spektral relativity impulse responses in a convolution reverb (eg SIR). You can get some lovely washed out effects with that.

Yeah Spectral Relativity is made for creating ambient washes out of stuff. With hundreds of IRs to choose from, I'm certain you'll find one that does what you need:

http://www.spiritcanyonaudio.com/spectralrelativity.php

I guess I'm much more of a samplist than most people here. First think that crossed my mind is to slice out all different chords and cut the attack from each one. Then I'd try to make a seamless bidi loop on each sample and put it in a sampler (spread a keyzone) as some looped tones. Then just play with filter and amp envelopes and add some chorus and reverb.

aMUSEd wrote:

purator wrote: I think you lot forgot the greatest ambient washer...SPECTRAL RELATIVITY!!! Um - except I mentioned it a page ago.

Sorry 'bout that...I was moslty blinded with the other (not so good) stuff

No worry's.

Also if you have Spektral Delay you should try the presets from this site - some excellent lush reverbs and spacy sci fi sounds.

http://www.studiosound.btinternet.co.uk/spek.htm

256 new presets - well worth the money.