Choked E-Guitar Chords.

[Mr.Scarbee]

Hi Sascha,

Almost 3 years ago I started to do a Guitar sample lib (but abandoned that again) because time was not right - at that time I needed more Power in the samplers.

But I did manage to make some in itial tests of single samples sounding as chords - and it could be done. It worked. Just a question of having right samples - and make samples the right way.

I would love to do a funk guitar project - this is a big dream...

Doing the clav (and basses) has also given me a lot of experience working with string instruments and I think I can make it.

The question is HOW to make it work - as Real Guitar or as Virtual Guitarist or something else?

I would go for 100% freedom in chords and playing.

[Sascha Franck]

Hi Thomas,

I think you should perhaps wait for Kontakt 2 and its scripting engine. From what I *know* it should make quite some things regarding authentic playability a lot easier. It seems as if chord strummers, arpeggiators and even some automatic chord recognizers could be programmed into the instrument straight away.

Along with Kontakts ability to slice up patterns (in beat machine mode) this should allow for a whole lot of new possibilities.

[electro]

Hi Sascha,

Almost 3 years ago I started to do a Guitar sample lib (but abandoned that again) because time was not right - at that time I needed more Power in the samplers.

But I did manage to make some in itial tests of single samples sounding as chords - and it could be done. It worked. Just a question of having right samples - and make samples the right way.

I would love to do a funk guitar project - this is a big dream...

Doing the clav (and basses) has also given me a lot of experience working with string instruments and I think I can make it.

The question is HOW to make it work - as Real Guitar or as Virtual Guitarist or something else?

I would go for 100% freedom in chords and playing.

It would kill if you could make some heavily sampled electric guitar content for the Real Guitar interface. Complete E-Guitar (Including Choking) is the most lacking thing right now.

It definately Cannot Be A standard Sample Library.

[asseca]

electro,

Have a look at Revitar 2, see the discussion in this thread

Try this setting: ( try varying the "String Damping" and "Pick Speed", combined with a Wah VST effect )

[asseca]

Here is another setting for Revitar 2:
( this one will sustain the chord when the chord-key is held down, by releasing the key quickly you get a shorter cord, by pressing the "Stop" key you get an even more choked sound )

[Sascha Franck]

The thing with guitars (regardless whether they're electric or acoustic) is that you can't exactly emulate all the little things going on.

Let me try to explain just a VERY few of them:

Strumming
When strumming chords, what is actually happening is a very fast arpeggio. This can't be sampled because it's depending on the tempo. Lower tempi, slower arpeggio effect.
It could perhaps be emulated by some clever strumming plugins, taking up/downstrokes into account as well, but believe me, this allready starts getting tough.
In addition, you would have to do this with strings being sampled individually - but those are sounding pretty much different than strings that actually are strummed together (due to a resonating body and therefor strings affecting each other in multiple ways).
Further, strumming on ONE guitar, using ONE pick and ONE sound from your amp can still reveal a WORLD of different sounds, depending on the position of your strumming, how hard you hit the strings, the angle of the pick and so on.

Picking
Not that much different from strumming, but there's quite a few more things to take into account.
The guitarists among us will know how much of a difference in sound there is when playing a sound with different picking techniques (which is getting even more dramatic when running some distortion).
You can squeeze some overtones out of the string just by holding the pick in a certain way (usually you'd slightly touch the string with the tip of the thumb holding the pick as well).
When you move the pick a few millimetres towards the bridge or neck, those overtones will change drastically.
This alone would require a LOT of samples to be reproduced properly.
Then there's some special picking/strumming techniques.
Just to mention two: "Chicken scratch" and "country picking".
Chicken scratching usually involves strumming all strings at once, but muting all but one at the same time.
Country picking often involves strings being slapped (or better: pulled and snapped).

Fingerings and fretboard related stuff
Most obviously, a relatively large part of the imperfect guitar sound is coming from noises related to fretboard movements.
These sometimes are part of the player's expressivity (such as slurs), sometimes they are just part changing positions.
In any case, there's a LOT you'd have to sample. To get this halfway realistic, you'd have to sample each and every slur, slightly dampened ones, open ones, up/down, plain/wound strings, "noise" ones just caused by position change, etc etc.

Different strings
Single notes and chords will sound dramatically different depending on which string they are played.
An open E1 string is far away from sounding even remotely the same as the E fingered at the 5th fret of your B string. At the same time, the overtone content is changing drastically in case you "squeeze" harmonics (see above).


Believe me, these are just VERY few things which are happening.
There's WAY more, such as mutings(which allways sound different), ovetone based techniques and the likes.
Not to forget bendings and vibratos. A pitch LFO won't do the job for vibratos at all! The same goes for bendings, your pitch wheel will miserably fail for that job.

Bottomline: I doubt there's gonna be a convincing guitar plugin any day soon. There's great samples and instruments for sure, but playing them through a keyboard would make it all worthless.
Then there's those pattern based things, such as virtual guitarist or real guitar.
Those fail as soon as things are getting more complexed.

Admittedly, I heard a few background acoustic picking guitar things (made with Hans Zimmer guitars and the Yellow Tools patches) which sounded VERY close to the real deal.
But forget about any expressive guitar part that is supposed to be prominent in your mix.

Actually, being a guitarist myself I'm quite happy about all that ;o)

[Mr.Scarbee]

Hi Sacha,

Try look at: http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/sho ... hp?t=31701

he went all they way...

[herodotus]

Ask a friendly guitarist on this board to record them for you.

friendly !!!

he could get together with the intelligent drummer and swap irish jokes too

Someone was looking for an intelligent drummer???

ehem.

[Sascha Franck]

Hi Sacha,

Try look at: http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/sho ... hp?t=31701

he went all they way...

OMG! That must've been some HORRIBLE amount of work!
I must say, these demos DO sound impressive! But just as the folks at Northernsounds said, I wonder how much work there would be involved to actually make it sound like that.

[Mr.Scarbee]

Hi Sacha,

Try look at: http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/sho ... hp?t=31701

he went all they way...

OMG! That must've been some HORRIBLE amount of work!
I must say, these demos DO sound impressive! But just as the folks at Northernsounds said, I wonder how much work there would be involved to actually make it sound like that.

Well you can't get it all - probably you need to work to make it sound like a guitar - but alternative you need to hire a guitar player...

[Sascha Franck]

but alternative you need to hire a guitar player...

No, I don't!

[Toxikator]

Ask a friendly guitarist on this board to record them for you.

I'd do it. but I'm afraid it wouldn't work as well as if someone with more expierience did it.

Anyways, seriously try www.hammersound.net
Somewhere in the soundfonts database (not sure if it's guitar or FX) they have a bunch of guitar FX like choked chords and pick scrapes and things. Not really versatile, but if all you're looking for is a wah-sweeping rhytmic section I'd think it would work well enough.