KVR Audio

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 2:54 am

I understand how it's handy to be able to play a different instrument's 'sounds' using your instrument of choice. Or even if keyboard isn't your instrument of choice, it's still an accessible tool for any musician in order to enter information into a sequencer.

What I DON'T quite get is trying to marry two foreign things together. The most obvious example-- keyboard, trying to play strummed chords. Or, from the other side, a guitar trying to emulate a piano.

It CAN be done. It's been proven. I'll even grant that it's been done well, despite dissenting opinions. I actually heard a keyboard-played guitar solo that convinced me, though that's a bit different than strummed chords. But why would you try to emulate strumming, when the alternative is so much easier?

When it was time for me to lay down some piano and organ parts, I got down to the business of playing some keyboards. I can't really get through a whole song in realtime, but I can go a few measures at a time and get results without even tweaking the MIDI. Why is the opposite seemingly untrue? Why are guitarists often willing (and even eager!!) to pick up keyboard skills, while (around here at least), keyboardists continue spending inordinate amounts of time trying (and failing) to make an acoustic guitar strum? Why are they so loathe to spend $150 on a Yamaha acoustic but are willing and able to spend $400+ on a sample library just so that they can make horrible-sounding keyboard strums (which are inevitably tweaked in the MIDI editor in the elusive quest for realism anyhow).

Solos are a different story. While I think there are certain techniques that a keyboard can't properly emulate, I'm willing to admit that if a keyboardist simply chooses techniques that work, he CAN do a convincing guitar solo on keyboard. What's more, who has the time or dedication to get their skills up to the level of Steve Vai, when careful understanding of guitar note-selection patterns will produce convincing results with skills you already have?

But strumming an acoustic guitar? It only takes a few months to learn, or even a few weeks for keen students. Why not just learn? Or even better and easier to learn-- distorted power chords! Give me a student and a $100 guitar, and I'll have you in the ballpark in an hour. Maybe not good enough to record into your song, but at least enough to make you go, "shit, this really IS easy!" Then within a month or two, you WILL be ready to commit power chords to a track.

Greg

[edited for one typo and one unclear statement]

braj · Post by **braj** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:05 am

What about a violin, you gonna buy one of those too? A sax? How about a tuba? A marimba would be really handy...

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:08 am

Read the post again. I'm not saying we have to learn all instruments. As a matter of fact, though, I WOULD like to learn sax, as it's something I can see using in my music.

shamann · Post by **shamann** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:08 am

Maybe they just hate playing guitar? Or don't want one more thing cluttering up the place? Or don't want to have to go to the fuss of learning how to mike it all up proper?

Could be any number of things, and same could be said about myriad other instruments. Most technique available with a real instrument gets lost in the digital translation, but then you'd have to learn all of the instruments and have all of them sitting around your space if you were serious about the whole enterprise. Some of us like that approach, some of us don't and prefer to make do.

o'malley · Post by **o'malley** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:12 am

braj wrote:... A marimba would be really handy...

Gods I wish I had one of those...

I think keybords can do mallet instruments pretty well though. Better than guitar and sax at least.

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:17 am

Most technique available with a real instrument gets lost in the digital translation,

Please explain...I'm not sure I agrre with you. TBH I feel the opposite, with cleaner signals, more headroom and a lower floor I think digital had opened up untold ways to be even more innovative and creative playing live instruments...I think sometimes it's more like what doesn't get lost in the translation, but is more apparent digitally that brings down the sound...but alas we must blame it on technology and lament about the good ol' days...it's better then excepting the obvious....

braj · Post by **braj** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:22 am

Some people like the challenge of trying to emulate an instrument well. Others cart around a laptop and don't even use a keyboard to compose. Others don't use guitars very often but want access to that sound when needed. Others have delicate fingers and are afraid of guitars (I've got blisters on me fingers!)

I personally play guitar but still want to program guitar lines in midi because there are some advantages (you can change tempo, velocities, patches, yada yada yada).

I think this rant is weird. If you posted it on a Bluegrass forum I'd understand but on KVR? People geek out over music tech here.

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:28 am

It's not weird. You lot are my peeps, and I'm just trying to understand.

I get the challenge thing. Actually, last time it came up, I'm the one who offered, "cool, I understand a challenge" and the person in question (can't remember who it was) flamed me with, "you think I WANT the challenge? Roar, roar, hiss."

I understand a challenge, though.

It's not a rant, Braj. It's a simple question that might seem like a rant because I'm verbose.

-->

Why program/play keyboard for a strummed guitar line, when it's better in almost every regard to just play it? I guess what I'm getting at is that keyboardists often seem almost phobic to learn guitar, but the inverse isn't true. Guitarists often champ at the bit to get their hands on a keyboard/piano. I just wonder why the mentalities are so different!

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:29 am

Others have delicate fingers and are afraid of guitars (I've got blisters on me fingers!)

that's a new ...guitaraphobia....dude, I have absolutely one the worst, illogical fear of needles and blood...they have give me tranqs to take blood....I have had thousands of blisters...never did they stop me. Blisters turn into calluses...but thanks for the chuckle...

o'malley · Post by **o'malley** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:31 am

You know, you don't have to learn a buch of instruments, you can find people who can already play them.

shamann · Post by **shamann** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:33 am

Hink wrote:Please explain...I'm not sure I agrre with you. TBH I feel the opposite, with cleaner signals, more headroom and a lower floor I think digital had opened up untold ways to be even more innovative and creative playing live instruments...I think sometimes it's more like what doesn't get lost in the translation, but is more apparent digitally that brings down the sound...but alas we must blame it on technology and lament about the good ol' days...it's better then excepting the obvious....

Technique doesn't mean creative or innovative. Think of it only as the method available for working with something.

Get a trumpet. Blow into it. Think of all the ways you can blow into it, even if doing it wrong. Blow into it while changing the position of your lips, and tongue. Blow harder, softer, wetter. Think of all the things you can do to that trumpet outside of just blowing it normally. Stick a kazoo into your trumpet. Or a grapefruit. Smash your trumpet with a hammer, so that every time you blow into it, it produces several other resonant tones that have nothing to do with a trumpet sound.

Spend 10 years thinking of all the things you can do with a trumpet.

Now draw up a digital model of it all.

Digital allows for convenience, also allows you to do things differently, build sounds in ways impossible from before, allows you to work only with perfect takes, etc. But what is trivial in the real world, say the spit of a trumpet player, or the fat fingers of a guitar player, all that becomes very complicated in the digital domain.

Maybe one day when we all have our own holodecks we'll have perfect digital renditions of the trivial, but even then there will always be trade offs. Trade offs aren't necessarily worse, sometimes they actually make things better, but it would be foolish to pretend that trade offs aren't made when emulating something else.

herodotus · Post by **herodotus** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:33 am

Ooh....This thread is going to be fun!

Good one, Greg!

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:33 am

That, too, o'malley.

Some anonymous dude on the internet contacted me a few months ago. I didn't know him from Adam, but I happily worked out a guitar part for him.

Another thought, Braj, about the appropriateness of the question-- why would I post it on a Bluegrass forum where the people would all say, "Darn tootin'! You got that right!" when I can actually ask the target audience in question.

androidlove · Post by **androidlove** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:34 am

Lunch Money wrote:Or even better and easier to learn-- distorted power chords!

Well, my secret's out.

Damn you Greg!

metamorphosis · Post by **metamorphosis** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:35 am

o'malley wrote:
braj wrote:... A marimba would be really handy...
Gods I wish I had one of those...
.

I do

No, thanks, I'll just buy the instrument.