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

[Lunch Money]

I should be in bed.

Regarding budget:

If you're using only free samples and "getting by" I can totally understand the budget thing. For a computer musician, I'd agree that if you only have $200 to spend, you're better off with a keyboard than a guitar.

What confuses me is that some people spend multi-hundreds of dollars on sample libraries in order to produce really poor-sounding fake strumming. One of my acoustic guitars (a Yamaha) cost me $150 Canadian. My other (a Guild) may have been more expensive, but it also has a different sound. For many purposes, the Yamaha actually sounds better and works better for the song. Surely, rather than spending $400 American on a collection of 'meticulously recorded samples' you could buy the $120 (after conversion!) guitar and spend the remaining $280 on something that could help the guitar recording but also other aspects of your setup?

Very very confusing.

[AudioWhore]

My biggest regret is not learning an instrument properly. I feel deeply that what I'm doing now, with synths and VSTs and midi keyboards and piano rolls is fake, cheating, petty theft of a field I admire more than anything. I don't concider the music I make worthy of being called music. There should be a different word for it, like what I'm typing now isn't comparable to literature.
That said, I'm having a lot of fun, and thanks to the internet a few other people are enjoying what I do as well. Or they claim to on friendly boards...
One thing I have noticed however, is that no matter how carefully I work on a part using piano rolls and midi and clicking in parts and tweaking and quantizing and all the work that goes into it, it gets nowhere near what I can accomplish with a real bass, a real guitar and whatever other real instruments I've got around the place. The sense of achievement (and secret, stolen pride) I get from having a bass part or a guitar solo in a song outweighs the inaccuracies it automatically inserts. And the songs sound better, too.
This applies only to me and my music and my mind. What you might feel and think and prefer is entirely up to you. But one thing is beyond discussion: Actually being able to play an instrument is an art, a skill that needs constant attention and hard work, and is not comparable to learning how to match beats or download a soundfont. Don't kid yourselves.

While you are partly right there, if you can make a song made 100% in piano roll but still manipulate emotion like great music only can do then it doesnt really matter whether you can play or not. Just as long as you know how to properly transcribe the music from your mind to the computer. Thats what techno is all about isnt it???

[Hovmod]

My biggest regret .blah blah ... Don't kid yourselves.

While you are partly right there, if you can make a song made 100% in piano roll but still manipulate emotion like great music only can do then it doesnt really matter whether you can play or not. Just as long as you know how to properly transcribe the music from your mind to the computer. Thats what techno is all about isnt it???

Of course.
I have no problem having two or more magnificently opposing views on music in my head. I just find it real hard to express them in the same sentence, like "you can't program real music AND Underworld live is on my top three list" or "you can't fake a guitar AND The Young Gods kick ass" or simply any sentence beginning with "music is..."

Only the love for my kids is greater than music. It's the most confusing, bewildering, unscientific mess you can imagine, and I love it with a vengeance. How can a person be moved by both Beethoven and Burzum? What is common between Mozart and Motorpsycho? Forget about it. I still love to talk about it, but any strong opinion I have is immediately negatable by an opposing argument, often inside my own head.

Music is the best.

[Meffy]

Why not just learn?

Ah well. I'm getting better at poking at keyboards, anyway.

[Stupid American Pig]

I learned guitar but my playing ability is severly cramped due to my left pinky not working after an unfortunate flag football accodent when I was in 6th grade..

[.jon]

So far I've used the "Phone-A-Friend" method- I'm lucky enough to have a multi-talented friend who plays the sax, guitar & cello. (and keys a lot better than I do.)

I'll talk with him about the licencing issues before making a VSTi version of him... the business wolf inside me smells an opportunity here

[Markleford]

$150 guitar vs $400 sample library? Cost-effectiveness?

Depends on how often you think you'll use it, really. If it's just once, I'd say that *both* are a waste of your money. People only buy $400 sample libraries if they think they'll use them all the time! (or just have money to burn...)

Of course, consider the fact that you can sell the guitar but likely can't (legally) sell the samples.

Is it a waste of time to learn to play just to get a "sound"? Well it's my opinion that no time learning a new instrument is wasted! Even if you give up and go back to emulating a guitar on keyboard, you'll be more informed on how a guitar actually works and thus better equipped to emulate one.

"But I'll never sound as good as the library!" You're probably right with that attitude. But hopefully the important thing to consider is that you'll sound *different* than the library. Do you want to sound exactly like Yet Another X-Library Sampled Guitarist? Eh. Maybe you're into generic music. Or maybe you're gifted enough to make it sound like your own.

But either way you'll find an infinite amount more of expression capability in a real instrument: a sample library's articulation set is finite.

I can't say that there's any correct answer here. I'm a proponent of using live instruments in my electronic works. I think that people *should* learn to play the instruments they emulate, if only to be able to emulate them better. You don't have to become an expert session performer to get something valuable from the experience.

But I can also agree that it's a cost that some people can't manage, which doesn't necessarily stop at just purchasing an instrument. Heck, I own four brass instruments that I can't record to pristine library quality because I don't have a nice tube mic and isolation booth, which will cost me a lot more altogether than a $400 brass library!

But there's a happy medium in there: I record with a vocal mic and use a noise gate. Has anyone complained? Nope. They're generally into the sound because it sounds different from all the other sampled and synthesized brass out there!

And don't get me started on my drum kit: I certainly don't have the cash to isolate it and mic it up and submix it to get it into my PC with any decent quality! But I didn't want a drum kit to record: I just wanted to learn and play and have fun! And you can bet that the experience has improved my programming.

- m

[respirator]

Markleford: Well spoken!

[herodotus]

And don't get me started on my drum kit: I certainly don't have the cash to isolate it and mic it up and submix it to get it into my PC with any decent quality! But I didn't want a drum kit to record: I just wanted to learn and play and have fun! And you can bet that the experience has improved my programming.

- m

Not wanting to do another hijack or anything, but in many world class old school recordings, a single mic was all that was used on the drums.

People get all intimidated about recording drums, but there is a whole world of acceptable drum sounds that don't require isolation booths and the like.

Get a cheap stereo pair of small diaphram condensers and experiment with mic placement. Hell just buy one condenser mic (you will want one eventually anyway) and experiment with mic placement. You may be pleasantly surprized.

Otherwise, I agree with M entirely.

[2windy]

How long would it take me to learn bass guitar? I don't have much in the way of music theory but I know a bit.

I wan't to be able to play funky bass lines similar to what gets used a lot in house at the moment. That's all I want it for.

(Surely $199 spend on Scarbee Kontakt Salp/Fingered Bass set plus a bit of practice would be preferable to buying a guitar?)

[Markleford]

Not wanting to do another hijack or anything, but in many world class old school recordings, a single mic was all that was used on the drums.

But typically with a better mic than I have. Here's my sole "vocal mic on the floor in front of the kick" recording:

Punk Rock Song

Which suited it quite fine for the given purpose! (especially given the message of the tune!)

People get all intimidated about recording drums, but there is a whole world of acceptable drum sounds that don't require isolation booths and the like.

Y'know, I must admit that it's mostly intimidation at work here! Time to start looking at some condensers (suggestions accepted)... ummm, and some stands so I have more options for placement... and XLR cables for each... etc

But I suppose that's the idea: start small and expand later.

- m

[Markleford]

(Surely $199 spend on Scarbee Kontakt Salp/Fingered Bass set plus a bit of practice would be preferable to buying a guitar?)

The answer is:

Going with the Scarbee library would be preferable...

...if you don't want to take the time to learn how to play bass.

It all depends on if your ultimate goal is: "I have a bass sound on my recording". Then cost-effectiveness points to buying samples.

How long would it take me to learn bass guitar?

Answer: it depends. On your sense of rhythm, your manual dexterity, on your ear for listening to bass recordings to learn, and if you're willing to take lessons. You never really know 'til you try.

I will say that you'll have to practice and "learn to play" with the Scarbee Slap/Fingered library, too! Its realism comes from programming tricks that you'll have to master, just as you would any "real" instrument. Either way, you'll be rewarded for the effort you put into it.

However, if you learn to play bass even at a novice level, then you'll be better prepared to write a realistic bassline if you decide to get the Scarbee library. Heck, that's why that library is so good to begin with: he's a wicked bass player in his own right, so he knew what the library needed!

- m

[herodotus]

Time to start looking at some condensers (suggestions accepted)...

The oktava mk012s (they come in matched pairs) are really, really useful. They sound just wonderful as overheads, or facing opposite directions at the rooms 'sweet spot'.

For a lower price, the nady cm88 is functional (sounds fine, but built kinda cheaply so they say).

[Lunch Money]

I can listen to a song, and it could be unique and unheard, but if it doesn't move me, what good is it to me? ... if I hear a song that does nothing for me, it's completely insignificant and irrelevant if it's "unique".

Here we disagree.

I disagree that we disagree . We see eye-to-eye, damnit, and here's why: the full quotation of my words makes it explicit that by "moving" I don't mean merely the typical emotional response. So you better stop telling me that we disagree when we actually couldn't agree more!

(I hope the humour (but also truth!)) of that translated well into text.

[kab]

My biggest regret is not learning an instrument properly. I feel deeply that what I'm doing now, with synths and VSTs and midi keyboards and piano rolls is fake, cheating, petty theft of a field I admire more than anything. I don't concider the music I make worthy of being called music. There should be a different word for it, like what I'm typing now isn't comparable to literature.
That said, I'm having a lot of fun, and thanks to the internet a few other people are enjoying what I do as well. Or they claim to on friendly boards...
One thing I have noticed however, is that no matter how carefully I work on a part using piano rolls and midi and clicking in parts and tweaking and quantizing and all the work that goes into it, it gets nowhere near what I can accomplish with a real bass, a real guitar and whatever other real instruments I've got around the place. The sense of achievement (and secret, stolen pride) I get from having a bass part or a guitar solo in a song outweighs the inaccuracies it automatically inserts. And the songs sound better, too.

I tend to agree here. My current rig is composed of a midi controller keyboard, a guitar, a bass, and a trapkat.

There simply isnt enough time in the day to become as adept as I'd like to be at all these (I truly cannot grasp the dexterity needed to play keys well, though I do understand "how" to play it).

Relying on tech solely can lead to very sterile sounding music if one is not careful, and thoughtful about going over and refining whats been done. Human playing is not perfect...and this is what gives music "life" in a lot of cases. Things ebb and flow, fingers slide, keys / strings /heads are hit / plucked with varying consistency, vocals may go slightly flat/sharp, or get raspy... losing that is to lose the soul of what you're trying to accomplish. At least that is my view of things, I'm sure others may think quite differently about it.

And I agree, there is a huge sense of accomplishment to be faced with a part on an instrument you may not be that good at, and work it till you can pull it off... this blows piano roll clicking out of the water.

ON THE OTHER HAND, music is about getting whats in your head into your ears, and aside from ripping someone elses work off, you should attain that by whatever means you have available. It's not for me or anyone else to dictate the "right" way to do things.. the important thing here is that you as a musician / artist get your point across.