Keyboard "Guitar" technique

[james0tucson]

Any advice on how to make keyboard guitar sound more guitaristic, in terms of voicing, note order, scale idioms, and so on? How to avoid playing things that are easy on keyboard and impossible to really play on a guitar, for instance? I've always found it to be a problem, no matter how good the soundsets are, that guitar parts sound like keyboard parts no matter what you do. And some stuff is really hard to do even note-by-note, hand-edited, like expessions where you do bends on one or two notes.

I'm eagerly anticipating Manyguitar, and I don't have it yet, so I'm wondering about what workflow will be like, and whether I have the chops to play guitar chords and leads on the keyboard in the first place.

[hao nao]

hey james, maybe you have already considered some of these ideas:

in whatever tuning, the lowest and highest pitched strings of a six-stringer are about two octaves apart, with the strings about a fourth interval apart

don't play any notes lower than the unfretted bassest string, but you have almost two octaves of playing room above the unfretted trebliest string

adjacent fretted strings are still spaced about a fourth apart, give or take only a small number of semitones because of the physical limits of the fretting hand

pentatonic scale seems to be the first scale mentioned in guitar books

strumming live might be difficult, because you would have to roll the hands from low to high note or high to low note with evenish timing, and with decreasing velocity

I'm also hoping to hear other people's tips

sometimes I wish there were a guitar midi controller that didn't look like a fretboard or a keyboard ...

[jeffn1]

Here's one: Whenever you sustain a note, there should be some vibrato only going up from the main note (unless you use a wammy bar, guitar notes do note bend down).

jeffn1

[Gregjazz]

By the way, if you listen to all of my MP3 demos of Manyguitar (http://www.manytone.com/mgdescription.html#demos) I played the guitar lead using my midi keyboard live.

Here are some tips for playing guitar through a midi keyboard:

- A pitch wheel is a must -- I prefer the pitch wheels that are smaller and have strong springs. In all the demos I used the M-Audio Ozone 2-octave keyboard. The pitch wheel it has is very good. My other favorite pitch wheel is the ones on the Alesis QS series.

- I prefer the pitch wheel to be set to bend 2 semitones, which is the default, I believe.

- Learn to play a note and then bend the pitch wheel completely up to reach your "target note" a whole-step up.

- For vibrato, push the pitch wheel upwards and then move it in a motion just like you were playing vibrato on a real guitar.

- If you're playing a lead, sometimes putting the sound in 'mono' mode will help.

So you can get an idea of what I'm talking about, here is a MIDI file of me doodling around with some lead guitar (using the "Shred Hero" patch):

http://rapidshare.de/files/8854149/shredhero.mid.html

[Piktor]

Though I read the forum everyday, I've written very little. The few times that I have chimed in, it seems to be related to this topic. I seem to have a knack for killing a thread, but I do hope, one last time, that someone will react. Here goes:

If we're talking about lead guitar parts,I have a couple of thoughts.

In response to Gregjazz - I agree that it is important to find a pitch bending mechanism that feels good under your hands. I also agree with you somewhat as to your method of introducing vibrato. I love the sound of vibrato played with the pitch bend wheel/lever, instead of using an lfo. It gives your parts more personality. Every great player or singer uses a vibrato speed and intensity that helps to give them their own trademark sound. (Someone once pointed out that Louis Armstrong had the same vibrato on trumpet as he had in his voice.) I don't see why that can't be true of synthesizer players too.

With all due respect to Gregjazz, I feel very strongly that 2 semitones is the wrong way to go. Guitar players that I know will, in the heat of the moment, sometimes bend further into minor 3rds and even major 3rds. Besides, finger vibrato on a guitar will go sharper and flatter than the target bent note. Restricting your pitch bending interval to only a major second (assuming that that will be your most frequent target in a pitch bend) gives you only the option of executing a vibrato by bending perfectly in tune, flat, back to perfectly in tune, flat, etc., etc. Your only other alternative at that point is to use introduce lfo modulation, which is too regular to sound natural.

Keyboard players give themselves away all the time by executing that perfectly-in- tune whole tone bend over and over. Again, the perfect interval also sounds mechanical to me and drives me crazy. I've never heard a string player (or wind player) sound that "perfect".

The option that works well for me is to set the synth to bend 4 semitones up and down, thereby enabling one (with some regular practice) to execute a variety of expressive bends with a good degree of accuracy.

Regarding mono mode: It would be cool to be able to hit two notes and bend them by different intervals, but I've not seen that capability in a VSTi yet. You can get some mileage out of hitting the minor three and the five and bending those notes up by a whole step. With a bit of distortion added, you can make some guitar-like noises that way.

Effects: You could try distortion. I have used plugins (some cool ones out there), a RAT pedal, a lo-fi guitar or bass amp, a whaw pedal, and a cc or voltage control pedal to control filter or envelope. Even unadorned guitars, however, need very little to sound so damned interesting. Synth players have to work hard to sound “mean” without having mosquito tone. (On the other hand, Hammond players only need to play through a Leslie cranked to 9 to sound god-like.)

Final thought: For keyboard players to get into imitating other instruments, you might consider listening to a lot of non-keyboard players and attempting to sing their parts first. As the old saying goes, if you can sing it, you can (probably) play it.

Of course, Jan Hammer is a master at all of this and there are a few other keyboard players who have done interesting things. Nevertheless, it has been my observation and experience that generally keyboard players are discouraged by other musicians from making guitar-like sounds. There are, after all, a lot of close-minded, conservative, musical facists out there. On the other hand, perhaps other people's reluctance to hear keyboards played with bent notes is due to the fact that the keyboard player hasn't really worked out an effective and expressive technique yet and their playing sounds to others only like a poor imitation of a guitar. I think that if you play keyboards and you hear bent notes in your head, then it is well worth working out the techniques so that you can execute those sounds and ideas in ways that makes others appreciate what you have to say.

Okay, that’s all. Good luck with your pursuits James.

P

[M'Snah]

You might start to do only guitar accompaniment, and create a bit realistic feel with that.

One common error is to play chords like a piano, e.g. E-G#-B-C# for E6... Instead you'd have to take care of the strings: That means chords are almost never played in this order, and usually there are a lot of doubled notes, except when you play power chords.

E6 would become: E - B - E - G# - B - E, with the E's each an octave up. When playing a chord like that, you have to pay attention to the strum order, guitar players never hit all the strings at the same time, although the time between strings can be very short.

btw for powerchords and blues chords ManyGuitar offers some nice sounds (denoted by 567 in the patch name), using note + 5, note + 6, note +7 at 3 different octaves on the keyboard, making it very easy to play standard blues / rock n roll accompaniment.

[james0tucson]

Good ideas, folks! Thanks. I've got to put in the order for MG and start working on my chops myself.

See, I'm a pretty decent guitar player, but I have way better keyboard technique. Just want to find out where MG can take me.

[Gregjazz]

With all due respect to Gregjazz, I feel very strongly that 2 semitones is the wrong way to go. Guitar players that I know will, in the heat of the moment, sometimes bend further into minor 3rds and even major 3rds.

Having your pitch bend set to 2 semitones allows you to bend up a minor or major 3rd, you just have to start the pitch wheel at a lower level.

For example, I might play a D and have the pitch bend all the way down (which would make that sound as a C), and then move the pitch wheel all the way up, which would bend it from a C to an E.

Granted it will take a little while to learn how to do bends like that, but it really isn't all that hard.

Besides, finger vibrato on a guitar will go sharper and flatter than the target bent note.

Are you referring to classical vibrato, which is similar to vibrato that violinists employ, for example? Even so, that kind of vibrato on guitar has a very small range, because the frets tend to hamper the strings from being tightened and loosened from this finger movement. But you are correct, in this kind of vibrato, the pitch will actually go flatter too.

However, with the kind of finger vibrato where you push the string up and down in order to get more depth (like the vibrato that blues and rock guitarists use), the string does not go below the starting pitch.

Keyboard players give themselves away all the time by executing that perfectly-in- tune whole tone bend over and over. Again, the perfect interval also sounds mechanical to me and drives me crazy. I've never heard a string player (or wind player) sound that "perfect".

I agree, but it is still possible to imitate the imperfections of a bend as a keyboard player--you just have to be aware of it.

Also keep in mind that in guitar if you start a note with the whammy bar depressed and then slowly release it, you will hit the target note in tune (especially if the use of the whammy bar doesn't screw up your intonation).

The option that works well for me is to set the synth to bend 4 semitones up and down, thereby enabling one (with some regular practice) to execute a variety of expressive bends with a good degree of accuracy.

Really whatever works for you and is most comfortable for you is the way to go. Keep in mind that with the pitch bend set to cover a larger range it will be more difficult to play subtle vibrato.

Regarding mono mode: It would be cool to be able to hit two notes and bend them by different intervals, but I've not seen that capability in a VSTi yet. You can get some mileage out of hitting the minor three and the five and bending those notes up by a whole step. With a bit of distortion added, you can make some guitar-like noises that way.

This is the feature I've been wishing for for a long time! That is definitely a cool idea!

Final thought: For keyboard players to get into imitating other instruments, you might consider listening to a lot of non-keyboard players and attempting to sing their parts first. As the old saying goes, if you can sing it, you can (probably) play it.

Yes!

In fact, it's very beneficial to learn how those instruments are played and perhaps learn how to play a little of that other instrument.

[tradivoro]

As a guitar player, rare is the day when I'm bending up to a minor third, which is more like never... That's usually an invitation to a broken string... A major second on a synth is great because it makes it sound real, especially if you're doing guitar licks where you're bending the note up a second and then playing the same note on the next string... So a major second setting on the pitch wheel will give optimal results... A minor third will sound artificial because guitar players simply don't do that very often...

Gregjazz, I think you did fantastic work on the manytone demos, really is selling the program to me..

With all due respect to Gregjazz, I feel very strongly that 2 semitones is the wrong way to go. Guitar players that I know will, in the heat of the moment, sometimes bend further into minor 3rds and even major 3rds. Besides, finger vibrato on a guitar will go sharper and flatter than the target bent note. Restricting your pitch bending interval to only a major second (assuming that that will be your most frequent target in a pitch bend) gives you only the option of executing a vibrato by bending perfectly in tune, flat, back to perfectly in tune, flat, etc., etc. Your only other alternative at that point is to use introduce lfo modulation, which is too regular to sound natural.
P

[Piktor]

Gregjazz wrote:
"Are you referring to classical vibrato, which is similar to vibrato that violinists employ, for example? Even so, that kind of vibrato on guitar has a very small range, because the frets tend to hamper the strings from being tightened and loosened from this finger movement. But you are correct, in this kind of vibrato, the pitch will actually go flatter too.

However, with the kind of finger vibrato where you push the string up and down in order to get more depth (like the vibrato that blues and rock guitarists use), the string does not go below the starting pitch...."


I see what Gregjazz is talking about here and he is right. In that blues/rock thing, if you haven't bent that string, your vibrato will go sharp-in tune - sharp - in tune - etc. However, I was actually thinking about performing vibrato on a bent note by pushing the pitch bend mechanism slightly sharp and then flat (sharp, flat, etc.) AFTER bending into the target pitch - just the way that you would do it on a BENT guitar string. A violinist once told me that in classical technique, vibrato "must" be performed by varying the pitch from sharp to flat of the target note, just the way a vocalist would do it. (He also pointed out that classical clarinet players are not supposed to play vibrato, because they play at the top of the pitch. Therefore, they would only be able to alternate between in tune pitch and flat pitch. We know that jazz clarinet players broke this "rule" all of the time.) At the same time, not all guitar styles call for bends. (Don't you hate it when a jazz guitar player tries to bend those super fat strings on a hollow-body and ends up painfully flat?)

Interestingly enough, after I reflected on Gregjazz's comments, I noticed that I do wiggle that pitch bender a great deal on non-bent pitches too, just the way we add vibrato to non-bent pitches on guitar (again, not thinking about classical technique here).

As a guitar player, rare is the day when I'm bending up to a minor third, which is more like never... That's usually an invitation to a broken string... A major second on a synth is great because it makes it sound real, especially if you're doing guitar licks where you're bending the note up a second and then playing the same note on the next string... So a major second setting on the pitch wheel will give optimal results... A minor third will sound artificial because guitar players simply don't do that very often...

With all due respect to Gregjazz, I feel very strongly that 2 semitones is the wrong way to go. Guitar players that I know will, in the heat of the moment, sometimes bend further into minor 3rds and even major 3rds. Besides, finger vibrato on a guitar will go sharper and flatter than the target bent note. Restricting your pitch bending interval to only a major second (assuming that that will be your most frequent target in a pitch bend) gives you only the option of executing a vibrato by bending perfectly in tune, flat, back to perfectly in tune, flat, etc., etc. Your only other alternative at that point is to use introduce lfo modulation, which is too regular to sound natural.
P

Seriously? I've NEVER broken a string doing that. (I use Ernie Ball regular slinkys.) Besides, on guitar my target note is not usually higher than a whole tone either, BUT after you crank a pitch bend wheel to the top of its range, how are you going to do a "natural" sounding manual vibrato if you can only go flat-in tune-flat-in tune,etc.? On guitar you would wiggle that bent note both sharp and flat of the target note, right?

While most of our guitar bends are semitones (e.g. 6th up the flat 7) and whole tone, as a guitar/keyboard player "of a certain vintage", I ocassionally like to hear those wild bends that Page or Guy, etc. will pull off when they bend the one up to the minor three or the fifth up to the minor seventh. Granted, I don't really care at all if I make a synth sound like a guitar, or any other instrument for that matter. I just think that you should play the thing with some kind of non-mechanical expression when you are playing melodic lines. I have to admit that I am pretty old-school when it comes to bending techniques. The ribbons on my old Multimoogs bend about a minor sixth in either direction and, if I remember correctly, the original Minimoog wheels had a similar range. Keyboard masters of pitch-bend (like Jan Hammer) were beautifully expressive and really accurate, because they practiced. I must admit to feeling old fashioned about this. Wider intervals present challenges and possibilities (e.g. listen to jazz violinists). David Sancious used to have his pitch bend set to a REALLY large range and he did beautiful work in the late seventies. Despite the fact that I think that Gregjazz and I share similar concepts and I truely do appreciate his work, I can't help but feel that 98% of the keyboard players who bother to touch the pitch bend mechanism are cheating by programming the instrument to bend into a major second. I just spent an afternoon in the music store shopping for a new instrument and all of the Korg-Roland-Yamaha sampled guitars with bend range of a whole tone really sound like...keyboards. It's no wonder our guitar playing friends say disparaging things about us when we show them our "guitar" licks. If we want that expressive, vocal/string-like quality, we have to work as hard as Clapton or Beck do. (But then again, I even cringe when I hear singers like Shania Twain singing into an autotune device. Where's the humanity, the mud, the grit? Give me Howlin' Wolf, Johnny Rotten, Al Green, Glenn Hughes, Bjork ...) As good as so many of you are, your perfect whole tone bends can't light fires the way Jan Hammer did on "Untold Passion" (some of his most furious tones and playing ever). I just hope that we can aspire to do better.