Remember around March, when people were talking about how Isaac Newton isolated himself in the countryside during a plague, and had his most productive year? Well, I'm no Isaac Newton, but I tried to take that seriously. We had to stop recordings of a new sample library that involved multiple people, because of the risk of infection, so I figured I'll just sit home and do something that only requires me and a lot of time. And now it's done. I deep-sampled a very nice Jazzmaster copy I have, going for a 90s indie rock sound. That means feedback and emulation of the tremolo tailpiece, like I already did with Secret Agent Guitar, plus extended techniques. This doesn't have quite as many articulations as Vengeful Bass, but there's lots... regular picking, picking near the bridge, palm mutes, ghost notes, muted ghost notes, harmonics, hammer-ons, pull-offs, picking behind the bridge, pick stabs, fingering noises, pick scrapes and a keyswitch's worth of non-scrape noises, including thumping the body and playing behind the nut. Even the fingering noises are sampled every fret on every string, with round robins, but hey, I had plenty of time to do the editing... I did end up getting another person involved in the recording, to get the tremolo picking to sound better than I ever could, but not too smooth.
Now you might notice this is a nice guitar, while we've sampled dirt-cheap ones made in Polish government factories before. I'm very VERY curious which will sell better, and this will definitely influence what instruments we sample in the future.
Walkthrough:
https://shop.karoryfer.com/snowkiss-guitar
$19 intro price until the end of September, then $39 regular price.
Snowkiss Guitar, or what I do when there's a plague (with $19 intro price)
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- KVRAF
- 2209 posts since 20 Sep, 2013 from Poland
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 2209 posts since 20 Sep, 2013 from Poland
Warning, bit of a ramble coming... People will always use your instruments in different ways than you imagined they would. In some cases, they'll prove your thoughts about your own instruments wrong. I thought that this guitar can do noisy indie rock stuff but it'll take a lot of work, because using enough articulations to make things interesting will take a lot of keyswitching. Somebody bought this, though, and a few hours later sent me this track.
He more or less just held down some chords on a keyboard, going into Ableton's arp, and moused around the keyswitches and controls. The whole thing was done live. So apparently you can get noisy indie stuff out of it without a big learning curve and time investment.
He more or less just held down some chords on a keyboard, going into Ableton's arp, and moused around the keyswitches and controls. The whole thing was done live. So apparently you can get noisy indie stuff out of it without a big learning curve and time investment.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 2209 posts since 20 Sep, 2013 from Poland
Thanks. Which features specifically? I've been thinking about whether it's worth documenting the feedback implementation for the SFZformat site. It might also be worth explaining guitar-specific pitch bend and vibrato implementation.
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- KVRAF
- 26033 posts since 20 Oct, 2007 from gonesville
the modeled whammy bar is huge, I don't know of any other product to do it... strings do not bend all as one and that's rather frustrating in what I've used.
then the so-called unison bend...
as a guitarist I liked to scrape the strings for a thing I don't know how to describe so the noisy stuff really appeals to me.
*feedback*
then the so-called unison bend...
as a guitarist I liked to scrape the strings for a thing I don't know how to describe so the noisy stuff really appeals to me.
*feedback*
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 2209 posts since 20 Sep, 2013 from Poland
OK, sure, I'll document this stuff, hopefully by the end of the month. It's not hard to implement, and with the whammy I already have gotten a start, video and all, explaining how it works - just have to add how to turn that into SFZ. If other devs want to use it or translate it into Kontakt or whatever, good.
I'm not sure if any other virtual guitars have that implemented, though it wouldn't surprise me if some did, maybe Three Body Tech, because they do more some interesting modeling stuff in general. Most sampled electric guitars are metal, though, where you'll usually be wiggling the bar on single notes, so having different bend depths on different strings is more of an inconvenience than a feature for many users. All the sampled archtops I've seen are for jazz, not for rockabilly or for the Chris Isaak thing, where the proper depths become crucial.
Blame me growing up on noisy 90s indie rock... got the name idea from the Cindytalk song "Snowkisss", throw in stuff like Curve, Cranes, Sonic Youth and even Kousokuya... Feedback, all sorts of noises and trem bar action, adding up to interesting textures.
I'm not sure if any other virtual guitars have that implemented, though it wouldn't surprise me if some did, maybe Three Body Tech, because they do more some interesting modeling stuff in general. Most sampled electric guitars are metal, though, where you'll usually be wiggling the bar on single notes, so having different bend depths on different strings is more of an inconvenience than a feature for many users. All the sampled archtops I've seen are for jazz, not for rockabilly or for the Chris Isaak thing, where the proper depths become crucial.
Blame me growing up on noisy 90s indie rock... got the name idea from the Cindytalk song "Snowkisss", throw in stuff like Curve, Cranes, Sonic Youth and even Kousokuya... Feedback, all sorts of noises and trem bar action, adding up to interesting textures.
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- KVRist
- 243 posts since 5 May, 2020
Man, I miss my Jazzmaster! You really nailed the sound of the vibrato bar! What a great collection of nuances. Wow.
I love the sound of those wide flat pickups. But on my '65 Jazzmaster they seem to suck the 60Hz right out of the room and amplify them. I can't imagine how you got such a clean and clear tone. Shielded room?
I love the sound of those wide flat pickups. But on my '65 Jazzmaster they seem to suck the 60Hz right out of the room and amplify them. I can't imagine how you got such a clean and clear tone. Shielded room?
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 2209 posts since 20 Sep, 2013 from Poland
Yeah, those things do pick up a lot of hum... I just recorded with both pickups on so the hum got cancelled like it should have. Otherwise it would probably pick up a ton, between the lights and the monitor speakers in the room. Didn't do any noise reduction, either, the noisy stuff doesn't sound right without the background hiss for the amp to amplify. Hiss is important to some of these styles, I think (certainly to feedback, it sounds like an ebow without it) but 55 Hz (in this case) buzz is definitely not good!
Also might restring it with heavier flatwound strings and sample it again sometime for more of a surf rock sound... definitely not this year, though.
Btw price goes up to $39 on Thursday, October 1st. So, last chance for some to get it at intro price; for others, a chance to finally pay full price and send me more money (there are a few of you, and I really do appreciate this).
Also might restring it with heavier flatwound strings and sample it again sometime for more of a surf rock sound... definitely not this year, though.
Btw price goes up to $39 on Thursday, October 1st. So, last chance for some to get it at intro price; for others, a chance to finally pay full price and send me more money (there are a few of you, and I really do appreciate this).