Slow attack of the volume of guitar plucking

[wallace]

hi,

I am looking for a solution to the following problem: I would like to smooth the volume of a guitar, so that the string plucking gets a much slower attack, so that it sounds more like a cello.
One solution I found is to use a gate with a very slow attack (2s). With this approach there are two problems though:
1. most of gate plugins do not have such a slow attack time (usually the max is around 0.5 sec)
2. even with the desired attack time of 2 secs, it works only if the guitar plucking is done at the same volume, so that the threshold it not too high or low.

Any ideas on how I can achieve this?
Ideally i'd like a solution that works with live input guitar (otherwise I could manually edit the volume envelope of every pluck).

I mostly use Ableton Live and Reaper as DAW on Windows or Linux, I am open to use any plugins which works with them.

[Unaspected]

Expression pedal?

[wallace]

[quote=Unaspected post_id=8492937 time=1660579364 user_id=279802]
Expression pedal?
[/quote]

correct, that is one way to achieve that. But I am looking for some kind of "automatic" way to do that, so that the guitar sound is always consistently fading in.

[Unaspected]

You could use a tremolo with sawtooth modulation if your riff isn't too complex.

[Unaspected]

Here's a thread for you: viewtopic.php?t=548361

EDIT: Key term is "auto swell". I googled it and that lead me straight back to the forum.

[mcbpete]

My first thought is convolution reverb with an impulse response that has a 'slow attack' envelope. Not sure if the tone would colour the sound too much but maybe see what it sounds like if you actually use a sample of that cello slow bow sound as the IR itself - worth a shot !

[wallace]

thanks for all the good suggestions, tonight I'll try them out and let you know. the convolution idea might be pretty fitting, as I'm already using a convolver to color the sound as I want, I just have to reverse the sample

[wallace]

The auto swell plugin is indeed the easiest and effective solution, it works like a charm.

[Aqua1014]

You could try using a transient shaper with a long release effectively ducking the front of the note, could be interesting

[wallace]

[quote=Aqua1014 post_id=8493408 time=1660635604 user_id=566666]
You could try using a transient shaper with a long release effectively ducking the front of the note, could be interesting
[/quote]

Ok, thanks, can you suggest any specific plugin for that?

[GaryG]

I've found these two plugs most effective:

Pecheneg AutoSwell-light: http://pechenegfx.blogspot.com/2015/06/ ... n-vst.html

Musical Entropy's Guitar gadgets - Sideways algorithm - https://www.kvraudio.com/product/guitar ... al-entropy

Both work well though slightly different in how they operate. Autoswell will close again once the signal falls away (retriggers if you play another note) whereas Sideways will stay open longer allowing unaffected notes to be played too. Actually I may have that the wrong way around, been a while since I used either.