Newbie Question -- Good way to emulate chamber orchestra sounds (cello, violin, etc)?

[C.Crow]

Hi everyone! New to the boards but excited to be here and learn.

My set up is basic: an iMac, garageband, two mics (one for vocals, one for my flamenco guitar), M-Audio Fast Track.

What I'd like to do, with a minimum of equipment purchases, is use my unamplified (no pick up) guitar to properly synthesize sounds like cello, violin, etc. Is there a device I could get that would sit between my mics and M-audio that I could configure to shape or transform the sound being picked up by my mics when I play guitar? Or do I just have to suck it up and get a midi keyboard? I'd ideally want to do this directly from sounds made by my guitar. Note: I would be open to a pickup if that's what it would take.

I appreciate everyone's help.


Best,
C.Crow

 

[c7sus]

Not really.

There are some hardware/software solutions, but they have serious latency problems and you would probably have to spend a lot of time editing the MIDI files to get them to play in proper time.

Then you would need a decent orchestral sample program to emulate those instruments.

Check out the Sonuus G2M. But understand it has a minimum latency of about 10ms, and the latency varies according to the pitches applied to it. It might work with a mic if you have a good dynamic, or by taking the recorded output off the FastTrack and running it through the G2M and saving the output of the G2M as a MIDI file. Then you would apply the sampled sounds to the various MIDI tracks.

 

[mjbphotos]

No, suck it up and buy the keyboard!

 

[C.Crow]

Thanks -- Keyboard Suggestions?

Thanks so far to everyone for their advice -- esp. c7sus (great chord) re: the Sonus. I'm researching it tonight.

Looks like I'm probably gonna suck it up and get a good midi synth. I'd like to spend no more than about $200 new or used, any suggestions from the crowd?

Best,
C.Crow