--Playin Guitar On A Synth/Keyboard--

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Raydio

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I own a Triton, 2 modules, and have sounds up the ass but one thing plagues me. I hear commercial Rap/R&B and they consist of many good guitar licks and I know most are played by real guitarist. BUT... how can synth owners like myself makeup for the lack of guitar skill and be able to contruct good guitar patterns to compete with the majors. Are there any tips or tricks that you guys live-by to makeup for your lack of guitar skill?? Good sample CDs?? Plugins?? How do you get that 70's mutted chord wah wah sound?? Certain way you play your keyboard?
Drop any techniques you use to get your guitar sound right! Me personally just depend on good samples and play with them. How bout u??
 
Unfortunately, guitar is one of the few instruments that absolutely can not be accurately reproduced. Sometimes you can cover it up with a little distortion or induvidually tweak the attack on each note (like threading a needle in mittens). You can always get samples, but if you know a guitar player hook up. We're all struggling right now so maybe exchange recording time or contacts with gigs or something. That's about all I can think of off the head. Be easy.

Peace.
 
What sound modules do you have?

You looking from a few strums and licks here and there or a all out performance?

I kinda like some of Roland's guitars the best but damn near any synth's guitars will need some work.

Best guitars are gona be samples though. If I want some guitars I have 2 or 3 ways to try and get em...The 1st way is my secret and the next would be to just find a few pure hot garbage rock or jazz cd's by some lame ass bands nobody has or will ever hear of. Hot garbage type shit not crate digger classics... You can find these for next to nothing at pawn shops or some cd trade places. You kind of need to listen to em to make sure they have a lot of open guitars (mostly at the being of a songs). Now you gotta liten and chop that shit up... I don't do this shit too often but I'm not much on sampling shit. Still the best guitar sample I have ever used came like that... Wish I knew from where but it's soo chopped up and efx'd it don't even matter.

Sample cd's can give up some pretty good guitars if you can get some minus the corny hard rock and weird shit. Best bet is for some jazz licks and riffs... Still should chop these up to stretch the use. If you have ACID or a decent wave file editor and a gang of time on your hads then you can freak these for days but of course you not gonna wana do 10 tracks with the smae choppe up guitars. That's what makes it hard to justify the price sticker.

On the real though... There are millions of cats that's down to lace some guitars but people have their hangups you gotta work around.
 
Get a live guitarist

For doing hip hop, you don't need a super tight azz guitarist. I happen to have a live guitarist. He's not the hottest. I'm not the hottest producer, but together we make some pretty hot sh*t. I know there are a million guitarist in the CHI area. Goto one of the colleges around that area, and ask around. Someone is bound to know a guitarist. Then start off slow....you could sample some easy riffs by him/her, until you find the niche or sound you are trying to get. Then start doing some complex sh*t.

Most of the riffs my guitarist play, anybody(that's been playing the guitar for 2-3 years) can play.

Listen:
http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=2663&alid=-1

Heat of the Morning - uses an easy riff, and it made the whole song tight.


Freestyle #1 Gangsta - this uses a more complex guitar riff, it's even hotter than Heat of the Morning(song is more for brizzies).


By the way...my guitarist was doing ska and alternative type music. He's from minnesota....but we flipped it and now we have a super tight chemistry.

Hit me up at sugaty@aol.com, and I'll send you a joint i did after my guitarist moved to San Antonio.....i built a whole song from some riffs I recorded in to my MPC.

That Texas Fella
sugaty@aol.com
 
Steinberg Virtual Guitarist ...

Maybe the answer to all your guitar prayers. There a 2 versions. A friend of mine has the Electric Edition and its really handy from what i found playing with it for 45 minutes or so. Its pretty much an appregiator .You have control of the notes but I'm not sure about control over the chords .They are $199 a piece. I feel its worth it being that it gives you those strums and licks you cant ( I cant) get from a keyboard alone. I'm definitely gonna pick up at least one version. Prolly the Original cuz it has acoustic guitars as well as electric. I'll have my when i get my tax rebate. :)

Anyone else try this out?
 
Good drop, now anyone got times on making guitars sound realistic using your keyboard/synth?? Any arps? Plugins? Onboard effects on certain modules? Anything!
 
Lots of synths and daw offer guitar efx and they actually work nice on synth sounds.

SHit's I'd do. with some guitar chords... Find the sound I like and play it using the RM1X as a sequncer. The RM1X has these features called "chord sort" and "chord seperate". These allow you to organize a chord into a up or down scale and then place a cetain amout of time in between the note signal. Now i'd go find me some efx starting with a AMP/CABINET effect or something like that. After than it's be maybe a chorus... Then maybe a delay... Then some reverb... Maybe not the right order.

I gotta bail for a second..... But yeah... EFX.... Listen to your favorite guitars and spend a week just trying to try to create em. You'll learn a gang of tricks in a week that'll stick with you a lifetime.
 
I don't really mess with to create realistic guitars but with my boys project coming up we won't some strong guits in there so i've been thinking on it.

Don't forget to stop the strums for rythm... Yo listen to PHARELL's latest joint. I mean force yourself to listen to it.... LOL... It's like a slower strum and then a quick one. Like a Flinnnn Flint..... Gotta kinda think like that some cuz that's one timing thing a string instrumnet has over any other instrument.

This experimental and I have yet to emplement it in any fashion. Sometimes if you tap the pitch bend a just little when you hit a note it can give the note that stringy sound. Kinda hard and barely noticable but fun to try and get in there. Say your going up one note to the next then you kind tap bend the earlier note the earlier not tho add a little up or down bend. I'ma have to try this again soon.

Bitch bends... Instead of just playing one note to note guitarist can bend notes. Also changing the pitch bend to run more than just 2 notes is dope if you know the right notes. I need a damn chart. I'd bend em to notes in between but it's hard to a spefic note twith the right timing. Could alwasys correct it in the data screen.

Layering the guitar... Most band use at least 2 guitar sometimes very different sounding and sometimes the exact same but just laying each other. Rally don't know the whole one the band structure though. Who does lead and shit and what tones he'd usually have.

I don't know dick about a real guitar but with all sequencing instruments you want to study how the actual musicians would play that em. It's why I stay the hell away from solo violins and solo brass.... Those intruments can vary in attack way too much.... Just hard as hell to recreate a bow or a breath using keys.

Did any that make sense?
 
good info lazi and you brushed a very important example. Pharrell and Chad use the Triton for most of their guitar parts. Pharrell's new joint is something i want to use as a study guide. Those guitars weren't real, but they sound real as hell. I heard that they use the Triton to detune a guitar and get it kinda rich sounding. Just keep the comments coming. I like that pitch bend idea but i didnt quite understand the part about when to use it. Do i do it just before the next note? If the next note is higher, do i have to bend the pitch higher? Let me know more guys. Thanks
 
Raydio,

Another thing that you might want to consider is the spacing of the notes in chords that you play. I play bass, but I started on guitar, so when I incorporate guitar parts I try to keep the chords open. When playing guitars on keyboard remember to try and think like a guitarist and not like a keyboard player. So try to stay away from intervals that are difficult or nearly impossible to play on a guitar. Another thing I would suggest is to pick up a guitar method book, those usually have common guitar chords and the notation to accompany it. I don't know what sequencer you work with but if you don't have the chord sort option you can try rolling the chord out. You kinda like you're playing an arpeggio, but you hold down the notes so they ring out.

Hope This Helps,
muzicman
 
Not what you want to hear, but on a Triton/similar you'd have to bury the synth guits (acoustic and electric) in the mix to make 'em work, unless you intentionally want a synth guit sound ('tunes style). Better samplers help, but then there's the hassle of keyswitching strums, mutes, etc.

Mallcore
 
muzicman8739 said:
I don't know what sequencer you work with but if you don't have the chord sort option you can try rolling the chord out. You kinda like you're playing an arpeggio, but you hold down the notes so they ring out.
Click to expand...

Im familiar with piano chords but you kinda lost me here. Im using fruity loops mainly for MIDI, but i have cubase sx. Now what exactly does this "chord sort" option do? And what do you mean by "rolling" the chord out? And ringing?
 
Secrets to programming.... Shhhhhhh!!!

"Originally posted by muzicman8739
I don't know what sequencer you work with but if you don't have the chord sort option you can try rolling the chord out. You kinda like you're playing an arpeggio, but you hold down the notes so they ring out."


"SHit's I'd do. with some guitar chords... Find the sound I like and play it using the RM1X as a sequncer. The RM1X has these features called "chord sort" and "chord seperate". These allow you to organize a chord into a up or down scale and then place a cetain amout of time in between the note signal."

When you play a piano chord you you normally hit the notes all at the same time or quantize will snap the to the same time. But the majority off the time you may hit some notes slightly before others. With a guitar strum the musician with either be strumming up or down. The first chord should go up and the second chord would normally go down. When you use a "chord sort" sort function you can arrange the notes to either play up or down the scale in order. Now since a guitar is played using a piick then it mean no notes in a chord are played at the same time. So to acheicve a more realistic chord you should put a reasonable amount of time between the notes. This depend how fast you'd want the strum to be. More space = slower strum. You probably already knew it but for cats that's reading I'ma just lay it out there.

With that same approach if you are into programming then you can set up a sounds to attack slower or the decay to give it a nice huumming tail for smoother chords. And a sustain pedal would do some nice stuff.

On that other thing.... I was just saying try tapping the pitch bend while playing notes. Not to really bending the notes but just to detune it a little. On that same tip guitarist some times shake the string to create the effect that modulation can give a sound. Too much modulation messes up the sound but if you play the note and then ease up the modulation control slowly it'll give that same effect. I really like this on the tails of acoustic bass sounds.
 
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