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As an extension to my previous drums and bass thread there was talk of guitar, and I thought I'd try and practically demonstrate how a guitar (and guitar chords in particular) are very different to piano. I accept this sounds pretty obvious, but if you want a "realistic" sounding guitar you need to use the right notes! So its the same track except I've added a strum pattern for the open E and A major chords, and there's a band filter used to create a wah pedal effect.
So an E chord on a piano is simpy E, G#, B, on a guitar however you have six strings, and you play the notes E, B, E, G#, B, E so you're spanning 2 octaves just to play a chord.
A on piano is A, C#, E, on guitar you play five strings, you don't play the top E string as thing although being a note in the chord the first string you hit is the emphasis therefore you start playing the open A string, and continue playing A, E, A, C#, E.
And of course because this is strummed you do not play all the notes at the same time so you need to switch quantise off and just shift them slightly to give that more natural feel.
So, take a peek in the caustic file and see if that all makes sense, and indeed if you think it sounds anything like a real guitar!
And because I love you all in a sweaty back kinda way, I had a go at strum patterns on an acoustic guitar, note the adsr settings on the preset, this means you have have a decaying string but stop it exactly when you want which is how a guitar string would react.
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very helpfull to understand how to get a better wah guitar. thanks!
'Askar
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Well at least one person found it useful!
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Hey that's my trick you used there heeheehee....
Sounds good..... turning off the Quantize, helps set up the strum effect very easily for a variety of tempos and intensity of playing...
Well as soon as you stop using *my* way of forming Am with the A, C and E keys maybe I'll stop using your way eh!
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Sweaty back kind of way?
Watch Brokeback Mountain
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Isn't that the movie famous for those two gay guys having sex in a tent, or something along those lines?
You should definately consider a career in reviewing movies
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Heheheh ok.... I hate that chord anyways
I've never tried to imitate guitar strums but the tip here is one of those blindingly obvious points that is not obvious at all until you figure it out or someone explains it to you... Nice.
When you think of a rhythm guitar part try to imagine how a real guitarist would play it. Which strums would be up strokes and which would be down strokes? As Rob shows in his second example the down strokes are spread from the lowest to the highest note of the chord whereas the up strokes are spread from the highest to the lowest note of the chord. It's kind of obvious when you think about it!
Another tip is to use velocity to accent or emphasise some strums more than others. This creates a more focused rhythmic effect.
Finally think about how long each string sounds until it is stopped by the next strum.
A well programmed guitar part can sound very authentic using the right samples but is very time consuming to get just right. Of course one could argue that this time could be better spent learning to play the guitar...! ;-)
I definitely agree learning guitar is a better way to go, but I was just having a play really. I found that chopping the initial 'bite' from the 12 string so it has a softer attack makes it sound better, and you're right, it definitely needs more velocity tweaking to give a better feel. I did make the first string hit stronger than the others but that's about it! Also, ideally you'd use a different sample for each string, definitely a different sample for the wound vs unwound strings.
To be honest, I didn't spend a whole lot of time on this, once you get the strum pattern in you copy and paste it then it's just a matter of stretching the notes to butt up to the next note, not really too bad at all.
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Even if you don't learn to play the guitar properly it's worth having a cheap one lying around the house.
Here's a trick I've used in the past to improve the realism of 'fake' rhythm guitar parts. After programming your guitar riff/pattern, pick up the real guitar and record yourself strumming the same rhythm with all the strings muted. You can fold some cloth or paper and wedge it under the strings on the neck to achieve this or use your fretting hand to dampen the strings. Record a few bars of the pattern in time with your sequenced track and then edit it into short loops. Paste these samples into the PCM synth or Beatbox and then trigger them to play in time with track. If you blend the samples with the original guitar track so they're at just the right volume (you can eq them too) they will give the impression of a more realistic strum attack and make the guitar part sound much more human.
So Rob, i saw you have great experience here with Caustic in general...
Can you look my project?
If you want you can adjust anything you want, it is just a idea: But is it good?
So any tips?
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Im back xD
Yes, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhall as two sheepherders (NOT "cowboys") in a homosexual relationship.
...Ang Lee is a hetero man; one wonders why so many of his films are gay-themed... The Wedding Feast, Brokeback Mountain, The Hulk....
I think I used Jason's PCMSynth preset for this guitar sound when I made this track seven months ago.
I don't currently own a guitar so I had to do this one entirely in Caustic.
Sounds like "more than words" by Extreme.. Early 1990s.. Sounds good.. And i confirm that the guitar sounds real..
That's entirely by design. I wrote it in 1993 when sappy "I'm a sensitive guy" acoustic ballads were all the rage in popular rock, and "More Than Words" was the frigging paragon of that lame trend.
Only took me 22 years to bring it to realization :-)
True, if you're playing the piano chord with only one hand. But with two hands you can spread the voicing out similar to how it might be on a guitar. You are also free to reinforce the third instead of the root and fifth as a guitar does; the keys allow much more flexible chord voicings.
" Only took me 22 years to bring it to realization :-)"
Tout vient à point pour qui sait attendre..
"Everythmg comes in time for who is able to wait" (French proverb)
I'm still wearing a pull over that my ex- wife took more than 10 years to finish.. And I'm presently recording/programming on Caustic, a composition dating from 1987 and never recorded yet..
And as I'm slow.. It might be finished within the 4 or 44 next years..
I didn't know that this thread existed. Would have saved me time figuring out trying to get a realistic guitar sound.
This is nice, nonetheless. I'm planning to create my own tutorial on how to make a realistic guitar track using Caustic but just not too sure if I'll actually make it because of the time I don't have. Rough draft is just in my head.
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