Anyone in for the GN guitar library?

Wow, is this such a bad idea? :(

^ LOL, obviously ;-)

I can easily see that the idea is appealing - if you're into that kind of things.

But - and I have no knowledge whatsoever of these matters - some loose thoughts from me

1. Aren't you reinventing the wheel? This kind of samples have to exist somewhere - ?? Or am I wrong, maybe they exist but are pricy?
2. Does it REALLY matter much which guitar the samples are from. I mean, as you said, obviously all guitar specific technique is gone from the sound - we are making 'synthetic' music already - so the difference between a LP and a Strat could just as well be simulated by adding some more mid range tone or what ever.
3. That being said, I would be happy to contribute with three tones from a Tele Thinline and an Epi Dot.

1) No idea. All guitar synths I know all suck balls, to put it mildly. I'm going to work on this alot next week but already, after a few minutes, it sounded MUCH better then any guitar synth I'm aware of. The difference is that usually you are sampling a real guitar sound with a mic, like a digital piano works with samples from a real piano. By using DI samples of a guitar you're leaving the sound more flexible and more direct. It will sound as real as your modeler does. Heck, as far as I know you can write a track and send it into a real tube amp and record that with a microphone.

2) Very much so, I'd dare to say. You'll be sending the sound into a modeler of your choice, so if you notice a difference playing your strat vs LP in your system then you'll notice the same difference here. Some pup differences could be done with EQs but the difference between SC and HB is much more complex.

3) Cool. :) I'll be checking some things out to figure out what is the best and easiest way to do things, I'll let you know.

BTW: the whole dynamics thing is solved. I messed things up when I recorded the samples, when done correctly you'll have full control over dynamics, going from clean to distorted based on your touch. :D

BTW2: I'm working on the guitar specific things. So far hammers are somewhat simulatable by using an instant pitch shift: the pitch will instantly go to the hammered-one without the attack, sounds very close. Vibrato and bends work fully as well, and sound EXACTLY like real bends and vibratos. If you're playing this live you have all the options you'd have with a real guitar, plus more. (bend a P8 interval an full octave up :D). Slides are still impossible, as is string noise. Harmonics seem perfectly possible though, I'll have to look into how to do that easily.

Lately I've been having some thoughts about some things and this led me to record my own guitar for sampling. In other words, I picked up one of my guitars, plugged it directly into the mixer and recorded myself playing three notes. I then used a Kontakt2 to turn it into a sample instrument which I can then send to a amp modeler. So, what's the point of that? Well, basically it gives a whole new instrument, a mxi between a harpsichord and an electric guitar.

The advantages are that you can play things that are physically impossible, like playing all kinds of otherwise impossible chords voicings or playing in tempos that are way above what any human could every play. Each note can sustain for as long as you want regardless of what other notes you play. You can play a Cma7 chord and keep it sustaining while you improvise a lick over it. Bending and vibrato is possible, including wide bends that are impossible on a real guitar. You can play parts yourself with the exact tone and sound as the sampler, allowing to add things to the recorder that are guitar-exclusive.

The disadvantages are that there are no dynamics whatsoever and that guitar-specific things like hammer's, pulls and slides are impossible. There is no difference in sound between an open or fretted string, how it sounds depends on which one you sampled. It doesn't feel like a guitar.

Two examples using my ultra basic sample. It's really just an experiment, lots of things could be improved upon easily. Both songs are with my stratocaster using both the mid and bridge pup.

Flight of the Bumblebee. This cover is played at what would probably be a prety impossible tempo which makes the notes blend together into one smooth line. (for those who didn't know, this is not an original but a cover)

Rock the Baroque. This is the kind of tune you'd expect to be played on a harpsichord.

Now the cool part is that it's fairly easy to record such samples, you don't need any special tools or software. So I was wondering about making a GN sample library of all kinds of guitars with all kinds of pickups, could be a lot of un I think. Let me know what you think of stuff like this. :D

I'm old so I may be missing the point, but part of your reasoning for doing this are so you can play guitar parts that you wouldn't normally be able to play? I don't understand this, if you can't play it live why would you record it? Seems kind of like Paris Hiltons record to me. You can play all kinds of studio tricks to make it sound good but in the end it's not you, you can't perform it and it should be the engineer on stage taking the bows.

Can you shed some light on this for me? I'm really trying to knock it just trying to understand it

Like Teleplayer, I'm getting on a bit, and I'm thinking on similar lines....it's one of those things that sound like a good idea in practise, but aren't you taking the musician out of the equation and turning him into a programmer? Sampling's always seemed to me to be a bit of a rip-off...."I can't do this myself, I'll borrow someone else's riff/lick/song...."

Half the fun of guitar playing for me is struggling with a new riff, or lick, or solo....the buzz when you finally nail it is well worth all the blood, sweat and tears you've expended on learning it....

And if you can play things that are technically impossible - although there'll always be someone who'll come along and prove you wrong - how the hell are you going to re-create that sound on-stage? OK, in my own recordings, I'm "cheating" that way....using pre-programmed drum tracks - but any guitar, bass, harmonica vocal or keyboard track you'll hear is all me. OK my keyboard can emulate a lot of instruments - but I've still got to play the notes....

This isn't a dig at you by the way Arjen - I enjoy your recordings and experiments - I'm just old school myself, I believe music should be played by musicians....hell, I'm only just getting around to recording songs I wrote years ago, when I wrote them I couldn't play what was in my head....now I can actually play a bit, they're starting to sound a bit more like I imagined them...

I'm not knocking FX either....I just don't think the music should be subordinate to them and totally reliant on them....if I want a certan sound out of my guitar, I'll fiddle with the amp settings until I find it - or get close to it....

:D :D :D

Vic

Can you shed some light on this for me? I'm really trying to knock it just trying to understand it

I also play piano, and on a piano you can play tons of things that just don't work on a guitar. I want to combine the sounds of guitar with the options of a piano, as simple as that. I want to make whammy bar dives that go so low you can no longer here it. I want to bend an Am to a C chord. I want to play two runs simultanously. I want to keep notes sustaining while playing staccato melodies over it. I want the lower notes to go into a bass-amp and the top notes into a guitar amp. And tons of other things.

The fact that it works though MIDI commands doesn't mean it's just for programmers. Heck, you could get play it on an electric drum kit for all I care. I'm not trying to find a shortcut, I'm looking for the longest road possible. The possibilities of this are near endless.

As for live: everything I say is possible live. However, it's not possible on guitar, Right sound, wrong instrument.

Mine is a problem of ignorance. I dont understand what you are saying or if you are requesting help or something from volunteers, I am not sure what you want. I would be happy to help though if you can explain it to me on more of a "Git R Done" level.

Jim

Alright:

Picture this: electric guitar->modeler/amp->speakers. The electric guitar sends a basic signal that gets amplified. Just a normal guitar setup. Now we sample the electric guitar signal that would otherwise go into the modeler. For example we could sample the open 6th string, 2nd fret 4th string and open 1st string. We send this to a sampler.

What do we have now? Basically a keybord that, when played, sends the same sound as a normal guitar would. It decays the way a normal guitar would. Basically it sounds like your guitar would, you just play it differently. Meaning you lose some of the options of a guitar and gain lots of options from the piano/keybord world. The more samples you record the more accurate it will sound, the results above are from very small and simple samples.

What I want? To build a big GN library of sampled guitars, open to everyone. I could use Lars semihollow Tele if I needed it for a song and he could use my RG superstrat. As this all works with MIDI you can play with every device that sends MIDI signals: keybords, drums, MIDI guitars, anything really.

Will this sound exactly like a guitar? No. But it will be a very interesting alternative instrument which would allow for a lot of ubercool things. Both composition-wise and performance-wise.

All I need is an extra pair of hands. I always find myself trying to hold a chord and play a melody on top of it; it usually turns out physically impossible (for me at this point) or it turns into a very simplified version of the melody I had in mind.

I guess you're talking about guitar, which is exactly the point of this project. On a keybord everyone can play a chord with the left hand and just keep it there while playing lead with the right hand. Easy and cool.

Flight of the Bumblebee. This cover is played at what would probably be a prety impossible tempo which makes the notes blend together into one smooth line. (for those who didn't know, this is not an original but a cover)
:D

There's one mystery (sorta) solved. I walked around all day trying to figure out why I couldn't discern individual strikes on the strings or fretboard squeaks and I couldn't figure out how you were moving that fast and fluidly.
But sorry, like everyone else, I don't really get it. Did you play Flight on your keyboard with the virtual instrument you're talking about?
If so, I'm really impressed! It was very guitar like. Enough so that, as you say, it could serve as a great alternative sound.

I was wondering if you could do this very thing you're talking about, but never really pursued it. I'm glad you did!

When I did my version of the SSB I made my own explosions with my guitar. It was fun, but took a LOT of time to get it right. I highly doubt I could reproduce those sounds today, so it would be really cool if I could turn that into an instrument for sampling. I still have the raw file too! :D

Couple of questions -

What software did you use? ... and where can I get it? :D

Where would you store these? (so I ...er.....I mean... we.... can get at them)

What would you want someone to send you?

-What notes in what key and/or octave? (open E - a middle note - e at the 12th -> to cover the range of the octave?)

-What file format, .wav? (If they're short samples, I think you could get away with sending the larger file size.)

...and what format would you save the instrument in? (for compatibility issues)

Like Teleplayer, I'm getting on a bit, and I'm thinking on similar lines....it's one of those things that sound like a good idea in practise, but aren't you taking the musician out of the equation and turning him into a programmer? Sampling's always seemed to me to be a bit of a rip-off...."I can't do this myself, I'll borrow someone else's riff/lick/song...."

Tell any programmer or engineer that their work isn't creative or artistic and you're likely to get thwacked on the side of the head with a C++ reference or a slide rule (talk to the wrong engineers and it might well be a soldering iron ;))! Just because you're not holding a traditional instrument in your hands doesn't mean you're not making music. Sampling can certainly be abused, but it can also be used in interesting ways.

Arjen, I totally get what you're doing (not that I'd know how to make use of such a library myself), but it sounds interesting. I wouldn't mind providing some samples if you like.

TZ

extremely geeky PS - you ever heard of Second Life, a sort of "online virtual world"? It's supposedly got a pretty powerful scripting language, and I had thought of doing something along these lines, but more along a synth sort of approach... building a representation of a guitar (ie 3d), and then imbuing it with certain function generators to emulate the pickups, and then building representations of different amps which might do somewhat realistic circuit modelling to process the signals etc.... Kind of an interesting programming project that I totally don't have time for, but I thought it was a neat idea.

Sounds like a lot of fun. :)

If I'm understanding what you're doing, you can take this sort of thing in just about any direction you want. One of the car shows (was it Top Gear?) sampled the exhaust notes of range of different cars and then got some studio guys to do a version of the show's theme song played on car engine noises. :shock:

A friend of mine had a composition commission that he wanted to add a bit of birdsong to. So I tried getting some samples of one of our local birds, which have quite a range of calls and cries. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the sounds I was after, but a birdsong keyboard might be a useful tool for some kinds of 'mood' music. Mood music not usually my cup of tea, but potentially interesting to be able to play something on 'nightingale' or maybe add a touch of 'lion' tones to something.. :shock:

I think that the only part that might not be so easy is the 'GN library' thing. Unless a few other people have an interest in working in the same way then it might work best as a privately maintained library that can be offered on request.

Maybe the samples would be easier to index and access than I'm imagining, but I know what happens when I get the bit between the teeth on that sort of project. First, I start collecting a big range of stuff. But as I get further into it my ideas keep changing and developing. And the early stuff gets outdated and put aside pretty quickly. So I end up with something of a tangle which I eventually sweep out and keep the best bits of. :wink:

I'd love to hear more of this though. Stuff like what gear you're using, links to any articles that explain the possibilities, and so on.

My guess is that you'll be doggedly rowing your own boat here for a while, but that you could attract a few fellow oarsmen if enough people catch the bug. :D

Keep us posted. 8)

Cheers,

Chris