As I sit and type this my son is noodling away on his guitar making all kinds of wierd and wonderful sounds.Everything from the beatles to metallica and the only equipment he's using is a guitar ,headphones, a small plastic box and a pc.
This got me thinking about when I started playing about 20 years ago.To get anywhere near the quantity or quality of tones he is getting out of this small box of tricks I would not only have to have invested about £3000 in gear but also it would have taken me an hour to put all pedals and cables together.
:lol:
Bob
My Band: http://www.myspace.com/thelanterns2010
playing whilst drunk is only permitted if all band members are in a similar state!
So true. The advancement of technology rocks, even for under a $100 you can get something that gives atleasts an acceptable sound.
Somewhat related: just got a gift, recorded the first notes I played: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=361288&songID=5328158 . Absolutely no way that could have been possible even a decade ago, no drawing lines in cubase, pasting articulations or dubbing MIDI tracks, just hit record and noodle. Really looking forward to the future! 8)
Somewhat related: just got a gift, recorded the first notes I played: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=361288&songID=5328158 . Absolutely no way that could have been possible even a decade ago, no drawing lines in cubase, pasting articulations or dubbing MIDI tracks, just hit record and noodle. Really looking forward to the future! 8)
Amazing! Very nice track too. 8) Could you share some more details about what was going on there please? What and how were you 'playing' and how much was the instrument or equipment providing?
Cheers,
Chris
the only equipment he's using is a guitar ,headphones, a small plastic box and a pc.
Sounds like fun. :) What sort of equipment and PC programs is he using? I'm starting to get a bit interested in that sort of messing around but I know nothing about the range of gear. It feels a bit like going back to the days of choosing my first guitar - shelves full of goodies, but no knowledge as to how to pick the crap from the good stuff!! :wink:
Cheers,
Chris
Chris: It's the Garritan Gofriller Cello, a VST 'instrument'-plugin. The cool thing is this plug is designed to be played real-time instead of 'build' in a sequencer. The downside is that it's really an instrument in it's own right, and takes time to properly learn. The upside is that a whole lot is user-controllable.
So what does this mean? You connect a keybord to the pc, load the plug and start playing. You play the notes as usual, and how hard you play them decides the attack strength of the bow. With an expression pedal you change the bow pressure after the attack. This means you can have a strong forte attack and gradually move to pianissimo without changing the note. It will morph fluently between all the different dynamic samples. After you press a key you can change the pressure on it while keeping it down to change the vibrato speed, and with the modwheel you set the vibrato depth. If you keep a space between two notes, it will re-bow each note. If you overlap them you play legato. (the part around 0:45) If the second note is played strongly just regular legato (like hammers and pulls) and if you play it softer you get portamento (sounds like bending on a guitar), the softer you play the slower the movement. If you play two or three notes within 20ms of each other it'll be played as a chord, if you play them longer in between it's a fast run (listen to the opening notes of the clip). When this is unhandy you can turn that script off and go to polymode, where you can play up to four notes, kinda like playing piano. With the sustain pedal you can force bow-direction changes on notes. The lowest octave on the keybord (below the normal cello range) triggers special techniques and ways to play, like marcato, staccato, sordino, pizzicato etc.
So essentially, you can play fast soft staccato notes, move to a more aggresively played legato line slowly building to ff, all down-bowed, and end with a up-bowed slide followed by a slow and deep vibrato.
It sounds harder then it is but it still is a harder then a normal keybord, where you just play the notes and hope it sounds good. But best of all it is fun. Using the expression pedal isn't hard, plenty of guitarists use wah and volume pedals all the time. Using two pedals at the same time isn't that tough either, you don't need the sustain pedal that often and most people manage driving a car with two pedals anyway. Portamento is very user-friendly, takes a few minutes and you can slide up to any note whenever you want. The clip is really just a first shot at it, still got loads to learn but couldn't help myself posting it. don't mind the actual notes I play, I don't have any cello songs in my repetoire so just played a glorified Cm-scale. :P
It's around $200, can recommend it easily to anyone with a decent controller and computer. :D
Playing through PC speakers gets old pretty fast...
Headphones?
My Band: http://www.myspace.com/thelanterns2010
playing whilst drunk is only permitted if all band members are in a similar state!
Chris: It's the Garritan Gofriller Cello, a VST 'instrument'-plugin. The cool thing is this plug is designed to be played real-time instead of 'build' in a sequencer. The downside is that it's really an instrument in it's own right, and takes time to properly learn. The upside is that a whole lot is user-controllable.
Thanks for such a detailed and fascinating reply Sleutelbos. :D
I was astonished at how much cello 'technique' there was in the playing. Way more than just the usual set of sampled tones, and I couldn't visualise how such a thing was done without something very 'cello-like' to apply it all to. Most intriguing solutions to the problems. I can see how you would need to master it "in its own right" as you say - but what a wonderful thing to have. You really seem to have assembled quite a range of tools in your kit now, plus some enviable skills at operating it all. That was a very impressive 'out of the box' performance on it. 8) More power to your fingers mate. :)
Cheers,
Chris
