guitar & compressor for chillout / ambient

sounda

Hi there,

Looking for a guitar app (specific or sample pack / extension) which got great acoustic and electric guitar sounds, which I want to use for chillout and ambient songs ... inside AUM followed by quite a huge stack of Audio FX, to create a wave of sound.

I came across iFretless Guitar and as YouTube Videos concerned it sounds quite nice and got different guitars recording … but its obvious feature set is not that what I need, because I will play it via a sequencer – so a great sample based guitar AUv3 would also be great.

I like the approach of iFretless Guitar – it’s UI is inspiring, but as I am no guitar player I would not have that much benefit, because it’s UI does not update the available “string notes” to a given chord (feed in via MIDI in).

Guitarism has this chord helper feature, which is interesting and inspires to give guitar playing a try … but that’s not my primary purpose now.

… its’s about great sounds and playability (maybe some variations, fingered & picked recordings would be great) – as an example for a guitar sound I like very much : Gibson Super Jumbo (http://www.amplesound.net/en/pro-pd.asp?id=31) - this deeper & fuller kind of sound.

Regarding the compressor: I got an aha-effect as I fiddled around with some compressor settings for an ambient guitar sound (first stage in the FX stack) in a desktop DAW, not satisfied with the results I achieved (dialed in) … and then using Native Instrument Compressor VC-2A (https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/effects/vc-2a/), selecting the “electric guitar” preset, finetune the knobs a little and I got what I wanted.

Having a dedicated compressor that is great for guitar and bass (designed for the vibrational behavior of their strings and tonal characteristics, overtones that are created and how they evolve over time), hence less controls / knobs needed to shape the signal, ideally be transparent to the sound (no coloring / distortion of the sound), might be a good idea.

Ease of use concerned, Korvpressor (https://klevgrand.se/products/korvpressor) caught my attention.

@wim … your avatar leads me to the assumption that this might be your territory 😉 ?

Any suggestions for an iOS AUv3 or IAA or AudioBus3 compatible app are very much appreciated.

mjcouche

IFretless guitar has midi in - you can drive it with a sequencer. IAA with plans to update to AUv3 - all other iFretless apps have been updated to AUv3. I use this app driven by my Jammy MIDI controller as a close substitute for acoustic. I recommend playing with the reverb and delay to your taste - it can make a massive difference in sound.

Guitarism only has midi out. You can’t drive it with a sequencer but you can use it as a controller.

BeatHawk has some great nylon and classical guitar IAPs in the Spanish Gypsy and Baroque Packs that are very convincing. AUv3. This is the other app I use with my Jammy MIDI controller for a great classical guitar.

Pure Synth Platinum has some beautiful sounding guitars, both acoustic and electric. Some also have pads underneath already. AUv3, solid developer and support.

SampleTank has the American Acoustic IAP. It is very good with the only caveat that lower sounds have that weird “pluck” sound added to it for “realism” which IMO ruins a good instrument. IAA only.

ROLI Noise also has an acoustic IAP. I have not tried it.

ThumbJam also has an acoustic and a couple electric sounds. I think it is IAA only. Very good app all around - can also do audio to midi tracking by using the internal microphone.

May be missing some but those are the big ones that come to mind.

McD

Yonac makes this amazing Pedal Steel guitar app that's a total pain in the ass...
No MIDI and a simulated pedal steel interface. It's not expensive and @Daveypoo and @thesoundtestroom made a demo videos.

BUT IT SOUNDS FANTASTIC and you can subject it to all the usual guitar FX hardware emulations. But you'll probably have to figure out how to actually record that damn thing.

Maybe they will drop a MIDI version on us with AUv3 someday... the will be a good day.

wim

@sounda said:> @wim … your avatar leads me to the assumption that this might be your territory 😉 ?

The curse of being a guitar player is not being able to be convinced that simulations ever sound anything like the real thing.

I can get along OK with the Pure Synth Platinum acoustics for sketching things out or buried in a mix. If you're going to use a ton of FX, that seems like a good choice.

@McD is 100% right about Yonac Pedal Steel. Sounds pretty darn good. But not designed well for midi at all.

@Musikman4Christ has messed around with guitar apps and seemed pretty happy. Maybe he has some suggestions.

McD

There are also apps that use recordings of actual guitar players and many allow you to select tempo, chord progressions and choose from a variety of styles. The Session Band products are great to lay down a real guitar (drums, bass, keyboards, etc.) in a variety of styles that sound like studio recordings of pro musicians. But that's a very well worn path
and might not be your thing if you want to create but I doubt you fool any one. Synth-y guitars as a rule are awful but loops are a great workaround.

UPDATE - NEVER MIND THE BLUES EXAMPLE BELOW: I forgot you're looking for ambient. There is a Session Band Acoustic that could be a generator for arpeggios you could process with a sample slicing app. You can also sample individual notes that get looped with AudioLayer for realistic guitars you control.

Here's a snippet of "Session Band Blue 1" guitar being run through a Nembrini Cali Reverb amp, Magic Death Eye Compressor, Thfknar IR (with Ownhammer IR file) and Adverb2.

sounda

@McD

like the Session Band thing … not so much for what I was looking for, starting this thread and my current composition needs … but I will get myself the Acoustic Vol. 1 for jamming and have fun! … maybe this will kick off other song ideas.

But coming back to what I was looking for … what do you think about the sound of iFretless Guitar?

This app also uses real guitar recordings, beside the recoding quality, sample processing and the sampler playback engine also influences the sound quality – something that only a real guitarist might hear, because he/she plays “it” lots of times a week, hence got a trained ear for that … beside loving the sound 😉.

Imagine that for my current composition needs (chill-out & ambient style) I will just trigger 2 or 3 notes per bar, because each note will get a huge bow wave of delay & reverb ++ FX stack goodness, before it waves out through the speakers - synth pad & bass sounds involved as well … then it’s just up for great “single note samples” which was the reason that I thought iFrettless guitar may be a good choice (played though a sequencer via MIDI in).

And what about a “guitar / bass aimed“ compressor? … you named “Magic Death Eye Compressor” and I stumbled upon this thing already (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magicdeatheye-ddmf-compressor/id1466360561) … the few knobs and their named purpose indicate an “ease of use” – is it’s worth the money?

Did you gave Korvpressor (https://klevgrand.se/products/korvpressor) a try with guitars .. or is this more toy stuff 😉 when it comes to guitar and bass sounds?

wim

It seems a little like you're way overthinking this to me.

If you're going to wash it over and over with FX, the input sound (especially compression) is probably of very little impact. You only need to get in the ballpark of a guitar sound you like. Any expression or nuances in the sound are just going to get eaten up by the FX. As for compression colorization - you're never going to hear it at the beginning of the chain. Compression before the FX is simply going to even out the dynamics and/or influence the attack and sustain. Compression after the FX is a different matter of course.

sounda

@wim
I am not guitar player – so maybe you are right (definitely that overthinking in making music makes nearly no sense 😉) ... two points though.

I saw a video of chords of orion (youtu.be/hoFPxldU1BQ) in which he shows using the compressor as the first effect in the stack ... at 5:25 he states “can give you a clean tone additional sustain” and further on “the notes sound fuller for a longer period of time” … and you can hear it very clearly in that video.

And I gave it a try that way in my desktop DAW with the Ample sound acoustic Gibson Super-Jumbo and an electric Gibson SG vintage 61 and both sound significant better (the sustain part), also when I put just some delay & reverb after / on it ... as an ambient guitar sound.

Well, it also make sense to use a compressor near the end of the chain (at least in the mixing stage of the song which I will do in my desktop DAW) … but having a good one in front of the delay and reverbs sounds great for this kind of ambient sound I am going for.

Another point: there will be a quite lot of FX, but none of them will be 100% wet – I will always let quite a bit of the dry signal through … if the stack eaten ups the dry signal nevertheless, I will setup a mix bus system to get it work.

I want to hear the fingered or picked sound clearly & distinct recognizable over the evolving sound that is created by the FX stack … I don’t want to create a pure pad sound that has guitarish timbre.

That’s why I am after a good sounding guitar app or sample pack.

And by the way: I just saw a video of @thesoundtestroom (youtu.be/eq1q5Cy6M4g) doing a demo of “SampleTank American Acoustic“ IAP Pack that he is really convinced of and I like it too ... it really sounds nice, has a wide variety of styles, but also a corresponding price 😉.

SNystrom

Yeah a compressor at the front of a signal line can be very effective — especially if you are in search of more sustain.

Some guy by the name of Devadip Carlos Santana built an entire career with it! 🤗

McD

Yes. Guitarists use compression to even out the ADSR envelope... to change a plucked string (which is so percussive) into a violin like bowed instrument. Their effective compressor is a tube amp on 10... the system just can't handle accurate dynamics at that level as the system saturates and it just sings with a miraculous tone (when done right and they never stop moving the goal posts for the end "goal").

Magic Death Eyes do magic indeed where ever you use them... I like them bothat the same time for extra magic. For differences between the 1st ben and 2nd just ignore the use of the "stereo" term. It's that's valid for the actual studio mastering hardware. The 2nd version adds some additional EQ controls. If you only get one - make it #2.

Korvpressor and many other compressors are transparent and just operate on the volumes. Magic Death Eye knows we are all going to die and we need some magic before
it's too late. You can't take the money with you so invest in sonic joy. Ambient is a bath for your soul.

The iFretless products have excellent samples as a general rule and the guitars get close.
GeoShred gets an honorable mention for electric simulations of guitar.

sounda

@McD … thanks so much, you satisfied my vibrating mind 😉

I love to make music out of my heart, but that thing in my skull wants to (close to must 😉) understand what the hack is going on inside the things, that my musical instinct directs the fingers to touch and twist their knobs to create audible results aka express "itself" 😉.

Sometime it’s a pain to serve that mental needs, but if you got the knowledge & understanding, it opens up a new field of sound design & joy, because then musical mind & heart are teaming up in coherence and awesome sound & song ideas are in sight.

Magic Death Eye knows we are all going to die and we need some magic before
it's too late. You can't take the money with you so invest in sonic joy. Ambient is a bath for your soul.

… YES !!! … nothing more to say about it.

Sonic joy is what it’s all about – will get it!

I also go for iFrettless guitar – my musical instincts are drawing me towards this UI and kind of playing (even more for the bass with their iFrettless bass), for the sound exploration & sound design stage … not firing the notes via the MIDI sequencer in that stage, but touching the string and experiment with glides and vibrato, to hear & feel what kind of sound I can get with it together with whatever FX Stack setup & settings.

Even if it would be possible to get glide & vibrato going with MIDI CC in other apps, it does not deliver the entire sonic & emotional experience to find that sounds and having joy all along the way.

CracklePot

IFretless Guitar is last one that needs the AU update.
I wonder what is the holdup.
The other 3 went AU like a year ago.

sounda

@CracklePot @McD

Just fiddling around with iFretless Guitar on the MIDI side of things to shape the “initial sound” before any FX steps in … playing the IAA app through its UI, you can create nice variations.

What I found out so far … its sounds better with a mid-range velocity (60 to 80), but I did not found any MIDI CC (polyphonic aftertouch did not work either) to get some variation of the samples volume over the time (during note-on).

I don’t know if my ears or even more my eyes are fooling me, but I think I hear (funny that I have to think to hear, right … but this thing in the skull just wires it all up – did not made it, so I cannot fix it 😉) a slightly and more lively sounding variation in the sounds volume, when I play the strings in the apps UI versus triggering it via MIDI.

I guess it’s a kind of vibrato (you hear it at the end of a sample quite clearly – at least at C3 (C2 in the iFretless Guitar UI) and around … and I did not activate that extra “vibrato” button in the settings) and maybe combined with what you can achieve with the sustain pedal via MIDI CC – put it seems to have a clever & humanized value curve applied when you play it via the strings in the app.

So, sustain pedal works over CC 64 and gets you a nice “release time” respectively fading out of the sample.
Also pitch bend work nicely.

I tried the values I saw in a video for iFretless Bass (the AUv3 version)
• Sustain pedal CC 64
• Volume CC 7
• Vibrato CC 1
but only the sustain pedal has an effect … has anyone found further MIDI CC’s to tweak the sound during note-on?

And yes, it would be awesome to get AUv3 support for iFretless Guitar … because then volume variations via MIDI / MPE should be possible … a “volume pedal” so to speak and this will be great for chillout & ambient stuff.

sounda

@_ki + @wim

I though I could create myself a nice little easy sustain pedal with a Mozaic script for iFretless Guitar whose requirement very little – just have a CC64 value in upper half of the value range (to simplify : 0 = off, 127 = on) to have the sustain on and if you let the key go (note-off is sent) the note still rings.

I tested it with Xequence 2 from the iPad and as well with a DAW for a PC via StudioMux – works nicely: hold the sustain pedal down all time (CC64 = 127) and you can play several notes with rests in succession and it works nicely … IMPORT though : these sequencer send directly to the virtual MIDI port that is created by iFretless Guitar (which is named “ifretlessguitar”).

If I now create a simple Mozaic script and do the same thing – the sustain pedal respectively CC64 values have no effect … DIFFERENCE : the MIDI stream of the Mozaic script is routed inside AUM into iFretless Guitar, hence it uses is “general MIDI in feature” and does not directly send the data to its virtual MIDI Port.

The question: is it a bug of iFretless Guitar, is it a bug of AUM or am I blind and code & route stupid stuff 😉 … I attached the Mozaic script to the post.

Any light in the dark is very much appreciated 😉 ... wonderful it would be, if this would reveal a workaround – did not find a way to let the Mozaic script directly address the “ifretlessguitar” virtual MIDI Port inside AUM.

AUM Setup

AUM Routing

Mozaic Script

MIDI Monitor … the first stream is waht the Mozaic scripts send and the second stream of MIDI data is what my DAW has sent – for making it visible to a loopback port, but in the testing scenario it addresses “ifretlessguitar”.

I also tried your @_ki Mozaic inside MIDI monitor "Midi State Debugger v8" from patchstorage - great work, thanks for tools which are an awesome help !!! ... but also every thing fine there, so StudioMux did not hide some wired message that under the hood from whereever might have been sent and messed things up.