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The quest for a good guitar sound (again!)
I know there are various posts about recreating a good guitar sound on here but I wondered if anyone had found anything that sounds convincing and what people’s current set up is these days.
I’ve gone a bit app crazy this week and bought Aphelian, Scalebud, Arpbud 2, Chordjam, Playbeat, Riffer, Helium, Strummer FX, bs-16i and Jam Maestro all with the plan of creating some guitar based tunes but I can get a good guitar sound. Help needed please.
Comments
I assume you mean a synthesized guitar sound based on all the MIDI sequencer apps you bought?
If so, Geoshred is the most painless way to go. No one will truly mistake it for a real guitar, but that goes for any other synth too for that matter. It’s the easiest approximate option.
I’ve got GeoShred I don’t like the sound of it.
No I mean as close to a real sounding guitar as you can get. The idea with the MIDI sequencer apps was to run the midi to the guitar sound source with AUM.
I should probably add it’s an electric guitar sound I’m after.
My favourite app I’ve downloaded this week has to be jam maestro it’s a great app for guitar players.It’s got everything you need to create guitar based songs. I’m just not happy with the sound of the electric guitars. The slides and mutes sound horrible, if only they could do a version 2 with better sounding guitars
Well, if those aren’t passable to you (and I def dont like the Geoshred sound as a guitarist myself, but plenty of others seem happy with the approximation), I’m afraid there’s nothing else out there that I’m aware of that’s gonna be any better, especially as far as palm muting nuance goes. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Sorry I can’t be more of help. I will add that guitar IS fun to learn though!
There are some good guitar sounds in ZenBeats - specifically ZC1
A sampler like AudioLayer with multiple articulations (muted, soft attack, hard picked) is probably going to be your best bet. Riffler has great sounds and you can export the dry signal to an amp sim, but it's a riff generator so you can't run your stuff through it. Setting up AudioLayer takes some time and know how if you aren't familiar with samplers (I wasn't) but there are good resources on YouTube.
There are a lot of guitar soundfonts out there which you can use in bs-16i or the SoundFonts app. Pair a clean sound with an amp sim, again so many to choose from. I'm enjoying the sf2s from hedsound/flamestudios with the 20th Anniversary amp. Just wish they had a strat.
Yeah I’m not expecting to be able to do slides and palm muting although it would be nice lol, thanks for your input.
Ps: I am learning guitar, I bought myself a Squire Strat I’ve just had it set up properly. It very hard to learn though.
The Geoshred sound is good if you work out which of the numerous FX to turn off, I think!
Yeah I’ve got a ton of sound fonts, I think I’ve got the ones you’ve listed.
What is the best amp modelling sim in your opinion?
Have you considered using loops from something like GarageBand?
Or asking someone you know who can play guitar to play the parts for you?
As a guitarist I wouldn’t dream of using anything besides a real guitar or well-recorded actual guitar loops - nothing else comes close IMO unless it’s in a really dense mix and you’re going to whack a lot of FX on it.
Is audiolayer better than bs16-I?
That's such a tough question. I use 20th Anniversary, because it's easy to set up, and includes some cab IRs and useful fx. I've also messed a bit with iFXRack, which is an odd choice, but has the same features as 20th A. Judging by the volume of discussion, some of the THU sampled rigs may be the ultimate, if you want a very specific tone, and are prepared to invest in it.
It depends on what samples you use for it. I use the free Standard Guitar from https://unreal-instruments.wixsite.com/unreal-instruments/standard-guitar and sometimes the Metal GTX sounds from the same site. I don't even think I did a great job of layering the pick sounds with the string sounds due to my lack of experience with samplers and I still think it sounds better than any sound font.
If you are looking for something that lets you freely create something that really sounds like a guitarist, there is nothing on any platform. As with saxophone, you can plan around the weaknesses of sampled (or modeled) instruments by learning their limitations and avoiding them. But nothing sounds like a guitarist really doing their thing.
Sadly for you @WigWamBam - the more you play your real guitar, the more difficult it will be to convince yourself any app sounds like anything close to real. I'm in that spot too ... I can't play well enough to make myself happy, but can't stand how far from real any attempt to impersonate a real guitar is. Drenched in distortion and reverb, or buried in a mix is OK but beyond that nothing but the real thing will do once you become a guitar player of any level.
But, at least as you get better at playing guitar, you can join the rest of the real guitarists spending all their time obsessing about the best real guitar tone. 😂
Yeah I think your right, there’s no impersonating the real thing. It just shows you what a versatile instrument the guitar is doesn’t it.
Ok so it sounds like the best option is to buy audiolayer and create some guitars in that although Im reluctant to buy it as it’s £25.99 is it worth it? what do people think?
GeoShred is the closest I’ve found but I mainly only use that for the SWAM stuff. Nothing really comes close to the real deal still
Unless you're really, really good at creating instruments from samples, and have a lot of samples to work with, and lots of time, I doubt whether you'll get better results than you would with downloaded sound fonts.
PureSynth Platinum has a few pretty usable guitar sounds. I've heard that BeathHawk has some iAP packs with decent guitars. I've never tried them so ymmv.
A lot of the realism depends on your sequencing skill as much as the instrument. Using guitar specific chord voicings rather than standard keyboard voicing is important. Thinking about how strumming and arpeggiation work (higher velocity on the first strings of the strum, alternate strum directions, open strings ringing out louder, choking previous notes on the same string while letting others ring out, etc...) helps too. Judicious use of fret noise here and there. Appropriate use of bends.
I've always felt it's probably easier to try to play my damn guitar well enough than to try to sequence good guitar parts.
BTW, 4Pockets MIDI Strummer is a really great tool to have in the arsenal for creating guitar parts.
It’s pretty good because the guitar sounds are samples, but it adds nothing to the quality of performance since one must use a standard keyboard or GeoShred to drive the MIDI.
Huh? Are we talking about the same app??
It takes care of guitar chord voicing, helps with strumming, and is a good arpeggiator for guitar. I've never once used it with GeoShred or any other external MIDI. You also don't have to use the internal sounds as it has MIDI out, but given that it has sound font support and a couple of pretty good included ones, even that is pretty good.
Yes, you can use the patterns included in the app. I don’t use it that way, so I forgot that was an option. It can also be played with any kind of source which drives MIDI.
You can create your own patterns as well. Also, having the guitar chord voicings is helpful.
This is true. I don’t use it that way because it still sounds far too mechanical to me.
Can we not share our made Audio layer instruments on here?
Just a thought cause if I make anything I’m happy to share unless it breaks the rules.
It is true that setting up AudioLayer ( or any other sampler ) takes some time and effort. Whether the extra effort and cost are worth it is totally up to you. I caught AudioLayer on sale and despite my lack of knowledge I was able to make usable sounds after watching a few YouTube videos. I keep refining them and I have reached a point where I feel like they are "good enough". I run my "virtual guitars" through THU Overloud for overdrive/distortion/amp sounds. If you're only looking for acoustic guitar / clean sounds then you might be just as happy with a sound font based solution.
Here's something I made with my AudioLayer guitar.
That is awesome and exactly what gave me the inspiration to try and do what I’m doing.
Can you tell me more about your set up please.
Do you have the full set of overload?
Where did you get your samples?
Are they clean samples sent to overload?
I have the free pack and metal collection on THU Overloud. The samples I got from
https://unreal-instruments.wixsite.com/unreal-instruments/metal-gtx
And
https://unreal-instruments.wixsite.com/unreal-instruments/standard-guitar
The samples are clean. I made a multi layered sample using the string sound and a picked sound. I’m certainly not the best at building sample instruments. There was lots of trial and mostly error at first. I watched every video on “AudioLayer IOS” on YouTube and pieced together how to make a layered sound so I could add pick noise to the attack. It’s been a while so honestly I don’t think I could break it all down without learning the process over again. I also like to use custom IR’s in the cabinets on THU Overloud or follow the whole set up with a convolution reverb like IMPULSation. If you don’t want to spring for AudioLayer at full price GarageBand is free on IOS and has a sampler as well. I’m glad you liked the video and look forward to hearing what you come up with.