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Top 5 Guitar Sounds On iOS: Acoustic, Electric, Bass | MMP
🎸Who likes guitars?
Well there's 1000s of great guitar amps & fx already on iOS...
But which apps actually have the the best guitar sounds (either sampled or modeled) to drive all those amps & fx?
Here's our favorites, what are yours?
World Piano (2:19)
Pure Synth® Platinum (6:54)
Steel Guitar PRO (11:20)
Bismark bs-16i (13:51)
Geoshred (17:24)
And here's our honorable mentions:
Sample tank, ifretless guitar/bass, GuitarCapo+, Thumbjam, Guitarism, BeatHawk, Decent sampler
Comments
Yonac’s Steel Guitar Pro for the win, since it both acts like a guitar and plays like one.
So true, serious GarageBand vibe quality from Yonac but then again all their apps are fantastic
I’d have to agree with that.
Geoshred Pro is great too but in it’s own way.
I’ve always liked Guitar Capo +, and Guitar Echo Pro, but neither has been updated in awhile, nor does either have much connectivity. Some basic connections I think Core Midi, maybe Audiobus, but nothing for my more modern AU workflow.
I'm a guitar player so to me all of those sound like crap. My first thought was that Top 5 Guitar Samples/Interfaces On iOS was a better title. But I guess if it read Top 5 Trumpet Sounds On iOS I wouldn't be phased. So what I'm wondering now is, am I biased as a guitarist, or is guitar one of the few instruments that is not well represented as a sampled instrument?
While Riffler isn’t technically a playable instrument it is my favorite app for generating guitar sounds and parts. Of the ones listed, Steel Guitar Pro fits my approach best. I also use AudioLayer with samples found here:
https://unreal-instruments.wixsite.com/unreal-instruments/
Steel Guitar Pro isn’t a series of guitars which have been sampled. They are modeled instruments. And besides desktop class modeled guitar software (such as AAS’s Strum GS-2 or others) it’s probably among some of the best modeled instruments available on any platform, especially because it combines picking, strumming and sliding/glissando. I know of no other software with this range of interaction for guitars. If you consider other modeled instruments, Matthias Demoucron’s “FingerFiddle” app is also world-class and it’s on iOS.
Yah some of the apps did not have their own built in amps and fx so the sounds were more dry.
As usual it's not about the tools but how you use them, you can certainly craft some amazingly realistic sounds if you put in the time and add the proper amps and fx and the proper midi humanization tricks which I did not deploy in this video.
But ultimately we do need better guitar sounds on iOS, specifically more modeled sounds and higher quality sample sounds with more options similar to what SWAM instruments have but for guitar.
This video was an attempt to pull the best of what is currently available.
Yah riffler really creates some amazing guitar MIDI for sure.
Ahh yep just re-read the app description and indeed it is modeled, shucks wish I could have mentioned that in the video! Only so much time to work on these every week
I don’t see what in the app description makes you think the guitar sounds are not sampled but modeled.
For me, they are sample-based and processed to be played in real time in a realistic way.
You’re not biased, they all sound like shit. Why people would want to approximate a guitar is beyond me, unless it falls into that obviously-not-real-but-cheeky sweet spot (of which an FM synth has only proven capable to me). The things that try to approach real guitars are try hards.
What about 4 Pockets Midi strummer? I have got that one in a app bundle I once bought, I have to admit I didn´t use it yet, is still on my to do list.
From their manual:
“Steel Guitar is a custom virtual instrument designed for universal iOS devices. Harnessing our longtime expertise in digital signal processing, virtual instrument design, and computerized musical technologies, Steel Guitar offers a highly versatile electronic medium for guitarists, electronic musicians, and all music enthusiasts.
Built completely from scratch, the new Steel Guitar combines our latest technologies to bring you an exceptionally realistic sound, countless tonal opportunities, and a seamless player experience. Whether your tastes lie in Rock, Blues, Country, Electronic, or discovering your own special thing - the full range of guitars, amps, effects, features, and connectivity of Steel Guitar provides you a perfect springboard for music creation.”
A “virtual instrument” would not be the same as a sampled instrument, right?
Source: https://yonac.com/steelguitar/manual.html
Why would a person want to use a soft synth versus a real hardware synth? Why would a person want to record digitally when they could break out the reel-to-reel? Or how about hire an entire orchestra instead of using a simulated one?
There are lots of reasons to use software simulations and modeled instruments.
Midi strummer is great and we have a video on that too which you can find below but this video was focused on actual guitar sounds.
"It provides many unique guitar models, built-in amps & FX processing, MIDI control, AUv3, and wide-ranging customizability."
I don’t know I agree that they’re all “crap”, but they’re certainly limited, and there are certain styles of playing that these just can’t achieve.
Would definitely go with a real guitar over any of these, every single time.
If the guitar is a supporting instrument (versus the main instrument) in a piece, there’s absolutely no reason to not use a modeled or sampled instrument. If you need Steve Vai, Derek Trucks or The Edge… hire them instead. 😀
“Virtual instrument” is pretty generic.
No, there is nowhere written “modeled”. I am quite confident to say it is sample-based.
2 clues for that :
1/ play and hold a note until it fades out : you can easily ear the hiss noise rising at the very end (because the signal tail is amplified) then shut down quite suddenly => a modeled sound would not have even the smallest traces of noise in it.
2/ the size of the app (187 MB) allows us to think there are a lot of samples, not only a karplus-strong algorithm.
Edit : I see ToneStack is also > 200 MB. So their FX take a lot of MB which may invalidate clue #2.
It would be great to see guitar and bass instruments like the ones from Ample Sound or Ilya Efimov on iOS.
I think “models” here doesn’t mean “physical models” but brands/models within a brand.
I would be glad to be wrong, really. But maybe the best would be to ask directly to Yonac on their Twitter account. Only them could tell exactly how the sound is generated.
Well I’m a lot cheaper than any of them, so think I’ll pass.
But can you fill a stadium or sell a million songs based on name recognition only?
Oh my goodness, I can’t believe I forgot Riffler.
I think Guitar Strings are notoriously hard to recreate because the way the strings vibrate to make sound. Especially acoustic, They often vibrate for a long time, the vibration changes over time, there’s lots of different harmonics involved. There’s also tons of different ways to play them, etc… I think I read this somewhere at some point.
I meant to write modelled as well but forgot. But sample is the real challenger. Like I said, there is nothing that sounds good to me. But seems most other things are well done. Is that right or am I biased. For all I know swam trumpets, strings, pure piano, ravens croft all sound crap to players.
I reckon you are right. Serious question though. Do you think most people would use real instruments over sampled/modelled if they could. Everyone I know does but that is probably a skewed perspective because I am immersed in a world of musicians and studio engineering.
You're correct, crap is the wrong word. I suppose what I meant was compared to my expectations of sounding like a guitar. But as a sound, standing on there own as what they are, they sound fine.
Riffler is one of my top 5 apps of all time. It still sounds poor compared to a guitar, IMHO, but that is not the point. It's the other features that make it amazing for me.
I rarely use a guitar patch… mostly because I’m usually plugging in other instruments to a keyboard improvisation. When I do I don’t expect it to sound like a guitar, but it can sound okay and unique… just not a guitar by any stretch.
Thanks for the idea! I've sent them a tweet here, let's see what they say!