Faking guitar strumming on MIDI - any tips? And is it worth it?

joegrant413

Over the last few months, I've been spending more time in the MIDI-only world.

Having played guitar for too many years to count, it sounds like virtual guitars are getting better. But to my ears, virtual guitars sound less convincing than most other categories of instruments. (Not counting vocals.)

I recently got the impulse to fake MIDI chord strumming using arpeggiators, piano rolls, and a clean virtual guitar.

Any tips? And is the juice worth the squeeze?

Thanks

richardyot

Well nothing ever sounds as real as an actual guitar, but 4pockets MIDI Strummer can doa decent job:

joegrant413

Thanks

ltf3

If you are going in to battle with standard arps and midi editors the on the whole I’d say you are in for a a lot of work for not much return… assuming you are trying for a real guitar sound.
As mentioned 4 Pockets Strummer is worth you time and money.
Or Guitarism lets you strum / tap with your fingers and sounds very good. It has a selection of acoustic and electric guitars. You just have to record the audio… and not expect to get too fancy with the rhythms!
I’ve managed decent guitar backing with it many times.
Works in iOS 16… still! But it’s not being developed afaik.

It has MIDI out … but no MIDI in.

OMGuitar is still around too… it has some strumming patterns and MIDI in and out.Doesn’t sound quite as good as Guitarism though.

And that’s about it IMO. Guitars have become virtually extinct in iOS land. There’s Jam Maestro for working with Tabs, and the Yonac Steel Guitar ( ie a lap - slide guitar which is great for that kind of thing )… and of course GeoShred which is a more of a synth/control surface.

I wish Yonac would would give a standard guitar a shot!

Probably easier and quicker to plug in an actual guitar. Lol

Richtowns

Drambo has one but Im not sure if I should mention it in this thread. Im no guitarist but it is a nice alternative to chords in Drambo. Anyway Ill stop mentioning Drambo now.
I remember Guitar Capo being neat too, just to change the subject from the D app

NeuM

@ltf3 said:
If you are going in to battle with standard arps and midi editors the on the whole I’d say you are in for a a lot of work for not much return… assuming you are trying for a real guitar sound.
As mentioned 4 Pockets Strummer is worth you time and money.
Or Guitarism lets you strum / tap with your fingers and sounds very good. It has a selection of acoustic and electric guitars. You just have to record the audio… and not expect to get too fancy with the rhythms!
I’ve managed decent guitar backing with it many times.
Works in iOS 16… still! But it’s not being developed afaik.

It has MIDI out … but no MIDI in.

OMGuitar is still around too… it has some strumming patterns and MIDI in and out.Doesn’t sound quite as good as Guitarism though.

And that’s about it IMO. Guitars have become virtually extinct in iOS land. There’s Jam Maestro for working with Tabs, and the Yonac Steel Guitar ( ie a lap - slide guitar which is great for that kind of thing )… and of course GeoShred which is a more of a synth/control surface.

I wish Yonac would would give a standard guitar a shot!

Probably easier and quicker to plug in an actual guitar. Lol

Keep in mind the new Steel Guitar Pro is now MIDI driven so it’s possible to use a keyboard to perform the plucking and then switch to the app itself for strumming and slide guitar. Multiple recording passes on a single track works wonders for simulating a traditional guitar performance.

royor

I just picked up GuitarCapo+ the other day and I’m pretty impressed at how playable it is on screen.. especially fingerpicking patterns.. flip the interface so that the guitar strings + sound hole are on the right hand side (for rightys) and shrink the space between the strings.. you can then choose your chords with the left hand (including custom chords) and strum/fingerpick with the right hand.. very naturally.. I like it..
You can send the midi out to other apps in AUM or AudioBus etc.. great for playing guitar voicings on say a piano..

There’s also MidiGuitar2 in which you actually play your guitar and it converts it to midi in real time.. tons of fun.. 😁

Doug’s demo of GuitarCapo+ from 7 years ago.. yes it’s been that long since an update but it works great on my iPad 6 running 16.1.1

michael_m

What platform? iOS only, or other platforms too?

oat_phipps

FM synth, obviously fake is imo opinion the best way to do it. Can’t get on board with any other way.

spiteface

There’s also ChordUp which lets you strum or fingerpick midi chords. I used to play around with that and it was pretty good. Would probably work well with steel guitar pro.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chordup-play-chords/id1058553903

BroCoast

Guitarism

Strizbiz

@richardyot said:
Well nothing ever sounds as real as an actual guitar, but 4pockets MIDI Strummer can doa decent job:

Definitely cool for some finger picking stuff, and also GarageBand has some pretty decent strumming options too.

charalew

I've looked at every option for this kind of functionality. MIDI Strummer is very good but I find the virtual strings too small to be directly playable. By far the best and most playable App for this on IOS is Tonality. It's customisable, genuinely playable and works as an AU Midi effect.

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/tonality-music-theory/id1467552236

Has loads of additional functionality too. Highly recommended👍

Stuntman_mike

If you are into hardware the LaunchKeys have a strum feature that utilizes the mod wheel/strip.

joegrant413

I hear that the KeyStep has a strum feature. But I have a KeyStep Pro, and last time I checked, it did not have that strum feature.

NeuM

One of the best simulated guitar apps on iPad used to be the app called "Pearl Guitar", but that one stopped getting updated after it was sold off to an app aggregator company. A shame, because it had some great UI touches which made it unique. For example, it actually had the squeaks you really hear when you change chord shapes on the fretboard and when you slide your finger along the strings. It was a subtle thing, but it really increased the realism.

Also, I think you're only looking for iOS solutions here, but I bought the modeled guitar app called "Strum GS-2" for macOS desktop (made by AAS) and it has been a pretty good solution for my purposes. My only complaint about it is that it has a limited range on the fretboard, so you can't always get precisely what you want, but in "Keyboard" mode, you actually have the full range of notes available to you so you can work around the limitations.

https://www.applied-acoustics.com/strum-gs-2/

And here it is in action:

Poppadocrock

Scaler 2 isn’t to shabby if you set guitar voicing and set a proper performance, along with some velocity/timing randomization.

Poppadocrock

Tonality has a strum feature for playing the pads, either to to record the midi into something , or to play it live.

Mozaic has a couple good strummer patches

Poppadocrock

@royor said:
I just picked up GuitarCapo+ the other day and I’m pretty impressed at how playable it is on screen.. especially fingerpicking patterns.. flip the interface so that the guitar strings + sound hole are on the right hand side (for rightys) and shrink the space between the strings.. you can then choose your chords with the left hand (including custom chords) and strum/fingerpick with the right hand.. very naturally.. I like it..
You can send the midi out to other apps in AUM or AudioBus etc.. great for playing guitar voicings on say a piano..

There’s also MidiGuitar2 in which you actually play your guitar and it converts it to midi in real time.. tons of fun.. 😁

Doug’s demo of GuitarCapo+ from 7 years ago.. yes it’s been that long since an update but it works great on my iPad 6 running 16.1.1

I’ve always liked this app, had it forever, I just wish it had more recent updates.

umoraotmora

Experimenting with MIDI guitar strumming can be fun, but it's definitely a different ball game compared to playing the real thing. Using arpeggiators and piano rolls can help create convincing strumming patterns, but it might take some time to get the hang of it. As for whether it's worth it, I think it depends on your goals. If you're looking for a quick way to add guitar-like sounds to your compositions, then it could be worth exploring. But if authenticity is important to you, nothing beats the real deal. If you're interested in learning more about guitars, chords, scales, and everything in between, you might find this website helpful https://guitarsrepublic.com/.

NoncompliantBryant

@umoraotmora said:
Experimenting with MIDI guitar strumming can be fun, but it's definitely a different ball game compared to playing the real thing. Using arpeggiators and piano rolls can help create convincing strumming patterns, but it might take some time to get the hang of it

Guitarist here.

Santa Ana gadget from Korg does very convincing chuggy rhythm electric.

Midi Strummer from 4pockets as mentioned does the most convincing strumming. Chords from the app actually are converted to a 6 string format. Arps and apps like Scaler 2 might strum but the chords will be piano chords, which won’t have the right order of notes strummed.

You can have Midi Strummer change strum patterns so it’s not always playing the same rhythm. I use this with Riffler, Riffler Flow, Santa Ana, and iBassist and feel like I can get a convincing gtr composition going.

GeoTony

A GeoShred update about 6 months ago added a strumming interface as per this demo…

NeuM

Closest I've found to sounding like an acceptable guitar on iPadOS is still Yonac's Steel Guitar. Unfortunately for my workflow, I can't use it on desktop, which has caused me to use a whole other set of Logic Pro and AAS solutions.

https://www.applied-acoustics.com/strum-gs-2/

I keep hoping someone will fill the gap for a true multiplatform solution on this. And yes, I'm aware moForte is working on their answer to this iPadOS + macOS gap.

Simon

@BroCoast said:
Guitarism

Golden oldie. I thought it died long ago but it is still in the app store.

HolyMoses

@Simon said:

@BroCoast said:
Guitarism

Golden oldie. I thought it died long ago but it is still in the app store.

Agree, Guitarism is very very good and playable!

How come that this app, made in 2011, still works flawless?
It hasn’t been updated the last six years, but works great on Apple Silicon M, both on my iPad Pro and also my Mac…

This developer must know things many others lacks 🤔🤔

Loups

In a similar vein to Santa Ana I get a surprising amount of use out of this:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sessionband-acoustic-guitar-1/id656632847

and its volume 2. Very limited programming but a large range of patterns and always sound convincing as backing/rhythm in a mix because it's real playing.

EdZAB

Just as an FYI for anyone interested in something similar, I agree that the MIDI strummer interface is a bit too small to strum easily, but you can actually load the strummer effect in NuRackFX and resize it to be as big as you want (almost). I'm pretty sure MIDI Strummer was an expansion of this module into a full fledged app!

Edit: Note that this version only has 8 chords available on the pads.

NoncompliantBryant

@Loups said:
In a similar vein to Santa Ana I get a surprising amount of use out of this:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sessionband-acoustic-guitar-1/id656632847

and its volume 2. Very limited programming but a large range of patterns and always sound convincing as backing/rhythm in a mix because it's real playing.

These apps sound good but unfortunately don't have connectivity. Good practice backing tracks though.

Loups

@NoncompliantBryant said:

These apps sound good but unfortunately don't have connectivity. Good practice backing tracks though.

I've had no issues recording into Cubasis through IAA - they just show up in the IAA app list under unexpected names (I think they're called 'Main' if memory serves).

NoncompliantBryant

@Loups said:

@NoncompliantBryant said:

These apps sound good but unfortunately don't have connectivity. Good practice backing tracks though.

I've had no issues recording into Cubasis through IAA - they just show up in the IAA app list under unexpected names (I think they're called 'Main' if memory serves).

I had no idea... Thanks!

Simon

@NoncompliantBryant said:

@Loups said:

These apps sound good but unfortunately don't have connectivity.

At least you can "Export finished track via Audiobus or a variety of other methods".