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Getting a reasonable software-only heavy metal guitar sound?
Tldr; I want to make sounds like Black Sabbath or pantera or Rammstein using just iPad / Mac.
I don’t have a guitar, interface, or keyboard.
I think I need to feed a clean guitar signal type sound into a virtual amp / cab.
My first attempt was using Riffler with “clean - dry” tone, feeding auto-riffs into Nembrini amps, or Rhino, or even just fab filter. It sounds pretty wicked anyway.
How else could I go about this, like maybe in real time with on screen keys or chord pads? Or where to chain in effects. I don’t know what an impulse response is. I don’t care if it sounds super accurate to real world, just cool and interesting
Comments
You’re on the right track.
Riffler definately plays the right notes to fit your intended style. Metal is primarily based on power chords… and chord apps tend to play chord with 3rds added which will just sound wrong IMHO.
Then using amp simulators and FX following the best practices of actual guitar hero’s… seek out the hardware rigs of those players and find software equivalents for their pedal chains. Some just use the right amp and are happy with the distortion so
Picking the best implementations of those specific amps is great. Personally, I think the best 2 amp products are Overloud’s TH-U but you’ll have to buy a lot of amps unless you have a narrow path. The other is IK Multimedia’s Amplitube… same issue… you have to buy a lot of pieces.
GELabs by Mooer is free and you only have to buy some slots to save presets/rigs. 2-3 is plenty if you want a specific sound. Doing a rig manually is possible in minute and you don’t need to spend a penny. They then have a web site where guitarists upload their rigs and you can pick one and install it and play. Probably a hundred metal solutions to work through.
Sounds to me like you are doing the right thing. You don’t need to use ir in your case.
If your happy with the sound that’s all that matters.
Here’s some inspiration for you. All guitar sounds are done with synths.
Saturn has some great amp emulations for such guitar tones.
It’s maybe getting a bit long in the tooth but Tonebridge might also be worth a look. The editor is not terrible and there’s no IAP.
I agree with everyone else your approach is sensible
Tonebridge is free because the app was sold to the company that runs Ultimate Guitar… they hope to pull guitar players into the subscription service.
ToneBridge has a scheme where you enter a song that you like and it delivers a guitar rig set up to play that song.
So, input some Black Sabbath, Pantera and Rammstein song titles and see how close they nail the sound when you input a Riffler track.
GELabs is almost free to sell more of their hardware amp sim hardware which uses the same code.
Get Riffler...
Get Yonac's Steel Guitar Pro, which can deliver some fantastic sounding, very heavy guitars if you spend some time with it to refine the sound you're looking for.
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/jam-maestro-create-guitar-tab/id596628003
How does these help with a heavy metal guitar sound ?
Is there any app like this in AUV3?
As long as the sound should be distorted enough, I've found that it's not even necessary to use a guitar at all. Any synth adjusted to deliver a somewhat guitar'ish tone with an appropriate envelope should be enough. I would map keyboard velocity to decay/sustain time for more expressive playing (velocity level will be mostly redundant at hih distortion levels anyway).
Today I'd build it inside Drambo but of course you can also use the Nembrinis, Tonebridge etc.
Most die hard guitarists will bash me for my godless approach but if accuracy isn't the main point then why not give it a try.
I'd go as far as to say that any synth with karptlus strong algorithm will do it when enough effects are applied...
Karplus–Strong algorithm hmmm? Well now i've got my afternoon planned out. That's what I'm kinda looking for, generating that initial guitar pickup signal/sound triggered by MIDI (with riffler or others) that I can then amplify and distort at will (MixBox, GeLab, Saturn, Nembrini, Rhino)
Out of curiousity I tried the "Clean guitar" setting from Korg Module and amplified/distorted with Mixbox. that didn't really work.
There's something on the Mac side called WEDGE FORCE Matcha, but I don't know if that's any good.
I have that, I'm curious what I can get within just that itself. So many setting and presets dont know how to best use it. I don't just like metal. I want to achieve a sound like My Bloody Valentine or Jesu / Pale Sketcher / JK Broadrick.
Definitely check out GeoShred.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/geoshred/id1064769019
Here’s a short demo on one of the heavy patches:
I have that but find it really difficult to use. Sugarbytes Guitarist is a better bet although still not exactly easy.
As for other guitar-like inputs on the iPad, GeoShred is notable because it’s great for leads and can produce actually feedback, especially using the little expression box. Use with guitar rig emulators to overcome the kinda cheesy default tones.
ThumbJam (IAA) has a pretty good Power Chords sound that works great for laying down basic progressions in giant sustained chords. It also has a few good guitar sounds of which JR Zendrix is my favorite which makes for great leads but also chords, especially if you use the arp at a fast rate. Here’s a quick and dirty example…
https://youtube.com/shorts/p-zkPl6rTcI?feature=share
Okay, that looks plain fun to play. The palm muting is essential for riffage. I read positively about geoshred here but thought it could get expensive.
I absolutely love the sound you got out of that combo. I have both -- will need to experiment. thx
Only if you start buying the mpe instruments... Just getting the main geoshred pro app isn't very expensive and will give you a lot already. Many of the presets have delay and reverb that will be a bit cheesy to many users' ears, so often best to turn that off.
You might enjoy using mononoke as a semi-mpe type setup - can definitely sound and play a bit like a guitar, especially if you add fx etc, though I wish it had a regular mpe keyboard as well as the Lyra type keyboard which is fixed at 8 notes. You could always combine more than one instance, mind you.
For amps there’s a ton of Nembrini stuff, also Rhino is great for a heavy or lighter sound. As you mentioned Riffler can get some great tones. Steel Guitar Pro by Yonac has regular guitars and fx too.
I tried hard enough to achive what you want. Im also a fan of jkb, mbv and many other metal bands. And can tell you that the most important thing here is the initial sound that you feed into the amps. Nothing will beat the real guitar in terms of realism. You can get pretty close with steel guitar pro or even ifretless bass, but the nuances of playing real instrument is what make the most difference. Every time you hit the strings it sounds different, the way you do it, individual string bends etc. Simple stuff like chords and arperggios is kind of ok, but it still sound mechanic and artificial. You will not be able to get anywhere close to real thing, use bends and other guitar tricks (however its possible to simulate feedback, in drambo). So I abandoned that idea in favor of synths. If you still want to try I suggest getting a chordpolypad, feed it into steel guitar, drain it in fx and it will kind of work.
This is true. Even the best Audiolayer patch, SGP, etc… won’t get you the best possible sound like the instrument will. You can get close but the actual guitar will always sound better.
As a recap, I second @NeuM with Yonac Steel Guitar Pro…you will not get a better clean sounding software-based guitar sound on iOS in AUV3 form unless you load some samples into AudioLayer.
And hands down if you don’t have Geoshred it would be a mistake not to get it.
I have achieved some interesting and original heavy rhythm sounds by using a pluck sound from a synth ( any will do) with a fifth with the filter and sustain plus release turned down to “Mute” the sound then run it through Tonebridge
I use this on one track then a duplicate of that set up but I increase the sustain and filter just a bit on another track.
My muted chugging is is all on one track and my chords are on another. I really micro adjust the velocity for the chugging to simulate down strokes and up strokes. I also try to avoid quantizing.
Big sustained power chords are pretty easy
Completely agree about GeoShred. It should be one of the tools as one tries to achieve an overall sound.
I've found there is no singular answer to the problem of trying to simulate a real guitarist with software. GeoShred does great "chugging" and some screaming leads, but Steel Guitar Pro is much better at strumming and is simpler if one isn't adept with playing chords on a keyboard or simulated fretboard. And Riffler is great at chugging, but if a person has little knowledge of the actual guitar (again) it can be quite uncooperative trying to create patterns and find the right notes. No developer (not even Apple's GarageBand or Logic Pro) has come up with a great all-in-one solution.
Thanks for the help I just picked up the Pro upgrade to Geoshred Control. Must be on sale, and I think I got all the Pro sound engine, presets, and FX