Duplicating a Struming Guitar Sound

mkell424

Happy holidays everyone! I've got a question about duplicating a struming guitar sound. It's been used on a million records.

Two questions:

1. The chords are rapidly strummed up and down on a Telecaster. I have Guitarism but from what I can tell you can't strum very fast. Is there a better app for this?

2. What effects should I use? I have ToneStack with the Motherload IAP.

Here's an example:

Thanks.

Will

Gut reaction: can't be simulated. But it's a fun thought challenge so...

You might just try it with guitarism and see where it gets you. You could try recording it into loopy at a slower tempo and then changing the tempo in Loopy back to the actual tempo and have it time compress it.

You could also try two passes in guitarism with muting in. Instead of trying to play it as 16th notes, try it twice as 8th notes and then shift the second pass by a 16th note in your daw. Maybe all downs on pass one and all ups on pass two.

Effects would be just a super bare minimum of amp overdrive. Maybe a little slap echo would help cover up the futz but it's not normally used in that sorta funk guitar. It's normally just a clean guitar sound but in addition to slap echo you could try chorus and/or phaser to help with the 'doesn't sound quite right' cover up. I'd definitely do it after the recording it dry so you can experiment.

mkell424

@syrupcore Thanks for the response. That's a good idea about recording them dry. I'm not an expert on Loopy but I'll try the DAW method.

Another idea. What do you think about recording one down strum and one up strum samples and loading them into a drum machine like Bilabo in Gadget? I'm not sure about the latency but the instruments in Gadget are pretty accurate.

PhilW

I've never had an issue with strumming speed of guitarism and it can certainly cope with the speed in your example on my old iPad 2. The issue for me would be getting the inversions of the chords high on the neck - I believe that it will be a future feature to be able to define new chords which would solve this.

Halftone

I cant test it for a few days to be sure , but Maybe look into OMGuitar (which was recently updated a couple weeks ago with AB2 support to my surprise). It has maybe 15-20 preset strumming patterns you can choose - u can set the tempo they strum as well. Also sends midi out. Doesn't get much mention here - but it's a decent app. It's very similar to Guitarism and Guitar Capo apps. Maybe doesn't sound as good - but with midi you can use it with better sounds from other apps. Anybody else here use OMGuitar?

mkell424

@Phil W thanks. I don't think I need inversions. I'm not trying to duplicate the notes, just the speed and the sound. Maybe I'm wrong.

@Halftone Thanks for the App recommendation! OMGuitar is a great app that only costs $2.99. Unfortunately it doesn't have the right strumming pattern but it will make a great tool.

johnfromberkeley

I use chordpolypad to set up and down strums. Works better if heavily filtered.

BigDawgsByte

@johnfromberkeley beat me to it. ChordPolyPads is the best strumming app I've found, up or down and variable speed, works great for me.

Seangarland

You could maybe tab it out in Jam Maestro.

Will

I didn't realize ChordPolyPads had strumming. Good to know.

pichi

Better to go with samples or better yet get a cheap electric guitar if you don't have one and record some strums. Strumming is easy enough even for a beginner.

mkell424

Thanks for the suggestions. pichi is right about using samples. If I used CordPolyArp I would need a sample of each string in the cord, right? What would be a good sample player that would with low latency from ChordPolyPad?

Halftone

GarageBand takes midi input and the guitars are decent enough. Can't think of any great guitar sounding apps that take midi offhand - I'm sure there's some. Have you checked out GuitarCapo+
Yet? - there's a free version if not. I don't think the guitar sounds too great on its own - but run through some effects it's nice. Thumbjam is a great app - but I don't like the guitar samples very much - but you can import your own samples. So might consider that route. Now that I think about it - this might be a great approach.

i don't have the Laplace synth app yet - but from my understanding its forte is plucky sounds - so I think you could get some cool guitar like sounds - but not guitar sounding if you know what I mean. Might get some interesting results.

Halftone

Even if you don't have it yet - get thumbjam anyway - think its still on sale. It's amazing.

BigDawgsByte

You can use ChordPolyPad with things like bs-16i, Thumbjam, iFretless, and anything else that has guitar samples or synths and takes midi in should work. The trick is to map the strings sounds to the keys of the piano with the tones on the guitar chord voicing and hope that you get the right voicing if you are not using a guitar sim, i.e. bs-16i and Thumbjam are not dependent on guitar string mappings where I believe iFretless and Capo are (not 100% sure) and they are more likely to play the right voicings.

Thumbjam and bs-16i are the easiest ones for me to setup quicky and get nice sounds. Capo works too, but there is some latency in the combo I have not been able to configure out yet. Just using virtual midi and the two apps, no Audiobus needed until you add in Bias, Flux:FX, Auria, etc. .

You can actually map different pads (chords) to different apps if you want.

BiancaNeve

Don't forget guitar capo +
Six guitar chord pads with up and down strums
Adjustable strum speed
MIDI In (trigger chords from daw or hardware)
And midi out

[Deleted User]

GuitarCapo + is good for up and down strums, and you can vary the speed. Trying to pluck or strum the strings manually with it is very hit and miss, but hitting the chord and auto strumming works well.