Emulating Guitars?

[ChocolateChicken]

I'm looking for ways on how to emulate guitar sounds with synths. Electric lead guitar, rhythm guitars, acoustic, ect.

For electric rhythm guitars, I usually just slap a virtual guitar amp plugin onto some sawtooths and it ends up sounding pretty close to an electric guitar. For chugging, I do the same thing, but I use filter cutoff modulation to make the synths pluck, which sounds like chugging when fed into a guitar amp. Besides those two things, I have no idea how to achieve guitar sounds with synths.

From what I've been gathering, not many people know how to achieve synth guitars, with the exception of some big name artists.

Do you guys know of any methods of emulating guitar sounds with synths?

[Alycs]

a lot of the traditional guitar effect I've found is the "strumming". Try offsetting each note by a fractional amount and see if it does anything for you. I have a pretty decent acoustic guitar synth I madea while ago; I'll look over it in the morning and post how I made it.

[hackd]

Heh, it's pretty easy to do like metalcore or djent chugs by making a really raunchy, gritty bass and then modulating it's frequency to zero with a sawtooth pattern and having that go at a pretty rapid rate (like 1/16). I don't know about plug-ins, I just do it all from scratch.

[CaptainFluffatun]

I very much agree with Kyoga on the easy-to-work with portion. If you can play what you're trying to produce, it is both faster and generally better to record yourself.

Of course, I get the sense that you ask about synthesizing guitars because you lack a mic or something.

[ChocolateChicken]

Before this thread becomes a "real guitar vs synth guitar" thread,

just record a guitar...

I would suggest recording an actual guitar. I mean, sure it was guitarlike, but eeeh...not really the same.

I agree that nothing will ever sound quite like a guitar than a real guitar. I have guitar samples and I even have real guitars too. I don't think the goal of emulating guitars with synths is to make them sound impeccable to real guitars. A lot of popular EDM producers out there use guitar synths in their songs; it's a really cool sound, in my opinion, and it's not impossible. Like Madeon and deadmau5, for example. Perhaps you've heard of them.

I think the goal of emulating guitars via synths is to have your synths have guitar-like characteristics, rather than sounding exactly like guitars. We're not trying to fool anybody into thinking guitar synths are actually guitars.

[v.lossity]

Maybe take a real guitar and use it to vocode a synth. Just an idea. Won't sound like a guitar but it would probably sound cool methinks

[Alycs]

Okay, so I looked over the synth I had made before; what I did was take a Pulse Wave, shifted the Base Function up to 45 and put a Harmonic Amplitude Randomizer also set to 45. Then I duplicated that wave 5 times and fine detuned it in increments of 4 (starting at -12).

I just took a screenshot of the LFO settings and such because I'm lazy:


And then I clicked the Resonance thing and drew random lines.

It doesn't sound exactly like a real guitar, but its pretty convincing. I think I used it in the background of this:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/jq2 ... ndness.wav

[Freewave]

Lotta options

1) Use a Real guitar (easiest, most realisitc, requires a guitarist),
2) Use sample bank or library (require cut and pasting of individual samples, or Kontakt with previously recorded samples)
3) Use a guitar type syth like Rob Papaen's RG (and likely a lot of effects)
4) Use enough guitar type effects on a regular vst synth (like Fl's Hardcore, Amplitube, or Guitar rig) to simulate a guitar with a number of effects.

What you want to use or have available is up to you and just how authentic or fake you want it to sound. Most guitars use pedals so very few are done au natural...

[ChocolateChicken]

I don't suppose too many people here on MLR have much experience with synth guitars.

Alycs, thanks for that! And v.lossity, woah, that sounds like an incredibly awesome idea. I have to try that with my guitar!

If you're out there, share your techniques, unless if you're like Alex S and believe you have music "secrets" worth keeping!

[Nine Volt]

I made a synth guitar based on a Feed Me synth I once heard. It used saw waves, chorus, some distortion, a bit of EQ (of course) and some playing around with frequency bands (I think there were 8?), which is probably the toughest part. It doesn't sound quite like a real guitar but it gets the job done, plus it's supposed to be similar, not exactly like a guitar.

If you use Reason I can send you the patch. If you want to hear it, it's the main synth around 2:45 in my latest song on soundcloud (shameless self-plug).

[ChocolateChicken]

I don't think anybody who uses synth guitars is trying to sound like a real guitar. Otherwise, what's the point?

I listened to your song, and that synth guitar sounds cool. I use Logic Pro, actually, so there's no need to send me the patch. Thank you for offering your patch. Perhaps you could share it on MLR for other users!

If only those big name artists shared how they made their synth guitars haha.

[JayB]

I loved to use Steinberg's Virtual Guitarist for rhythm guitars, but I think its no more supported. Now I use MusicLab RealGuitar for acoustic guitars and Epiphone LesPaul for electric guitars.

[froggy]

Well here's one of the best guitar emulations I've ever heard (this track is 100% synthesized, just some instances of Zebra run through amp sims and distortion units.):


And here's the guitar part un-amplified (0:18):


It sounds like this guy made a patch that sounds vaguely like an un-amplified guitar, heavily emphasized the attack with Zebra's compressor to make it plucky, and then ran it through an amp + cab sim. I think it's the pluckiness of the synth that really makes it sound like a guitar when amplified, especially on the muted notes. It's also worth noting that the patch is very dynamic, no two notes really sound alike, so It's likely that he has velocity controlling the filter cutoff and compressor strength at the very least. I imagine the patch would sound pretty lifeless without that step, like a lot of other synth guitar parts.

See if you can make something similar to the unprocessed guitar patch for starters maybe, then run it through an amp sim and experiment from there. Good luck

[cplbradley]

I can't really afford expensive recording equipment for rock music, so most of my rock stuff is sample based (I use an electronic drum set to control the drums though)

For guitar I use shreddage X with Guitar Rig

[Foxtrot89]

Something interesting to do is to record individual guitar notes/power chords/chords. Celldweller does it a bit, but if you deliberately create the "machine gun" effect by placing the same sample repeatedly/shifting that one samples pitch, resampling and automating various things, you can get interesting results. Not even remotely fluid sounding, in fact it makes for interesting glitchy sounds. You can also record a few different notes/chords to get the different timbers and just muck around with it that way.

You can also mutilate the sound beyond recognition of a real guitar. Better still is that you can use libraries like shreddage or anything from prominy alongside amp sims (or any FX you want, doesn't need to be guitar related.) and do it without an actual guitar/recording setup. Since authenticity isn't something you're aiming for, it doesn't matter how off it sounds.

[ChocolateChicken]

It sounds like this guy made a patch that sounds vaguely like an un-amplified guitar, heavily emphasized the attack with Zebra's compressor to make it plucky, and then ran it through an amp + cab sim. I think it's the pluckiness of the synth that really makes it sound like a guitar when amplified, especially on the muted notes. It's also worth noting that the patch is very dynamic, no two notes really sound alike, so It's likely that he has velocity controlling the filter cutoff and compressor strength at the very least. I imagine the patch would sound pretty lifeless without that step, like a lot of other synth guitar parts.

See if you can make something similar to the unprocessed guitar patch for starters maybe, then run it through an amp sim and experiment from there. Good luck

Wow, I listened to those examples and they are both very impressive! That is like, the best guitar emulation I've heard, although I think if I wanted to sound so similar to a real guitar, I wouldn't be emulating them with synths in the first place haha. I definitely agree with you on the pluckiness of the synth giving it that guitar-like character so effectively. I never would have thought that dynamic range was a major component of getting that guitar sound. And in addition to filter cutoff modulation, he's definitely automating a ton of parameters and using velocity controls. Intense stuff!

Foxtrot: Oh man, it's always great to see another Celldweller listener around! Yeah, I always wondered how he made such interesting effects with his recorded guitars. A lot of his stuff sounds synth-y and unique, which is what I'm going for, so he's probably doing some crazy processing to his recorded guitar parts like you mentioned, the "machine gun effect" being one of them. Do you happen to know any songs by him that use this effect? I haven't heard that effect in some of his more recent stuff.

Also, for other folks viewing this thread, I noticed that Nero also has some pretty crazy synth guitar-sounding stuff in their songs, although it's hard to tell whether these are synths or actual guitar samples. And let's not forget Madeon's lovely guitar synths!

[Luna's Navel]

Emulating guitars?

At first I used to add some effects to a clean pizzicato violin/piano bank, it sounded ok at most. But then I got the RealGuitar and RealStrat synths and that's what I been using so far (even if I can record me playing)

[AJ_]

I'm looking for ways on how to emulate guitar sounds with synths. Electric lead guitar, rhythm guitars, acoustic, ect.

For electric rhythm guitars, I usually just slap a virtual guitar amp plugin onto some sawtooths and it ends up sounding pretty close to an electric guitar. For chugging, I do the same thing, but I use filter cutoff modulation to make the synths pluck, which sounds like chugging when fed into a guitar amp. Besides those two things, I have no idea how to achieve guitar sounds with synths.

From what I've been gathering, not many people know how to achieve synth guitars, with the exception of some big name artists.

Do you guys know of any methods of emulating guitar sounds with synths?

Simple Answer... This
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_wGIbgQ0hE

[AJ_]

did it help?

[ChocolateChicken]

The Roland GR-55 appears to be an effects pedal more than a synthesizer. Also, it appears that it can give your guitar the characteristics of different instruments, similar to keyboard pianos which have different "instruments" in them. It also can give your guitar synth-y attributes, which is cool, but if I wanted to record my Fender Stratocaster, I would much rather plug it straight into my DAW and process it with vocoders and other effects if I wanted it to sound more synth-y.

I think a fair number of people are confused about my intentions with emulating guitars with synths. By that, I mean using synthesizers, to make guitar sounds. It's quite a popular production technique, especially in electronic music. Stuff like what froggy showed me.

I guess I'll post some examples for those who might not fully understand.

[ChocolateChicken]

Example #1

The sound at 0:16 is clearly a synthesizer lead, but it sounds sort of like a lead guitar (on a wah-wah pedal)!

Guitar Synth.

[AJ_]

Do you have Massive?

If you do let me mess around and come up with something

[Foxtrot89]

Foxtrot: Oh man, it's always great to see another Celldweller listener around! Yeah, I always wondered how he made such interesting effects with his recorded guitars. A lot of his stuff sounds synth-y and unique, which is what I'm going for, so he's probably doing some crazy processing to his recorded guitar parts like you mentioned, the "machine gun effect" being one of them. Do you happen to know any songs by him that use this effect? I haven't heard that effect in some of his more recent stuff.

Off the top of my head I know he does it with the acoustic guitar at around 1:26 of "So Long Sentiment." The verse riff for "Switchback" also uses it. (I may be mistaken, but the two power chord riff might just be one sample repeated and pitch shifted as needed.) I used to have an ass ton of stems from his remix competitions and listening to the individual guitar tracks it definitely sounds like he uses a lot more than is evident from the final product. He also layers a lot of synths that follow the guitar note for note, so that adds to the synthy feel of a lot of his riffs. It's actually fun creating insanely thin tones to layer with synths to fatten them up.

It's more glitch than emulating guitar I suppose, but I find that a lot of synth/emulated guitars have that stuttery weirdness that you can use to your advantage if you're writing music that isn't guitar centric like metal or virtuosic. Synth/poorly sampled guitars fit right in with EDM I feel.

[ChocolateChicken]

Do you have Massive?

If you do let me mess around and come up with something

Sadly, I do not have the full version of Massive; just the demo at the moment. But if you would like to contribute a preset for this thread, you can certainly screencap it and post it here, or put it up for download in the Sharing section of MLR!