esuvn@warwick.ac.uk (The Mugwump) (06/04/91)
I have been doing synth/guitar home recording for some time now, and have had
some big troubles getting the electric guitar sounding groovy.
There is a very standard 'smooth' distortion sound around, which as well as
obviously being very distorted, also has quite a 'pure' and 'clean' sound. No
matter how hard I try, I have not been able to get this sound. I have tried
DI'ing a distortion pedal, two distortion pedals, both the previous thru a
combo (miked up), and have still to try compression->distortion->DI or
miked combo. Haven't got a compressor lying about ATM. Has anyone got any
suggestions on these things?
Any ideas would be welcomed,
The Mugwump.
--
T |\ /| __ _ _ __ | Email : Brian Marriage
H | \/ || || || || || | || | | At : esuvn@uk.ac.warwick.cu
E | || || _ | || || ||__| | Address : University of Warwick,
____| ||__||__||_|_||__|| || | Coventry, CV4 7ALpirk@dev0d.mdcbbs.com (06/04/91)
In article <NA3_ZD^@warwick.ac.uk>, esuvn@warwick.ac.uk (The Mugwump) writes: > I have been doing synth/guitar home recording for some time now, and have had > some big troubles getting the electric guitar sounding groovy. I have wondered how the output of a basic guitar sound from a keyboard would behave like when fed into one of the many guitar processors around, ie: Digitech GSP 21 or a Roland GP-8 or GP-16. The Guitarist I play with tells me I will *NEVER* get my keyboards to sound like a "real" guitar. > There is a very standard 'smooth' distortion sound around, which as well as > obviously being very distorted, also has quite a 'pure' and 'clean' sound. No > matter how hard I try, I have not been able to get this sound. I have tried > DI'ing a distortion pedal, two distortion pedals, both the previous thru a > combo (miked up), and have still to try compression->distortion->DI or > miked combo. Haven't got a compressor lying about ATM. Has anyone got any > suggestions on these things? > Any ideas would be welcomed, It would seem to me that what we are looking at is a signal. Be it from a guitar or a keyboard, the signal is what gets processed into the 'groovy' guitar sounds. I should have metioned above that the Audio of the keyboard feed the input of the guitar processor. I guess the missing parts are the mechanics of the guitar, ie: the natural vibrado of the string and how this affects the output of the pickups. My budget at the moment precludes the purchace of a GSP....Anyone else tried this?? Steve -- .Steve Pirk.......midit.....Voice: (714) 952-5516......................... ..McDonnell Douglas M&E..Internet: pirk@dev0d.mdcbbs.com.................. ...5701 Katella Ave..........UUCP: uunet!mdcbbs!dev0d.mdcbbs!pirk......... ....Cypress, CA. 90630........PSI: PSI%31060099980019::DEV0D::PIRK........ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The opinions expressed herein, are probably not those of MDC, and I'm not sure if I can even call them mine......."
mtm@CAMIS.Stanford.EDU (Mike Macgirvin) (06/05/91)
pirk@dev0d.mdcbbs.com writes: >In article <NA3_ZD^@warwick.ac.uk>, esuvn@warwick.ac.uk (The Mugwump) writes: >> There is a very standard 'smooth' distortion sound around, which as well as >> obviously being very distorted, also has quite a 'pure' and 'clean' sound. >> No >> matter how hard I try, I have not been able to get this sound. I have tried >> DI'ing a distortion pedal, two distortion pedals, both the previous thru a >> combo (miked up), and have still to try compression->distortion->DI or >> miked combo. Haven't got a compressor lying about ATM. Has anyone got any >> suggestions on these things? The sound it seems you are after is the low level harmonic distortion created by *slightly* overdriving an input preamplifier or amplifier. Commercial "distortion" or "fuzz" boxes cannot seem to produce this very subtle effect, instead opting to turn a guitar with complicated harmonics into a square wave device (with essentially infinite, and bland harmonics). I recommend a clean preamp with a gain control, fed into a second preamp or main amp, also with a gain control. You will generally have high gain on the first stage, and back off on the second a bit. Compression tends to help the effect by keeping the signal at the proper level for a longer period of time than usually is the case due to musical dynamics. I manage just fine running a Dod compressor into an Alesis 1622 mixer, with the input trim maxxed out. A high-gain equalizer works equally well, allowing you to tune the brightness a bit. mike
jkiparsk@csli.Stanford.EDU (Jonathan Kiparsky) (06/05/91)
In article <1991Jun4.104901.1@dev0d.mdcbbs.com> pirk@dev0d.mdcbbs.com writes: >The Guitarist I play with tells me >I will *NEVER* get my keyboards to sound like a "real" guitar. You probably won't. Look at it this way: in the course of a given solo, I'll hit the strings with a pick, my fingers and my fingernails, I'll be snapping the strings with my thumb and fingers, I'll be playing the strings at different places, from the bridge up to the fret I'm playing, to bring out different harmonics, and, I'll be changing pickups, adjusting the tone, and changing the phase on my pickups. Each of these adjustments gives a different tone, and that's only the options with the fretting hand- you've still got another hand and a foot to step on things with. I guess this is sort of extreme, but, when you play guitar, you are constantly making small adjustments to the sound, even if it's only things like playing near the bridge to get more treble, or spiking the volume to get more crunch. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you can't do that on a keyboard. > It would seem to me that what we are looking at is a signal. Be it from >a guitar or a keyboard, the signal is what gets processed into the 'groovy' >guitar sounds. Exactly- and the raw signal from a guitar is quite different from that out of a keyboard. I'm not cutting down keyboards, I've been playing them quite a bit lately, but they just won't sound like a real guitar- now matter how much processing you put them through. > I guess the missing parts are the >mechanics of the guitar, ie: the natural vibrado of the string and how this >affects the output of the pickups. Among other things, yes. -jon
niklasn@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Niklas Newark) (06/05/91)
I have on occasion managed to get keyboards sounding quite guitarish as far as lead sounds go, sometimes using one metallic zingy synth sound for the actual guitar, and a faily pure sound detuned against itself for a sort of harmonic feedback, all put through a distortion pedal, and a guitar amp. However the only some bits of it really work, and those are the parts when what I played actually sounds as though it was played on a guitar (regardless of the actual sound involved, we are talking notes & playing style here). For an example of someone who plays the keyboards as though they were guitar really well, listen to Howard Jones' "Cross that Line" album. He has got a way of playing the keyboards that sounds like a guitarist, but with an extra something else.... Anyway, basically I think the bottom line is that since the average guitar performance has many different types of noises in (sliding, percussion, harmonics), then the more delicate areas of guitar playing would need fantastic programming to pull off successfully. On the other hand, its best left to guitarists. Sorry about posting to the wrong newsgroup, but its all the fault of that silly Mugwump person who posted here originally! (-: mugwump!) Nik
tmadson@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Todd Madson) (06/05/91)
I've used many different setups for recording guitar sounds onto tape. A good
way is to record the sound of the amp with a Shure SM-57 microphone. This way
you're not only getting the sound of the speaker, but you're also moving air,
which is part of the "magic" incredient in getting massive guitar sounds on
tape.
A lot of the high-tech guitar preamps you see today can simulate the sound of
air, usually by attenuating some high end and doing a few other
psycho-acoustic tricks. I've used ART's SGE with good results.
The best setup that I've found (the one I'm using now) is a Heartfield EX-2
neck through body guitar with EMG pickups (EMG SA for rhythm, EMG-89 for
lead), FAT control, Mesa Boogie Studio Preamp and Alesis Quadraverb. The
Boogie has normal line outs as well as "recording out" jacks. I use the
recording out direct into the quadraverb, and from there into the mixing
board.
This results in fabulous clean tones, crisp yet smooth and unbelievable lead
tones - singing, searing endless sustain and that great, glassy rhythm sound
that you hear on old Hendrix and Stevie Ray and King's X albums. The lead
sound is similar to Holdsworth/Scott Henderson/Al DiMeola kind of sound.
If you can afford it, go for it! I also have used (in the past) a Chandler
Tube Driver in conjunction with an ART SGE and a Digitech GSP5. The GSP5 was
really too noisy to use in the studio, but it had some cool delay effects.
The SGE had a great chorus for a digital unit and in conjunction with the Tube
Driver gave me some great lead tones for the last recording project I did in
the studio.
Then again, high-tech trickery isn't always necessary. I was at a friends
place during a jam session, and one guy had a brand new red strat, a dod
compressor, and Boss distortion (just an overdrive, nothing too monstrous) and
a Yamaha G100-212. Killer tones!
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ARPA: crash!orbit!pnet51!tmadson@nosc.mil
INET: tmadson@pnet51.orb.mn.orgron@vicorp.com (Ron Peterson) (06/06/91)
In article <NA3_ZD^@warwick.ac.uk> esuvn@warwick.ac.uk (The Mugwump) writes: >I have been doing synth/guitar home recording for some time now, and have had >some big troubles getting the electric guitar sounding groovy. >There is a very standard 'smooth' distortion sound around, which as well as >obviously being very distorted, also has quite a 'pure' and 'clean' sound. No >matter how hard I try, I have not been able to get this sound. I have tried >DI'ing a distortion pedal, two distortion pedals, both the previous thru a >combo (miked up), and have still to try compression->distortion->DI or >miked combo. Haven't got a compressor lying about ATM. Has anyone got any >suggestions on these things? The best ways I have found to get a 'clean' distortion sound are: 1) Use a hexaphonic pickup and apply distortion to each pickup individually. This gives a seperate sound for each string making them easier to distinguish. If you're good with electronics you can make one for a reasonable price. If not, then buying six fuzz boxes can get expensive. Pitch tracking guitar synths sometimes have this feature. 2) Boost the treble out of the guitar before sending it to the fuzz. I find that a 'trebley' sound makes it easier to distinguish notes and cords. 3) Lower the amount of distortion or mix in more of the straight guitar. There are also probably distinctive fuzz sounds that can only be created by combining the right equipment. Like, "crank your Marshall to 9.7, then feed it into a Shure mike held 1.3 feet away and mix the resulting sound with about 20% of the direct guitar." I'd be interested in what people have to say about how to create particular guitar effects in general-with devices, synths and computer processing (any realtime DSP guitar effects devices that do new and interesting things out there yet?) ron@vicorp.com or uunet!vicorp!ron
sw@mdavcr.UUCP (Scott Wood) (06/07/91)
Speaking of distortion and ART's SGE, I recently discovered a great (to my ears) distortion setting. I think it's DDL introduces some phase shift, even at 0ms delay. I set up the SGE so that the dry side of the Mix control got the output of the distortion, and the Wet side got the output of the distortion plus a 0ms DDL. With the Mix control at 50/50 there seems to be some great phase cancellation happening that sucks out a lot of the highs. (Actually it sucked out a bit too much, so I used the EQ to boost 10Khz by +6db after the distortion.) A few issues ago, the Computer Music Journal had an article in which the Karplus-Strong algorithm was extended to incorporate distortion of the vibrating string (if memory serves me correctly). Has anyone heard the output of this algorithm? In fact, has anyone run the output of a Karplus-Strong algorithm through a guitar setup? -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott Wood | "`We're humanoids and we live on planetoids'.. like could sw@mda.ca | they make it sound *more* dopey?!" - Mister Boffo