Virtual Drummers, Bass Players, Guitar Players - Any Good?

[Anderton]

I'm kind of philosophically opposed to these if I can play the instrument - why use a virtual guitar player when I can play guitar? But I'm starting to see them a little differently.

 

I was writing a song and wanted to add a quick acoustic guitar part. I didn't want to set up the mics etc., so I called up the Native Instruments' Session Guitarist - Strummed Acoustic.

 

Now, it's not the same as playing guitar; there are limited options. However, the part it produced (which of course requires a human triggering the right keys at the right time) sounded great in terms of sound quality. It totally provided a part that did a good enough job to let me move forward with the songwriting.

 

After the song had taken shape, I laid down a "real" acoustic guitar part so I could replace the "robo-part." But then a funny thing happened: they sounded really good together. It was almost like having two different guitarists contributing their own vibe to the song. So far the robo-part stays; I haven't reached the final mixing stage yet, where I like to remove as many tracks as possible if they're not absolutely essential to the music. But I suspect it's going to remain.

 

Is this "cheating?" Probably. Do I care? No. After all, EQ and Reverb are cheating, too They say all is fair in love and war, but I'd add "recording" to that.

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

If you are happy, I am happy for you!!!!

I don't care either, not in the slightest.

How music is made does not matter. We tend to have a love/hate relationship with our babies yet they are often strangers to us.

 

Having just played this back, I need to remix it. I recorded it in 2014, a birthday present that I rushed out.

There are 2 real acoustic guitars, a real bass, maybe 3 real electric guitars, a Korg Wavedrum (some of it I made loops) and a real guitar with a Fishman Triple Play pickup for all the crazy stuffs that pops up near the end.

 

The Opossum Apocalypse is when even the opossums, cockroaches and catfish all die.

 

[Nowarezman]

My take on all this sort of stuff is that music is not a product the way products are seen by businesspeople. Which is - you don't care how the product is made as long as it meets your specs and, hopefully, sells.

 

Music, and all the arts, is 100% about making actual people capable of making music or art. It's a completion of the human (not the commercial) potential - creating positive content belonging to the interior lives and capacities and sensibilities of people. Not the success or amazingness of a product for its own (or commercial) sake.

 

Good products are great. I'm always on the lookout for them. But good people are infinitely greater. Lets do art and music to make artists and musicians and great products will be the by-product. Not make art and music and maybe get rid of the artist and musician because it's a better bottom-line procedure for a business.

 

nat

 

[KuruPrionz]

My take on all this sort of stuff is that music is not a product the way products are seen by businesspeople. Which is - you don't care how the product is made as long as it meets your specs and, hopefully, sells.

 

Music, and all the arts, is 100% about making actual people capable of making music or art. It's a completion of the human (not the commercial) potential - creating positive content belonging to the interior lives and capacities and sensibilities of people. Not the success or amazingness of a product for its own (or commercial) sake.

 

Good products are great. I'm always on the lookout for them. But good people are infinitely greater. Lets do art and music to make artists and musicians and great products will be the by-product. Not make art and music and maybe get rid of the artist and musician because it's a better bottom-line procedure for a business.

 

nat

 

For many of us, I am certainly one and it appears from the OP that Craig is as well, there is a "battle" between our Artist and our personal "Support System" (for want of a better word). The OP describes a situation I understand very well. Like many of us, he was the Artist and was working artistically to create a new piece of work. When confronted by the reality of a need for the "Support Team" to step in and set up mics, test the sound, make adjustments if needed, tune the guitar, etc., the Artist chose a simpler, more expedient path to avoid being pushed aside. Of course I am speaking of a Team of One here, in my own situation I AM the Artitst and the Support Team and this is the situation many of us experience.

 

There are a couple of great books on this topic written by Betty Edwards - Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and Drawing on the Artist Within. Her methods of teaching others to draw centered primarily on Suppressing the Support Team so the Artist is free to express and create. The "science" she uses to describe the "left brain vs right brain conundrum" has been supersceded but the principles of our situational battle to free our Artist remain valid. That said, everybody is different. For some, both tendencies can co-exist.

 

For myself, Ive often done my Support Team work, getting everything ready to go, and then taken a break before returning and starting to create. It is possible that the biggest single reason I've chosen to stay with Tracktion/Waveform for my DAW is that clicking the Record buttton brings up two options in close proximity - "Abort" and "Abort and Restart". One click and I am recording again, my Artist flow uninterupted.

 

The point is that I must allow my Artist to do be fully creative to express. That there could be any sort of consideration for other aspect, a "Morality" that can be attached to my actions later, that is completely irrelevant to me at the time of creation and I simply don't consider it valid for my personal circumstance.

 

So, you do you!!!! I wish you all the best in your efforts, truly. If I could afford to record in a studio with an engineer, a producer and hired session musicians I would do that in a heartbeat. I've been Music Director/Co-Producer in a situation like that one time and it is a great situation to have a Support Team that is not the same person as the Artist. That still would not account for those spontaneous outbursts where I simply must fire up the gear and throw down some tracks. Cheers, Kuru

 

[Anderton]

The intended result is also something that has to be considered. My intended result wasn't to record an acoustic guitar part, it was to write a song. I fully planned to use the robo part as a placeholder, and replace it. But, after playing the "real" acoustic guitar part, I liked the way the two worked together - much to my surprise.

 

Besides, anything is always under the artist's control. Although I use acoustic drum loops a lot, I cut, rearrange, and mix/match with other loops so much I consider what I do as, well, "playing" a drum part. It's just a different kind of playing. I think of it as cool collage.

 

When samplers came along, there was a guy at a trade show railing about how samplers were putting musicians out of business. My response was "Who do you think plays samplers? Accountants?"

[Nowarezman]

[

 

For many of us, I am certainly one and it appears from the OP that Craig is as well, there is a "battle" between our Artist and our personal "Support System" (for want of a better word). The OP describes a situation I understand very well. Like many of us, he was the Artist and was working artistically to create a new piece of work. When confronted by the reality of a need for the "Support Team" to step in and set up mics, test the sound, make adjustments if needed, tune the guitar, etc., the Artist chose a simpler, more expedient path to avoid being pushed aside. Of course I am speaking of a Team of One here, in my own situation I AM the Artitst and the Support Team and this is the situation many of us experience.

 

 

I agree with you totally. Music is always collaborative unless you, what? Design an instrument, chop the tree down, make the instruments, build your records and mics, make your own guitar strings, play all the instruments yourself, invent your own scales and musical language, mix and master it yourself.

 

So the tools are part of the collaboration. I use VSTs all the time. I skim through midi grooves in drum software to see if anything inspires me to use in a track. I use Melodyne (mainly to teach myself how to not have to use Melodyne someday.) But I also play guitar and keys and study theory and write songs and lyrics. So what I produce is "me".

 

The bottom line I feel is not the end product, but how many brain cells, how much skill, how much mysterious diving into the subconscious, how much personal discovery, went into the final product.

 

There are skills and skills. Making music as a collage of samples can be an amazing skill. But if a musician does not develop skills, or their real skills atrophy because of bots and made-to-order AI content, that's a real problem.

 

Nothing's worse than the person who kids themselves that they are being a creative artist when all they are is a recycler of other people's products.

 

By the way, this is in no way to characterize Craig, of all people, as anything but an amazing musician, songwriter, journalist, inventor, geek-supreme and all round great guy.

 

nat

 

[Anderton]

[

Nothing's worse than the person who kids themselves that they are being a creative artist when all they are is a recycler of other people's products.

 

I guess it all depends on the quality of the recycling. A gifted harpsichord player recycling something Bach wrote is going to be VERY different from someone downloading a Standard MIDI File of that piece and claiming they played it. Of course those are two extremes, and there's a lot of gray area...I've seen DJs who are hacks, and DJs who do amazingly creative arranging and processing.

 

The bottom line I feel is not the end product, but how many brain cells, how much skill, how much mysterious diving into the subconscious, how much personal discovery, went into the final product.

 

Those are the qualities that make music I want to hear! I really have no patience for stuff with "the look and feel of music," regardless of how well produced/mixed/mastered it is, unless there's an emotional core.

 

I always close my seminars by emphasizing all that matters is the emotional impact of your music on the listener...whether that listener is other people, or you. This is why I don't think AI is going to take over composing music any time soon. Music is a language, and humans want to have a conversation with other humans.

 

 

[Joe Muscara]

I own a great acoustic piano but I'm much more likely to use samples or similar in a recording than try to get the sound right by doing all the things I'd need to do. Not that I don't want to do it myself and learn, but it would depend on if I had the time or the goal of the process. If it's to learn to record, then sure. Otherwise, I want a great sounding song and a great song.

[KuruPrionz]

[

Nothing's worse than the person who kids themselves that they are being a creative artist when all they are is a recycler of other people's products.

 

I think it is far worse if that same person never puts their toe in the waters artistically.

We cannot predict their trajectory, any more than somebody would have predicted where I would end up as an Artist.

I started drawing, painting and eventually went into photography. At the same time, music called out to me since i was about 3 or 4, I made a rattle with an orange juice can and gravel and drove my familiy nuts just rocking out.

 

Guitar happened to me, not the other way around. The same is true with songwriting. Something comes to me and I allow it to flow through me. It seems if I bear down on it, the moment is lost.

So, I've learned to allow whatever insanity that appears and then I go back later and figure out what to do with it (often nothing!).

I've had songs "write themselves" in just a few minutes, some of those are keepers.

 

I support all who seek out a way of expressing themselves.

 

Recently I joined Metapop.com and began competing in the remix contests. I was using other people's content, I've only added a track or two on a couple of pieces, I intentionally wanted to experience working with other people's stuffs. It is interesting to hear the variety in the remixes of the same material. Some of these remixes are done by Artists who are not "musicians" per se. They have put themselves at risk of being sucked down that rabbit hole.

 

I say Kudos to Them!!!!!!

[Anderton]

I think it is far worse if that same person never puts their toe in the waters artistically.

 

:thu:

 

Recently I joined Metapop.com and began competing in the remix contests. I was using other people's content, I've only added a track or two on a couple of pieces, I intentionally wanted to experience working with other people's stuffs. It is interesting to hear the variety in the remixes of the same material.

 

Interesting you should mention that. I'd heard a song from a fellow named George Toledo that I liked a lot, and at the time, I was writing the book "Mixing and Mastering with SONAR 3" as a follow-up to "Mixing and Mastering with Cubase SX/XL." I asked George if he could provide the tracks, and they were offered to the public for mixing, with the final mixes potentially being included with the book. I think I may have ended up with 20 mixes or so...and included them in the book's companion CD-ROM. They were INCREDIBLE. Everyone had a different take on the song, and they were all great. It really helped prove my point that there were many, many valid ways to mix a song. Some of the mixes were by pros, and some by rank amateurs. It didn't matter

 

[KuruPrionz]

I think it is far worse if that same person never puts their toe in the waters artistically.

 

:thu:

 

Recently I joined Metapop.com and began competing in the remix contests. I was using other people's content, I've only added a track or two on a couple of pieces, I intentionally wanted to experience working with other people's stuffs. It is interesting to hear the variety in the remixes of the same material.

 

Interesting you should mention that. I'd heard a song from a fellow named George Toledo that I liked a lot, and at the time, I was writing the book "Mixing and Mastering with SONAR 3" as a follow-up to "Mixing and Mastering with Cubase SX/XL." I asked George if he could provide the tracks, and they were offered to the public for mixing, with the final mixes potentially being included with the book. I think I may have ended up with 20 mixes or so...and included them in the book's companion CD-ROM. They were INCREDIBLE. Everyone had a different take on the song, and they were all great. It really helped prove my point that there were many, many valid ways to mix a song. Some of the mixes were by pros, and some by rank amateurs. It didn't matter

 

That's awesome. Your results do not surprise me, I've heard some stellar tracks mixed by Artists who will say upfront that they are not musicians and cannot play any instrument.

 

I am quite adventurous and prone to disconsider "the rules" when it comes to music and remixing on Metapop I created things I might never have done on my own.

For one thing, using other peoples material is very freeing, there is no emotional attachment to the results. I tried addtive mixing and subtractive mixing, I became much better at organizing my sessions and I spent considerable time creating elaborate, automated mixes of multiple instances of the same track. This is to say nothing of all the pitch shifting, tweaking with EQ using lots of boost and cut, pushing modulation plugins way beyond what might seem sensible, etc.

 

I wasn't happy with everything, not in the least. But I was and am very happy I did it. I am going to do a few more soon, just to keep exploring my DAW.

 

My Metapop link: https://metapop.com/opossum-apocalypse

 

 

[KenElevenShadows]

I like that they exist. These are tools can help songwriters or others create their vision.

 

But I also like that I don't have to listen to 'em.