Creating realistic lead guitar patches

[12fingers]

Hello guys, One of the hardest things I have tried to create are realistic lead guitar patches. Acoustic patches are pretty real on a wide variety of keyboards I've tried but a good lead guitar is harder. It seems to be a tricky thing to do given the wide variety of dynamics that can go into the initial attack of the string. As an experiment I took a clean strat type patch and sent it to a 50 watt Marshall and I found the sound still to be different. So I have to conclude that the characteristics of the attack envelope must make the difference. I am curious of some other thoughts on this. I find most distorted guitar patches either too distorted or harsh. They can be used as a good way to thicken a band patch but they are not too realistic on a solo basis.

[Dana.]

.

[12fingers]

Obviously, you miss the point. It's not about getting a guitar player in fact I play that pretty good as well. Since quite a few people write music and produce their entire projects without other musicians it is really a challenge of programming. A good deal of analog synthesis back in the old days was trying to emulate real instruments. As the instruments got better and better that became pointless and now there is an interest in analog synthesis all over again. I just feel that a lead guitar is a tough instrument to get right just as the piano was about 25 years ago before Ray Kurzweil came along. In terms of emulating the style of a guitar player that is much easier.

[RABid]

The best fake guitar lead I ever had was on the old Rhodes Chroma. There was a patch that used the mod wheel to fake the feedback sound. A second layered patch emulated the delayed rumble you can get from a guitar. I've never found those patches on a synth yet. When I need to fake a solo now I can get close with 56' Strat but it is a lot of work. You cannot just PLAY the patch like you could on the Chroma.

[Eric Iverson]

Another one that I've not heard duplicated well on keyboards (or guitar synths) is the saxophone.

 

 

 

 

[ProfD]

I recall a few decent lead guitar patches on the Yamaha S80. Mod wheel controlled feedback as RABid mentioned above.

[eric]

I am personally not a fan of trying to emulate guitar (or horns) with a keyboard, but my Yamaha S90 has a patch called VOODOO MAN that is a rather deep representation, using aftertouch for feedback and the sound pretty much rips. The only time I used it was during a "Career Day" presentation I did for my kids elementary school last year and I was showing the kids all the various sounds that could emanate from the keyboard. The VOODOO MAN patch certainly raised some eyebrows.

[Bill H.]

The newer romplers have better amp sims which really helps. Roland's COSM Guitar Amp Sim is the best IMO. Sure beats out anything on my Motif ES. But they aren't bad either. The Roland sags just right when you back off and then screams when you hit it. In TVA, I modulate T1 with velocity to back the attack transient off a bit when I let up to try to simulate what a guitar player does at least a little.

 

I'm often onstage without a guitar player and need to cover these parts. But I actually enjoy it. I love pitch bend work.

[NYKeys]

I am personally not a fan of trying to emulate guitar (or horns) with a keyboard, but my Yamaha S90 has a patch called VOODOO MAN that is a rather deep representation, using aftertouch for feedback and the sound pretty much rips. The only time I used it was during a "Career Day" presentation I did for my kids elementary school last year and I was showing the kids all the various sounds that could emanate from the keyboard. The VOODOO MAN patch certainly raised some eyebrows.

 

+1 On VooDoo Man. Plus they added some Controller goodies with CC 16 and 17 ( not in front of the rack)

 

Also IMHO Korg seems to have the electric lead guitar thing Down.

 

Now on my Roland XP-60 the guitar patches are ear candy esp the Distortion Guitar Patch 1 and 2.

[burningbusch]

Getting the "somewhat" distorted bluey sound can be more challenging as more of the guitar sound is exposed. There was a good one in the Quatum Leap Guitar library (actually recorded with the amp sound) but it was poorly programmed for live play.

 

Jan Hammer uses Korg and I'm pretty sure he's relying on just the onboard sounds on the Triton. But he goes for a more distorted sound typically. Yamaha has some nice el. guitar patches as well.

 

One thing I find important is that the patch has a good legato mode where the picked sound isn't heard. You need to be able to emulate the hammer on sound of the guitar otherwise the picking is going to drive you crazy. That's one reason why Hammer got such great sound out of the Minimoog--it's easy to program legato as well as the intensity of the pick. Once you drench a sound with distortion, the underly tone is far less important.

 

Also, if you're trying to nail metal arps and other high speed metal playing, velocity sensitivty can get in the way. The metal gods strive for a very smooth sound, note-to-note, which is why some of these effects work. Turn off velocity sensitivity and your arps will suddenly work. Another plus for the non-velocity Minimoog.

 

There are some pitch bend variations that were introduced by Yamaha with the DX7 but have sadly gone by the wayside. For example the ability to only bend the lowest note. You can do this on the Tyros 2 with the steel guitar patch and it sounds pretty good under heavy distortion. In the demos for the new Roland G6/7/8 they made some reference to new pitch bend variations.

 

The best amp sims I've run across are unforunately not found on hardware synths. The new Digidesign Eleven plugin is awesome.

 

These are just some random thoughts. I don't know how helpful it all is. Personally, I would look for a patch that's highly playable first. In emulations of this sort it's most important that the patch plays well so you can apply the full range of techniques. You can tinker with the tone using the FXs. For me though, even if the tone is perfect, if there is a strong pick attack on every note the patch is worthless for lead play.

 

Good luck.

 

Busch.

[zahush76]

i can make a pretty good guitar sound with my nord stage: i use the clav sound thru amp sim. i cranck the distortion all the way up (or half way, if you want a more subtle sound), and add the wah effect controlled by an expression pedal. the result is very jimi hendrix sounding kind of guitar. i play hours on that patch. it also works perfect for riffs like "money for nothing".

[The Real MC]

I'm an experienced synth tweaker but a decent lead guitar sound is really hard to get. There are way too many nuances, intricacies, and dynamics of manipulating a metal string going through an overdriven tube amp that you just can't nail using a keyboard as a controller. The minimoog works pretty well doing harmony or doubling a real guitar, but on its own it is starkly obvious it ain't a guitar.

[Yoozer]

It's all in the distortion. Try Native Instruments Guitar Rig .

[synthdogg]

As an experiment I took a clean strat type patch and sent it to a 50 watt Marshall and I found the sound still to be different. So I have to conclude that the characteristics of the attack envelope must make the difference. I am curious of some other thoughts on this. I find most distorted guitar patches either too distorted or harsh.

 

Have you done any re-amping of guitar tracks? What you're describing is actually a pretty common occurance when someone takes a previously recorded dry guitar track, and send it into an amp....it doesn't sound like a guitar going directly into the amp, the impedence is different, and it usually sounds just like you're describing...TOO distorted or harsh. Have you tried running the patch through a "re-amping" device before hitting the Marshall? I'm curious to hear the difference.

[KenElevenShadows]

I would think that getting a keyboard to sound good with distorted guitar chords would be supremely difficult. Leads are difficult enough, but something about all the notes ringing together would compound the problem, I would think.

 

I play both guitar and keyboards, so it's not something I've really explored.

[Bill H.]

I would think that getting a keyboard to sound good with distorted guitar chords would be supremely difficult.

 

Open fifths my good man. Open fifths.

[Steve Nathan]

MusicLabs "RealStrat" is my favorite of the moment. It beats anything stock on a synth/rompler I've heard, especially when run through an amp sim or a real amp. I endorse (cause I really use it) Amplitude2, which does a nice job.

[12fingers]

Damn I'd give my eye teeth for one of those. Very cool. It's a shame they came along too late to save Arp. I have an Odyssey and a Quadra which are very special to me.

[12fingers]

I'll try sending it too a Pod first. I was using one of the clean Strat sounds from my Oasys and sending out one of the aux outputs to a lead channel on the Marshall. I find that switching to monophonic mode and some velocity tweaking will give me decent leads but switching back to polyphonic mode it is hard to find that "sweet spot" between crunch and lead. I did create a pretty good Alan Holdsworth type sound on a Jp8000 using the feedback oscillator and a bandpass filter. But his sound is characteristic is not your typical lead sound.

[12fingers]

Thanks ! Some good ideas.

[12fingers]

That is another one for sure . Another one is the Jethro Tull type of flute sound. I guess a breath controller would help but they are becoming rare.

[DafDuc]

The Sweetwater sounds for the Fusion are excellent, the jazz guitar, slide guitar AND the (seriously distorted) PRS patches.

 

And the VL-70m "Carlos" patch is real good too, but the monophonic bit gets in the way.

 

And another vote for amping - my Johnson J-Station (poor man's Pod) crunchier settings on about any clean (or slightly overdriven) electric guitar patch really helps bring out my inner Trower, LOL...

[Tusker]

I find that switching to monophonic mode and some velocity tweaking will give me decent leads but switching back to polyphonic mode it is hard to find that "sweet spot" between crunch and lead.

 

I have the same problem (with distorted synth leads of the Rudess/Sherinian variety).

 

- I think part of the problem is that many digital amp-sims don't have a good response to dynamics. So you get rude sounds when you you play loud, and no tone at all, when you play soft. Compression pre amp-sim can help.

 

- Another problem is that the standard adsr often cannot provide the attack transient needed to "push" the amp-sim into tone. So layering attack partials is helpful ... although it tends to result in a sameness of tone unless you do some fancy programming (like velocity sensitive FM) Good compression settings can also help. Cheers,

 

Jerry

[burningbusch]

MusicLabs "RealStrat" is my favorite of the moment. It beats anything stock on a synth/rompler I've heard, especially when run through an amp sim or a real amp. I endorse (cause I really use it) Amplitude2, which does a nice job.

 

Thanks for the post. I am now thoroughly enjoying RealStrat. The realtime playing is great but I really like the patterns that they include. With all the various muting and other playing styles covered, you can get some very authentic sounding patterns going.

 

Busch.