guitar

Using Compressors to increase attack - Musical Creativity 45

Alan — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:30:37 +0100

Compressors are regularly used to tame errant dynamics or to increase the perceived volume of a track. As well as squashing the audio, the compressor can be used to bring out some elements more than others.

Letting the attack through

Remember when you were learning about compression? You probably wanted the attack at 0ms so that the whole signal was compressed equally. But it ended up in a squashed mess. The output sound had a different quality to what was put in. The guitar no longer sounded like a guitar, but like an old keyboard emulation of a keyboard. So we all gradually learned to allow the initial transients through with delays of 20ms upwards, depending on the instrument and the wanted effect. This allowed for a natural sound.

Reverse your thinking

Usually we're using a compressor to tame peaks or increase the perceived volume of the track by decreasing the dynamic range. This time we'll focus on increasing the dynamic range and still using a compressor.

Set the compressor to have a longer attack, e.g. 30ms to let the initial strike of a guitar string through. Set the compressor to moderately reduce the dynamic range of the rest of the signal. What you'll see if you compare the input to the output is that the initial peaks where the string is hit or plucked are louder in comparison to the rest of the signal.

Additional Options with Software

Pre-empting

The problem with hardware compressors is that they can only react once they receive the signal they receive. Software compressors have the advantage of being able to look-ahead at the signal and react before a hardware compressor could. That's useful for enabling the compressor to act on the initial transients.

Sidechain

You can also eq the input signal to trigger the side-chain. Some allow you to do this in the plug-in itself. For others you'll have to set up an aux/bus track and route the signal in parallel through that and eq the aux channel. This can be done in hardware as well if you eq the feed going into the sidechain.

Using Other Processors

Expanders

Expanders are built for job of increasing the dynamic range. Effectively, they're compressors with upward compression. And so should be more suited to increasing range. However, sometimes I prefer to use a basic compressor.

Enveloper

These react to the envelope of the sound. Think back to the basics of synthesis with every sound having Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release (ADSR). Envelopers provide a way to change the gain at the various stages. The one in Logic allows the user to change the gain at the Attack and the Release stages. So you could potentially just change the gain of the attack and leave the rest of the signal alone.

Gain

This doesn't increase dynamic range. I've included it because I had to increase the gain of the guitar track to match the results of the effects.

Results

I recorded a steel-string acoustic guitar using an x-y pattern of 2 small diaphragm microphones. These were routed to a bus (aux in Logic) and the effects were applied to the bus only. The main output for the microphone channels were removed, meaning that the signal was only going through the bus. I applied the following effects in turn: compressor, enveloper, expander and gain. For each one, I spent about 2 minutes changing the parameters on a part of the track that was of roughly average volume. Then I bounced the output to a separate audio file.

It's important to note that I only spent the time configuring the parameters for one part of the track. There were louder and quieter parts elsewhere in the track.

Rather than play the whole 5 minute track, I've extracted three parts; one quiet, one average, one loud.

The Screenshot

The screenshot shows the unprocessed as well as the results of having each of the compressor, gain, enveloper and expander applied in turn. The order from left to right is Average, Quiet and Loud.

Download a larger version of the image here

What you'll notice is that there's not that much different between most of them in the average and quiet. However, the compressor did a good job of using the dynamic range available. The gain effect just made everything louder, as it's meant to, but doesn't bring out the peaks. The expander and enveloper both coped well, but I prefer the compressor.

In the Loud section, we see the issues with applying parameters for one section only. In all reality, we'd probably be riding the faders or at least automating the fader/effect parameters. But for the moment, it gives us a good idea of how flexible the processors are. Most of them are showing clipped waveforms for the loud section, indicating too much make-up gain. The compressor waveform still has thin ends to the spikes indicating a more managed approach. And the sound does reflect that.

Quiet

Unprocessed

Gain

Expander

Compressor

Enveloper

Average

Unprocessed

Gain

Expander

Compressor

Enveloper

Loud

Unprocessed

Compressor

I've only published a few of these files in case anyone risks damaging their speakers. I haven't published the files with square ends, e.g. the "gain" and "expander" files.

Part of a series by Award Sounds offering a selection of creative ideas to kick-start or rejuvenate a composition.

Using an Octaver for Easy Funk - Musical Creativity 43

Alan — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:23:43 +0100

Mention an octaver to a musician, especially a guitarist, and you're heading for a conversation about Hendrix.

It can be used for other styles. So here's a quick trick for writing funk. Forget the bass when you start. I half-expected to get lynched, but bear with me, at least until the end.

Background

I like the old P-funk of Funkadelic and Parliament. I think what made me hear it more was the inclusion of a distorted guitar in a funk show. This was often played in sync with the bass guitar.

Setting the groove

Find a sparse drum track. You want big drums (not 80s soft rock big though). Make sure it's a tight loop. Set it to loop as your background track. Now remove the click track if you've got one. You'll play better this way.

Setting up the guitar

We'll get the distorted guitar set-up first. That'll be a distorted guitar from the 70s, maybe even a distorted DI from the 80s. Keep the speaker simulation to a minimum. We're not looking for a modern hi-gain sound here so go for a raw guitar sound.

Next add an octaver effect. I've had better results recently with it placed after the amplifier/amplifier plug-in, but normally I'd place pitch effects before the pre-amp.

Set the octaver so it adds a note one octave (12 notes) below the signal.

Roll the tape

Now play and record. Use an extended pentatonic scale (i.e. blues scale with a few additional notes) to get started. The p-funk guitars had lots of semi-tone intervals.

Fill it Out

Add a second guitar with a modulation effect, most commonly a subtle phaser playing rhythmic, strummed part-chords.

Finish it off

I've added a club-type reverb to bond the 3 instruments tracks together, aiming for a live club feel.

Make it more complex

You could add the octaver as a send instead of a insert, allowing to mix the levels better and potentially (depending on the quality of the octaver effect) retain the character of the original signal with more clarity.

Make it more authentic

Put on the star-shaped shades, pick up the bass and record the part properly. The octaver gives you an easy way gets you started in the groove, but it really should be done with a bass.

Part of a series by Award Sounds offering a selection of creative ideas to kick-start or rejuvenate a composition.

Use of Tremolo - Musical Creativity 42

Alan — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:27:29 +0100

I've talked about tremolo as a musical feature before, this time I want to go into more detail.

First things first, let's sort out the guitarists: I don't mean using the tremolo arm/whammy bar or whatever you want to call it ("handle" as my girlfriend called it - and no she won't be picking up my guitars for a while). The whammy bar creates a vibrato feature, not a tremolo. Vibrato alters pitch.

Amplitude

Tremolo is the act of altering the volume of a note or set of notes. For an electric instrument, the simplest to hear is by regularly turning the volume knob up and down. The notes fade in, fade out, fade in, fade out and so on.

It's a great tool for livening up a piece of music. The previous article on the subject covered some more ways of using it.

Recordings

Tremolo features on a lot of famous recordings. Three extreme examples are:

How Soon Is Now - The Smiths

Crush with Eyeliner - REM

What's the Frequency Kenneth - REM

But it's used more subtlely on many, many more recordings. Think of any country song and listen to the guitar. Many of the 1950s and 1960s guitar recordings had tremolo on them. Think Duane Eddy (although he mixed it with vibrato by using the whammy bar a lot). Lots of Elvis recordings featuring Scotty Moore had tremolo. This situation was accentuated and facilitated by the inclusion of tremolo circuits in the guitar amps, e.g. Vox

Types of effect

The common tremolo effect alters the amplitude or volume of the incoming signal apply a regularly repeating pattern before output. The most common pattern is the sine wave, although some FX units also allow square and sawtooth. The output signal increases, decreases, increases, decreases, etc.

The waveform applied changes how fast the signal reaches the extremes and how long it stays there before beginning the journey to the other extreme.

Depth

If the signal is applied completely at 100% depth, then the output will have no signal at the points when the applied FX is at its lowest point, conversely it will have the maximum volume when the FX is at its highest point.

Lowering the depth introduces a less radical effect, to the point that if the depth were at 0%, then there would theoretically be no difference between the input and output. As with most effects, the most appropriate depth is usually somewhere between the two extremes.

Symmetry

The waveform applied so far has been the same on both sides, i.e. going up and coming down. Altering the phase allows more time for the signal to climb and a quicker fall or vice versa. This is great for imparting a slower or a rushed feeling to the track.

Phase

For a stereo tremolo, the default set-up is to have the signal applied equally, but alternately to each channel. Changing the phase control alters the timing displacement of the second channel compared to the first, which can be used to create panning echoes or dotted note rhythms.

No Depth?

I'd usually use a tremolo inline with the signal, either at the recording stage (e.g. between guitar and amp) or at the mixing stage (as an insert). If there's no depth control, then patch the tremolo into a send and emulate the depth by the relative values of the signal and send faders.

For guitarists, if there's no depth control, then you maybe able to use it in the amp's FX loop if you've got a variable dry/wet mix. This may not work well, since the FX would be placed after the pre-amp. Depends what equipment you're using.

Playing with fingers

A classical guitar tremolo technique involves repeatedly plucking the same string with the first, second and third fingers. This is often a bass and/or melody note plucked with the thumb followed by the three fingers or sometimes a fourth is employed but the fingering changes.

The most famous example is probably Recuerdos De La Alhambra by Francisco Tárrega, although I think Agustin Barrios Mangore's Una Limosna por el Amor de Dios (Alms for the Peace of God) shows the technique more.

Various forms of flamenco use a similar technique, sometimes using the thumb plus four finger notes (not necessarily four fingers, often three fingers with one repeated) to get a 5-tuplet pattern.

Pick

For electric guitar, rapidly repeated picking of the same note gives a tremolo effect that can be used in solos. Do it too often and you'll sound you can't move your fret-hand fingers. Best to intersperse it with other techniques. Check out the Ozzy Osbourne recordings with Randy Rhoads, e.g. Tribute, to get an idea of how to fit it into a solo. He doesn't use it that often, but when he does, it works well. Nowadays, watch Matt Bellamy of Muse. There are plenty of others, but they're not coming to mind right now.

In other forms of music, e.g. drag, it can be the main feature. This is more likely to happen on the lower strings of the guitar, with a springy/slap-back reverb. Think Dick Dale. Although perhaps not part of drag, Miserlou (as featured in Pulp Fiction) is a great example of how a simple riff can lead the track. The repeated picking comes from his experience with an oud (or ud).

Part of a series by Award Sounds offering a selection of creative ideas to kick-start or rejuvenate a composition.

Arranging Multiple Parts for a Guitar - Musical Creativity 37

Alan — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:49:34 +0100

As well as composing and recording, I play guitar in a band, playing a mixture of covers and our own originals. We don't stick too closely to the originals when we cover them, realising that we only have four members (guitar, bass, drums and vocals) so many songs have to be stripped down to work.

Going from a song that has many parts to a cover version with only four instruments can leave you feeling a bit naked when playing live. It doesn't help that as guitarist, I often have to play several parts at the same time.

It's just arranging

You've got 6 strings. So if you're adding in a piano part and a guitar part, then it's time to pick the most important notes. After all, you can only play a maximum of 6 at a time.

Listen

Listen to the music and pick out what makes the tune. A lot of notes are filler. The music sounds different without it, but that's ok.

Listen to other listeners

Not only listen to the track yourself, but ask the other band members what elements of the song stick out to them. Singers pick out different notes to bass players and so on. So there's me as a guitarist saying that some notes are missing from our arrangement, but no-one else has noticed. And it happens the other way around, where one of the other members will ask where a certain part is.

Who's the arranger?

If you are, then don't be afraid to ask the other musicians to try playing parts that they wouldn't have considered. I'm fortunate to be in a band with an accomplished and adventurous bassist. That's good because it allows us to swap when it comes to supporting the melody or the rhythm. The drummer's also open to new ideas. They, in turn, ask me to play other parts I hadn't considered.

The tone of the guitar

For notes played at the same time (e.g. chords), we've a limited tonal range. Each note in the chord has to be nearly the same tone and volume. There's some flexibility if you pluck with your fingers, but it's still pretty restricted.

If you look across the length of the song, then guitarists have access to a massive range of tone since we can vary it as we go along. The trick there is to tie the tone to a musical part, e.g. the piano lead.

Two at once

The guitarist can support the rhythm by striking staccato chords, but then there's an empty space for pads to ring. My way around this is to play the ringing chord and then play the rhythm on the low 6th string, sometimes with the 5th depending on what the chords are and how much I need to reinforce the rhythm. This works well clean or crunch sounds, not quite as well with hi-gain tone, but it can still work. Just depends on the chords being played and the rhythm that it needs to fit into.

Swapping between instruments on the same tone

To differentiate between two instrument parts, I've used upstrokes on one and downstrokes on another. Swapping between primarily plucked and primarily legato/glissando can help differentiate.

Try alternate strokes.

Similar to the ringing chords plus staccato rhythm above, the root notes can be played on the downstroke, then the ringing chords on the upstroke. Even more useful is the downstroke on the root, then several staccato chords using upstrokes. Not exactly special, but can be very useful for syncopated rhythms.

Let the bass play

If the bassist is playing the root notes, then the guitarist doesn't need to. Frees the guitarist up to play other parts.

Too much to do

Guitarists only use one pick at a time, but can use several fingers. So think about whether some finger picking would help. In addition, I use a combination, playing some notes with pick, then treble notes with fingers, often alternating, but sometimes together. Works well at emulating piano parts.

It's also the only way I've found to keeping the strength of the normal guitar notes while playing a melody on the higher strings. It takes practice but is well worth it since it opens up a whole new area of complexity.

Stretch

Bassists usually only play one note at a time. That's an overstatement, but stretch your bass player. For instance, if they play chords or at least octaves, they can free up the guitarist from chordal duties. Also the bass is a great instrument for filling in string parts. It doesn't sound like a string section, but fits in a live mix well enough, especially when played around the 5-9th frets on the A and D strings.

Composing

Why is this in the composition section? The more techniques a player has, then less restricted the music will be. By thinking how to deconstruct a song to a minimum of instruments, then you get to realise how much of a a song is superfluous. Look on youtube and you can watch any number of acoustic covers of songs, not all good mind you. The better versions have been arranged by musicians who have thought about which notes matter most and have fitted them into the composition.

Any other ideas

I'm interested to hear of other ideas or your experiences with this.

Part of a series by Award Sounds offering a selection of creative ideas to kick-start or rejuvenate a composition.

Budget compressor that works way beyond expectations

Alan — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:39:30 +0000

Budget or not

I subscribe to the view that you almost always get what you pay for at the lower end of the market. So it's nice to come across something cheap that works well.

The compressor

I bought a compressor the other day, but not for use as a studio compressor. I bought it as an effect for my guitar rig.

I'm using it to push the preamp a little bit for a fat round sound. There are some of the standard compression knobs such as Attack and Release. There's also a Ratio switch for high or low. The Emphasis knob controls how much of the high frequency signal is passed through without compression, allowing for the rattle of strings to come through. This is a great feature if you're thinking of using it on bass.

The pedal is easy to use if you don't think of the knobs on the top row as having much to do with traditional compressors. I'm still trying to figure out the compressor knob. I know what I think it should do, but it doesn't seem to. It seems to be a mixture of ratio (relating to the hi or low levels from the switch) and threshold. One way to find out is to do record an A-B comparison and look at the audio file properties. I'm curious what it actually does do so I'll do this at some point.

The Output

The sound out of the compressor isn't crystal clear. It's not that noisy either, to the point that you can't hear any added noise when the amplifier is on a clean setting. I haven't measured it more accurately than listening by ear.

The resulting sound has a nice warm quality with the guitar's tone being slightly subdued. Feels like a more rounded tone. I guess some of the higher frequencies have been removed. For an all-purpose compressor, that's a problem. For putting in front of a guitar or bass amp, I see that as a positive. I wouldn't use it on every song either, but I can see it getting a lot of use.

With the amplifier on a high gain setting, there is more hiss and hum with the compressor switched on. That's not necessarily being introduced by the compressor other than the fact that the make-up gain is increasing the floor level.

Snake Charmer

It's the Vox Cooltron Snake Charmer Compressor pedal and I bought mine for £39, a big reduction from the RRP of £149. That's a great price for a compressor pedal and fits into the budget pedal price, undercutting a lot of more "pro" models. The Cooltron pedals are marketed as having tube technology. They do indeed have a tube inside. I have no idea if the tube is adding to the tone, to me it was just a gimmick, but I'm glad I tried the pedal despite that.

Bass

After trying this in the shop using a guitar, I couldn't wait to get it back and try on a bass. It has a nice tone on that as well, although there are some issues. Two things to bear in mind:

It's a compressor that isn't configured as a limiter, so a sudden loud signal will still get through to your amp.
I think it's designed for use with guitar frequencies, but rolling the emphasis knob to the extreme will let more of the bass' higher frequencies through.

I've found that I had to keep the attack on the left-side of 12 o'clock otherwise it outputs a click if you hit strings hard. The click isn't anything in the source and is still in the output despite the amplifier's limiter being on full. My guess is that the pedal introduces it into the signal chain. I want to check that before I confirm it. I'll see if I can get the same sound using a different bass amp, a DI and also using a guitar into the same amp. Either way, I'm a bit wary about introducing that click to any sensitive equipment until I can find out where it's coming from. The compressor pedal is still useable and a joy to play with on bass, but keep the attack knob down.

Edit - I've tried the compressor on the same settings with a (passive) electric guitar into a guitar amp. I didn't hear the click.

Vocals

I wouldn't put this in the signal chain for recording clean vocals. It's not designed for that and I really doubt whether it's clean enough although, again, I haven't measured it. From what it's done to the guitar, I can imagine it working well as a nice effect on vocals, perhaps on a send mixed in parallel with the original or on an insert for much rougher sound.

Conclusion

In all fairness, I didn't expect that much from the pedal before I tried it. I was dubious about the valve gimmick. But for using the pedal as something that cleanly adds tone, wow, it's got to be heard. It also has the bonus of having the usual compressor feature of adding sustain to notes. Great. Unlike most effects that I just use in one or two places, I'm looking forward to trying this in a variety of applications. It can never be my go-to compressor, in the end it is just a guitar effect pedal, but it definitely has a place for changing the sound of a signal in a positive way.

At this price, it's a steal. Almost a no-brainer.

If it were more expensive, I may still buy it but only if I wanted the exact sounds it produces and I couldn't get them from a more versatile compressor.

Use a compressor to break-up the signal - Musical Creativity 30

Alan — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:27:43 +0000

The main function of a compressor is to reduce dynamic range. They're not just used to increase perceived volume so you can achieve the loudest CD on the planet. That's in itself is worth remembering.

Most have a make-up gain/volume knob. The most common setting is to have the compressor set to reduce the volume above the threshold, resulting in the peaks being levelled out. That reduces the overall volume of the signal, so the make-up gain is increased to "make-up" the difference.

You can also increase the make-up gain beyond that to end up with an even louder signal.

Turn it Down

But it works the other way around as well. Turn the make-up gain down below the level of the incoming signal.

Now for mixing, turning it down isn't that useful. You can always use a gain plug-in or better still ride/automate the faders. Actually, that's a general rule: if you just want to change the volume of a channel, use the faders, not a compressor.

But for live use or for recording a guitarist, the compressor's volume/gain knob is useful for reducing the output signal from a guitar as well as increasing it. It does have other characteristics though, although they add a good quality to the sound.

From a guitarist's perspective

It starts with the setting of the clean channel on a valve amp. You mileage may vary with solid-state/hybrid amps, some are better at tube emulation than others. At least try one that uses a tube preamp.

1) To move into distortion

Set the amplifier's clean control just under the below where it starts to breaks up. It should have a nice clean sound when the compressor is bypassed.
Set the compressor's gain to increase the level marginally above the input signal.
Turn on the compressor and it drives the amplifier into a creamy distortion.
You may have to adjust the make-up gain to get that distortion. We're not talking about 6 dB of difference here, probably just 1-2dB.
The sustain introduced by the compressor gives more potential for holding notes longer.  Set just right, there's little noise introduced.

2) To clean up the sound

Set the amplifier's clean control just above the level where it breaks up.
At this point there's that distortion again, but without the sustain and sonic characteristics of the compressor.
Set the compressor's gain to just below the input level
Turn on the compressor to reduce the overall signal level of the guitar, resulting in a cleaner tone.
The compression element of the compressor introduces a fatter, jazzier tone to the clean channel.

It's not just a question of volume

The compressor is not being used solely as a boost/cut for the volume. If I wanted just a volume change, then I'd use a boost pedal or a volume pedal. If I've set the output signal closely enough to the input level, then the guitar's signal still comes through, in a reduced dynamic range, but close to the original volume of the guitar. By doing it that way, I can get a nice and usable variety in the tone, either moving into or out of the break-up range of the amplifier.

Why not use the guitar's volume knob?

This depends on the guitar. On most of mine, reducing the volume knob even by a fraction cuts the treble output from the guitar more than the middle or lower frequencies. I do use it to regulate volume and tone but I'm aware of the skewed effect it has on eq.

Part of a series by Award Sounds offering a selection of creative ideas to kick-start or rejuvenate a composition.

Focus on the Rhythm - Musical Creativity 29

Alan — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:19:03 +0000

Which is louder, the hard-struck ringing chord or the palm-mute?

I answer both to that question. Let's look in some more detail.

The open, ringing sound starts with a short attack, with the low frequencies marginally occurring before the treble (due to the stroke across the strings). After the initial attack, there follows a very quick decay, a short period of sustain and a longer release. The length of the sustain depends on a number of variables, including the guitar materials, the diameter, materials and freshness guitar strings, amplifier gain, microphone technique and above all, the player. A lot of the time, there may be no sustain at all, just a prolonged release.

The palm-muted chugg is a very short attack mainy in the mid and low frequencies. The treble is more often missing because of the palm-mute which absorbs the ringing of the strings, plus it's mainly effective only on the lower strings. The attack is followed by a quick release. There's a quick decay, hardly any sustain if any at all and no release. It's almost an on-off sound and appears as a spike in the recording.

The comparison

Assuming that the guitarist uses the same sounds, the single ringing chord is louder than the single palm-mute. Both in the peak reached at the attack and the sustain and release.

Let's take a typical situation where the ringing chord plays on 1 and rings through to 8, to start again on the next bar's 1 and so on.

Ringing: 1....... 1....... 1....... 1.......

The chugg would start on 1, repeat on 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 and continue on each 8th note.

Mute: 12345678 12345678 12345678 12345678

The palm-muted chugg works out apparently louder than the ringing chord because the following attacks of 2-8 are louder than the sustain and decay of the ringing chord. In addition, the palm-mute focusses on the lower frequencies reinforcing the 8th rhythm. Assuming that other instruments (e.g. bass and drums) are also playing to the same rhythm, then the guitar starts to take on more percussive effect.

The diagram below is a simplified view of what I was describing above.

How can we use it?

I've always found it odd that a chords played with a palm mute sound louder than chords played ringing. They're a lower volume in isolation, but add volume by repetition.

Change an instrument from following the sequence of chords as they progress across bars/meters to following the rhythm. This works well if palm mute is a regular beat such as eighths. But also works well when there are staccato, off-beat rhythms.

It's a technique I use on a couple of the tracks in my band's live set to liven up an ending. Used correctly and it's a good way to introduce energy to a song. I also use it occasionally at the end of rock track if I want it to end with more energy than it started.

This was brought to back mind when I heard Blind by Breed 77 again and I was dissecting the ending of the track. As well as having multi-tracked and syncopated vocals, the guitars change focus from long-sustained chords to percussive strokes.

Not just guitars

It doesn't have to be guitars, other instruments can do the same, synth patches can be used in the same way, so can changing the arrangement of orchestral instruments as you resort to double-basses and cellos of a string section to provide the staccato notes. In these cases, the amplitude envelope will not be the same as for a guitar, so the sustain may well as be infinite (e.g. in the case of continually-bowed strings or synth pads).

Compression

When I've patched a compressor into the guitar track, I watch out for the continued signal reduction if the compressor's hold value merges into the next note, e.g. above 200ms and it's likely to be continually reducing the signal.

If I've patched a compressor/limiter into the stereo output bus, then again I'm watching out for the continued signal reduction. Yet I'm also listening for pumping if I've got more drastic compressor settings since the guitar may start trigger that effect.

Part of a series by Award Sounds offering a selection of creative ideas to kick-start or rejuvenate a composition.

Bass Emulation - Musical Creativity 23

Alan — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:19:55 +0000

Try to emulate a bass guitar using another instrument

Which Type?

There are several types of bass. First of all, decide which type you want to emulate: acoustic, semi-acoustic, electric bass or acoustic double-bass.

One at a Time

I used to think of the bass as being a monophonic or one-note-at-a-time instrument. Often it is, but it depends on the genre, and the bassist. Even those that feature one note at any one time will often have another note on another string hanging as the bassist makes the transition between strings.

Use a Keyboard

Pianologist has some very good hints on emulating bass using a keyboard.

One of the things to decide is whether you want it to sound like a bass guitar or not. Synths have a lot of bass patches and depending on the style of music, some are more suitable than others. I'm not saying anything revolutionary here, just as always, decide if it's meant to emulate, replace, hint at a bass guitar.

Use a Guitar

I've used a guitar to roughly emulate an electric bass. I liked the result, but it didn't really sound much like a real bass. I don't suppose I expected it to. Fortunately the softer sound that was produced worked better than expected. I tried replacing it with a bass later on. I'd recorded the guitar direct as I may do for a bass. I'd added a tube emulator (Silverspike's Ruby Tube worked well for this sound), added some subharmonics (can't remember the effect I used) and applied eq for a more bottom-heavy sound. I wasn't going to try and emulate the clack of the strings being plucked. I also added a mild speaker emulator for some extra depth, the speaker sound is not as important for a bass recording as for a guitar. I also processed it through a mild chorus, again for some extra depth. To finish, I passed it through a gate, then compressor so that I could achieve a sound that had a slow attack and release. This gave the result I was looking for of a nice bass sound with a medium attack. It still had some of the characteristics of a guitar, but didn't have the boominess or artifacts that result from pitch manipulation.

Bassists play differently

This is an important point to remember, especially for guitarists. Bassists are not just guitarist who only play 4 strings, one at a time. A bassist will strike notes in different places to a guitarist. It's generally quite easy to spot a guitarist who's just picked up a bass to fill in for a missing bassist. They'll usually play on the beat and choose the root notes. A bassist will adapt their playing around the beat to either relax the music or add more excitement. The choice of notes from an experienced bassist will be well beyond the guitarist who's playing bass. This above any other characteristic will set good bassists apart from guittarists. Watch the ghost notes and passing notes, especially as they skip from supporting one chord to another or as they progress a rhythm change.

I think that there's only two things you can do to cover that gap:

1) listen and analyse some of the great players - understand what they do to make their sound. No matter how much a budding guitarist may concentrate on their tone, with the bassist, it's more about style of playing. There are a lot of sites, either owned by or dedicated to famous players. You can learn a lot from them.

2) practice over and over again

Each bass is different

In a way, if you're aiming to emulate the perfect bass sound, then you're trying to aim for a moving target. For any given song, the perfect sound would be different. And ask several people, get several answers as to what's perfect. Have a think about what's included in a bass, such as the woods, strings, amplifier, style of playing and focus on one particular type.

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Emulating Guitar - Musical Creativity 20

Alan — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:42:42 +0000

Which type?

Firstly, I'd want to decide which type of guitar to emulate and then understand as much as I can about that instrument particular type of instrument and how it's played. Actually, that can be said of emulating any instrument. Take note of the instrument's range and where its tonality changes with pitch or volume. For an electric guitar, take note of the pickup types, whether it's strummed or picked, how many notes at a time, how the guitar would be recorded, etc. A strat sounds markedly different to a Les Paul.

Apply the process

Whatever you use to produce the sounds for an electric guitar, it generally sounds better being put through a guitar amp simulator as well, in much the same way that you may do with a guitar. Guitar amps are often mic'd up with two mics and the two tracks mixed together for the desired effect. So try the same sound through two channels, one to emulate the close-up dynamic microphone and another to emulate a condenser placed further away. The condenser channel would be subject to more room sound, so bring in your convolution effects if necessary.

It's the space as well

The recording space and techniques used to record a classical nylon guitar would be different than the for a electric guitar through a hi-gain amp. They would also be mixed differently.

I'm a guitarist, why would I want to emulate a guitar?

I can think of several reasons:

1) Saves having to get a guitar, amp, microphones, etc out to check out an idea

This isn't really an issue for me, I have an acoustic and at least one electric ready to go at all times. But if you're short on available space in your home studio, I can see this being the case. Occasionally I'll change the patch on a channel to a guitar so some midi notes I've written are produced by a guitar-ish sound, just to get a quick feel for whether it's worth learning the part on a guitar. If I then want the guitar recording, I'll record it properly myself.

2) For creativity

For the same reasons in starting on a different instrument, to be able to play in a different style to what you're used to playing on guitar. By trying to play the instrument on a different interface (e.g. a midi-equipped or USB keyboard), then you have to think differently. That brings out a different result compared to just playing guitar on its own.

3) For flexibility

To play something you couldn't normally play on guitar. If sweep arpeggios are beyond your talent, then you could program them in using midi. Or if it's genuinely impossible to play on a guitar, e.g. a stab consisting of 4 consecutive semitones, e.g. D, D#, E and F in the same octave. Ok, that example would be pretty discordant, but it may float your boat for one reason or another. More useful would be chord inversions that may be theoretically feasible but so awkward to transfer between that they're impossible from a practical perspective.

How effective can it be?

I've found it inspiring to try different musical phrases using an emulated guitar. I've also found it helps with my composing workflow. Furthermore, I can produce something technically complex in a shorter time than it would take to learn it. This has been useful when I've wanted to record an idea for future reference. Better to have the emulated sound that fits into rough mix, which will give me longer to learn the more complex parts, than forget what I wanted to record. In that sense, I'd be using it for taking notes.

If sonic accuracy is your aim, then perhaps try one of the more specialist virtual instruments such as RealStrat. I don't use virtual instruments, I remember looking into one a couple of years ago and I was impressed, very impressed in fact by the resulting sound demo. I was suspicious of how much time it took to get that result. At some point I'll go back and try it again and look in more detail.

Tuning

Apart from the fact that the strings can be tuned to different notes, e.g. nu-Metal would often feature at least a dropped D, if not yet another whole tone decrease, the interaction of the strings themselves can be important. For any guitar with a floating bridge (think most stratocasters and telecasters), the pitch of any one string is dependent on what's being fretted on the other strings. Bend one string and the others will decrease in pitch by a few cents. A lot of blues leads and chicken pickin' styles make use of this effect.

Tone

Guitarists apply tone and produce different sounds just in their playing style. For instance:

1) picking nearer the bridge produces a harsher tone (ponte)

2) picking nearer the neck produces a softer tone (dolce)

You could emulate the above by have a simpler tone more like a sine wave for the dolce sounds and adding more harmonics and a bit of distortion to emulate ponte. I'd also bring in compressors and gates to modify the envelop so that the attack on dolce is slower. The overall volume is lower on dolce than on ponte. If you're going to emulate a classical guitar, then ensure that your samples/virtual instrument can handle the difference between ponte and dolce and hopefully a few points in between.

Free or Palm-muted

By resting the side of the palm on the strings near the bridge, the guitarist can dampen the sound of the strings. This is reminiscent of a low-pass filter and if the guitarist increases the pressure applied to the strings, the cut-off frequency is reduced, thereby reducing the resulting tonal range. The palm-muting also reduces the dynamic range, probably why it's used to much in heavy rock chugging. By keeping the volume consistent, you can quickly develop a rhythm. Actually guitarists take it a step further and change the pressure applied as the notes are played. This can result in notes being accented or muted througout the phrase, accentuating the desired rhythm.

Further info

KVR Forum had a good thread on emulating guitars.

How a guitar works

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Try to emulate another instrument - Musical Creativity 19

Alan — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 20:45:18 +0000

The same but different

I referred to utilising the differences in each instrument for inspiration in a previous article.

A similar inspiration can happen when you try emulate a different instrument. At first attempt, the emulated instrument often sounds nothing like the intended instrument. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

In one session, I'd used a guitar and processing to emulate an organ sound. I did try re-recording it later with a proper organ patch, but it just didn't have the same feel. I'm still happier with the guitar version and so I kept it. You can tell it's not an organ; that doesn't bother me. I like the sound I ended up with and that counts. Can't remember the exact effects I used on the guitar, when I find my notes, I'll post them as a comment. From memory, I probably used a guitar DI, chorus, rotor cabinet simulator, amp simulator, tube emulator and heavily compressed it so there was little dynamic range. That's a lot of effects, but it got me the basic dirty, organ sound I wanted. I also added a stereo delay to complete the picture.

The End Result

What I learnt was that it's not necessary to have the sound perfectly emulated since often I don't want the perfect sound. Everything we do in the recording process is implementing a choice on how we want the end result to sound. That could be how which microphones we choose or how we place them, which preamps, how much low-end rolloff is applied, eq at recording and or mixing and so on. In the same way, the end result of an emulation doesn't have to sound like the intended instrument. It can do things that the original can't. Try playing 6 concurrent notes on a 4 string bass. Can't be done. Generally you wouldn't want to, but sometimes an effect like that can be useful.

In the story above, I had an organ sound that I couldn't create with an organ synth. And I had attributes of a recorded guitar. I liked that.

The track was "Roll On" and you can find it in Show Reel 4. In the background, there's an atmospheric pad or two that fade in and out. It's only at 2 minutes 50 seconds into the track that I introduced a proper organ sound to heighten the mood. The organ sound I added contained more treble and was a cleaner sound than that provided by the processed guitar.

Other situations

Another common situation would be trying to record an instrument that you wouldn't normally have access to such as a sitar. Actually I find that a lot of the time, I don't want an accurate sitar sound and an emulation is more likely to fit into the sound I'm looking for.

Is it worth it?

Depends on why you're trying to emulate the instrument.

Sometimes you find a different destination along the journey - in trying to emulate in instrument, you find a melody or a sound that wouldn't come from either the source or the intended instrument. That's my preferred ending.

However, if you're trying to achieve a perfect emulation, then expect to spend a lot of time, tweaking velocities, changing patches many times mid-way through a melody, tweaking zones or ranges, mixing in different instruments. All to get the best sound possible, which unfortunately may still be recognisable as an imitation if you've chosen the wrong notes. Some instruments are easier to emulate than others.

But it should still give you a great idea of what it could sound like from recording the real instruments. From a creativity point of view, I love the near-instant access to banks of instruments so I can figure out if a sound will work out as well as I can hear it in my head or whether I should be thinking of a different instrument or melody.

Part of a series by Award Sounds offering a selection of creative ideas to kick-start or rejuvenate a composition.