Guitar strumming MIDI VST?

[dentaku]

I'm not looking for a guitar VST (there's lots of those) but I'd like to know if there's a VST that I could place on a MIDI track and send it's output to another track containing an instrument that would convert multiple key presses into nice evenly spaced notes like strumming guitar strings.

[yur2die4]

When you say 'evenly spaced notes', are you talking about in time or in pitch ?

[dentaku]

When you say 'evenly spaced notes', are you talking about in time or in pitch ?

I mean time.

Basically, you would press a number of keys on a keyboard and they would play in sequence instead of all at the same time.
It would be like FL-Studio Strum but in real time like an arpeggiator but not exactly.
Applied Acoustics Strum does this but it's an instrument in itself and not just a MIDI "effect".

[Guff Tong]

You may even find some 'strumming' midi files with some internet searching* (Im pretty ure they gave a away from free wones in CM Magazine a few years back)

*

found this in like 2 seconds...

http://www.logicprohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=39129

[dentaku]

Yeah, those are just midi files though. It's not a realtime thing like an arpeggiator.

You may even find some 'strumming' midi files with some internet searching* (Im pretty ure they gave a away from free wones in CM Magazine a few years back)

*

found this in like 2 seconds...

http://www.logicprohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=39129

[yur2die4]

What is wrong with using Arpeggiator + Note Length ? I guess it could seem a tad robotic.. but the only way to really beat that problem would be to actually record yourself playing out the chords until you get that 'feel'.

Another problem with anything that would play these chords is that most times people write their chord information in a clip or sequence at the point where a chord first hits. For a strum, it might be preferred to have it start slightly before the beat so that the meat of it all is happening ON the beat

[MPGK]

I can't imagine an arpeggiator simulating a convincing strumming effect either. You would have to "humanize" it somehow so it wouldn't sound mechanic.
And as we all know, when we turn a "humanizer" knob up, we might as well hire a monkey to press down the right keys at the time he sees appropriate.
Do it by hand, in a time-consuming and frustrating manner, or use MIDI files that other people constructed in a time-consuming and frustrating manner (the MIDI files in the link aren't very good, btw).

Or just learn to play the guitar.

[dentaku]

Or just learn to play the guitar.

It would be nice if I could learn to play keyboard first

I guess it just seems like something someone would have already developed with simple settings like strum speed and up and down settings.

[Tone Deft]

max4Live and the [thresh] object does this.

http://cycling74.com/docs/max5/refpages ... hresh.html

[yur2die4]

have you tried the arpeggiator for this though? You can set it to milliseconds instead of sync. and you can set the repeats to Note and turn the knot from Inf to 1. Add a Note Length afterwards to make up for the gating.

Something I have been playing with today is using a rack with Note length and Note Release to make it sound like when I lift my fingers from the keys it is strumming again. haha. With a super short duration on the Release, it makes it sound and feel like when I lift my fingers from the keys, I'm almost slapping the strings. As a bonus, I'm merely doing this from my QWERTY

[dentaku]

when I was writing the first post I though of the arpeggiator but without your suggestion of the Note Length effect it wasn't useful.
Note Length makes all the difference I makes very harp-like sounds too.
I've mapped Macro 1 to Rate with a range of 10ms to 60ms and Macro 2 to Note Length and it's pretty decent.

I don't quite understand "using a rack with Note length and Note Release" though.

have you tried the arpeggiator for this though? You can set it to milliseconds instead of sync. and you can set the repeats to Note and turn the knot from Inf to 1. Add a Note Length afterwards to make up for the gating.

Something I have been playing with today is using a rack with Note length and Note Release to make it sound like when I lift my fingers from the keys it is strumming again. haha. With a super short duration on the Release, it makes it sound and feel like when I lift my fingers from the keys, I'm almost slapping the strings. As a bonus, I'm merely doing this from my QWERTY

[yur2die4]

I have the Grand Piano rack on my Ableton Live presets and one thing that I tend to have to turn off because it bugs me is the 'hammer lifting on note release' channel within the rack. What happens is that there are two parallel channels, one triggering the piano tones in a Simpler, and one that has the "Note Length" effect, except set for Release, which triggers a soft 'thud' when you raise your hand off a key.

I was playing with kind of a twangy Operator sound and the Note Length effect and really liked the sound I got when I lifted my hands off the keys when I had it set to Trigger on Release. The problem was, that now I don't have anything being triggered when I hit the note down. So I hit Ctrl G to group it into a MIDI rack (not instrument), and made another channel with note length, except it acts normal. So now, when I hit a chord, it bangs out all the notes, and then when I lift my fingers off all the keys, it does it again (I had Release set for a very short time), and feels like i'm just striking the strings lightly as I'm about to hit them again. It isn't all that authentic, but feels reeeeally fun to play around with for a couple seconds. haha

Its like having your feet stuck in hot tar

Edit: not to be used with the strumming arp, as this aims for a different kind of sound.

[siliconarc]

if you have a padkontrol or other controller with similar xy pad, you can convert the cc to note-on and strum the xy.

i made an omnichord-type Live rack a while back and got it working really nice with my pK

some vids i did with it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5O_iMrLyDo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YocCrCGIU6A

plectrum optional

[yur2die4]

I was trying to figure out a way to do that without extra software. But you did give me an idea. I might be able to use a Rack and Arp (hold), Velocity, Pitch. (followed by a rack with some tuning tools).

...now i actually have to try it and see if it works. haha

edit: rate of note triggering for more expressive playing would be very unstable

edit2: okay, I've got it, but it arpeggiates at a fast rate (so better for hard-gated simple waveforms + delay for that ethereal vibe), instead of hitting individual notes upon touch. Although, when I let go of the pad the velocity bounces back to zero, muting the held arpeggio.

[sawanotsuru]

Anyone know if there's a way to get the arpeggiator to make only one strum/run instead of looping over and over for as long as you hold down the key? Even better would be if it triggered the single strum from a shot key press, instead of having to hold down a note until all the notes have played.

So basically I could just tap a key and a whole strum would play.

edit: Silly me, should have tried out yur2die4's suggestions before I posted. it was all in the repeats. shame there's no way to get the notes to hold with just a key press. simple solution though, is to use a sustain pedal. unless anyone knows any ways around this?