guitar strumming

[etruscan]

Keyboard player looking for help on making guitar instruments sound more realistic specifically chord strumming. Thank you.

[Angstrom]

Although many people focus on the staggering of the note starts I think thats a small part of it.
I think a lot of it is in the voicings, at its simplest a keyboard based E minor chord is likely to be played as a basic triad in the same octave.

On a guitar a player would voice e minor very differently, in fact there's a few ways they might play it depending on what needs to get done. Take a look at what a specific notes a guitar chord is made up of for a start. That will put you on the right track. Eg : a very basic E minor is played as e,c,e,g,b,e rather than e,g,c

Secondly examine how a guitarist is really moving from chord to chord. On a keyboard the most boring way to go from A minor(a,c,e) to F major (f,a,c) might involve you moving your whole hand (not pleasant sounding) , on a guitar it's more often the case that even beginners know a small finger movement will swap the e for an f (a,c,f) .

Note: I am simplifying everything here. I do not expect this made much sense.

[Asymmetricalmusic]

I've never heard guitar strum done synthically that are worth anything.

what about recording the actual guitar and sampling it?

[aldentinnin]

Is there a specific song/style you are trying to emulate? Narrowing this down should help with the voicing/voice leading question and possibly suggest some strumming patterns/

[daddytang]

This is amazing. http://www.amplesound.net/en/pro-pd.asp?id=4

[etruscan]

Thank you all for advice. Will try to apply suggestions.

[etruscan]

Thanks Angstrom. I tried your technique combined with the staggered strumming and it works great for my needs. I don't use Live for performing but to write and compose songs.

@Aldentinnin I write different types of songs. New wave rock, Levon Helm or The Band type stuff, ballads and contemporary C&W.

Any further suggestions for 'Pretender' type effects on shred guitar riffs.

Thanks again to all.

[Valiumdupeuple]

This is amazing. http://www.amplesound.net/en/pro-pd.asp?id=4

I'd love my guitar playing to sound as good as this.
Amazing.

[aldentinnin]

Thanks Angstrom. I tried your technique combined with the staggered strumming and it works great for my needs. I don't use Live for performing but to write and compose songs.

@Aldentinnin I write different types of songs. New wave rock, Levon Helm or The Band type stuff, ballads and contemporary C&W.

Any further suggestions for 'Pretender' type effects on shred guitar riffs.

Thanks again to all.

Are you referring to the Foo Fighter's song? If so:
- arpeggio intro I'd start with an A min consisting of A2, E3, A3, C4, E4
- at least 2 guitars playing throughout, so you may want to try some layering with multiple guitars and varying the timbre of each
- palm muting through lots of the verses try these types of voicings for "power chords": A2, E3 (A3 optional) for an A or F2 and C3 (F3 optional) for an F. Not sure what software you are using, but a palm mute articulation would be really helpful here
- nice little octave riff right before the breakdown (these sound great w/ lots of distortion, just simple root movement here)
- the breakdown itself is kind of bluesy thing w/ open strings and hammer ons (A2 and E3 at the same time then hammer on to F#3 - which would mean it is now the A2 and F#3 sounding no E)
- and then there is the driving open e riff (E4, G4, A4 I'm prob missing some nuances here(as in most places)...) - once again not sure how you are producing these sounds but lots of distortion and if you are using something w/ round robin samples all the better (to prevent a machine gun type of effect)

Just one last thing (for distorted sounds at least) - if you are not using some type of guitar emulator you will want to roll off the highs with an eq pretty severely - like the steepest filter you have and cut it all the way (guitar speakers (or emulators) would normally do this for you).