Have bought the wrong software for guitar music? Going mad with this product!

[Funk Bear]

Hi Guys
Nobody has been able to answer these questions fully, and yet they are so simple; we're talking Johnny B Goode for f***'s sake!

1. Should I be able to find a 'proper' guitar sound from the rack supplied with Ableton Live 11 Intro? I'm looking under 'Guitar & Plucked' and none of the options given sound anything LIKE a guitar! BTW: the 'instrument' listed as: 'Strangle...itar.adg' is the one I was refering to as 'Stranglers' - you asked me for a screen-shot, remember? Perplexingingly, this 'guitar' is only offered on the version of Ableton Live 11 Intro that's installed on my main PC. When I check on my laptop (same software, downloaded on the same day) the list goes straight from: 'Shimmer Pluck. adg' to 'Soft Attention.adg'..; any reference to 'Strangler' has disappeared! This is why your product does not inspire confidence; what is going on there?


2. I downloaded the free trial of 'Post Rock', but it still ounds nothing like any guitar I have ever heard! To put it another way: am I going to be able to find anything resembling a Fender Strat'; Telecaster, or Gibson using this software?


3. Finally: precisley how do I get the 'vertical keyboard' (shown in some tutorials) to appear in the bottom 'MIDI - box' area, nobody thinks to show you this. I have managed to persuade my computer keyboard to create scalar sounds and even chords, but I need to be able to see the actual notes on the 'time-line' so that I can drag each chord tone a wee bit to the right and replicate the sound of a 'down-strummed' chord.


That's it. Just one 'virtual rendition' of Johnny B Goode' on drums and guitar; I thought I'd have that done in an afternoon tops! Is this the wrong software for trying to replicate Rythm & Blues/Guitar music?


I'm sending a copy of this to the user's forum; hopefully somebody can answer these simplest of questions!!!!!.




Cheers
Ian

[brianwdowling]

Not sure if you've trialed any of the plugins that are available that specialize in guitar emulation?

These may work better and provide more options than what is provided directly in Ableton.

Brian

[Funk Bear]

It would help if someone told if I'm looking in the wrong place in Ableton. I increasingly get the feeling that if I've just wasted £50+ on a program full of weird electronic noises for producres and DJ's?

[Greenapples2019]

Hi Ian, it can be tricky getting started with all the jargon, and unfortunately in my experience the electric guitar is one of the toughest to recreate using virtual instruments. There are libraries available as DunedinDragon said, I have Native Instrument’s session guitarist pro and it’s ok, but getting the nuances is tricky and time-consuming, and will hinder you whether you’re using Ableton, Logic or one of the others. You’ve unfortunately chosen one of the tougher instruments to recreate faithfully. So at the risk of teaching granny to suck eggs…

1. The vertical piano appears when you create a MIDI clip and from there you can add/move notes using a controller or your keyboard and mouse. One thing I found helped with programming guitar sounds was putting the notes in that the guitar plays, rather than the piano chord, and offsetting the notes slightly to mimic a strumming effect.
2. There are two types of virtual instrument. One takes recorded samples of actual instruments and you then play those samples; the other models an instrument so it’s just a computer program. The former generally gives a more accurate representation (although a lot of the models are pretty good) but can take up a lot of space depending on how many samples (volume and pitch) it has. Either way you can load these virtual instrument libraries into Ableton and play them. Kontakt is an industry standard from Native Instruments and many companies produce their own libraries for the Kontakt platform. There is a free version of Kontakt but not all libraries can be played on this one (they usually state whether you need the free or full version of Kontakt player). Some companies have their own players eg Spitfire, which through its LABS and pianobook initiatives provide a lot of free libraries. YouTube is your friend and will give you good reviews of Kontakt and sample libraries. If you’re looking for a bass, try the free version of Modo bass, it’s a pretty accurate Fender P-bass.
3. If you don’t want to program the MIDI yourself you can go to sites like midi.com.au and buy MIDI files for Johnny B Goode and load them into Ableton. from there you can assign instruments, amps, effects and mix your own version.
4. As well as the notes themselves, you might also need to program in expression (those subtle changes in intensity that a guitarist will do naturally), otherwise the guitar will sound very flat and uninteresting.

There’s no quick fix here unfortunately, you’re trying to get to grips with a number of things all at once, and effectively trying to learn a new instrument. It can be done with time (and money) but you may still not be happy with the guitar sound at the end of it, whichever DAW, virtual instrument you use.

I hope that helps, and if I’ve made any incorrect statements, hopefully someone will correct me.

Cheers
D

[yur2die4]

In some ways, you might be right. In a direct way, and especially using Live as a version that is not the Suite version, it’d be extremely challenging to make something that sounds like a guitarist plugged into a recording device playing JBG.

From articulation to chord choice to the sound generation of the instrument. To amplification and overdrive with reverb.

If you had the ‘player’ and the sound already. As audio files rather than trying to use midi, you could easily move the recorded audio clips around in Live or even do some time stretching which might be hit and miss for authenticity in playback sound.

The original was not recorded using midi. And if anyone managed to do a convincing version via midi in the 80s or 90s it probably involved some sick chops like Jan Hammer and a lot of processing. But again, recorded rather than drawn.. and recorded using proper keys and pitchbend at their disposal.

Today. There are a lot of tools that can try to emulate a guitar sound. You can buy a low level Yamaha or Casio keyboard with built in rhythms and pull off a so-so semi-robotic but good enough rock tune… unfortunately, Live doesn’t really have that kind of toolset. It also doesn’t by default come with many guitar sounds (but if you look into most anything with General Midi sound sets should at least offer something)

Now. If you want to learn and grow from Ableton Live. It is definitely an opportunity with a pleasant learning curve. And it might not have all the solutions, but it’ll help you understand most music creation concepts over time.

If you need to whip up JBG backing tracks as fast as possible, I’d recommend maybe GarageBand on iPhone, iPad, or an Apple computer if you can get your hands on it. That will get you results fast, cheap, and there should be a decent amount of resources for figuring it out.

After that, you can either find ways to record your additional material in GarageBand, or export the audio and import it to Live and do some recording.

[Funk Bear]

Hi D
Many thanks for your 'comprehensive 'reply!

To my immense relief the penny finally dropped re: the 'vertical keyboard' late this afternoon. If the various online tutorials had simply said all that was needed was that great panacea: the 'double-click', then all would have been well days ago!

Nothing against the folk who have tried to help out on this forum, but I think those not 'of my vintage' need to remember that some of us old g**s really do need need this stuff "explaining in Lettraset!"

Your comments on the guitars are duly noted. Fortunately, I don't need this stuff for gigging, so I'll just go a bit more Steely Dan and use 'keyboards' for the more lush chords.

WTF is a 'Strangler guitar' any way? Nothing Hugh Cornwell could relate to I'l bet!!!

Cheers
Ian

[Funk Bear]

In some ways, you might be right. In a direct way, and especially using Live as a version that is not the Suite version, it’d be extremely challenging to make something that sounds like a guitarist plugged into a recording device playing JBG.

From articulation to chord choice to the sound generation of the instrument. To amplification and overdrive with reverb.

If you had the ‘player’ and the sound already. As audio files rather than trying to use midi, you could easily move the recorded audio clips around in Live or even do some time stretching which might be hit and miss for authenticity in playback sound.

The original was not recorded using midi. And if anyone managed to do a convincing version via midi in the 80s or 90s it probably involved some sick chops like Jan Hammer and a lot of processing. But again, recorded rather than drawn.. and recorded using proper keys and pitchbend at their disposal.

Today. There are a lot of tools that can try to emulate a guitar sound. You can buy a low level Yamaha or Casio keyboard with built in rhythms and pull off a so-so semi-robotic but good enough rock tune… unfortunately, Live doesn’t really have that kind of toolset. It also doesn’t by default come with many guitar sounds (but if you look into most anything with General Midi sound sets should at least offer something)

Now. If you want to learn and grow from Ableton Live. It is definitely an opportunity with a pleasant learning curve. And it might not have all the solutions, but it’ll help you understand most music creation concepts over time.

If you need to whip up JBG backing tracks as fast as possible, I’d recommend maybe GarageBand on iPhone, iPad, or an Apple computer if you can get your hands on it. That will get you results fast, cheap, and there should be a decent amount of resources for figuring it out.

After that, you can either find ways to record your additional material in GarageBand, or export the audio and import it to Live and do some recording.

Hi
Thanks. I'm English, old, and normally rejoice in my 'computer ineptness'! That's until it drops me in the cart with stuff like this, so I'm really grateful to guys like yourself for taking the time to help me out here.

Think I'll dig out my old looper pedal and see if I can find a Rolf Harris Stylophone on Ebay. Are you reading this, 'Mr Ableton'.... : D ?

[slow.robot]

in all honesty, most of the replies to your questions over the past few days have done as good a job as they can trying to piece together answers based on what was asked—which was very far from specific enough to be able to know what you were after.

“how do I make guitar sounds in Ableton” (paraphrasing) is about as generic as it gets, and you’re bound to get all sorts of answers touching on many different areas that may not have anything to do with what you actually want to know. there’s no way for anyone to know, for example, that you’re having trouble finding the MIDI sequencer view in Ableton based on that. point is, the more detail you can provide in your questions, the better answers you’ll get.

try to put yourself in the shoes of the person you think will answer your question—what relevant information do you think they’ll need to give you the answer you’re looking for?

I say all this not to criticize, but to hopefully help you ask more pinpointed questions and provide more background information on what you want to do next time, so we can quickly get you the right answers (and with luck, you can be up and running within an afternoon like you expected in this case).

[Funk Bear]

As I say: I eventually sussed the thing late yesterday afternoon. As a 'computer spud', one of the things that contuniues to frustrate me is way in which you can accomplish the same task via, it seems, 3 - 4 different methods. The 'pulling up' of the elusive 'vertical keyboard' would be an example here; all I actually needed to do was double-click and there it was!

Some of the tutorials online are also less than specific in certain areas; double-clicking when they tell you to simply 'click'; tapping away on keys between instructions without pointing out what they're doing and so forth. Doubtless this will come across as pedantic to the 'computer-savvy', but it's another hurdle blocking the way if, like me, you are essentially clue-lesss with most of this stuff.

Anyway, if there's one over-riding sentiment I've picked up from this forum it is that I'm going to have a major job on my hands trying to replicate the sound of a good old Fender 6 string unless I shell out in excess of £100 to import stuff from other software providers. To a layman/'spud' the instrument rack which appears to offer various 'guitar sounds' produces little more than tuneless electronic gobbledegook when I audition some of the choices; one of them seems to have what sounds like a dog yelping at the end of the clip!

Perhaps it's the age I am?

[slow.robot]

it’s an age-old trope by now, but for good reason…RTFM. that would have gotten you an answer pretty much straight away (on the MIDI sequencer, at least).

[Greenapples2019]

As another old Englishman I can sympathise Ian. If you think of Ableton (or Logic, Reaper etc.) as a new instrument to learn it makes a bit more sense; get to grips with the basics, then learn more advanced stuff and then develop your own style. But mainly enjoy the process, there's a million small issues to solve and that's why we (or at least I) do it. Get some successes under your belt and it'll invigorate you; and yes it's easier to get approximately correct with Steely Dan than it is to get precisely wrong with Chuck Berry; percussion, keyboards, bass, strings are all well catered for and you can get some good sounds with minimal outlay. Lead electric guitar is probably the toughest nut to crack but acoustic guitar and electric rhythm guitar are simpler. And enjoy!

[[jur]]

AFAIK, no DAW will comes bundled with a "decent" virtual guitar; you'll have to resort to 3rd party plugins from Native Instruments or others.
But, as said earlier in the thread... good luck with finding a convincing virtual guitar. It seems like there's a few decent ones, but they need a hell lot of tedious midi editing to get convincing results.
Why not recording a guitar?

[yur2die4]

To be fair. Getting a guitar ‘sound’ that convinces 70% of listeners can be pretty simple with the right tools and an idea of the process.

If I get a decent guitar fx simulation plug-in with nice presets, I can use a pretty generic guitar sample, as long as I’ve got a bit of control over the expression, and as long as it’s not front and center or played for too long, the context of the guitar fx will fool people enough to at least think ‘hey, this is supposed to be an amplified guitar’.

At an introductory level, if people hear it and know the ‘role’ of the sound, and it’s got a little expressive nuance, that’d be a success in my book. Can get better at it later. Can get better tools for it later if it’s a recurring challenge.

[Funk Bear]

Thanks all!
Well, having gone horrendously over 'time-budget' and wasted virtually the entire weekend I've decided to cobble together the requisite chords from the 'Grand Piano'; the only half-recognizeable 'instrument' in the whole midden heap!

In the final analysis, all I ever needed this software for was to add a few chords to my drum tracks for personal practice; there was never any possibility of the 'outcome' being performed live!!! Only this afternoon I saw on line that it is not at all unusual for folk to spend as much on a 'virtual guitar' as it is on the real thing! Glad I didn't go down that friggin'rabbit-hole - I'm way too fat to have turned 'round and got back out for starters!