How to Make Virtual Guitars Sound More Real
If you're having issues with your virtual guitars sounding inauthentic or fake, you've come to right place. Veteran Groove3 instructor Gary Hiebner teaches you many effective strategies for adding realism and authenticity to virtual guitars so that they won't stick out like a red flag in an otherwise solid track. In these virtual guitar instructional videos you'll learn how to create legit chord voicings, improve strumming sounds by editing MIDI notes, adding randomization, improving the sound of arpeggios, and much more. This amp simulation video course is for those with a working familiarity of virtual guitar instruments but want to go deeper into sound designing with them.
Videos
• Bad Virtual Guitars vs Good Virtual Guitars (02:21) - Bad Virtual Guitars vs Good Virtual Guitars
• Guitar Hardware & Fretting, Strumming, & Picking Explained (02:38) - In this video, Gary covers the mechanics of a guitar instrument, including the hardware such as the bridge, strings, frets, nut, and tuning pegs. Then he explains how you can fret, strum, and pick the instrument.
• Instruments That Will Be Used (04:53) - Learn what virtual instruments and libraries we'll be using through the video series and why.
• Introduction to Guitar Chord Voicings (05:20) - With guitar, you often voice chords slightly differently than other instruments (like piano) because of the limited amount of fingers you have to play the chords. Gary gives some examples in this video of idiomatic chord voicings on guitar.
• How to Make Your Chords Sound Like Strumming (06:19) - Discover how to create realistic-sounding strummed guitar chords by editing the start times of the MIDI notes. Also learn the difference between a downward and upward strum.
• Adjusting Velocities (04:22) - Next, we take a look at velocity and how adjusting it for each MIDI note can have a huge bearing on the tone and timbre of the notes. This allows you to make each chord sound unique with different velocities triggering different samples.
• Adding Randomization to Humanize a Performance (04:21) - Another great way to add more realism into your virtual guitar performances is to use randomization functionality you have in your DAW. This will add slight variations in your MIDI note start points and the note velocities.
• Alternate Strumming Programming (06:23) - Here, we explore how you can use different strumming patterns and different notes within the chords to create alternate parts.
• Doubling Your Virtual Guitars (05:24) - Another way to improve your virtual guitar production is to double the guitar part using different instruments. We can also edit and randomize the second guitar's velocities and start notes. Gary demonstrates both strategies in this video.
• How to Make Arpeggios Sound More Real (04:24) - Often, arpeggiated virtual guitar lines can sound like a harpsichord. In this video, Gary shows you how you can edit the note lengths of your arpeggiated guitar parts to improve the performance's realism.
• Setting the Tone for Virtual Electric Guitars (06:02) - Now, we start looking at virtual electric guitars and how they differ from acoustics. You can select different pickups on a virtual electric guitar and also use amp simulation and effects before or after the amp to carve out the guitar tone. But what also works well is to bypass the amp simulation/effects on the virtual instrument and instead use amp simulation/effects of your choosing on the channelstrip in your DAW.
• Combining Electric Guitar & Acoustic Guitar (05:33) - Here we take a look at how we can combine electric and acoustic guitars together in a mix to make the sound fuller and wider in the production. Gary shows you how to move the virtual MIDI note data from the acoustics to an electric guitar instrument and edit the settings.
• Different Chord Voicings (06:40) - Take a deeper look at chords and how you can use many guitars all playing different voicings to make your productions to achieve a more balanced sound.
• Chord Diagrams (05:02) - Discover how you can use guitar chord diagrams to figure out different voicings and apply them to your parts.
• Embellishing Your Rhythms (06:49) - In this video, we start examining how we can use different articulations in our rhythm guitar parts. These include palm-muting, dead notes, all of which can add to the effectiveness and authenticity of the performance.
• Vibrato & Bends (10:24) - With Guitar Lead Solos what really brings them to life is some vibrato in sections and use of pitch bends to replicate string bends on a Guitar. In this video Gary, shows you how to use modulation to create a vibrato effects and record pitch bends, both of which can add more realism to your guitar parts.
• Slides & Whammy Techniques (11:03) - Here we explore lead guitar playing further and learn how you can use articulations on the instrument to create slide and whammy bar effects.
• Bass Picking Styles (03:27) - With bass guitar, the difference between plucking with fingers and using a pick has a huge impact on the sound. In this video, we have a quick listen to both techniques.
• Beefing Up the Virtual Bass Tone (03:57) - Discover how to get your bass DI tone to sound better using a combination of bass and guitar amp simulation.
• Adding Articulations & Embellishments to Virtual Bass (08:08) - You can add much more character and realism to your virtual bass tracks by using articulations like slides and dead notes, both of which are often employed by real bass players.
• Sample Your Own Guitar Parts (07:50) - If you already play guitar, you can sample some of your guitar playing and then trigger these samples in a production using a sampler plugin and a MIDI keyboard. Gary explores these possibilities in this final video.