RealGuitar

I think I am not alone in thinking that any vsti that is meant to emulate an acoustic instrument that is played dynamically and naturally by a real person has to be unbelievably good to me remotely convincing.

As with almost all acoustic emulators, I am always left wanting and disappointed. For a company to attempt to emulate one of the most difficult of all acoustic instruments, the acoustic guitar, is nothing short of commercial suicide or blinded bravery.

Or is it?

Let me first introduce you to the candidate, the MIDI acoustic guitar emulator, known simply as RealGuitar. Let’s take a glide through the features:

Sound:

*World famous guitars
*High quality guitar samples
*Every fret of all 6 strings including up/down/muted strokes sampled
*New multi-channel sample layering technology
*InFace sound concept
*True Doubling (double track) effect
*Built-in EQ and FX (Stereo Tremolo, 2-way Chorus)
*Custom 32-bit sound engine

Performance:

*Solo, Harmony, Bass&Chord, Bass&Pick, and Chords modes
*1000 instant guitar chords + up strum, down strum, up/down muted strum, slow strum chords
*1-4 note chords to 6-voice guitar strums real-time translation
*26 chord types recognition, including 7th, 9th and altered chords, in any inversion and voicing
*Automatic Fret position change
*Strum speed adjustable
*Repeat Key zone (for performing repetitions, tremolo, up/down/muted strums)
*Velocity switch articulations (slow strum, slide up/down, bend, reverse bend,)
*Key switch guitar effects (harmonics, mute, palm mute, body smacks)
*Slide (up/down, assignable number of steps)
*Hammer On, Pull Off
*Tremolo (notes, chords)
*Polyphonic controllers (applying Pitch Bender, Modulation Wheel, AfterTouch to individual voices)
*Automatic Fret Noise and Release Noise

Guitars: RealGuitar includes 555 MB sample set featuring 8 Acoustic guitar patches:

*Steel Picked
*Steel Fingered
*Nylon Picked
*Nylon Fingered
*Steel 2 Picked
*Steel 2 (Doubling)
*12-string
*Steel Stereo 290MB

Recommended specs:

512MB RAM (1GB+ recommended), 600 MB free hard disc space
PC: Windows 2000/XP, 1GHz Pentium 3 (2GHz+ P4 recommended), VST 2/DXi host or RTAS (ProTools 6.x)
Mac: Mac OSX 10.3+, G4 800+ MHz, VST 2/AU host
Web site: http://www.musiclab.com/

And now, MusicLab’s promo:

‘If you are serious about creating truly realistic sounding solo and accompaniment guitar stuff for your songs, our new product called RealGuitar is just what you need. RealGuitar is a sample-based virtual instrument with an innovative approach to guitar sound modeling and guitar part performing on keyboard.’

So, what is all that saying to us?

Basically, the product is aimed at providing realistic scratch pad writing for all acoustic guitar projects. The innovative and detailed effort that has gone into making this product usable is nothing short of admirable, for the simple reason that to sample every single fret (up to the 19 th fret) of every single string, takes a rigid design approach. To then provide fret noise and upstrokes/downstrokes, slide ups/downs, bend and reverse bend and body resonance, is again nothing short of unbridled enthusiasm for detail.

Throw in dynamically controlled chord strumming, capo settings, detailed and adjustable parameter control on every feature, a vast library of recorded samples, keyboard to guitar chord conversion translation, effects, 6 to 12 string configuration, string damping, 5 performance modes, chord recognition and a ton of other features too numerous to honorably mention, and you have quite a potent product.

The problem with acoustic guitar emulators is the fact that you have to ‘play’ the guitar with a remote midi controller. How do you marry the concept of playing a guitar with a midi keyboard? How do you achieve the subtle nuances of strumming, finger glides, fret noise, damping etc. with a midi note on/off keyboard? These and many more are the types of problems that face any vsti developer. So, let’s briefly detail how Musiclab has overcome some of these problems.

Loading Sounds:

Loading one of 8 sounds available is a simple click on the central panel. The virtual fretboard below the window is constantly on display and shows all notes played, whether chords or single notes.

I had real fun clicking on the fretboard and whilst holding the mouse down, I moved the highlighted ‘note’ up and down, creating slide effects. Each time you click on the fretboard the note is highlighted in green.

When connected to RealGuitar MIDI input the external keyboard is divided into 3 zones: Main zone (E1 - B4), left (C1 - D#1) and right (C5 - C6) Repeat zones. Main zone serves for playing melodic parts (Solo and Harmony modes) and entering chords (Chords, Bass & Chord, Bass & Pick modes). Any key of the Repeat zone repeats notes and chords played in the Main zone.

Setup:

Setup allows for tuning and settings detunes, selecting and displaying sharp or flat chords, the keyboard range and the timing. There is a small mixer to the right of the main screen that allows for mixing in the qualities for the fret noise, by amount (gain), the release and the pick body. The mixer acts for other sources too. In this instance it is being used for Noise. This is selected by the menu options at the top right of the screen.

If you select Sounds from the top right menu option, the mixer then converts to mixing the sounds. You are then presented with Mute, Slow Strum and Key Sw FX, all are definable and displayed on the main screen. If you select Tremolo, the mixer offers two controls, Depth and Frequency.

If you select Chorus, the mixer offers you Level, Frequency 1, Depth 1 and Depth 2. You can also define the strum speed and release time here. It is also worth noting that strum is velocity dependent, if you strike the keyboard hard the chords are strummed faster, play the keyboard softer and the strum is slower.

Overall Pattern Control:

Irrespective of what mode you are in within the pattern selection, you have the Velocity Switch FX and Velocity Curve sections visible and available at all times.This gives masses of added flexibility for controlling any of the selected modes.

These windows will offer different functions for different modes. For example: if you are in Solo mode and you select Velocity Sw FX, as is above, you are offered with Off, Slide Up, Slide Down, Bend and Reverse Bend. However, if you are in Chords Mode, the Velocity Sw FX offers a different menu, Slow Strum on Higher Vel, Slow Strum on Low Vel, Slide Up and Slide Down.

You have varying menu configuration for each of the selected Modes. The Velocity Curve section allows for even more control. You have a selection of pre defined velocity curves that will suit whatever playing techniques you choose to adopt.

The Mod Wheel can be assigned to control Pitch, Slide or just to Off. Pitch Wheel can be assigned to Slide, Pitch and Off and the cents can be set here too. Finally, you have After Touch. This can be assigned Pitch and Modulation.

Solo:

As you can see, Solo mode affords you with a drop down menu that allows for further parameter control. Harmonics, Mute, Palm Mute and Smacks are also offered as playing dynamics. You are also presented with Mono and Legato modes for the solo playing technique.

Harmony:

Harmony Mode:

In this monophonic mode any key of the Main zone triggers an interval/chord based on the played note, previously chosen from following options: 4th down, 5th up, Octave (up), Power Chord 1 (5 th + 4th up), Power Chord 2 (4th + 5th up), 2 octaves (up).

Chords:

To play a Chord, you select Chords mode and then one of five performance modes available, 1, 2, 3, 4 and keyboard. You can play all the basic major chords with one finger if desired, however, to play more complex chords you need to play the actual notes to form the chord, an example of this would be D7sus4. With the exception of major and minor 6, you can play any note combination including inversions.

As mentioned earlier, the biggest hurdle to overcome is not the actual sound of the strings but how to translate the playing of a guitar across from a keyboard to a guitar. Musiclab have overcome this by using code to translate the keyboard playing chords to guitar playing chords. This reconstruction is a great feature and one that is usually neglected by developers. These chords are then displayed on the fretboard of the vsti. Visually, this is a great help. In fact, all notes, whether chords or single notes, are displayed on the fretboard, even capo positioning is displayed.

Additionally, you can select how many strings to adopt in the chords menu. There is also a MIDI Pattern Library to choose from. All you have to do is copy a rhythm pattern to the needed number of measures, start your sequencer and use a MIDI keyboard to play chord changes, or alternatively add chords to a MIDI track via the sequencer's editor.

It’s actually that simple!

The Sounds:

RealGuitar offers a selection of eight acoustic guitars: Steel Picked, Steel Fingered, Nylon Fingered, Steel 2 Picked, Steel 2 (doubling), 12-string and Steel Stereo. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the samples and I was hard pressed to find any dud recordings or dead sounds. I particularly liked the 12 string samples and although the patch is dead on accurately tuned, I did find that, with a little detuning, I was able to achieve an extremely realistic 12 string.

Conclusion:

I could screenshot page after page of functions and literally spend ages explaining how to use this vsti, but I think this is one of those vstis that needs hands-on playing to fully appreciate the depth of functionality and design thinking that went into presenting a highly enjoyable and usable product.

It does take time to bend your methodology to adapt to the guitar playing protocols, but this product is well thought out in providing as many tools as possible for the writer to use to attain as close to a guitar played emulation as possible.

With emulators, the real nightmare is how to utilize and present spontaneity. In this case, it does take a few passes to get the right feel for a naturally played part, but the result works quite well. The GUI is basic an uncluttered and does what it’s meant to, pretty much how I like it.

Back to the original question:

Is this commercial suicide or blinded bravery? Well, my answer is quite simple. It’s neither.

This product is not meant to replace the guitarist but to give the user the freedom and tools to be able to write and perform a guitar accompanied composition. It does that extremely well, and for someone like me who hasn’t got the time or variety of guitars to mic up and get a mix on, this product suits me perfectly.

Would I recommend this to you? Absolutely.

I think MusicLab have achieved where others have failed. They have provided an extremely enjoyable and useful tool, both to the beginner and the pro.

Eddie Bazil (Zukan)

Samplecraze

www.samplecraze.com

RealGuitar can be obtained from www.musiclab.com and is currently on special offer for $199 (list price $299).