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Re: Guitar on Jupiter 80

Posted: 01:16, 18 May 2012
by skacma
Will be tutorial for Lead Guitar ? For Solo playing ? Thanks :-)

Re: Guitar on Jupiter 80

Posted: 07:11, 18 May 2012
by cello
skacma wrote:Will be tutorial for Lead Guitar ? For Solo playing ? Thanks :-)
Why not try the tutorial and find out?!

Then you could tweak it one way or the other to suit exactly what you want :)

Re: Guitar on Jupiter 80

Posted: 23:42, 7 July 2012
by Chrisk-K
It's futile to try to mimic an electric guitar on a synth. No synth guitar will sound even remotely similar to an electric guitar.

Re: Guitar on Jupiter 80

Posted: 21:23, 17 September 2012
by SoundworldA.D.
Ah the age old debate on whether Jan Hammer could really out-do Jeff Beck on sounding like a “real” guitar! Well of course he couldn’t! No matter how much pitch bending prowess was displayed, I went for the Beckster’s lead runs every time!

First and foremost, I am by trade a guitarist. I played guitar in Rock bands in my younger years and only got interested in the electronic music thing after hearing Richard Burmer’s “Bhakti Point” and David Arkenstone’s “Valley in the Clouds” back in the late 80’s.

But your comment was too open-ended to pass up. First, IT IS THE SOUND OF A REAL GUITAR coming from the keyboard. Albeit sampled but still real guitar sounds…not “mimicked” like in the old days.
I will grant that there is not velocity switching available on our keyboards that can mimic what a real guitarist can do with all of the damping, muting and switch-picking in real time across all six strings. But the technology has progressed to a point where the keyboard-based guitar sounds are better than ever.

So what then? The question becomes not so much “does it sound exactly like a real guitar”, but “HOW DOES IT SOUND?” And for those who love the sound of a good lead guitar but either can’t afford to buy all of the gear necessary or are just are too lazy to hook it all up (my example as I still have all of my guitars, amps and stompers) we have the next best thing which are samples and all of the articulations and modulations that technology has provided us.

So when I hear those lead guitar runs that PauloF does on “The Clan”, I’m left thinking not “is that a real guitar?” Instead, it’s “man, that sounds bleedin’ awesome!” Same goes for Nishiwaki-san’s work on both the V-Synth GT and his “Great Red Spot” guitar work on the Jupiter-80.

You said it was futile…no, resistance is futile! You will be assimilated! ;-)

Re: Guitar on Jupiter 80

Posted: 02:11, 11 December 2012
by PauloF
SoundworldA.D. wrote:Ah the age old debate on whether Jan Hammer could really out-do Jeff Beck on sounding like a “real” guitar! Well of course he couldn’t! No matter how much pitch bending prowess was displayed, I went for the Beckster’s lead runs every time!

First and foremost, I am by trade a guitarist. I played guitar in Rock bands in my younger years and only got interested in the electronic music thing after hearing Richard Burmer’s “Bhakti Point” and David Arkenstone’s “Valley in the Clouds” back in the late 80’s.

But your comment was too open-ended to pass up. First, IT IS THE SOUND OF A REAL GUITAR coming from the keyboard. Albeit sampled but still real guitar sounds…not “mimicked” like in the old days.
I will grant that there is not velocity switching available on our keyboards that can mimic what a real guitarist can do with all of the damping, muting and switch-picking in real time across all six strings. But the technology has progressed to a point where the keyboard-based guitar sounds are better than ever.

So what then? The question becomes not so much “does it sound exactly like a real guitar”, but “HOW DOES IT SOUND?” And for those who love the sound of a good lead guitar but either can’t afford to buy all of the gear necessary or are just are too lazy to hook it all up (my example as I still have all of my guitars, amps and stompers) we have the next best thing which are samples and all of the articulations and modulations that technology has provided us.

So when I hear those lead guitar runs that PauloF does on “The Clan”, I’m left thinking not “is that a real guitar?” Instead, it’s “man, that sounds bleedin’ awesome!” Same goes for Nishiwaki-san’s work on both the V-Synth GT and his “Great Red Spot” guitar work on the Jupiter-80.

You said it was futile…no, resistance is futile! You will be assimilated! ;-)
In my younger years (16-20) was a lead guitarist too in some progressive and hard Rock bands, then I devoted my professional musician's life (70's-80's and early 90's) as a Bass player, but my love was always the Piano (my 4-6) and keyboards again at 22, when I started to develop my own Digital synth that I nearly finished but unfortunately the major part of it was destroyed in a big flood in 1983 (at the age of 29), and I gave up redoing it again.
Music stopped in my life for the next 19 years, and only at 48 years old I bought my first Piano, a Roland RD-170 and started to learn how to play piano again... Meanwhile sold all my guitars and basses and everything goes around the keyboards/Synths and computers.

All to say that I really know a guitar sounds, and I agree that it is quite difficult, not to say almost impossible to actually sound exactly like a guitar, but on these Amp simulated Distortion Lead guitars, I think the Synths are really doing a very good job and it is very difficult to distinguish from a real guitar, specially if we use all the tricks a synth is capable of (Aftertouch, etc) together with own performance techniques.

I was forced to sell the boards that helped me to get that sound SoundWorldA.D talked about
(Fantom X and SonicCell together), but even with lots of patience and experimenting, we can get very convincing Lead guitar sounds from the V-Synth XT, yes... and I'll post some sounds soon to show you as soon as I return from this trip.

Cheers,
Paulo

Re: Guitar on Jupiter 80

Posted: 03:24, 11 December 2012
by SoundworldA.D.
with lots of patience and experimenting, we can get very convincing Lead guitar sounds from the V-Synth XT, yes... and I'll post some sounds soon to show you as soon as I return from this trip.

Cheers,
Paulo
Can't wait to hear them Paulo! Let the XT wail!

Re: Guitar on Jupiter 80

Posted: 16:58, 16 December 2012
by Undercoverman
I've come up against this a few times - the idea that you cannot get a realistic-sounding guitar performance out of a synthesizer... And it all comes down to what sort of a performance you're looking to capture, what sort of guitar sound you're hoping to achieve, the 'source' sound (i.e. what you're playing), which amp/cab simulation you're using, whether you're mixing it correctly (probably ITB) and - most importantly - whether you're playing it live.

I maintain that with a well produced and exhaustive enough sampled sound set, with all of the tricks (round robin, subtle modulation of each sound, articulation morphing, guitar body simulation, fretboard intelligence etc.) you could sit and program a guitar part indistinguishable from a real performance in ANY genre. Assuming you're the kind of person who doesn't mind programming their music instead of playing it, and you're patient... It may take you the best part of an entire day in some cases, but it is achievable.

For a live performance? For soloing? You're extremely limited. First of all, you'll need a powerful enough system/DAW to access a large sample set and play it all in real time with low latency, as well as your amp/fx setup. No workstation hardware synth has this at the moment, you'll need a DAW. With an extensive knowledge of key switches, mastery of the mod bar (a ribbon of some description is practically required) and enough practice to know what a guitarist would be unlikely to do in virtue of the difference between a keyboard and the fretboard, you can get there, but only with certain types of guitar sound. Rhythm of all varieties is certainly possible - but truly dynamic play, with all of the subtleties that only a string instrument can provide you with? No.

The reason I learned how to play piano/keyboard before any other type of instrument was because I thought, in my naivety, that I would be able to emulate all others with enough practice and dedication - and for lots of instruments, I can. However, there's a reason why I'm learning to play guitar. It's hard work sometimes, but for actually playing and not programming a sequence, nothing sounds like a real guitar... especially not a Les Paul with a Bigsby! Playing keys, I've got pitch and mod wheels, aftertouch, expression pedals, all manner of faders and knobs to twiddle... But nothing matches the immediacy of the fretboard for expressive guitar play.

Maybe most people won't notice, and most people would be satisfied with a close approximation - and I'm not saying that you can't get close. It's relatively easy to get something 'close'. But I notice when it's not real and played live, and I think most musicians would. It's up to you, really.

I'm not saying the situation will never change - who knows, there might be some system of playing a sampled guitar live, or even a sufficiently convincing physically modeled one, that allows us to get there. But not right now, and certainly not with the Jupiter 80. In hindsight, I wish that I'd spent the amount of time I dedicated to trying to get a convincing guitar sound from a synth as time spent practicing guitar instead. I'd have bought one a lot sooner knowing what I do now.

Re: Guitar on Jupiter 80

Posted: 19:31, 16 December 2012
by PauloF
Undercoverman wrote:I've come up against this a few times - the idea that you cannot get a realistic-sounding guitar performance out of a synthesizer... And it all comes down to what sort of a performance you're looking to capture, what sort of guitar sound you're hoping to achieve, the 'source' sound (i.e. what you're playing), which amp/cab simulation you're using, whether you're mixing it correctly (probably ITB) and - most importantly - whether you're playing it live.

I maintain that with a well produced and exhaustive enough sampled sound set, with all of the tricks (round robin, subtle modulation of each sound, articulation morphing, guitar body simulation, fretboard intelligence etc.) you could sit and program a guitar part indistinguishable from a real performance in ANY genre. Assuming you're the kind of person who doesn't mind programming their music instead of playing it, and you're patient... It may take you the best part of an entire day in some cases, but it is achievable.

For a live performance? For soloing? You're extremely limited. First of all, you'll need a powerful enough system/DAW to access a large sample set and play it all in real time with low latency, as well as your amp/fx setup. No workstation hardware synth has this at the moment, you'll need a DAW. With an extensive knowledge of key switches, mastery of the mod bar (a ribbon of some description is practically required) and enough practice to know what a guitarist would be unlikely to do in virtue of the difference between a keyboard and the fretboard, you can get there, but only with certain types of guitar sound. Rhythm of all varieties is certainly possible - but truly dynamic play, with all of the subtleties that only a string instrument can provide you with? No.

The reason I learned how to play piano/keyboard before any other type of instrument was because I thought, in my naivety, that I would be able to emulate all others with enough practice and dedication - and for lots of instruments, I can. However, there's a reason why I'm learning to play guitar. It's hard work sometimes, but for actually playing and not programming a sequence, nothing sounds like a real guitar... especially not a Les Paul with a Bigsby! Playing keys, I've got pitch and mod wheels, aftertouch, expression pedals, all manner of faders and knobs to twiddle... But nothing matches the immediacy of the fretboard for expressive guitar play.

Maybe most people won't notice, and most people would be satisfied with a close approximation - and I'm not saying that you can't get close. It's relatively easy to get something 'close'. But I notice when it's not real and played live, and I think most musicians would. It's up to you, really.

I'm not saying the situation will never change - who knows, there might be some system of playing a sampled guitar live, or even a sufficiently convincing physically modeled one, that allows us to get there. But not right now, and certainly not with the Jupiter 80. In hindsight, I wish that I'd spent the amount of time I dedicated to trying to get a convincing guitar sound from a synth as time spent practicing guitar instead. I'd have bought one a lot sooner knowing what I do now.
As I said in my post,
PauloF wrote: All to say that I really know a guitar sounds, and I agree that it is quite difficult, not to say almost impossible to actually sound exactly like a guitar, but on these Amp simulated Distortion Lead guitars, I think the Synths are really doing a very good job and it is very difficult to distinguish from a real guitar, specially if we use all the tricks a synth is capable of (Aftertouch, etc) together with own performance techniques.
I agree that it is almost impossible for a synth to sound like a guitar, but all depends on the situation.

In my own case, and as a solo composer/musician, I now play all my parts myself using synths, including the guitars (now less, as my RS-70 is very very limited on Distortion Guitars and the V-Synth not capable of decent Ac.Guitars - expecting to have an integra-7 soon to solve that gap...).

Re: Guitar on Jupiter 80

Posted: 03:04, 19 December 2012
by SoundworldA.D.
Good points made by all!

I think that we all agree that while keyboard based guitars aren't perfect, the bottom line becomes one of context, and how the use fits or complements the intended overall sound of a tune.

I mostly use saxes, and sometimes flutes or trumpets as lead in most of my jazz age tunes, but sometimes a blistering guitar or power chord just has a better fit. Where soloing and especially where strumming chords are concerned, for sure a guitarist and even other listeners are not going to be fooled, but I have neither the time nor the patience to program to the level that Undercoverman alludes to (most excellent by the way!) to get that much realism.

And even though I still have all of my electrics, acoustics, amps, stompers and the ability to record or add them my mixes, I just have fun and am glad that the sampling technology and modulation have advanced to the point where I can do a pretty good sounding "approximation." If it sounds pretty good...I am happy!

Re: Guitar on Jupiter 80

Posted: 09:35, 11 August 2014
by Macker62
Thank you for taking the time to make this tutorial, it was very easy to follow unlike the Jp80 manual and videos on You Tube. Shame there isn't more tutorials like this around. Thanks again.

Re: Guitar on Jupiter 80

Posted: 06:43, 13 December 2014
by Byron
What happened to the last part of the excellent Guitar on Jupiter 80 tutorial? The last section about adding distortion, delay, and reverb is missing... Can I find that somewhere else?

Re: Guitar on Jupiter 80

Posted: 02:56, 23 January 2015
by Chrisk-K
Leave the synths alone. IMO, not many things sound cheesier than a synth guitar. A $100 guitar through a real guitar amp or an amp modeler sounds infinitely better than a synth guitar done on the most expensive synth.

Re: Guitar on Jupiter 80

Posted: 16:56, 13 December 2015
by JPWC
Great tutorial. That said, I've never been satisfied with Roland Guitar Sounds in general, yet the Yamaha Motif has excellent guitar sound very well velocity mapped, making performance on a keyboard really good. And of course there many things where the Motif can't keep up with the JP-80, such as a trumpet. And of course imitating other instrument sounds is just the start of synthesizer, there is so much layering in the JP-80, new sounds are just a few button pushes away.