How is buying a guitar plus gear, learning to play (very difficult and very long) an alternative to program a "free" VSTi guitar and make nice-sounding 180BPM arpeggios in a week?

Indeed, because all the snobby-guitarists "f*ck VSTis, buy a few guitars, is faster" replies are OT in the first place.

As opposed to this. Useful, tells the story, stay on topic, non-extremist/snobby:

 

Last edited: Dec 20, 2019

Do not forget to check for a physical modeling guitar:

 

A lot of people read these forums, so I think it is valid to include information about other possible solutions and different ways of doing things. I bought a midi controller keyboard because of a discussion on this forum even though it had never crossed my mind before, and I am forever grateful to the person who planted that seed into my mind, otherwise I would still be using a mouse and piano roll until this day

 

Last edited: Dec 20, 2019

Don't sweat it, it's not for everyone. You need to have those KEY-tar chops/skills, this and a combination of smart use of the pitch wheel

 

Love the portmanteau, and it's a good way to view the problem

 

Last edited: Dec 20, 2019

Just wondering...
Has you tried pushing the dry VSTi out through an actual amp (reamping) and mic'ing up and recording that?

 

I find it hard to imagine that anything but a person playing a guitar could sound like a person playing the guitar, and no matter what amp/cabinet plugin or emulation thrown at a guitar vsti that didn't use actual played phrases, recorded rhythm parts and a whole bunch of sustained note samples to suss out a part, could make it sound unfabricated. There is far too much soul to be captured in a human performance, the player literally a part of the instrument by being actually physically connected, the guitar cradled like a lover, the player directly influencing the strings by coaxing vibration with their own skin or a plectrums that is a defacto bodily extension and meant to act as a glorified fingernail. I could play the same three notes 8 different times during a lick in the time of two seconds and no two notes would be near the same. How long would it take to replicate those two seconds by hand in a DAW...forever and a day if it could even be done at all. For crying out loud, depending how a player holds her instrument the guitar is either rubbing up against their genitals, catching vibrations of the player's beating heart, or both at the same time. Passion is incarnate and inherent in the process. Nothing can simulate this sensuality. Faking it with a software instrument is to me akin to fluking a sex doll and hoping for a real emotional exchange. You might really imagine it likes you but you if course would be just kidding yourself in a false hope.

However....

Then there is not caring if a guitar part sounds "real". In that case do whatever; amp sims, cabinet impulse responses, stomp box emulations or even reamping through a real amp. If it is a hard saturated ITB tube sound one is trying to get a clipping plugin could probably help as tube amps tend to self compress and cut the top off of the waveform peaks naturally. A little plate reverb inside of a "room" reverb helps to give the sound some air.

And of course for the longer term with the best result would be to put in the time to learn to play. Even if it took five years to get to a respectable level of proficiency to lay down the tracks yourself, what the hell, you might have 40 years to keep getting better and better and better if you're now just a young punk under 35. And while you're learning that guitar also try to play the keyboard parts without piano roll or step editing, it will only round you creatively out. Then if you actually play these instruments you can call yourself a musician. You might be a composer, producer, conductor or whatever you might call yourself by the duties of the work you perform, but only if you play an instrument (or many) do you have the right to call yourself a musician.

 

Hey, I saw this girl's pic on Tinder two days ago! I didn't gave her a like because I'm more the brunette type...

Clearly she looks for a "strings-attached" relationship though. Who said youngsters these days cares only about sex sex and body??
There's still hope...

 

I am a drummer. I played in a lot of bands but that was the time of the cassette deck.
nowadays you have the DAW. I sailed for a long time so that is quite new to me. That's great all those nice plugins libaries etc. All those options.
We all share one passion. When you make music, you first choose an instrument and you become good at it. One is good with the guitar the other is good with the keyboard.
And if you're good with a keyboard you can make beautiful guitar sounds. I saw it on YT and I was impressed. Those programs are only going to get better.
I have downloaded addictive drums. The Terminator o yeah.
I am new to this forum and I say stop the attitude, help each other out a bit.
ok that was it, I'll be back

 

Last edited: Jan 5, 2020

I have not used guitar VSTs so this may not apply, but for getting "thick" and "crunchy" tone, very short delay works wonders, and some of this can be had with cab sims & iRs. An ultra-slow stereo chorus gives a similar thing and i love the variation to give it "life'.

 

Well, like in CGI movies where now it becomes a bit harder to distinguish from the real thing...
Huge improvements were achieved over the last few years in audio things.
Get this:

 

You can get some good results with them, this is just 10 mins quick play.
Good IR's also help as mentioned and a lot of patience in piano roll (unlike this example)

 

In the more subtle stuff at times it sounds just like a guitar. Awesome

 

You might try a transient shaper to get a better sounding attack especially for palm muting.
3s

 

He is actually playing an instrument, a Roli, one that allows a ton of feel and true expression in real time. He is also a GREAT musician. Inserting dots and dashes on a piano roll and trying to emulate that performance would be next to impossible.

I emphatically implore everyone to learn how to play some instrument, any instrument.

 

Brilliant parallelism sir

A bit OT but the last CG thing that has impressed me is the rejuvenation thing. Last saw with Will Smith but the first one was at least two/three years ago. Michael Douglas in Ant Man I think.

It's almost scary. These guys can't help but recognize the thing but now imagine a lot of actors in their 30s... some studio(s) gonna make so big time money.

 

I was planning to do that on drums, make an echoroom and drumbleeds, so I guess this is also a good idea.

 

Is there still punk? I thought CLA already killed punk years ago

 

I got a QuNexus a while back and finally started to learn to use the touch functions. It's kind of tricky but it does give the ability for variations of vibrato.
Makes me remember Ronald Jenkee's "Guitar Sound" and i am pretty sure he only had normal wheels for expression. Hmmm..
He has great expressiveness with timing, bends,etc in his playing ... I wonder if he's using a Roli now..
His live vid when he was messing with it sounds pretty poor, so here is the album cut:

 

W0W!