If using one of my guitars with a Roland GK-3B midi pickup I wonder if this bit of software might start sounding like a real instrument?

Prolly not.

 

I have a Roland GR-50 somewhere, I used it live for a while many years ago and while the newer controllers are almost certainly much better at tracking I had no luck at all with any kind of percussive sound, it would glitch like crazy. Worse than that I felt incredibly fake playing a pale imitation of a guitar on a guitar just to get an acoustic/classical sound on my electric guitar. It was fine for string sounds. I did play the sax part from Sledge Hammer but it was unforgiving and would glitch even when played perfectly. I'm still waiting for DJs to discover it so I can offload it for stupid money.

 

Regarding modeled guitar played on keyboards, my other leg has bells on it.

 

I was just being facetious

 

It's true.
Modeled guitar is just around the corner.
And it always will be....

 

It does sound better than most of the physical modelled guitar plug-ins so far, but it's still far from realistic. I think it will be at least another 10 years before we start seeing somewhat convincing plug-ins.

Modartt Pianoteq, IK MODO Bass and MODO Drums are a good example. Even though MODO Bass sounds pretty good at a first glance, when you start comparing it to real bass tracks (with the same bass models it is trying to emulate) it becomes painfully obvious how fake it sounds. MODO Drums is probably the most realistic sounding physical modelled drum plug-in, but it has the same problem as MODO Bass. When you compare it to real drum recordings it just sounds fake. Pianoteq is probably the best physical modelled instrument out there, and even though most non-musicians wouldn't be able to tell it's fake, it still has a long way to go before it will fool experienced and picky pianists.

 

the small one's pretty cheap

 

Yeah, but I want that big ass randy feltface keyboard though.

 

Sampled/modeled/whatever guitars CAN sound real and they can fool people- if you stay within the confines of what they can do. I almost always have fake guitar hiding behind real guitar fattening it up and the one sells the other. But the dream of pulling up a guitar vst and whipping out any lick or technique a real one can do, that's probably a ways off. With good pitch wheel control and the right amp sim you can get leads that'll fool lots of people. I remember people thinking Roger Powell was doing guitar leads and he was just playing a Minimoog through an amp. There's licks he traded with Steve Hillage on the L album where it's hard to tell who's who without listening close. The trick to achieving realism with vsts will always ve more about learning playing techniques than getting a perfect sound, or scripting. But no one wants to learn that bit because it's hard.

 

nothing like play a real guitar..

 

I agree, but with guitar comes dealing with guitar players, which is rarely worth it. Luckily I have a lot of tricks to augment my own playing.

 

The sample based stuff is as close as it gets for now because it's literally the real thing recorded. For drums check out Toontrack's stuff. Superior Drummer 3 is their flagship product but EZ can get the job done, depending on the context. Check these out, they don't cost that much and if you keep it simple and put in the work it will do. https://www.amplesound.net/en/index.asp

Here some more guitar and drum stuff with a good keys player demoing them

Strings, wind, ect I don't use anything realistic sounding in those categories so I don't know.

 

This performance sounds like a super talented keyboard player using an extremely expressive keyboard controller to me. The bends are the biggest giveaway and are not realistic, but this performance would do in a pinch if the guitar player couldn't make the gig or the session (or all of a sudden died 53 years ago).

 

Last edited: Feb 27, 2023

in that case yes

 

That channel seems like an instant sub for me. Interesting!

 

And this exactly is required to play a complex non discrete acoustic instrument like a guitar or violin.
if you're just a keyboard player (I am), the problem I see with guitars, bass, violins etc, is that you must have at least a basic knowledge of those instruments to play them in a plausible way.
There are virtual vs real stuff comparing videos where it's very difficult to discern between them, at least in the mix, but it requires a lot of work for virtual, possibly in post daw automation:

 

We will need a good MIDI guitar controller to fully exploit it

 

There are simple things most people don't consider with guitar. Like, if you put vibrato on a note that hasn't been bent, just fretted that vibrato can only go up. At least if it's finger vibrato and not whammy bar. You have to use pitch bend. You can't use the mod wheel. Stuff like that.