So we have the story about Peter Northcote, fantastic session guitarist. Here's a story about some software that is trying to take his job away. Following on from our story about MIDI in December, now we introduce "Virtual Guitarist". A guitar you play on a keyboard using MIDI.
The company that make this software, Steinberg, hail it a a way to get 'session quality' playing when and where you need it. That's a big call for those of us who have used session musicians.
So up front I'm going to say that this thing is really clever and can produce great results in the hands of those that know and understand how to use it and other emulators. As a replacement for a session musician, no.
What is good about these sorts of tools is that they expand music to more people. You can achieve a good musical result in your bedroom. That's a good thing. So let's have a listen. Keep in mind that this piece was done by a professional musician, who is a great programmer, in a studio with good processing tools. This demo would have taken a lot of work, much more than a real guitarist would take. And remember, Virtual Guitarist can't do lead guitar, rhythm only! The real thing gives you both.
Virtual Guitarist is a 'plug-in' for music software programs. It is designed to emulate rhythm guitar playing for both acoustic and electric guitar. It uses a huge library of recorded guitar samples which are then separated into smaller parts so they can be used in different tempos and styles. The recordings are not single notes, but chords, riffs etc.
Both the acoustic and electric sections have a number of choices. Each have 'players' (14 for the acoustic and 13 for the electric) which also have eight variations for each. This offers quite a huge range to the user. Styles range from finger picking to strums to funk to power chords for heavy metal. But you are not limited to just the original recordings.
Virtual Guitarist offers live control. You can change the variations by MIDI and add 'fills'. You can change the syncopation, how tight or lose to play, induce fret noise, plus a pile of other parameters. This makes it a whole lot more fluid than just playing a sample. Now if you're worried about being able to play the keyboard to get this thing going, don't worry. Most playing is done with one finger which will give you a chord or an arpeggio. Simple combinations of two or three keys give you chord changes, eg major, minor, etc.
The sound of the recordings is great as you would expect. And there are a whole bunch of 'stomp' boxes to add effects commonly used by guitarists. You must keep in mind though that there a thousands of different guitars available in the world as well as effects and amplifiers. Virtual Guitarist can't cover all the bases. On the other hand, a real guitarist (like Peter Northcote) can cover all the bases.
But how does it sound? With some work you can certainly get a very good rhythm track. But, here's the thing, a real player injects their own personality. John Lennon was a great rhythm guitarist just because of his own peculiar style. Sometimes he played out of time which gave a fantastic effect. Things like that are what music is about, experimenting, mistakes, fate.
You
could certainly use this sort of software for some tracks, but to get an
individual style of groove
and a great feel, use the real thing. That is why Glenn and I have used
Peter for the past twelve years. He just has so many ideas. As he
plays, things change each second and we say "Yeah! That's what we want".
That's thirty years of musical experience for you. It can take hours to
achieve what Peter gives us in five minutes! One other issue is that if we
all use these emulators, we open the possibility that we all start to sound the same. Not good.
Virtual Guitarist is good as a tool to get some ideas flowing or create a guide track and there's no doubt it is has been used in major recordings. New sounds are being added and the software is getting smarter.
But use the real thing where possible. It is called 'virtual' guitarist after all.