MusicLab RealStrat - Real vs Virtual guitar

[chriswickett]

Hello all.

We've just posted a review of MusicLab's RealStrat, a program which offers (to our ears) the best simulation of an electric guitar being played to date.

There's some audio files on the article - head on over and have a listen.

Do you think this spells doom for the session guitarist or only goes to prove computers can't even come close to the real thing?

http://www.musicradar.com/gear/all/c...-122292/review

[Sporky_McGuffin]

Be interesting to do the same trick with that and with a real guitar, then blind test them.

[evilmags]

Depends what you want from a guitar. Computers are not very good at improvising, for example.

[grahawk]

Seen as Chris has posted this all over the forums I'm going to reply likewise:

Soapbox out........

Remember the old days when people sneered at styles on arranger keyboards. Well this is the more complex computer related option. If you want the computer to generate the music for you then fine go ahead. There are uses for such programs for adding a bit of background guitar in complex arrangements, when you don't have a guitarist to hand, but beyond that it's laughable. Just listen to the chords example, or indeed all the examples. It's just like an arranger keyboard - not even a hint of the feeling and expressiveness you get from a real guitar. If you actually play it from a keyboard then thats fine but if you just program in some parameters and a chord sequence forget it. Don't claim it your own and don't call yourself a musician. In fact give up music entirely or buy yourself a cheap Casio home keyboard.

[Gojirosan]

It's a wonderful innovative thing. It will no more harm the guitarist than other synths harmed brass sections. They will co-exist happily.

It's a truly superb achievement IMO.

[Danny1969]

I think it might appeal to computer musos making music from loops and samples, but there's only so much non human stuff you can use in a song before it starts sounding like a midi file.

Can't say I'm impressed with the clips, I don't think they would fool anyone.

[jim_branning]

its the sorta tool producers or media-music people'd use to add production touches such as doubling a synth riff with a guitar or whatever. so for that it's fine, where it's a background/mixed-in 'sound'

otherwise these things never get close.. so i spose the rating is ok for what it is intended to do. It's not going to put guitarists out of work tho.

[loverocker]

Originally Posted by chriswickett

We've just posted a review of MusicLab's RealStrat, a program which offers (to our ears) the best simulation of an electric guitar being played to date.

There's some audio files on the article - head on over and have a listen.

A five-star review? And those 3 sound clips illustrate the best it can do? You realise how credible this makes MusicRadar seem? Oh well, it's your rep!

Don't get me wrong - it's an OK idea. But if you think it's going to replace session guitarists, you're bonkers. Anyone with the budget to pay for a session guitarist won't have the time to fiddle about making that software sound properly authentic. So it's a tool for bedroom studios run by people who can't/won't collaborate with a real guitarist. So no-one's out of work anyway.

As I said in another thread, there have been genuinely talented computer musos getting FAR better electric guitar tones out of cheap-as-chips Yamaha XG stuff (e.g. for CS1x synth, SW1000XG, etc).

[Sporky_McGuffin]

That was better than I expected, but it sounds like the strings are being hit incredibly hard and that's what makes it seem unnatural.

[loverocker]

Update: I just went to the MusicLab site and there are more clips there. They are MUCH better (although curiously sterile*). Which makes me think that the 3 clips in the MusicRadar review are done by the reviewer.

Which maybe shows that if it takes, say, an hour to programme a bad 10-second guitar break when a guitarist could play a good one for you in, well, 10 seconds, session guitarists have nothing to worry about.

* The sterility thing bugs me. Even for the metal part (where the RealStrat thing can 'play' with impossibly clean technique). It's like when you're used to playing on a synth with velocity control and aftertouch and then you play it on a keyboard with neither. Other people think it sounds good, but you know that it sounds (and feels!) like kak.