Early demo of my own acoustic guitar program

SeedyLee · Post by **SeedyLee** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 6:22 pm

Today I started working on my own Acoustic Guitar sample set and program for the Kronos. Here's a quick ad-hoc demo of what I've managed so far:

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This was just a quick improvisation recorded straight to disk, so no editing or additional effects. Just the single HD1 program in isolation. Consequently it probably needs something better than laptop speakers to hear it properly

Would love to hear what people think of the patch.

phattbuzz · Post by **phattbuzz** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 6:29 pm

Worked out very nice! Is this played live or is it sequenced? The reason I'm wondering is because you can hear the fingers moving across the frets in a very natural way. Easy to play on guitar but hard to reproduce live on a keyboard.

SeedyLee · Post by **SeedyLee** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 6:39 pm

Thanks Phatbuzz! It was played live, no sequencer involved. I was just testing out some changes and decided to hit record as I was noodling about.

burningbusch · Post by **burningbusch** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 6:45 pm

Sounds fabulous! Like the fact that you did it in stereo. I've been experimenting with sampling a Taylor but my results don't sound as nice as yours.

Wonderful.

Busch.

SeedyLee · Post by **SeedyLee** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 6:52 pm

I should point out I did not record the original samples, I used some samples from a number of free Kontakt libraries, and manipulated and converted them for use in the Kronos.

I don't have a quiet enough environment, nor a good enough guitar, to record clean samples, although I have tried. My samples always ended up with excessive ambient noise, but recording my own samples is something I will hopefully reattempt in the near future.

Mikeeee · Post by **Mikeeee** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 7:42 pm

that is a lovely sound coming through even on my cheap speakers.

padking · Post by **padking** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 7:52 pm

Sound's very good !
I always tought that Kronos guitars
sound where lousy so it seem's there's
hope after all.

Padking

runningman67 · Post by **runningman67** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 9:05 pm

Really good sample and lovely feel to your playing.

levioter · Post by **levioter** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 9:16 pm

Fabulous acoustic guitar sound seedylee !
Great job !
Could you tell us more about how do you create the fret noise than seems to be realistic when you play ?
Did you use a combi or a simple program ?
Is this guitar sound will be available for download ?
I am really curious to see how this has been made !

Anyway thanks for sharing that with us !

Cheers

GooseK87 · Post by **GooseK87** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 11:19 pm

This is absolutely excellent--exactly the type of sound I would love to have in my Kronos;
Could this please be offered as a free download, so the rest of the Kronos-Universe could enjoy these sounds??

bsbsantos · Post by **bsbsantos** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:22 am

WOW!!!!

Francois · Post by **Francois** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 1:05 am

Good job !

SeedyLee · Post by **SeedyLee** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 2:57 am

Thank you all for the positive comments!

I would love to make this library freely available to the community, and I'm looking at ways of achieving that. The samples I've used are free to use in sampling products, but they're part of a larger commerical product. Therefore the license prevents me from redistributing them. However anyone can download them, modify them and use them in their own sampling products.

The way I'm looking to circumvent this restriction is perhaps by building a script to convert the downloadable Kontakt library into a Korg sample library with the appropriate edits. This will take some time, but should be achievable. That way, each user can simply download the samples himself straight from the source.

In time, I will definitely look into creating my own samples that I will gladly make freely available if they turn out.

As for the technical details of the programming, it occupies a single HD1 program (no combis) with two stereo oscillators: one for the attack/decay samples, and one for the release/fret noises. The latter triggers on key-off.

The string samples consist of three velocity layers sampled every one to two notes. These samples are unlooped. There are also two variations of each of the sampled notes. I have used wave sequences to switch between these variations, but also used pitch stretching to increase the number of apparent variations. Hence when you press the same key repeatedly with the same velocity, there are subtle variations in the tone.

I also use the AMS outputs of the wave sequences to affect parameters like filter cutoff and attack speed for further variation.

In order to improve the velocity response, two parallel filters are used - a low-pass 12db filter, and a band-pass filter. These respond to both velocity as well as key tracking to change the tone over the entire velocity range, hopefully reducing the evidence of sample switching. Furthermore, I use the "Low-drive" mapped to exponential velocity to give it some grit when played hard in the lower registers.

Velocity also affects the decay time, so playing software will slightly reduce the time notes ring out over. It's only subtle though, because I've found on a real guitar it doesn't make a substantial difference.

There are two types of noises in the second oscillator - release noises (the buzz you get when yo put your finger on a sounding string to silence it) and fret/mechanical noises. Once again these use a wave sequence, but in this wave sequence there are rests where no sound is mapped. Therefore these noises only occur sporadically. each of the steps in the wave sequence has its own level, as well as an AMS value affecting filter cutoff, to hopefully make it feel more natural and random.

The release noises are chromatic and correspond to individual notes. There's only one variation, but once again with a bit of pitch stretching more apparant variations can be coaxed out of them. The mechanical noises aren't pitched, I've simply mapped random noises to random keys in the multisample. I've made three multisamples with different key to noise mappings, and one of these multisamples is randomly used in various steps of the wave sequence. So once again, playing the same key repeatedly gives many different note-off noise variations.

Effects involve a simple O-verb to simulate body resonanace, and some parametric EQ.

I'd be more than happy to share the PCG once it's finished without the samples, but I really hope to be able to release some type of package with the samples in the future.

Hope this helps.

BobTheDog · Post by **BobTheDog** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 6:39 am

Nice info on how you achieved it, thanks for that, very interesting

levioter · Post by **levioter** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 7:36 am

SeedyLee,
thanks a lot for your very useful info.
This may be part of a tutorial to how to make realistic sounds out of samples.
Really good job !
What also could be of interrest is the way you created your samples.
I understand that this is from a Kontakt library but did you dig into the samples to extract what you were needed or just use a piece of software to "resample" from the Kontakt VSTi ?

Anyway really a huge thanks for sharing those info with us "humble" noobies on the sampling field.

Have a nice day.

Cheers