The Reason Forum is Dead...

[markhansavon]

But I'm gonna try to breath at least a little bit of life into it here for the time being. Please post and keep this forum alive! x____x

Reason Guitars! (Trust me this is gonna blow your mind or something...)

So, Reason doesn't come with really great distortion for doing guitars. Actually, I really like the Scream unit when combined with other effects, or for creating custom patches for synths or bass or drums it sounds great.

I've been using Record to get a sound like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6GpeUhr_cw&t=0m14s

My new goal was to just use MIDI guitars and get as good a sound out of Reason as possible, without relying on Record or POD Distortion. I've created two combinators as an example of the best I could get using only Reason, no Record POD Distortion necessary. It uses compression to naturally distort the guitars, and makes use of the frequency filter to control whether or not the guitar is muted or sustained.

Demo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNlQB_cbb-Y - Unpolished, played through keyboard and exported in about 5 minutes time. Unlike pro demos from sample libraries, this was not painstakingly done at all, and I still feel it sounds pretty good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4xPGYfiMXg - The polished painstaking version, and yet it's not that hard to do at all. This is just editing it so that the muted notes velocities are lower.

Guitars:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/jp77li

http://www.sendspace.com/file/3vkngu

You use the MOD Wheel to control whether or not the guitar is muted or sustained. When mixing guitars, make sure to pan one part left and one part right at the very least to get a good full rhythm guitar sound.

Here is a sample song file to demonstrate what the guitars can do, and an mp3 file as well:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/eal2ua - MP3 File Link

http://www.sendspace.com/file/aaf6cy - The Reason 4 Song File Link

Tips when using the guitars:

The polyphony on the guitar combi's are set to 2. It's meant to be played in the fashion of holding your sustain pedal down, while controlling whether the guitar is muted or sustained with your mod wheel.

First, try moving your mod wheel to the center. Then, push two keys (play a P5 or P4, and make sure you don't play too low or too high, play around C2) of your keyboard down, holding your sustain pedal. Still holding your sustain pedal down, move to two other keys on the keyboard (another P4 or P5 around the same range).

[markhansavon]

More on the guitars, this youtube vid covers the WAH Guitar patch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ0wmVrrX_k

[WillRock]

hah I always find without a shadow of a doubt in my mind that trying to sequence guitars in a realistic manner is kind of futile. If you want real guitars, get a guitarist to record them for you imho. There are too many different variables to consider when emulating a guitar sound because there are too many factors in an acoustic guitars sound, and getting a good distortion out of the scream 4 module can be tricky.

Personally, as someone uses reason, what I try to do is make synth guitars... synth sounds that have guitar like characteristics. Over the years I've come up with some pretty neat techniques, I'll edit this post at some point and post some reason patches for people to use

Btw, you should rename this thread to "guitars in reason" or something that will make people who are interested in this topic read the thread.

[Garpocalypse]

That's something I'd be interested in reading WR.

[markhansavon]

Make another topic for it. We need more threads around here anyway. x_x

Otherwise I'll create a separate topic for this.

Also, there are many advantages of MIDI Guitars. They are cheaper to use, take less time to program and mix, and can tend to come up much cleaner if one's less experienced with real guitar. You can set the equipment up faster, and record an entire band by just playing one track at a time through a keyboard, drums, bass, rhythm guitar, and guitar.

MIDI guitars are convenient to use, and if you hire a real guitarist, and you're waiting around and want to hear how your song would sound before you mix his guitars in, you can quickly write it out and enjoy listening to it yourself. Many many many many people have heard MIDI guitars (like Prominy LPC, Shreddage, and that other guy...can't remember his name x_x) and not been able to tell the difference between what's real and what's fake, and even if they do they still get that impression "wow...that sounds good..." and that firey emotion is the same. Then again, as far as I'm concerned, the emotion is in the writing and composition, not the sound.

Anyway, I've created some guitars here that use just the base sound-set. These guitar combis are definitely focused more on rhythm guitar than on lead.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Make another topic for it. We need more threads around here anyway. x_x

Otherwise I'll create a separate topic for this.

Also, there are many advantages of MIDI Guitars. They are cheaper to use, take less time to program and mix, and can tend to come up much cleaner if one's less experienced with real guitar. You can set the equipment up faster, and record an entire band by just playing one track at a time through a keyboard, drums, bass, rhythm guitar, and guitar.

MIDI guitars are convenient to use, and if you hire a real guitarist, and you're waiting around and want to hear how your song would sound before you mix his guitars in, you can quickly write it out and enjoy listening to it yourself. Many many many many people have heard MIDI guitars (like Prominy LPC, Shreddage, and that other guy...can't remember his name x_x) and not been able to tell the difference between what's real and what's fake, and even if they do they still get that impression "wow...that sounds good..." and that firey emotion is the same. Then again, as far as I'm concerned, the emotion is in the writing and composition, not the sound.

Anyway, I've created some guitars here that use just the base sound-set. These guitar combis are definitely focused more on rhythm guitar than on lead.

Just wanted to post as I'm sort of a guitarist myself:

There are too many things that MIDI guitars/sample libraries don't account for, and they're also near impossible to humanize. You can never fool a trained ear, and getting someone to play guitar isn't as hard as you were making it out to be.

Also, they don't take "less time to program and mix". They take exponentially longer than real guitars because you have to humanize them which takes a while for something like lead guitar. Rhythm guitar is easier to sequence, it's not an accurate depiction of what it's like trying to sequence a lead guitar. It's REALLY HARD even with the expensive sample libraries, because there's just too much to account for with someone playing guitar. You're also tied to the fingering and strumming style of whoever played the samples for the library.

[PROTO·DOME]

Also, they don't take "less time to program and mix". They take exponentially longer than real guitars because you have to humanize them which takes a while for something like lead guitar. Rhythm guitar is easier to sequence, it's not an accurate depiction of what it's like trying to sequence a lead guitar.

You make sweeping, opinionated, generalisations that you assert as fact. I completely disagree.

I find sequencing quicker and easier for every instrument I use. I can complete a whole humanised Rhodes line in much less time than I can a saxophone line, and I've been playing that for years. When sequencing you can get every little nuance perfect, where playing live I tend to never meet my expectations.

I've sequenced realistic solo acoustic guitar before with a fair amount of success, I admit electric guitar is much more difficult, but as the years go by it's getting easier and easier to replicate. Rhythm guitar may be easier for you but not for everyone. Lead instruments are MUCH easier to sequence IMO, less to worry about, can focus more on the placement of each note and it's tone. I've done a convincing lead solo before but cannot get the rhythm sound right, sequencing the various guitar grips and how each string would be strummed in a chord is a nightmare.

Your opinion is not fact, everyone is different.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Lead instruments are MUCH easier to sequence IMO, less to worry about, can focus more on the placement of each note and it's tone. I've done a convincing lead solo before but cannot get the rhythm sound right, sequencing the various guitar grips and how each string would be strummed in a chord is a nightmare.

There are way too many dynamics in electric guitar lead playing for you to lump it in as requiring the same skill as other lead instruments.

"You make sweeping, opinionated, generalisations that you assert as fact. I completely disagree."

[Gario]

He said IMO, therefore it isn't a sweeping generalization.

I just avoid using 'real' instruments for now, because Reason is not the best tool for emulating them. As a Reason user I'd say stick to using real performers (though your combinator set wasn't too bad, in all honesty). There may be some great programs to use for guitar in particular out there, and it may be easier for some people to emulate it than to play it (people tend to forget that it takes a lot of time to play any instrument to a satisfactory level, and people are not always available to do it for you), but Reason really can't handle any of them, unfortunately.

Curse you, lack of third party support!

[avaris]

"You make sweeping, opinionated, generalisations that you assert as fact. I completely disagree."

In Europe they use "s" in place of "z" in most words. So to us it's generalization and to them it's generalisation. ProtoDome is from England.

[WillRock]

Neblix pretty much hit all the key points here for me.

Yes you have to humanise them but there is alot more to it than that. You have to put into account pick noise, string vibration, vibrato, harmonics... its extremely difficult to pull off because its an extremely expressive instrument and programming all that in, and doing it convincingly will probably take alot of work no matter how good your sequencing skills might be. That said, acoustic guitars are ok generally, but stiffness of seqeuncing makes chord writing with acoustic guitars VERY hard. Strumming is a bitch to pull off, i've never succeeded doing that realistically with reason. If you want my honest opinion... if you REALLY want to emulate the sound of a guitar, for rhythms, go and get impact soundwork shreddage. For leads, you'll need to find something a little more expensive, and have the skills to sequence them realistically, which means you need some knowledge of guitar playing most likely to do it convincingly and even then, you might have some trouble.

Want my advice? Get a guitarist to do the recordings for you. Its easier in the long run to get the real thing, and there are alot of guitarists in the world. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, but thats my advice from a general perceptive where getting realistic sounding guitars is concerned, particularly where reason is involved.

[Modus]

if you REALLY want to emulate the sound of a guitar, for rhythms, go and get impact soundwork shreddage.

Don't listen, he's working for Aversa! HOW MUCH DO THEY PAY YOU? *slap slap*

Yeah, how did I get here? What's Reason? That thing i suck at? oh yeah..