Real Guitar 3 Wow!!!

[kgdrum]

Hi just saw this and it's pretty amazing!
Check this out!! Forget all of this itty bitty 64 bit nonsense.

I don't play guitar and have never tried a guitar controller or actually any kind of game controller , is this as easy as it looks?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... bqB9hHj0Gw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[HCMarkus]

I believe strummed acoustic guitar will be one of, if not the most challenging nuts to crack with a VI. I've been working with a lot of acoustic guitar stuff lately, recorded by some great players. As cool as this VI looks and sounds, it is utterly anemic when compared to the real thing.

Fun to hold the controller though... guitar hero antics are sure to follow.

[kgdrum]

Agreed HC
This will not replace a good guitar player but for us non guitar playing vi users it looks like you can get pretty good results faster than trying to play a guitar vi on a keyboard.













It's just another tool.

[zed]

I would have jumped at this a couple of years ago, because I love finding new ways to do things and easier ways to lay down a quick guitar track with MIDI before having to deliver a good performance on the real instrument.

But the more I learn how to play this stuff better on the real thing, the more hesitant I am to spend anymore time trying to get reasonable results from a guitar VI. There are so many subtleties to playing the real thing that cannot be gotten close to with VIs... at least for the kind of things I want to get out of an acoustic guitar track.

Listen to the beginning of this famous Beatles track, for example, and then imagine trying to create a performance that sounds anything like it with a guitar VI: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nGVaLkCQAg

It sounds like a fairly simple track, but you could spend hours and hours with a VI and then still throw your hands in the air saying "Why can't I get it to sound like that Beatles track?"

Then pick up a nice acoustic, and you could learn to play that part in a few hours and it would sound better than all that time spent trying to do it with the VI.

For some things, however, this new strumming controller for RG3 could come in very handy, particularly for the early phases of song production when you still haven't made final decisions on tempo and key, or whether you want to use a 12-string or something a little different. There's no doubt, in some instances, that RG3 results might also sound perfect for a song just as it is (and I have some RG2 demos that I did which I really like the sound of). But for the money and hours of investment, I think spending time with a real acoustic is a better option if you have some some ability to play basic guitar.

Having said that, it is an impressive development, and a clever tool.

[David Polich]

+1. Well said.

[zed]

I have to admit that this product intrigues me in a way, because as I understand it you place all the chords into your song before hand. So If you have all of your chords already defined, you would be *unable* to play any wrong notes on this controller guitar. Your performance is entirely based on rhythmic feel, and the patterns you "strum" or "pick", with no concerns about playing any bum notes.

That would result in the ability to really go crazy with experimental takes to try a bunch of different things which would always end up being in the chords you pre-programmed for the song. I really like the idea of being able to do a bunch of takes without focusing on the actual notes. That could allow for inspiration and stylistic stuff that you wouldn't normally do with a real axe in your hand.

Even if just used to mock up guitar tracks, this product could prove to be a useful "design" tool even for skilled guitar players. It certainly presents some interesting possibilities. I'd like to try it.

[kgdrum]

i love toys

[twistedtom]

M5-3 has a strummed Fender Telly but it still is a long way from what can be done on a guitar. It is ok in some places if buried in a mix. I learned to play guitar as I was not happy with the MIDI guitar tracks I made. Now I am better at guitar than key boards; funny.

[zed]

I learned to play guitar as I was not happy with the MIDI guitar tracks I made. Now I am better at guitar than key boards; funny.

That's awesome!

I'm basically in the process of teaching myself to be a much better guitar player. I'm starting make some good headway, and I'm way happier with the results of my electric and acoustic guitar tracks when I use the real thing.

But I must admit, RealGuitar 2 was responsible for a lot of cool demos and beginnings of songs for me because it was inspiring to let the different patterns play and then trigger different chords on the keyboard. As an inspirational tool, it was worth every buck. And I do believe this new version of the product has the potential to trigger the beginnings of more new songs or the development of songs in progress.

Is that just a standard RockBand guitar that is being used in the video? I would almost feel embarrassed having one of those... and yet, as a guitar collector, I should probably have one just the gag aspect of it, if nothing else. Being able to also use it as a controller for this kind of experimentation would make it a useful toy.

[monkey man]

Q: Why has it always been called "Real Guitar"?

A: 'Cause it's always tried to be ever more like... a real guitar.

[Gravity Jim]

I'm a guitar player, so I've never tried to use one of these VI's. But if I didn't play guitar, I'd make friends with a guitar player.

A big part of the charm of guitar, acoustic or electric, is how highly personal it is. Everyone who plays the same part sounds different. Not only would VI's have a hard time reproducing accurately the types of things that can be done on the instrument - the slides, bends, smears, etc., and all the different kinds of vibrato - it would never achieve the kind of highly personal sound that a real guitar player does.

Listen to that Beatles example, and hear how an individual player with a specific guitar produces a particular sound... how the rhythm player chokes the chord, the way it frets out a little bit in the upper register, the way the capo changes the timbre....

That's where the magic of a real guitar lives. I can see owning or using a VI as a specific effect, especially in dance or hiphop tracks, or in ultra-shiny pop productions... but when you want it to sound like a guitar, well... you should call up your guitar player friend.

[David Polich]

I use guitar VI's all the time, for a very good reason - when I'm building
an arrangement, and want to see what guitar parts and sounds might or might not work. For that purpose, guitar VI's are invaluable. When I'm done with
my mock-up, I can send the guitar player the mp3 and he/she understands what
I want.

And on some occasions, I have a deadline and simply cannot get a guitar player
to come over, so I'll create the guitar parts myself. I do agree, a real guitarist is always preferable, so is an actual guitar.

[zuul-studios]

I wish I knew how to play guitar. It would most certainly solve having to use Guitar-VIs for me. Unfortunately, I don't. Sadly, living in the middle of no-where like I do, having an available and CAPABLE guitarist (acoustic or electric) is non-existant. (Most of the guitarists I know, know a total of a half-dozen chords in 3 or 4 keys, at best). So, if I want a guitar sound, I need to use one of those "less than perfect" Guitar-VIs. The guitar-VIs from Music Lab are great products, in my opinion. I own all three of them (RealGuitar, RealStrat and RealLPC). It seems that their new Real Guitar 3 could offer a guitar-playing dummy like myself another choice in attempting to create that wonderful guitar sound for compositional-sequencing projects.

Where does one purchase those guitar-toy thingys??? Are they expensive?? How do they interphase with the computer?? Via USB??? Wi-Fi??? Blue-tooth???

It seems like a neat concept, this Real Guitar 3. Could be a potential night-mare as well. (FWIW, It's been my experience that service-support from Music Lab is poor. There's rare participation from their developers on THEIR web-site.)

Hmmmmmmmm. . . . . .

(Gosh, , , I wish there was talented guitarist who lived near-by.)

[Little Known]

Have you considered hiring an online session player? There is some great talent available at very reasonable prices.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

...and visa versa!