S.S.H. style electric guitars

Help, Support & Bugs Beginners Questions - Renoise
1

This sort of topic comes up a lot on various music creation forums, so I searched before I decided to make a new topic. I didn’t find any thread (or many for that matter) that I felt answered my question/problem.

Basically, it has to do with creating a synthesized guitar sound. In this case, something a bit more specific than just “guitars”. I want to approach something akin to S.S.H. style guitars. For those that do not know S.S.H. (short for SAitama Saisyu Heiki) is a japanese remixer known for his (at least I think it’s a he, I don’t really know and it doesn’t matter) remixes of various game themes and his specific style.

His guitars are very obviously synthesized and I like the sound and want to emulate that sound. Just to give an example, here are two of his remixes I think illustrates his guitars pretty well.

So the question isn’t really “How do I make guitar sounds in Renoise?” but rather, how would you recreate this sound in Renoise? Preferrably working from a zero-budget approach, as I don’t have money to buy expensive samplers and whatnot. I have checked out the Renoise downloads for XRNI’s and founds some good ones, which is a start.

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That’s not synthesized at all, it’s articulated very well, you can hear palm mutes and whatnot. It might be a really good sample library at best, but it doesn’t sound synthesized to me at all. Unless you’re talking about the synth lead… heavy distorted rhythm guitar is hard to impossible to synthesize well because what makes it sound good is the different ways you can articulate it. Palm muting, different picking and strumming techniques, all ups, all downs, alternating, different pressures of your palm, the way you release your palm for opens, you just can’t synthesize a good performance.

If you need guitar samples I have several guitar .xrni’s up in the downloads section, here’s on for heavy rhythm guitar:

http://forum.renoise.com/index.php/files/file/50-power-chords-std-processed/

If you plunder the internet you can also find some really nice “DI” samples (I have a DI version of what I just linked up here somewhere) which is just the raw guitar recorded straight into an audio interface, which allows you apply your own effects. Whether you are trying to synthesize (if you really want to try, FM synthesis is your best bet) or using samples or a real guitar, the formula for heavy guitar rhythm sound is the same, it’s all about the processing effects (as opposed to synthesis). Distortion(if any)>Amp>Cab is the chain you want to use. With a good enough amp sim you really don’t need pre-distortion. I only use distortion to drive clean amp signals when I want a janglier lighter distortion. If I want heavy, I just use an appropriate amp sim.

http://www.igniteamps.com/en/audio-plug-ins

This will get you pretty much all the plugins you need to get started. Get Emissary and Nadir. Put Emissary on the lead channel. Nadir is a cab impulse loader, and the amp sim will sound like shit unless you process it with a cab impulse. My favorite set to use is the Catharsis impulses, which are free but seem to have disappeared from the internet. PM me your email and I can send them to you though.

Here are some DI samples for you:

http://bedroomproducersblog.com/2012/10/13/thrash-di-a-commercial-metal-guitar-sample-library-by-sampleoddity/

Also I might be able to record some guitar for you if you’re able to compose what you want with samples but aren’t satisfied with the sound.

edit: Oh I thought Thrash DI was free, but it is not.

edit2: Oh here we go, free version:

http://www.sampleoddity.com/thrashdifree/

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Thanks for the pretty detailed reply, and the samples and links.

Yeah, “synthesized” wasn’t exactly the correct word to use. “Sampled” would have been more accurate. Still, at least to me, it’s noticeable that it’s not a live performance (repetition of identical sounding strums, not really “humanized” strumming, and so on). I personally find a certain charm in how it sounds, which is why I’m pursuing it.

I did actually download some of your XRNI’s (among others) before making the topic and there’s something I noticed about them. The sampled notes, power chords mostly, seems to be in a pretty limited or restricted range, and I’m not sure why that is. Is it because that’s just the nature of power chords, or is it because re-using the samples with higher and lower pitch would simply sound bad?

I’ll look this stuff over and see if I can wrap my head around it.

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try http://www.spicyguitar.com/and renoise’s cabinet simulator

not exactly what you’re looking for but it is agood free physical modelling synth of an acoustic guitar (read: very realistic soundingacoustic guitar synth in which you can edit ‘real-life’ parameters on the fly)

https://soundcloud.com/spicyguitar/electric

5

Yeh, making guitar samples live depends on having the “right” samples, and using them right. Like you’d need Palmmute samples, open samples, dead note samples, flago’s, maybe different types of picking, enough different samples spread around the keyzones, so you won’t have those pitching artefacts.

Distorted guitars live by all sounds (chords etc.) fed through the same distortion unit. You’ll also have to feed the palm mutes etc through the same unit. So you might want to get “clean” samples, and distort them yourself to be flexible about chords etc. Power chords are obviously the standard thing, it’s just a fifth and maybe an octave from the basenote, interleaved in metal style riffs by palm mute strokes of the base note. Using distorted single note samples for chords gives a way different effect! Many metal bands do this by recording overdubs of distorted single note lines, it gives that singing fat harmonic sound without the distortion aliasing, that also can be heard as melodic riff in your first example.

Best Way is of course to record the needed samples from a real guitar. I imagine it helpful for the player and the quality of the resulting samples to monitor the sound through the final cabsim/distortion plugins, while only the dry signal is recorded. Don’t underestimate the feedback of feeling a guitar player has from distortion sounds, it automatically leads to a different playing style. I play electric guitar myself. It’s like the distorted sound “sucks” the tones from your fingers, or like the difference of clean sounds being a trolley you need to push it’s way along, while the distorted thing is a trolley you push slightly and that will continue to travel that way by itself until you stop it, and that might tumble in strange ways if you don’t control it right.

6

Best Way is of course to record the needed samples from a real guitar. I imagine it helpful for the player and the quality of the resulting samples to monitor the sound through the final cabsim/distortion plugins, while only the dry signal is recorded. Don’t underestimate the feedback of feeling a guitar player has from distortion sounds, it automatically leads to a different playing style. I play electric guitar myself. It’s like the distorted sound “sucks” the tones from your fingers, or like the difference of clean sounds being a trolley you need to push it’s way along, while the distorted thing is a trolley you push slightly and that will continue to travel that way by itself until you stop it, and that might tumble in strange ways if you don’t control it right.

This is so true. Although it won’t sound bad if it’s recorded monitoring through an amp sim but then released as clean samples, but different distortions will definitely cause you to subtly adjust your playing.

try http://www.spicyguitar.com/and renoise’s cabinet simulator

not exactly what you’re looking for but it is agood free physical modelling synth of an acoustic guitar (read: very realistic soundingacoustic guitar synth in which you can edit ‘real-life’ parameters on the fly)

https://soundcloud.com/spicyguitar/electric

I would not use Renoise’s cab sim for anything other than lofi-ish sounding lightly distorted jangly guitar. Palm mutes just straight up sound like shit through the cab sim. I tried for a long time to make it work, but there’s just no way to make it sound good, and it should be something really simple. This actually goes for any amp sim, my rule of thumb is, if you can’t get 90% of your target tone in less than 10 seconds you’re better off using a different amp sim rather than trying to force a tone out of one that just wasn’t made to do what you want. Some amp sims just won’t sound good driven that heavily, or if they do sound good you had to drive them too hard and there’s a really loud noise floor.

Oh if you want a super easy super fast way of getting a pretty decent heavy guitar tone, use this:

http://www.soft-amp.com/softamp-fm25

It models a little practice amp that I own and it actually sounds incredibly realistic. Anyways, select the driven channel and turn the gain up, reverb down, switch it to axp mod for a little better tone, and use the larger built in cab, and if your PC can handle it put it on HQ. No worrying about using impulse responses for cabs or any other plugins, just one simple plugin to get you there.