May 19, 2015 Most guitar necks are too round on the back, so I took sandpaper and reshaped the neck to be very flat. I actually refretted a few guitars early on because I. Wanted Vintage Guitars. We PAY CASH FOR YOUR HIGH QUALITY GUITARS AND BASSES! We Are Currently Looking For: TELECASTER CUSTOM’S. Original Bigsby Guitar.

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It was 2006 when we first reviewed MusicLab’s RealGuitar virtual instrument. It was then at version 2, and has since passed through versions 3 and 4 and now arrived at 5. In the meantime we’ve reviewed other instruments in the series — RealStrat, RealLPC, RealRick. RealGuitar developed in tandem with these, and by version 4 they all shared (by and large) the same set of features and functions. Version 4 improvements included simulated double tracking, customisable humanising (randomisation) of various parameters, and a built-in Song sequencer that enables the integral library of patterns and chords to be arranged as an entire song, constructed entirely within the plug-in and then dragged to the instrument’s DAW track as a MIDI file. The fifth guitar in the series, RealEight (currently at version 1.0) was reviewed in the August 2015 edition of SOS.

«MusicLab RealGuitar 5»

by Nick Magnus about RealGuitar

Cut-mix-dissolve to RealGuitar 5, which expands on the original set of acoustic guitars with a brand-new Steel String model.

The Classic instrument in Solo mode. The ‘legacy’ Harmony, Chords, Bass’n’Chord and Bass’n’Pick modes are still here, along with all the original features. Direct input (no ‘intelligent’ scripting), so the Classic remains backwards compatible with older projects.

MusicLab’s latest update makes RealGuitar more real than ever.

Cut-mix-dissolve to RealGuitar 5, which expands on the original set of acoustic guitars with a brand-new Steel String model. Rather than adding this Steel String to the existing engine, RealGuitar is provided as two completely independent plug-ins: ‘Classic’ and ‘Steel String’. Additional features to both versions include a new ‘Multi’ playing mode, in itself a significant upgrade providing alternative and more versatile ways of accessing RealGuitar’s functions.

RealGuitar Classic & Multi Mode

The Classic version hosts the same eight acoustic guitar models as before, repackaged in an austere monochrome/orange GUI. All features and functions of previous versions have been retained to ensure backwards compatibility when revisiting older projects. As you’d expect with a new version, there are new features, the most significant being the aforementioned Multi mode, which joins the main tab strip in the centre of the GUI. Whilst you can still use the original Solo, Harmony, Chords, Bass’n’Chord and Bass’n’Pick modes of previous versions (found under the MIDI mode tab), Multi brings all keyboard performance aspects of RealGuitar under one roof via a multitude of methods including keyswitching, velocity, modwheel, aftertouch or sustain pedal, in whatever combination you choose. Given the almost infinite number of possible permutations, especially when keyswitch assignments are taken into account, RealGuitar helpfully allows you to save every setting and parameter value of Multi settings (except Humanize settings, which are global) as User presets. There appears to be no limit to the number of User Multi presets, so song-specific setups can be saved and easily recalled as needed.

Chordal playing in Multi mode expands on the ‘legacy’ Chord mode with options to customise the layout in numerous ways to bring greater mobility and additional playing techniques that were not possible in previous versions. Central to this are four Layout boxes that define strumming behaviour, melodic movement within chords, and the actions of finger-picking keys. The ‘Strum’ box determines what you hear when chords are played in the main playing area: the strummed chord, the leading bass note of the chord, or nothing (until trigger keys are pressed) if ‘silent’ is selected. Strumming realism is greatly improved here, with four different Dynamic options to control how velocity affects the number of ringing strings.

The Steel String in the new Multi mode. In this example, strummed chords are in the first position. Using Dyn = Velo Strum 2, only the lowest three strings sound at lower velocities; higher ones are progressively added with higher velocities. Velocities above 120 will trigger a hammer-on chord, velocities below 80 will trigger harmonics on the ‘picking’ keys. The black picking keys C# to A# will also trigger a hammer-on at whatever velocity they are played. Voice leading allows for movement of notes within a strummed chord. Keyswitches above and below the playing area are assigned to various actions and articulations.

In the ‘Melody’ box you can choose whether or not to add melodic lines over sustained chords, have voice leading (movement within chords), or a combination of both. These particular chord/melody combos depend on accurate control of key velocity; higher velocities produce a chord, whilst lower velocities play the melody or leading voice, which may seem counter-intuitive as one’s inclination is to belt the melody notes out a bit harder. Fortunately you can add a positive velocity offset to melody notes if they’re too quiet relative to the chords. The velocity switching point can be set to any value — nevertheless it takes some practice to get the hang of it!

The ‘Strings’ box offers three different layouts for the finger-picking trigger keys: two variations above and one below the main playing keys. The ‘Black’ box assigns the function of the black keys in the picking zone, and becomes active only when the ‘string-picking’ trigger keys are also active. Options include harmonics, strums, mutes, hammer-ons and slides. Chords played in the main area now have both high- and low-velocity triggered effects (in MIDI Chord mode it’s either one or the other). New high-velocity effects include Hammer-on, a typically guitaristic gesture where between one and three notes of the chord fret-slide up to the target chord; Pre-Hammer, a similar gesture where the main playing zone keys sound the pre-hammer chord, the target chord is reached once a trigger key is played; and Slide, which is similar to Hammer-on but simulates a bottleneck slide rather than a fretted one. Both Hammer-on and Slide speeds can be adjusted freely, or tempo-sync’ed to specific note values to sit in with the feel of the track. The Multi section already presents a lot to take on board, and the features described above only scratch the surface. The manual, incidentally, runs to 138 pages! However, we haven’t yet taken keyswitching into account, and all the new tricks that brings to the table..

KeyswitchFest

Multi mode’s keyswitch assignment page. Any of these functions can be assigned to any key — layouts can be saved as presets and selected independently from Multi presets.Keyswitching of effect

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