New To Real Strat- Helpful hints needed

[Bluezman]

Hi everyone, just bought RealStrat. Loaded it up, and was a tad disappointed. I read some things here in the forum, and understand about needing an amp sim, and that Ampli duo is not the greatest... I do have GR 4 and Pod farm, so, tried those out.

Again not to thrilled. I understand there is a lot of technique to making a guitar part sound real, but , I was hoping that just playing a chord would make it sound like a strat, or at least like a guitar.

So am thinking there is some mixing that needs to be done, eq, compression, maybe some other plugins too. Have not gone there yet..... yet.

But was thinking a catagory should be started for us newbies, on getting that real strat sound.

So am hoping all you pro's, the dr, and all, could post some tips, not on playing the parts, but how to make it sound realistic.

Realistic in tone, and all.

I think it can be a great product to use, just need the baby steps to get there.

So please post what you think will help us newbies to achieve that strat sound.

[mmutee]

Take a listen to this track and tell me what you think:

http://soundcloud.com/mutee/strat-rock/s-bAONj

Would be happy to share my approach if you like it.

[Bluezman]

sounds good... would be a good point for me to get to... so... enlighten me...

I have Guitar Rig 4, Pod Farm, the duo that came with rs... have been also been thinking of taking the midi file dry, convert to wav, and send that thru a gt-10, but have not done that yet...

[mmutee]

Ok, so few basic things that I find useful:

Turn off the Pick Noise from mixer (or bring it down really low).

From Output, reduce the "Hi" frequencies as RS gives out too much hi-end for guitar amps to handle.

Pick position, experiment with it, I find the most realistic spot to be far left.

You will notice that chords on higher notes sound bad, so you will need to do something about that (like avoiding it? or trying a lower velocity value for that part)

An EQ before and after the guitar amp should be placed to adjust the sound as you see fit. Usually I cut a lot of mid frequencies because RS signals are unrealistic and harsh when passed through an amp sim. You will have to find the harsh spot that your amp sim creates.

Make use of more guitar layers in your song, more accompanying parts to the main part. If you have several layers of stuff happening in the composition, a lot of the problems with this instruments will be masked.

Experiment with Keyswitches to achieve more believable playing.

Use repeat keys to play repeated parts for more realism.

[Bluezman]

appreciate the tips... that will get me going. One thing I was sort of disappointed with was not being able to turn on and off different pickups... that is where the strat really gets its unique tone...

[mmutee]

Yes, the pickups, but they would have had to sample the entire library again and again with all the pickups. Would have been awesome though. Also missing is the sound of left-handed muted chords, the unmelodic kind, quite useful in Rock music.

I really really hope Musiclab guys are working a new product which has multiple guitars (including basses) with multiple pickups and all the amazing articulations from LPC and RealStrat (and the ones that were left out).

I would buy that in a hearbeat!