Episode 28: Virtual Instruments

In this episode of the Face Your Ears podcast, hosts Justin Hochella and Rich Bozic dive into the world of virtual instruments. They discuss the creation and use of virtual instruments in modern music production, focusing on guitars, basses, pianos, and drums. They explore the nuances and techniques used to mimic real instruments' sounds and provide practical examples using various software tools such as Native Instruments' Kontakt and Logic Pro. Listen in as they showcase the versatility and authenticity of these virtual instruments and share insights on how they can enhance home recordings.

00:00 Welcome to Face Your Ears Podcast

00:25 Studio Updates and Side Projects

01:49 Today's Topic: Virtual Instruments

02:25 Understanding Virtual Instruments

05:06 Virtual Guitars and Basses

17:38 Exploring Virtual Pianos

22:45 Virtual Drums

26:06 Conclusion and Podcast Updates

For Production Services, Coaching and Lessons, visit:

www.rjbmusicproduction.com

For help prepping your songs/voice for the studio:

www.bozicvoicestudio.com

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Transcript

Justin 0:10

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Face Your Ears podcast. My name is Justin Hoeschela, and I'm joined by Rich Bozek.

Rich 0:21

Hello. How's it going? Good to be here again. Another episode. What's been going on? how's the studio doing these

Justin 0:28

It's good. It's doing really well. I am actually embarking on a little side project studio wise. I've been building a vintage studio. So I recently picked up a classic Macintosh from the early nineties. And some various basic equipment from the early nineties, just to limit myself in terms of the technology. And it's been very trying it's very much a one step forward, two step back kind of thing, but it's been fun. other than that, let's see. been producing. I just finished a song, actually mutual client of ours, and that was a lot of fun. I even had the opportunity to do a Ghostbusters square dance, call song, which was a lot of fun. One of the most fun things I've done in a while. So yeah, there's a few random things I've been up to. How about you?

Rich 1:22

my stuff has been a little more mundane. I've actually been cleaning my equipment. I've had some interference with some of the channels on the mixing board, some of the gain knobs are getting a little crackly. So I ordered some contact cleaner. I've been going through one. knob at a time and cleaning things up and getting things to sound pristine again. That's what's been going on here. Along with the teaching, the writing, all that

Justin 1:47

Great.

Rich 1:49

to today's topic. Why are we here today, Justin? What are we talking about?

Justin 1:54

Well, Today we're talking about something very near and dear to my heart and very very far away from my vintage little music studio I'm building. today we are introducing the topic of virtual instruments and really how far they've come, specifically emulating quote unquote real instruments. And today we're going to be focusing on guitar, and bass. As well as piano and drums. So we're going to be talking about those and kind of listening to what they sound like in today's studio.

Rich 2:24

That's fantastic. So what are virtual And how do we go about using them or making them?

Justin 2:31

virtual instruments are interesting because it's something that you use. In your DAW, you load it up as a plugin and at first blush, it seems like, Oh, this is just a synthetic instrument. However, these virtual instruments are based off of samples and recordings of real instruments. Acoustic or electric, like guitar, instruments. generally what happens with these instruments is a company that is in the business of building these and creating these will meticulously sample, The instrument using different microphones, different placements of the microphones, different articulations of the different notes across the spectrum of performing, and they'll essentially combine all of these samples into a virtual instrument. That's a plug in that you can load into your software and then just play. With your keyboard, And it's pretty remarkable that they're able to capture that sort of human feeling sound, through these instruments by meticulously, sampling every little, you know, note, uh, played across all these different dynamic ranges and styles and so forth. And what's really cool too is, is all the different flourishes and articulations that come with playing, say a guitar, like a string bend, strumming on the uh, you know, with, with the strings muted, like that kind of percussive sound, like things are are put together in a package where you can just load it into a track and your DA and all of a sudden you've got a guitar player or a piano player And so what's interesting too, is just as sort of dovetail off of that is it's not, Just the instruments that sound really great you have to be able to actually still play and be musical. But even that is changing with something like Logic Pro and its session players, right? So you can load like a piano player or a drummer, for example, and you've got a virtual, you know, musician essentially in your dog. But that's a whole different topic, really. But it does dovetail nicely to the virtual instruments. to wrap it up. it's amazing how much detail and care goes into these instruments sounding so authentic and real. And we're going to take a little bit of a tour through some of them in today's episode, just to give everyone a sense of, what they actually sound like.

Rich 5:04

that's a good encapsulation. I think the first thing we should talk about you mentioned strumming bending and you were talking guitars. Can we talk a little bit about virtual guitars and bass? And perhaps we could even let the listeners hear some examples.

Justin 5:19

Yeah, absolutely. when you think about a guitar or a bass, there's almost an infinite, Array of sound that can be produced. And a lot of it is so nuanced, if you strumming guitar and in a very soft, gentle kind of way, you get one sound, but if you really slam it and are really chugging away you know, playing metal or something, you get a totally different sound. and then there's everything in between. what's really great about these instruments is these companies have been able to capture the nuances and performances across many different styles and playing techniques. so I think the best way to kind of. share this is to listen. So I'm going to start us off with a little bit of acoustic guitar. And for today's episode, I'm using a virtual instrument called Kontakt. And that is the flagship sample instrument from a company called Native Instruments. So Kontakt has been around for many, many years. It's used by professionals around the world, in professional recordings, in movie scores, you name it. And you're going to hear why in a moment. It sounds pretty remarkable. So here's an acoustic guitar. I just put some MIDI chords into Logic Pro and this is what it sounds like. So there you go. That is a computer playing back some MIDI notes using a virtual acoustic guitar. I can even go in to that, instrument and I can actually select a different playing style. So let's listen to what that might sound like if it was more of a muted guitar. So there you go.

Rich 7:25

Wow. I mean, as a guitarist, the things that I'm listening for is, What does the pick sound like against the strings? All of those details that you get familiar with when you an instrument for a while,

Justin 7:40

Yeah.

Rich 7:40

them. I'm hearing, uh, that kind of thing. I'm hearing the way the hand is touching the strings to make that

Justin 7:47

Yeah.

Rich 7:48

happen. I'm hearing the nuance of, the velocity at which the pick is hitting the strings. It's unbelievable what is possible now.

Justin 7:56

I love how we can go from that open sound to that muted sound. And even that, that sort of crescendo and the way the sound changes, over time, it really is remarkable. So. That's acoustic guitar, just a little bit there. Here is electric guitar. This is again, electric guitar. Native instruments contact. And this is an instrument called electric sunburst deluxe. So let's check it out.

Rich 8:22

Alright.

Justin 8:31

There you go. very much electric guitar. it has that nice distorted, crunchy sort of sound. and. With electric guitars, effects are a really important thing for us to think about and craft the sound. With this instrument, it comes with a whole array of effects. What if we wanted to really crank up that reverb? And make it sound like it was in like a giant space. We could do that. So let's hear what it might sound like just drenched in reverb. So there you go. And that's built right into the instrument.

Rich 9:17

Someone playing in a tunnel under New York City.

Justin 9:20

there's so many different, effects here that we can play around with and really dial in the sound.

Rich 9:26

What are some of the parameters you can tweak, I guess,

Justin 9:28

there's so many parameters. There's all the different effects. There's even very nuanced things like noise. There's a noise section here and you can increase, for example, the fret noise. So if you want that more authentic kind of fret noise sound of the fingers rubbing against the strings as the person's playing you can do that. You can tweak the pickup. Which pickup you're using the bridge, the neck, or both. You can tweak the bridge pickups volume and tone. So there's just so much detail that you can dial in to get the perfect sound.

Rich 10:04

the Tears rolling down the cheeks of the starving artist trying to

Justin 10:11

Yeah, you can, you Can even select all the different, flavors of ramen noodles that you can eat as you're putting it together. So let's check out some bass guitar. And this is again, contact and they have an instrument called, uh, Prime base. So I'm using prime base. And this is kind of a little Motown base given that I am in the heart of the Motor City, Detroit. So let's listen. There you go. I really want to like, make this very clear. They, this is a virtual instrument, so I'm going to take the tempo way down. So I was 120 beats per minute. So now I'm going to change this to 100 beats per minute. And I have a very simple MIDI sequence in here. holding down a few notes. And the instrument is doing the performance. And so that's, what's amazing about this. So I'm going to play this back again. Now it's a hundred beats per minute, so there you go. Totally virtual. I can change the tempo, I could change the, pitches of the notes if I wanted

Rich 11:34

Give us a taste of that. Give us a like a tweak the

Justin 11:37

Okay. what I'm gonna do, just to showcase it, I'm gonna transpose this uh, a couple semitones. same riff, just transposed up. It's so easy to change things like pitch and tempo. Then if it's like, well, I want to, I want a different riff there. Can we try something a little different? And so there's all these different patterns that I can play around with. So here's a different pattern just using the same sort of chord progression, if you will. So there you go. A little taste of base in your face.

Rich 12:28

Nice. That was a great showcase of guitars and basses. I'm wondering when you're with guitars and basses, can you mess with the amps and the speakers? like a solid state versus tube? Can

Justin 12:42

yeah. So I'm going to go back to the guitar for a bit here. And there is a section called amps and effects. So it's not just effects, but you can also change, the different amps that you're using. for example, I'm using kind of an overdriven, they call it hot solo plus amp. So I'm just kind of play some notes here So I can dial that back a little bit. I Can make it less distorted And I tweak the gain can take the treble down, maybe increase the bass, take that gain a little down. There we go. So let's see. It's a little darker. So very easy to dial that in. let's see. I can also try a totally different amp. So this is like a van 51 amp, kind of a van Halen style, maybe a little dirtier there. so it's easy, easy enough to do. And then I can take those out completely and it's totally clean. let's see, one, two, three, four, five, six different amps and cabinets that you can use just in this instrument, not to mention everything Logic Pro has available to it. It's wild to think about the number of effects and amps and, and, Cabinets that, that you can just play around with and find your sound. So here's another one called twang. little, a little bit of a different color there on, on this. So it's just almost hitting that hot distorted sound, but it's giving it a little bit of a different color.

Rich 14:34

Yeah, the possibilities are endless. The beauty of all of this that I see is, you don't need to be a billionaire to try out a bunch of different amps and tones and pedals

Justin 14:47

yeah,

Rich 14:48

I think that's really an advantage. the emulation of these sounds has really come a long way. I've read things on various Musician websites where people have compared the real thing to the virtual and it's hard to differentiate and it's getting harder and harder to differentiate. And I think just as everything technology goes, uh, when as human beings love something. We're going to go hard on it and we're going to you know, make it as accessible and as easy as possible, uh, to get that sound that we want, right? So those classic vintage amp sounds from those Marshalls and Mesas and whatnot, there's someone out there digging, trying to get that better. to be able to bring that into the virtual instrument I know some people are mixed on that, if someone creating music at home and doesn't have a crazy budget and you could only commit to so many instruments, right? This is a great opportunity to be able to dabble. in different sounds and get some of

Justin 15:57

yeah, yeah. The relentless march of progress marches on and I think a lot of it is. Probably fear or insecurity that, you know, somebody who's dedicated their life to the guitar and different amps and, and instruments and so on and so forth. Like it can be very disconcerting to say the least to have something like this come along. And the reality is like if somebody were to use this like write music for a commercial, mass majority of listeners would just hear it and be like, Oh a, that's a guitar or whatever. They wouldn't think twice about it. And so I think to your point, this just creates a level of accessibility and flexibility that's unprecedented in music history. And it affords people these opportunities that were. impossible in the past, you know, I want to audition six amplifiers. Like, Do you have 60, 000 to order these and get them shipped like send them back? I mean, That's absurd. It's insane. So it's it's really remarkable. and it is a bigger conversation like, what, what are we potentially losing and giving up by having these kinds of tools? Because they're There is a cost that is not financial. I think. bringing an understanding of music and music theory and those sorts of things is a really important element to all of this. think it's most dangerous when these things are just viewed as a shortcut, and, and there's no footing for,

Rich 17:34

Yeah, there's no desire to create something

Justin 17:38

yes, Yeah,

Rich 17:41

Can we talk a little bit about pianos, virtual

Justin 17:44

absolutely. Yes. I am using Kontakt again. This is a piano instrument they have called the Grandeur. And the Grandeur is essentially based off of like a concert Steinway piano. And once again, we have So many nuanced details. So we can change the tone of the instrument. We can even listen to it with the lid open or closed. We can tweak the sound of the pedals that are used when performing.

Rich 18:17

the noise of the pedals too, I think it's crazy. So someone probably sat there with a microphone and just recorded endless samples and all the different configurations. some studio swabby there. Adjusting the mic, things around, raising, lowering the stick on the, on the lid. it's, it's a lot of work goes into these things. And some companies are really known, for their fantastic samples. I know Yamaha has been recognized for some of their. Samples that they have on some of their keyboards and some of those, samples live on in newer iterations of the keyboards or are sought after as add ons to the newer keyboards,

Justin 19:02

in just pure software terms, contact native instruments for sure. Spitfire audio is another one. that's awesome. Especially when you get into like more orchestral things. And it's pretty remarkable in today's world, whether it's a video game or a movie, you. A lot of times when you're hearing a giant orchestra play, it's some person at their laptop, you know, using software similar to what we're using today. Uh, that's not always the case. however, you know, when budget is limited, you can't hire John Williams and the London Philharmonic orchestra it's Just not feasible, but instead you might have spitfire audios orchestral package that costs, you know, maybe 1, 000. the London Philharmonic orchestra is probably like 1, 000 an hour. So, you know, it's it's just, pretty amazing.

Rich 19:56

that's,

Justin 19:57

wouldn't doubt it.

Rich 19:58

it's probably more than that. I imagine with all those players. Yeah. So let's hear some of these piano sounds.

Justin 20:02

what I want to start with is just because the piano is such a nuanced instrument, right? And so I'm just, I'm sitting here at my keyboard right now and I'm just going to place the same note in sort of different styles. So I'm just going to play it really soft and you can hear it's very gentle. And now on the other end, and you can hear a difference. in the sound, Like it, it genuinely sounds like a, like a piano. even articulation, right? So just sort of staccato, you get that sound. So it's very, like very subtle differences here, not just triggering the same sound over and over and over again. that's Not what happens on a real piano. You're getting a very specific sound based on how that note was played. let's take a listen to just a little bit of a performance here. And, uh, I just wanted to mention that for this, I did use Logic Pro's Session Player. So I told it what chords I wanted it to play, and this is what it did. Came out. there you go. The grandeur from native instruments, contact being played by logic pro. that's an interesting example because I, like I didn't program anything in, like it guess. Mm hmm.

Rich 21:41

a starting point. If you're creating music,

Justin 21:44

Absolutely. Yeah,

Rich 21:45

and then you go in and you can start tweaking things, changing the rhythms. Maybe changing, uh, some of the ways that the notes are played, the velocity, the length, maybe making the chord progression a little bit different. So that should be a starting place.

Justin 22:00

really the focus here is more to show off what it sounds like and the musicality of it comes from the person. Massaging. This is the word that comes out. I don't want to use that word, but I just did. Sorry. But you know what I mean? It's, it, is up to the person to sort of tweak that. you can do that in multiple ways. You can print this to just overwrite it. Pure MIDI notes and tweak those notes. You can perform this yourself. You know, If you want to just play the keyboard and perform it, the sky's the limit. but in terms of sound, I mean, it's beautiful. I mean, That's Mean, that's me playing But just the sound of the instrument is Amazing. I love it.

Rich 22:44

move on. I want to talk about Drums

Justin 22:50

Yeah.

Rich 22:51

are always a cool thing when it comes to virtual instruments because frankly drum kits are very expensive and once you get a drum kit a keyboard or a guitar. You can't really do too much with the sound unless you have a Electronic drum kit. when you're buying a real acoustic drum kit You got to know what you're listening for If you're, you know, looking for something high end or whatever, but virtual drum kits, can dabble, without having to pay 5, 000 for each kit, that you want to test out.

Justin 23:25

Yeah, and I am using contact here. They have a drum kit called Abbey Road, modern drummer. And again, these drums are recorded in a, you know, studio that is professionally treated. These drums are professionally miked. You're getting all kinds of, different positions of the microphone across the drums. again, the articulation and the nuance here is, very, very, very detailed. I'm using logic pro drummer here. So another virtual, session player, at our disposal here. let's take a listen, see what this sounds like. there were even some actual like hand claps in there that we were able to hear. again, just to kind of give you a sense of the sound, uh, you can tweak that, dial in the fills. The different drum sounds. I mean, It's it's pretty amazing. And you can even go so far as to tweak, individual drum sounds, on the kit. So you can click on a drum here, like a tom. and, you can even change it out to whatever, you know, Tom, you want, you can even change the individual, Tom's, or the, you know, kick drum, you name it. it's pretty awesome.

Rich 24:49

You know, I have a, little story about, emulated drums. That was mind blowing to me the other night. So I have, uh, a Yamaha, DTX stream 3, electronic drum kit I have a lot of Yamaha instruments. I really like Yamaha, the thing that blew my mind when I was playing with the drum kit I noticed when I played the bass drum, I was hearing something like the sound, like almost like as if the snare was activating a little bit and I'm like, what is this? Like, what's going on here? I turned the snare volume all the way down and it was gone. But then when I turned the snare volume up and I wasn't even playing the snare, and I would hit the kick. it emulated the springs rattling around and activating on the snare drum. When I would

Justin 25:36

Sympathetic vibrations. Yeah. Wow.

Rich 25:40

Cause when you're playing a real drum kit, you, if you hit the bass drum, other things are going to vibrate on the kit. I was floored. I'm like, this is this is awesome. It's just like a real drum kit. When you hit that kick, you hear that spring rattle a little bit. I thought that was really cool.

Justin 25:54

I love that. And that's the kind of detail that you're going to look for, I think, with these kinds of instruments and the kinds of things you can expect are these small nuances and details.

Rich 26:06

This was a great little sampling of virtual instruments. Just to recap, we talked a little bit about what virtual instruments are and how they're put together, and we gave you some examples of guitar, bass, piano, and drums just to get a little of what these things can sound like. So I hope you go out and explore, and try to use some of these virtual instruments on your own when you're doing your own home recordings. Also, podcast is now on YouTube. don't have a video format yet, but the audio version of the podcast is up on YouTube if you happen to listen that way. Please share the podcast with, those you think who might benefit from this. so Justin, thank you so much, uh, for today's topic.

Justin 26:56

Yeah. It was really fun to explore this. This is something I can. Go on and on about, I absolutely love virtual instruments, and we're going to put links to some of our favorite virtual instruments in the show notes. So please check those out, take a deeper dive. There's a lot of free demos available too, so you can check them out on your own in your own DAW of choice. thanks again everyone for listening, and we'll catch you on the next episode. Bye for now.

Rich 27:24

take care.