Synth/Keys Emulation

Vaiai

Looking for something that can do keys but not wanting to go midi...lots of people are asking for songs for weddings from us which have keys and we are a 2 guitar band.
Most recent ones are a Brandon Flowers song which has a Bronski beat sample all thru it and then this classic, Electric Dreams:


Any pedal or unit I can get that would do a decent job?

Vaiai

I have a Helix too but not found much online that can get close although I am no expert in the synth side of it - hardly spent any time with those features

octatonic

Just learn to play the synth parts on a keyboard.
You can buy something for a couple of hundred quid and most pop/rock keyboard parts are an afternoon's work to learn.

If you don't want to do that then just play the parts on guitar and don't worry about emulating the sound- just play the right notes.

Whitecat

Something from the Boss SY series perhaps? They just released a '1000' which is the latest and greatest but also the spendiest. There are some pretty sick demos on YouTube of the SY300 though - maybe that's enough for you - and has been out long enough to probably be findable secondhand at a good price.

bloodandtears

octatonic said:

Just learn to play the synth parts on a keyboard.
You can buy something for a couple of hundred quid and most pop/rock keyboard parts are an afternoon's work to learn.

If you don't want to do that then just play the parts on guitar and don't worry about emulating the sound- just play the right notes.

This..... ^^^

I am playing Journey's Separate Ways synth parts on guitar..  purists may balk but it's a great song and "our" interpretation. ;-)

Vaiai

octatonic said:

Just learn to play the synth parts on a keyboard.
You can buy something for a couple of hundred quid and most pop/rock keyboard parts are an afternoon's work to learn.

If you don't want to do that then just play the parts on guitar and don't worry about emulating the sound- just play the right notes.

Our drummer does actually play Keys so he does the Your Song first dance stuff etc but obviously that's not quite so easy with intros to songs he then has to drum on

octatonic

Can he do a Josh Dion?

Roland

Guitar synths are good for slow things, such as string pads. They aren’t good at grand piano sound which require tight timing. That’s partly about the mechanics of playing guitar, and partly latency

chris45

I'm in a covers band and we will mostly play the synth parts on guitar - if we get asked to do a song where it has to be a synth then we dig out a synth and play.  Pads and strings can be done reasonably easily with a swell effect and lashings of modulation on guitar, but that kind of arpeggiated sound at the start of Electric Dreams has to be a synth.  I didn't watch all of Andy's demo for the Boss synth, just the intro, but he was playing mostly minim duration chords and the solo line was 1/4 notes at most.  If I was to do that I would get an arpeggiated synth and trigger each figure with one key.

Funkfingers

I agree with octatonic and Roland. If the music demands a keyboard part, the simplest solution is to perform it on keys. As already pointed out, guitar synthesizer and MIDI Guitar is okay for pads, leads and Summers/Fripp/Belew stuff but unconvincing for pianos, clavs and organs. 

If it is an organ sound that you require, the Electro-Harmonix Lester G pedal might do the trick. Its combination of compression, overdrive and rotary loudspeaker emulation will hint at Hammond organ without the inconvenience of having to transport and maintain the real thing. Add the Pitch Fork pedal to the signal chain and things get more interesting.

ESBlonde

For some synthy solo lines the Electro Harmonix range of Key '9' guitar pedals offer some options that don't stand up to solo listening but can sound decent enough in the band context. You have to modify your playing style for some but you don't have to learn a new instrument.

The KEY9 does mainly piano

The C9 and B9 do Hammond/Organ sounds

The Synth 9 does synthy sounds

The MEL9 does mellatron tape sounds with simple brass and some vocal like sounds

There may be something there to cover a few basses, do audition them before buying to see if you are capable of modifying your playing if appropriate. You can often 'blend' guitar and effect sounds together, but unless they are both staccato or sustained it can sound weired sometimes.

For reference I have a MEL9 that I use occasionally in a two guitar band setup.

p90fool

I have an EHX C9 I use for some keyboard parts but I mostly play synth lines on guitar. That said, if a requested song is as bad as that Oakey/Moroder thing I do often just say no. 

Danny1969

Guitar synths can be crazy effective, just adding a string part like I'm doing here sounds so much bigger 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a66FTui2jUw

I would say though that if you have 2 guitars in the band then one of you needs to learn keys. Most of the parts that need playing are pretty basic mainly right hand parts so it's not that you need to learn how to be a concert pianist. 

thegummy

octatonic said:

If you don't want to do that then just play the parts on guitar and don't worry about emulating the sound- just play the right notes.

I think that would work - most people don't know what instruments are playing what parts, as long as you're playing the right chords and/or notes I doubt anyone would care.

thegummy

I've never really tried these emulation pedals so I could be wrong, but I'd imagine it's often not as simple as playing the part on the guitar and the pedal translates it in to the correct keyboard part - I'd think you'd have to also learn to play the parts in a specific way so that the notes are played the way keyboardists play them.

That sounds like it might be fairly difficult, quite possibly more so than learning to play basic keyboard parts on an actual keyboard.

ESBlonde

thegummy said:h

I've never really tried these emulation pedals so I could be wrong, but I'd imagine it's often not as simple as playing the part on the guitar and the pedal translates it in to the correct keyboard part - I'd think you'd have to also learn to play the parts in a specific way so that the notes are played the way keyboardists play them.

That sounds like it might be fairly difficult, quite possibly more so than learning to play basic keyboard parts on an actual keyboard.

That is true, I did allude to that in my comment. The real advantage is a lot less gear to but and carry and you can swap to straight guitar with a click.

Flanging_Fred

I cover some keyboard parts with guitar in our band. We are happy to alter songs to suit us as best we can without getting too hung up on accuracy.  For example we do ‘Cars’ by Gary Numan so I try and make it less guitary with fuzz, flanger, octave and reverb.  For us, that works well enough and no-one has ever complained.

I agree about changing technique to suit though; covering organ tones with a POG is fine up to a point, but it doesn’t sound convincing it you’re just using a plectrum,  chordal notes need to be hit at the same time so it needs to be carefully finger picked really.

I did try a solo using a stylophone at one point but every time the stylus touched the keyboard there would be huge electrical ‘CRACK!’ through the p.a. Not great, which was a shame as it would have suited the song really well.

thegummy

Flanging_Fred said:

I cover some keyboard parts with guitar in our band. We are happy to alter songs to suit us as best we can without getting too hung up on accuracy.  For example we do ‘Cars’ by Gary Numan so I try and make it less guitary with fuzz, flanger, octave and reverb.  For us, that works well enough and no-one has ever complained.

I agree about changing technique to suit though; covering organ tones with a POG is fine up to a point, but it doesn’t sound convincing it you’re just using a plectrum,  chordal notes need to be hit at the same time so it needs to be carefully finger picked really.

I did try a solo using a stylophone at one point but every time the stylus touched the keyboard there would be huge electrical ‘CRACK!’ through the p.a. Not great, which was a shame as it would have suited the song really well.

What about putting the Stylophone through a volume pedal and leaving it up for the crack then press down to play the solo?

I've found that when I occasionally pick it up (not exactly an instrument I practice daily lol) it helps to use electrical contact cleaner on it but not sure if it would stop the crack you talk about when put through a PA.

ESBlonde

A passive DI would stop the crack as long as the transformer gave full isolation.