Six strings first impressions

[kensuguro]

Can't believe I bought it, but heck first impression is, it's well worth the investment. Of course, if you don't play guitar or bass.

What's good about six strings.. BASS. One word. The bass is extremely nice. It's got very nice smooth basses, suited for hiphop, R&B, funk, House, and likes. You can get that dark, looww, sexy bass sound. 2 thumbs up for this. Just the bass could be worth the price.

Electric guitars are okay. so-so if you ask me. Needless to say, it takes lots of experience to play it in such a way that it sounds realistic. The sound itself tho? Well, it does get very real at times. The whole things depends on the velocity range you want to play the guitar in. If you want a very dynamic range, like mute, and then mega hard picking (like funk), then I doubt six-strings can do it. On the other hand, jazz solos that don't get too excited can be doable. The mute sounds pretty nice.. only problem is that it's not very dynamic as well. A chain of mute/open in one preset seems be quite hard to achieve. (do-able, but very hard to play I think)

Acoustic? Don't mension it. I didn't think it's at all usable. Too little picking dynamics. Generally, the picking in six-strings is towards the weaker end, so it won't do extreme hard plucking. Which really messes things up if you want to do spanish style classic guitar solos. So, I'd say thumbs down for the acoustic section. Steel strings arpeggios may be ok on second thought.

There's another section.. slap bass. I didn't really understand what was "slapped" about the preset slap bass sound... again, it's probably because the slaps are too weak to be very snappy, like Nestor can do with his bass. In six-strings, it's more like "tapped" bass. Changed some parameters, but it didn't seem to do any good.

I looked into the picking problem and found out that it's being caused by the "damping" section. The reason most instruments in six-string sound kind of strange is because the damp amount is not properly linked with the velocity. Atleast it's not noticable. Obviously, the weaker you pick, the shorter and darker the sound. The stronger the longer and brighter. It seems that all this cannot be linked properly at the moment. I'm working on it tho.

Effects section.. The amp sim is quite nice. I like it. If Celmo's amp sim were to be called the gritty one, this one is the more "refined" one I think. Sounds like a finished mix almost. I personally like Celmo's better, but this one's a quicker, easy solution. And again, it won't produce ear piercing sounds. Chorus and delay are.. well, just plain. Nothing special I think.

So, all in all, six-strings has a very calm personality. Tends to do better on weak sounds and soft tones. Most of the parameters don't make drastic changes, but very minute, barely audible differences. (other than the more obvious parameters) It's not quite as responsive as you'd expect a guitar to be. So it seems like everything but the bass is sort of.. unimpressive. But really, the bass is seriously usable.

Also, all physmod type synths tend to be really hard to play. In other words, you have to be fiarly comfortable with the keys to make it sound real. If keyboard playing isn't your thing, I wouldn't recommend six-strings.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kensuguro on 2003-02-10 02:04 ]</font>

[Nestor]

Nice review Ken. Well, as long as you are satisfied, whatever the reason, even if it is cos of those inspiring basses you’re talking about and not the guitars, which is what the instrument is supposed to emulate, it’s great!

Well, it’s extremely difficult to emulate realistically, a distorted guitar… Anyway, I’m sure Creamware is going to come up with great upgrades, like it has always happened with almost everything. Be patient and in a few months you may have a great emulation.

I think it is a very interesting instrument, if you forget it is a “virtual guitar”. I would if I owned it. I would forget completely the fact it is a guitar, I would not try to emulate the impossible – hot distorted guitars – just using it getting different sounds out of the virtual box.

I, personally, if I were given the opportunity to buy the Six Strings, would just keep the money buying Vectron. I think the Vectron synth can do what the 6 Strings does best, those deep basses, with ease after a little work. Of course, I would like to have the Six Strings as I would like to have all Creamware plug-ins cos they are fantastic, but, if I had to choose something to buy, I would absolutely go for a Vectron.

[Grok]

Because I don't even know to play keyboards (nor guitars nor bass) I like very much the Six Strings

It makes new sounds for me, when my stupid fingers tries to hit the keyboard in an inconsistant way, Six-String is very kind to me.

I think Minimax with Six-String is a winning solution.

[kensuguro]

An idea just struck me.. I still think that the emulation isn't good enough to be called the "real" thing.. BUT, perhaps it does get good enough to replace a guitar part in its musical function. Like, if you look at a guitar riff as "a percussive part mainly moving in 16ths, and carries a bit of chord information", then, perhaps six-strings can do just the same. Maybe that's what the whole physmod thing is about. It's close enough to use the "shell" of the real instrument, being recognized as something along the lines of a certain instrument, but can stretch the boundries with unearthly sounds that aren't specifically realistic. All the while, still working under the same roof, this time being a plucked instrument.

The demo tune made me think about this. Sure, the sounds may not be quite "real", but the effect is quite similar I thought. The percussiveness, the groove.. I especially thought so when the initial contact sound of the picking of the bass, 1st guitar, 2nd guitar all started to work together to build a groove. That's perhaps something samples don't work too well on I think.

So, as many have already stated, perhaps six-strings is an instrument on its own.. rather than a pure "guitar" or "bass" emulation. Better yet stated, maybe it functions as a guitar at a conceptual level, and not in a physical way. Hmm.. but then what's physical modeling all about anyway..