Using MIDI Guitar 3 for scat-singing improv

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As a scat-singing experiment, I tried using MIDI Guitar 3 set to the Factory\Synths\Synth Backing.Patch then using my Shure SM58 mic as input.

I needed headphones to avoid feedback. I left one ear sligthly uncovered so I could hear my voice and the F#2 C#3 drone tonic reference I played on my keyboard (I’m a bass).

The generated MIDI appears to work well with instrument samples as long as slides/bends are supported.

Tremendous fun!

I’ll be interested to hear if anyone else gives this a try.

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A lot of my music has an improv element to it, including this song. It is avant rock in style. I used MG3 along with a Shure SM58, MOTU 8Pre USB for my interface and REAPER for a DAW and Audio Modeling SWAM Double Bass and Neural DSP Darkglass to turn my baritenor singing into a ‘bass guitar’ part. The video version has my performance of the bass part, though some of the video and audio don’t line up perfectly as I edited some stuff out of the audio side after recording. And you are right, recording with MG3 using your voice is, extremely fun!

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Thanks for sharing :sunglasses:

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i think this is the trickiest part - finding the right balance between voice and instrument in the headphone mix.

pitch-wise things should be fine, but i think it will be hard to precisely control presets which change character based on volume.

also i think most vocalists will naturally tend to change the character of their singing to match the output, but a flat delivery might work best.

i’ll be working with a singer this fall who would like to use her voice to compose pieces using early instrument models. i’ll post the results if we have success.

for vocals it’s possible that midi cello/violin will be better.

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Thanks for your comments. Since I’m new to MG, the main challenge for me is figuring out how to have Native Instruments Kontakt 7 instrument samples respond to slides and bends. I don’t want software slavishly trying to snap my vocal pitch to a well-tempered pitch slot–or worse yet, indecisively oscillate between.

Snce I’m a violinist, I’m also anxious to try MIDI Cello/Violin–for both vioin and vocals. I’m waiting for the Windows Beta.

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The “problem” is that there are hundreds of Kontakt instruments and it often depends on the individual instrument how slides and bends are handled and tweaked. Since MG3 supports MPE and Kontakt doesn’t really, it is probably not the best choice as a sampler. What sounds are you mainly looking for (strings, brass, woodwind)?

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I appreciate your providing info about the lack of MPE support and inconsistent interface of Kontakt instruments.

Can you recomend some good sources of instrument samples that do support MPE. My desired sounds range pretty widely: classical, jazz, and ethnic. I also need the flexibility to to perform in Western and non-Western scales/modes and tunings.

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Yes, Kontakt does indeed lack MPE support, but can nevertheless be used in MPE or MULTI mode in MG3 with good results. The thing you need to do to be able to change the instruments pitch bend range, which isn’t always a possibility. Some Kontakt instruments are “locked” from the developer (they have two cogwheels instead of a wrench on the settings button), but otherwise it shouldn’t be impossible to set up to work. Take a look at my video on how to use Kontakt with MG3, if you are interested.

For good instruments you can take a look at the SWAM instruments first and foremost for both jazz and classical. The are the most moldable. They also work fine with all kinds of tunings Western, non-Western, microtonal or other.

https://audiomodeling.com

Some interesting tuning resources are Wilsonic and Odd Sound. (Both are free)
https://wilsonic.co
https://oddsound.com/mtsespmini.php
They use a special MTS.ESP protocol that can branch out to retune many instruments simultanesly to the same unimaginable tuning.The SWAM instrument are not MTS-ESP compatiable unfortunately.

But look at synths like Surge XT, Xfer Serum, and Dune 3 perhaps. Neither of these are particularly good at what you are asking for though, the sample based retunable instruments.

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Thanks so much for taking the time to provide this detailed help–especially the video. Thanks also for the suggested instrument sources.

Since I’m using MG3 primarily for violin and voice, setting the MG3-displayed Kontakt 7 Bend Range was all I needed to get going melodically with Native Instrument samples: bends, slides, Middle Eastern scales. From violin string overtones, MG3 did frequently generate additional false MIDI notes.

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