Learning a new instrument vs cheating...?

do you want humanity in your music, or robotics?

and i'm not saying one is better than the other, only that i prefer humanity in mine, so i limit my 'robotics' to extensively edited drum loops and drum samples.

i think it's a personal thing, to say to one's self 'i'm going to try to learn a new instrument well enough to emote with it'.


even if it's just a tupperware full of rice, used as a shaker.

Learning a new instrument is always good. Even if you never get proficient on it, it will still broaden your musical perspective.

But - I will never own a real cello, or a real set of tympani, or a glockenspiel. An accordion, maybe. But not bagpipes or a canon. These are all "instruments" I have used in songs and make no apologies for faking them.

I think musicianship and home recording is a trade-off.
I play my guitar, bass, bongos, congas, piano, and sing (obviously without autotuning).  But I can't drum to save my life, it's the feet that throw me off.  Combining my lack of ability with the noise and trouble of recording live drums, I'm happy to synthesize them.  I also haven't learned the cello even though I'd like to, so that's a synth too.
I use minimal in-the-box effects on my live instruments, and prefer to commit (apply fx) to the sound most of the time.
But that's only my way of recording, accomplishing the combination of what i want to do with my musical ability against my recording ability...
 
ps.  i can play the cannon, but my girlfriend won't let me...

Using a synth or even an artificial intellegent synth to create a part that you can not play is not cheating..... I use several including Jamstix because I am not a drummer... not even close. So I choose the synth. I look at it the same way as if I hire a session player. Hiring someone else is not cheating so why the guilt over "hiring a synth" to play the parts?

Embrace technology...and go create music.

If you want to learn an instrument...by all means learn it...you will be better for doing so.

A note on Real Strat & Real guitar..... even though it is a synth and sounds really good in the demo's.... you have to be willing to take the time to learn HOW to make it sound real..... the thing that makes a guitar part sound real is the small nuances that the player puts into the music...the way they pick or strum, the way they finger the strings...... but I have heard the demo's and with time and practice, it is probably a shorter route to a good guitar sound than buying a strat and practicing it.

I think JamesYoyo once and for all convinced me:

Samples are samples, period ... no matter what the source!  But it gets hazy with DimPro *samples*.  Consider EWQL stuff ... these are authentic samples.

Many guitar samples are authentic (like EW Ministry of Rock).  These are valid ... but require mouse inputs (like song writing) for me.

Robotics vs. human touch?  Your/my human touch may come more from 'writing' a guitar line and applying the *right* sample with TLC.

But robotics truly suck (in my pieces).  I'm afraid to use Jamstix and drum-machines ... but hypocritically rely on Superior Drummer phrases ... as a fast launching point for a *personable groove*.  Heehee.

Guitar is far more important than piano for my ears; the tones may be 'hacked' on an electric guitar, gently strummed on an acoustic, etc.

But I'm like you.  My guitar playing doesn't come near G_Hacker's, nor does my piano playing come near Mamabear's, nor does my vox come near Yoyo_Factory's. 

So I might do 10 times more takes than they do on guitar, piano, and vox.  Guitarists are also nearby and I solicit their help.

Some of us may *cough* hope to collab with you ... especially when you share your samples with us.

More importantly, might be: how to use the talent You/I have been born with.

The human vox (yours?) may be your/my ultimate focus anyway.  Like a portrait painter focuses on the head: other instruments support the head.

IOWs, my hypocritical cheating will not go un-noticed by anyone on this forum.

I think bat's got a good idea. But not practical for several of us. I want all kinds of strings and flutes and guitars in my music. There's no way in the world I could ever learn to play all those instruments. On the other hand, a strummed guitar is almost impossible to emulate. I'm thankful I've had a few collab partners help me out with that one. Of course my music doesn't sound like the real thing and it never will as long as I use samples. But that doesn't stop me from the joy of composing. Heck, I even have to edit my piano playing. :-( But if I were to take the time to play perfectly everything I want to compose, I'd never get on to the next song. And after over 30 years of practicing, I'm ready to have fun composing. If someone thinks my songs are good enough to play with a real orchestra, that would be really cool. Until then, I'll probably just keep doing what I'm doing.

   That is an excellent summery Janet.

  I would add the word respect. If I learn a new
instrument be it vst or real both have a learning curve.
One does not just grab a beat or sound and call it real.
It is passion for the instrument that makes its sound. 

In my own opinion, the guitar is one of the most, or if not the most, difficult instrument to digitally emulate.

Speaking as a guitarist, I would of course have to say that using an emulator would be cheating. I have taught my self to play various instruments, including the keyboards, and I love to just buy a new instrument some times and just play with it. However, I also cheat by playing the sax on the keyboard for example, when a real sax player isn't available. Why don't you befriend a guitarist, and get them to play the guitar parts. That way you can keep it real with out learning to play it.

It's not a matter of 'cheating' as the whole recording enterprise is essentially cheating.    It's a matter of what actually sounds better.
Always go the human route even if your chops aren't up to par...just play what you can as best you can then tweak with tools (cheat) at your disposal.
To play a guitar part with midi is no more cheating than using processing on vocals or using Jamstix or DKFH but it sure sounds a lot more fake than a real human playing it.

There is reality, which is the tracking, and there is the vision, which is the enhancing of reality. Depending on your vision, the message you are trying to convey lies somewhere in between.

There is no cheat there is just what serves the intent of the artist.

Glad you brought that up, Randy.   That is exactly why i add so many imperfections to my guitar parts so as to insure ya'll know i'm really playing it.

Old story, I may have presented it here before. Back in drafting school, when you still drew on paper with pens and pencils, (maybe I should have said "really old story"), I had to do a three point perspective, so that it looked 3D, of a building. The instructor wanted me to put a figure of a woman standing in front of the building to add to the perspective, give it some life. I told him I could not draw human figures, so he pulled a sheet from a book with figures on it, slid it under the paper and told me to trace it. My first reaction was to say it seemed like cheating. He informed me that if I did not get past that attitude I would never make it in the field. "None of us can draw everything, and using a tool is never cheating." Side a tree under the sheet, trace it, I'm drawing landscapes.

Now we just copy and paste things into the autocad program, cars, boats, people, trees, etc. If you need to draw a box that is "x" wide and "y" tall, then another box that is "x" by "y", you copy it. Is that cheating?

Using the tools you have at hand is never cheating. Having the tools and not using them...that is cheating. You are cheating yourself.

Later
Albert

So the near-unanimous consensus seems to be that there is no such thing as cheating when it comes to making music.

They're not cheats, just tools. All records are illusions of reality anyway. And Beethoven couldn't play the French horn. At least not very well.

Of course, this is exactly the response I would expect from a group of people who all cheat!

It isn't cheating.  However - guitar is pretty easy to learn and is a great compositional tool.  I play keys and guitar and compose on both.  Knowing a few easy open guitar chords will allow you to compose quickly - and differently than on Keys.  Plus - You can walk around with a guitar and catch some inpiration in different places.

Knowing how to play guitar - even a little - will allow you to use RealStrat more effectively because you'll know how to voice and arrange and think like a guitarist.

If you're considering guitar, why not give it a whirl?

Hi again all,

Thanks for the amazing feedback in this thread, its really helped put things into perspective.   In the end I decided to do both.  I picked up RealGuitar and RealStrat, as well as a copy of the Guitar Tab White pages. 

To start with I'm going to use the soft synths to mock up my guitar parts while the creative juices are flowing.  In the meantime I will continue plugging away at learning the guitar.  Hopefully one day I will be able to revisit these tunes and replace the 'fake' guitar sound with a real one.

Heres hoping...
I do intend to post a few examples of my 'work' in the songs forum asap, however the high standard on display in there coupled with a bad case a thissongisneverfinished-itis has prevented me from doing so thus far...
Andrew