Clean electric guitars now play recorded notes
Clean electric guitar parts are now played from recordings of a real guitar, through the same amp as before. In blind listening they beat the old synthesised sound every time.
Until now every guitar note in the player was synthesised: a model of a vibrating string. For clean electric guitars that changes today. Their notes are now recordings of a real guitar, plugged straight in, and played through the same amp sound as before.
Why
We compared the two blind, on the same bars, without knowing which was which. The recorded notes were preferred on the clean guitar every time, and were also judged closer to Guitar Pro. On distorted guitars the synthesised string won the same test, so those stay as they are.
What you'll notice
- Clean parts (the clean, jazz and muted electric guitars) sound more like a guitar: a real pick, and notes that ring the way a string does.
- Slides, bends, vibrato, the whammy bar, let ring and palm mutes all work as before. Harmonics and dead notes still use the old sound.
- The first time you open a song with a clean guitar, the player fetches the notes that song uses, about 4 MB for a typical part. Your browser keeps them for the next time.
- If the recordings can't be fetched, the part plays with the old sound instead of staying silent.
Distorted and overdriven guitars, acoustic guitars and bass sound as they did.
The recordings are FreePats' "Electric Guitar FSBS (direct)", released into the public domain.