Hey Luke, great job with Strum Machine! I love the way it’s evolving. My question is this, can you make the big box bluegrass guitar sound more like an old Gibson L5 or Martin O-18. Most Old Time musicians don’t play Martin Dreads. The Old Time guitars are usually not as bright and brassy. Also, the guitar bass line often goes from root to upper 6th down to 5th down to to 3rd and start over on root. (G / E / D / B /) where / = strum. Lots of other Old Time guitar bass lines are used. The strum is not as big either, usually only the last four strings.
Give a listen to ‘All I’ve Got Is Gone by Rhys Jones; or Rascal Fair by Brad Leftwich. Also, Cider by Bruce Molsky and Sunny Side of Life by Ashlee Watkins on Old Time Sweet hearts Vol 2. .
I use Strum Machine at my weekly Old Time solo fiddle gig at a Farmers Market here in Pensacola. I play SM thru a Spark Mini for backing. Usually just the bass and a little bit of guitar. I also play Trad Irish (great guitar on SM), and some swing.
We appreciate you!
Jerry
1 Like
Hey Jerry,
I’m going to break down your request into several parts:
- Changing the sound of the guitar. It’d be fun to offer this, but it’d mean re-recording thousands of audio samples on another instrument, reliving one of the most tedious experiences of my life. That doesn’t make it out of the question… but it makes me hesitate.
And adding new instruments like banjo would be higher priority. I may add some EQ controls in the future, which could potentially be used to mold the sound a bit.
- Moving bass lines. Yes I would love to offer this, and likely will someday. If you really want to hear them in a tune in the meantime, you can program these yourself with the “Bass Note” tab of the “Chords” menu in the editor. But I fully acknowledge that this is a clumsy workaround to something that should be automatic, like bass runs are now! (Have you cranked up bass runs and leading notes on your old-time tunes?)
- Strum not as big. You can adjust the “Boom-Chuck Balance” in the guitar settings to make the chucks smaller. For what it’s worth, only a maximum of four strings are ever strummed.
I’m guessing you might also like to hear your G chord with the open B string, and/or hear A tunes played with no capo. Both of these options are available under Band Settings > Guitar > Chord shapes & voicings:
I’m glad you’re enjoying Strum Machine! More instrument options (and presets!) will be coming in the future.
1 Like
Thanks for the quick response! Yes, I am using bass runs and split measures with success. I will try chord voicings and strum mods. I see your point regarding new sampling. That’s prohibitive! As you said, a good substitution would be the ability to EQ the guitar. As you’re adding banjo, please consider the ‘Clawhammer’ style as well.
Thanks!
Jerry
2 Likes
