yesterday wasn't as absolutely productive as i hoped, but i did get a guitar part and a string part down, and i think i've found a way to make the violins sound better. it's the staccato that's hard to get with the right force. i think the problem is that the people writing the plugins are listening to too much rossini and not enough beethoven. so, you can get a nice schmarmy bourgeois sound, but it's harder to get that overly-serious rockin' the bows to a satanic hymn overture sound - which is weird, because that should be much easier to reproduce in a wavetable based synthesis. regardless, i think i got it. if i'm not satisfied, that'll be the focus the rest of the night. i think i've found a great general string solution, i'm just not completely sold yet. but finding one will actually open up a lot of possibilities. in the past, i've used e-bows and i actually picked up a cheap electric violin a while back that i've never played because it needs a setup. doing this over midi is the best answer that's going to give me the flexibility i need and want, it's just a question of getting it done.

i've also got it tactically worked out. this is necessary sometimes when i get too many ideas to try and cram into one space. i've oversaturated some mixes in the past and have learned that it's better to be a bit more subtle in how ideas come in and out. so, if i'm listening to something and i get this it needs a piano! and eight guitars! and a kazoo! type response, i need to be careful about overloading. i think i've got it worked down to focusing mostly on a crescendo...

it's really just scattered parts to finish before i add the bass, which is a more substantial project. it should be mostly done by the morning, but i keep saying that....

i will one day take a few months of violin lessons, just to get the bow fundamentals down. beyond that, it's just another string instrument, and, from a string player's perspective, it's just a question of teaching one's self the geometry of the thing.

i know that pisses some people off. i think it was peter buck that pointed it out. he was all like "listen. a mandolin's not just a funny sounding guitar. it's it's own thing.". i get where he's coming from, but sometimes you just want a funny sounding guitar...

now i'm remembering that my mandolin disappeared. grrr.

what i'd actually like to see thrown out there some day is a midi guitar with the electronics built into the guitar (you could do it with an iphone chip, and things much cheaper than it) that has a switch selector on the side that allows the player to switch instruments: guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin, ukelele, violin, cello, etc. i know there's tuning issues, but that's actually easy to fix with a midi system. you throw in a usb out, and you should be able to actually set the tuning in the software. the strings will sound differently than the out, but that's of little importance if used correctly.

i think line6 has something like that (called "variax") but it's designed to model different guitars, and it's hooked up to the box. having the selector on the guitar itself would make the signal path cleaner.

but i should get back to work.