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How do you adapt guitar lines to electronica?

QmisheryQmishery
edited December 2018 in Other

Long time ago I mostly played guitar, recording my own tunes. Now I think about remaking/rearranging such oldies, but with synths. Maybe including hardware monosynth, maybe iOS-only apps.

Anyway, here it comes the question. You might understand that many guitar-based genres have totally different approach than electronica (edm or else). So it's not always straightforward like "ok I make midi notation out of my tune and import to synth". (Which would be enough in cases where melody is entire song)

Instead, it's like... it's "riffs, riffs, riffs, often with repeatition, using tremolo (and I mean pluck technique and not effect), slides, bends, hammer-on and whatever" that sounds totally right with guitar, but it's not something that would work with synths (unless you imitate guitar which ISN'T what aim for.. ).

So my question is more about re-composition? Rather then technical
Like, "how do you adapt your post-hardcore/post-rock into techno/dnb/BerlinSchool" question

Comments

  • tomato_juicetomato_juice

    Ableton's audio to MIDI conversion is pretty good, if you have access to it. Actually it's worth checking to see if you can convert clips/recordings with the Live Lite versions that you get for free with Gadget, Patterning etc. (can't confirm).

    As for recomposition, it's all about the rhythm! There's a groove there, that you can squeeze out of a synth. Make it groovy.

  • QmisheryQmishery
    edited December 2018

    So you can get away with "you repeat this chord 16 times in a row without sounding dull" in synth music too huh

  • ohwellohwell
    edited December 2018

    Riffs can translate relatively well. Think 80s King Crimson, or more recently St Vincent. Sounds like your stumbling block is rote chord work? Maybe you could try taking a step back. You need to support the same chords in a way that sounds genre appropriate. Keep the melody. What if you started eg writing a bass line that supports those chords but that’s in the style you’re looking for. Or even more simple, start with pads for the chords, so you’re not tempted to mimic the rhythm. (Basically, any genre appropriate thing that helps you avoid copying the guitar part, while preserving the chords.) You could then ditch the guitar chord work and just look for additional ideas to complement what the bass line (or pads) does.

  • MulticellularMulticellular

    I’ve gone through the same path, well except that I still play guitar half the time. Similar to @ohwell I just think about the key, chords how fast they change, amount of needed rests and then try to build a patch that has the right attack sustain. For timbre, often approach that similarly to overdrive, though creating it more often with osc wav type and noise. I also often consider whether there are arpeggios that make sense, even when not in the original. For whatever reasons, I guess in part the fast transition ability of mono synths, I like arpeggiated parts more on synths than guitar.

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