Previous attempts to extend the chord choices of audio loop guitars have involved adding MIDI guitar notes to the loop. Or substituting a MIDI guitar pattern completely. Neither of which are really acceptable solutions.

If you add a 6th and a 9th for a 6/9 chord to a maj chord, you now have an eight string guitar, and intervals and voicings that are utterly wrong. If you substitute a MIDI guitar pattern for something like a diminished chord (because you can’t get the required notes to start with from the normal maj/min/7th choices) you then have the issue of a considerable change in the sound of the guitar and the accuracy of its strumming or picking pattern. Same with augmented chords, suspended 4ths etc..

Let’s face it, if you COULD go seamlessly from an audio loop to a MIDI guitar pattern and there be no audible difference, why bother with the audio loop in the first place?

So, to avoid these audible problems, I think the way forward is that which Korg and Yamaha are pursuing. Specialized guitar modes that always voice chords with at most six strings, and shapes that a guitarist can play. If anyone listened to the VSTi guitar demos, you can hear they haven’t far to go compared to the distance audio loops are going to have to travel to achieve a fully playable chord selection.

BTW, we haven’t really discussed voicing yet, something the better VSTi’s are addressing. Guitarists don’t jump around on the neck usually when going from one chord to another, they will pick the inversion that is closest to the position their hand is on the neck. Now so far, I have not heard anything about the audio guitar loops being recorded in three or so inversions to facilitate this. And I don’t expect to, given they haven’t got the time or money for even a root position of many commonly used chords.

But things like this are fairly simple for a MIDI guitar pattern generator. In fact, before they discontinued it (and left the field altogether a couple of models later!), Roland had a guitar mode that would change guitar inversions as you moved up and down in the chord recognition area! And it would voice chords to whatever inversion was closest to the previous chord if your hand didn’t move much…

It is subtleties like this that often keyboard players don’t understand if they don’t play guitar, but can instantly recognize audibly if done well or done badly. We have had a lifetime listening to real guitar players, so even without knowing WHY something sounds wrong, we can recognize it.

With a dual core CPU, it looks like the new Ketron has the horsepower to enable a VSTi quality guitar mode, and I hope that they seriously consider pursuing this in future rather than taking the initially easy path of a limited selection of audio loops. I will happily compare any decent VSTi guitar mode against Ketron’s audio loops and defy listeners to tell which is a real guitarist and which is the loop. But the minute you ask for anything more than a basic chord, or get a jump around in inversion or picking pattern because of a change in chord or key, it becomes easy to tell the difference.

Please, Ketron, consider the better solution to guitar parts. Audio loops are a dead end and your competition is improving better solutions while you sleep. I have nothing against Ketron, I have always offered criticism of features in the hope that they will be improved, and we all benefit from the advance in musicality of the arranger.