Funky guitar sounds - from a keyboard, no less

[ThomCat]

This is a request for some "what's a good way to get this sound" information.

I have been fooling around with tunes in the Boney James/Jeff Lorber/Kirk Whalum genre...lots of funky percussive grooves with primarily keyboard and sax based leads and accompaniment. Most of the music in this genre/subgenre also includes a lot of funked-up guitar licks as primarily percussive accompaniment, as well. The general sound is that of a Strat with the pickups out-of-phase, fairly clean with little if any distortion, short delays or doubling, abundant chorus, maybe a little verb and some compression, and occasional wah. Lots of short licks with lots of hand muffling technique thrown in.

Applying these tweaks to the keyboard/module/sampler patches I have seems fairly adequate, but there's room for improvement. Having made much steady improvement in the other areas, it's actually now the weakest part of my tracks. What have you experts found to be the best patches or sample-roms that can give these kinds of guitar sounds? Please chime in, I know you're out there. I know the Line Pod 6 and Roland COSM and other black boxes have a lot of great paths to crunchy, distorted thick guitar sounds, but what would be the best FX boxes for these jazzier/cleaner-but-still-funky guitar sounds?

Ironically, my original instrument was guitar, and I may have to resort to going back to a real guitar and doing it the old-fashioned way, but that would mean I would have to get my very rusty chops back up and buy a whole lot more gear, two things which I am not looking for an excuse to do. I'd rather create MIDI performances direct from keys, if possible. Li'l help?

[372cat]

Hi ThomCat,
Please check out my website...it's a business designed with people like yourself in mind. As an introductory offer, I customarily offer my clients 50% off their first project.
As for the style you describe, I am a huge fan of Paul Jackson, Jr., the guy who really wrote the book on that style rhythm guitar. Let's talk!

[372cat]

Ooops! I was in such a hurry to hit the door with my daughter for kindergarten...sorry!
www.proguitartracks.com

[ThomCat]

Agreed. PJ has been gettin' it done since the HeadHunter days, and still today cuts screamin' tracks with Bob James and others. I'll check your site and let you know.

[Sugarite]

Hrm... which rant to use, the "keyboard replacing real musicians" rant, or maybe the "there's more to music than tone" rant...

I'll spare the whip and suggest that you'd probably gain a lot more enjoyment out of picking up the guitar again than laying down sequences depicting what you would hope to play if you only could.

I also suggest that if you gave yourself a chance you would come up with nuances to what you're looking to get that you couldn't possibly have found or been able to reproduce through sequencing.

At least consider a Mexi Strat and a POD...

[ThomCat]

Yeah, I guess I opened myself up for a lot of that kind of abuse...I'm not saying I couldn't be talked into going back to playing real tracks, but I'd like to exhaust the keyboard avenue first. I've got too much time and gear invested in trying to reproduce all of the other instruments. Of course I would never try to do lead lines that way, I'm just looking for subtle funky textures.

What's a "Mexi" Strat?

[bassmac]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by ThomCat:
What's a "Mexi" Strat?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That would be a Strat that's made in Mexico. Less expensive than the American version, and the quality is quite good, especially if you upgrade the pick-ups.

BTW: Have you tried out your Rosetta yet?

[372cat]

I know you'll have fun trying to cook up guitar parts with your keyboard/module/sampler patches, but if you get to a point where you feel like you're not getting what you need for the amount of time you're putting in, just go to my site, create a secure folder for yourself, send me a rough mix mp3 of your project and let me send you back some guitar parts as AIFF or SD2 files, ready to drop right into your mix. Enjoy!