Is it possible to make guitar sounds with a keyboard Logic Pro X?

Define "Guitar Sounds"

Have you tried in Garageband?

As both a guitarist and keyboardist my first response is no, but I should qualify:

There are many types of guitar sounds from acoustic strumming to chorused Stratocasters, wall of sound Les Paul/Marshall amps, to heavy metal grind, power ballad leads...etc. There are also many ways to produce sound... there's pre-made Apple Loops, there's virtual instruments, there's guitar effects pedals.

Most importantly there's the performer, you kind of have to know how a guitar creates it's sounds and is played in order to replicate guitar phrasing.

I feel most every guitarist will say no, can't be done and while I tend to agree I've done a couple of distorted guitar leads that worked for me.

I think you will get a lot of replies so I'll sit back and watch.

Have you used an Audio/MIDI sequencer/recorder before, Logic is a highly developed (complex) professional program, like a recording studio in a box.

Do you have Garageband? It's a very simplified but still powerful version built on a subset of Logic.

Well..........

As a keyboard player who has spent a musical lifetime, wishing he could play guitar.. but cannot...

You can make very passable guitar emulations with a bit of work and effort in understanding what is required to emulate a guitar sound and how it is played by a guitarist...

While the sounds themselves are fairly important in creating a passable guitar emulation using a midi keyboard... it is much more about how you play and how you use controllers such as pitchbend, aftertouch and so on, that really allows you to make a sound... sound like a real guitarist than anything else...

You can easily start off using the built in sound and FX libraries with Logic Pro X and get some 'in the mix' guitar emulations that work reasonably well.. and later, if you wish you can step up to using plugins like the sampler Kontakt and Guitar libraries like Pettinghouse or Electri6ity, which provide many different articulations such as slides, palm mutes, pinch harmonics, tapping, trills, octave chords, unison bends, harmonics, release notes, fret noises, hand noises, pick noises and strum noises... along with the use of Amp and pedal simulation FX plugins like Guitar Rig (GR)... or you could go the other route and use a specialized guitar emulator plugin like Musiclab's RealLPC or RealStrat.. again used in conjunction with FX plugins like GR or Amplitube...

But again, it is much more about what and how you play... rather than the sounds themselves, to produce a fairly convincing guitar part in a track.... and such techniques take time to learn...

mackleberry wrote:

This might help clarify: the program that I've been using is Mixcraft 6, but I can't use it on a Mac. It has all the virtual instruments I could ask for, including guitar. Does Logic Pro X have something similar?

Yes.... LPX is a much more expanded version of what Mixcraft has to offer...