Is there anyway to make a audio track of accoustic guitar strum sound like a banjo.
I have Cubase 11 pro and am familiar with the amp simulators ,im just wondering if the same sort of thing can be done from accoustic guitar audio track to banjo.
Thanks
Hi,
You can do some EQing, but it will not really sound as banjo.
Is it possible to use a 3rd party vst plug in ?
Hi,
It will always sound as EQed guitar. You would need to make a MIDI out of the Guitar signal (you can use SpectraLayers for this) then change the MIDI data so it matches Banjo playing style and then use any virtual instrument with the Banjo sound.
you could check out Proximity and Entropy EQ by sonible. They allow to emphasize the transient part of the signal and take out more of the tonal parts. I think you can demo them to check out if it leads into the right direction.
Thankyou
I have a Variax modeling guitar. In addition to a bunch of different guitars it also has a banjo setting. If I play an individual note it sounds very much like a real banjo. But if I play actual music it doesn’t really sound like a banjo because the physical thing I’m playing is a guitar and the way guitars and banjos are played and voiced is different. When our brains hear something that we recognize as a banjo some of that is coming from the distinctive banjo string sound but a lot of it is also because of the idiomatic way a banjo is played. The chord voicings and arpeggio patterns are different for banjos and guitars. I think even if you can manipulate the sound to totally match a banjo string being plucked it won’t sound like a real banjo but will sound like a guitar being played through some kind of banjo stompbox.
If you just want that banjo sound quality go for the audio manipulation. But if you want something that appears to be an actual banjo you’re probably better off finding a banjo VSTi.
I wish I was much younger and I would just have learned to play the banjo, but if you can play the guitar you can buy a a 6 string banjo which might sound pretty decent and you dont need to learn new banjo chord shapes,
Most vsti’s assume that you want the banjo picking sound, ,it’s the chord strum that I’m after,2/4 and 6/8 banjo chord drums simple celtic and country style,I should probably just ask Santa for a banjo and learn some chords.
EQ isn’t really going to do it.
However, you may be able to get close by using tools such as SpectraLayers or Melodyne DNA or that Spotify thing – they’re of varying quality – to generate MIDI from polyphonic audio. Then run the MIDI back into a banjo sample instrument.
If you’re really hard core, you could also get a bunch of recordings of the same song in guitar and banjo format, and then take an AI model tool like Spleeter, and re-train it to do instrument re-conforming. This probably requires a graduate degree in statistics and computer science to pull off, though 
There’s also this: https://engineering.atspotify.com/2022/06/meet-basic-pitch/
Finally, there’s the “Audio to MIDI chords” feature of Cubase 12 Pro. Maybe you can press that into service – again, re-triggering a banjo sample from MIDI you got from analyzing the guitar track.
Certainly a lot to think about there, maybe ill just save up my pennies and hire a banjo player lol, not worth the brain damage at my age lol
Jwatte ,many thanks for your advice,its all just above my skill level,thanks again.
Allyup