Some of your example songs are country… I can’t find a country band in the settings (instruments, rhythms, fills, etc.) I have written a song in Jimmy Buffet style and was looking for a country band option with country instruments (like a pedal steel guitar).
I was looking for the same. Country band would be great.
pedal steel (or really most slide) guitars are fairly complex to make realistic. there are a couple of VST instruments out there are can do a decent job of mimicing a lap steel, but pedal steel is tough - lot of different controls involved in the real instrument pedals, knee levers, slides, tunings, etc.
but of course it would be nice to have 
right now i just create long notes for placeholders on slide parts then use either BIAB or Ample Slide Lapsteel to create the final version in the DAW.
for country songs - i often blend a couple of basses and guitars to get close enough and likely replace those parts in the DAW if they’re not exactly right. and sometimes use a couple of drums rhythms and simply turn off the cymbals in one and add them from another pattern, same for kick and snares.
piano - much trickier in Hookpad, so, i’ll again block out the piano parts and replace with EZ Keys later. sometimes the accordian can get a sound that is useful but not always the MIDI…
so for a simple country song in Hookpad, i may have 3 drums, 2 basses, and 3 guitars + the blocking notes and instruments for piano, slides, fiddles, etc
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That’s a good idea. I’m always looking to improve our sound/pattern library.If you give me some links to songs, I’ll be happy to take a look at it. Maybe I can create a band-template for you.
Regards!
Dennis
It usually sounds whiny (like a dobro guitar) to me, but not always. Here are some examples. Dire Straits uses it well, as does the Mary Tyler Moore Show Theme (starting at about 45 seconds in).
Since my friend likes Jimmy Buffett, I wrote the song in that style - happy and laid back.
Since I am a new user, it will only let me add one link, so I’ll send the second link in another post.
BTW, are there any steel drums available? I couldn’t find those either.
Thanks for your help! Great product!
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Thank you for the song suggestions. I think for the second song the accompanying instruments are pretty much straight forward. We already have those instruments/patterns in Hookpad. The big problem will be the slide guitar. I have no idea how to mimic this as we have no automation lanes like MIDI CC, modulation or pitch shift to control those slides in Hookpad. The only thing I could think of would be an instrument that slides up to the note on every start note of a phrase, plays legato on concurrent notes and plays longer notes for arpeggios on every sixteenth note. Of course this is not nearly enough to make this sound realistic, but would that help? Or do you have any other idea of how to automate an instrument as complex as this?
I see the problems with the instrument. In fact, I once heard a musician describe playing the steel guitar to be like driving a tractor trailor on a bumpy road and changing gears while eating a sandwich in one hand and drinking a milkshake with the orher. He probably has as much going on as the drummer at any given time! I appreciate you checking on this for me. I don’t see myself using it that often. But I’m trying to create a country/beach sound for my song. I was hoping for a country band with “fiddle”, steel guitar, steady drums with a heavy backbeat, etc.
Thanks so much! I’m new to the software and hadn’t thought of layering that many times, but I was able to get close to the sound I wanted by using multiple instruments and silencing parts of each to build a different composite sound.
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