Electric guitar → classical reconstruction
Nylonize turns a complete recorded electric-guitar performance into a playable nylon/classical interpretation. The default render is deliberately conservative: it preserves the source phrase length and timing, while improving the physical attack, body, resonance, voicing, microphone perspective, room, and output headroom.
Email me the latest Nylonize downloadOn Windows, run the emailed Nylonize-1.5.6-Windows-x64-Setup.exe. On macOS, expand Nylonize-1.5.6-macOS.zip, copy Nylonize.vst3 to ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3, copy Nylonize.app to Applications, and rescan the DAW.
- Drop one WAV, AIFF, MP3, or FLAC file onto the window.
- Press Analyze and wait for the full timeline to populate.
- Leave Preserve Performance and Time Lock selected for an exact-length first pass.
- Choose a guitar model, set Realism and the mic/room controls, then press Convert.
- Use Play Original and Play Result for A/B. Pause resumes from the current position; Stop resets playback.
1. Analyze the whole performance
Nylonize first reads the complete file. The timeline shows the source waveform, detected note activity, chord regions, and the reconstructed waveform after conversion. Analysis estimates tempo across 40–240 BPM, key, duration, and phrase boundaries. If a loop filename contains explicit metadata such as 99 BPM - Bbm, those values populate the analysis readout; otherwise Nylonize uses the audio spectrum and attack grid. The analyzer is intentionally not a live, destructive effect: the source remains available for comparison and the render can be repeated with different settings.
Use Key / Override or Tempo / Override only when the automatic reading is wrong. The override changes musical interpretation; it does not move the audio start or end when Time Lock is enabled.
The note detector adapts to the local playing style. Fast picking uses a short retrigger window, preserves clear repeated-pitch attacks, and can rescue a weaker event when its timing continues a rhythmic pattern. Strums still group tightly spaced string attacks, while sustained and legato material receives stronger retrigger suppression. Each transient is classified as strong, medium, or weak before pitch evidence and event ownership decide whether it becomes a new nylon pluck. A validated strum receives one full pluck owner; weak inner-string movement inside the active 120 ms gesture remains part of connected decay and sympathetic resonance instead of restarting a full sample. Arpeggios and fast-picking attacks remain separate when their pitch movement and strength show independent intent.
Tempo and key hints are read from common loop-library naming. A folder such as 105 bpm or a filename such as 99 BPM - Bbm provides explicit metadata before acoustic estimation. Chord-token names such as _Dbmi7Gb6... also provide a tonal centre hint. Use the manual overrides only when the library metadata or analysis does not describe the musical source.
Playback controls
Play Original and Play Result select the A/B source. Pause freezes the current playhead without discarding it, while Stop clears the preview and returns the playhead to the beginning. Starting the same source after Pause resumes; starting it after Stop begins again.
2. Choose the performance behavior
| Mode | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Preserve Performance | Default. Keeps the source note starts, bar positions, phrase length, and release timing as closely as the analysis allows. |
| Naturalize | Adds restrained human variation while keeping the musical structure and timing stable. |
| Re-arrange | Allows more classical voicing, string choice, and phrase breathing. Increase Re-arrange Amount from a host or automation lane when you want a clearer reinterpretation. |
| Pro | Maximum reconstruction freedom for a more authored classical performance. Use this when exact source timing is less important than a convincing guitar part. |
Time Lock is the safety switch for production alignment. On, the result has the same sample count as the original. Off, Re-arrange and Pro may add natural tails and breathing room.
3. Shape the player and instrument
| Control | What it changes | Starting point |
|---|---|---|
| Realism | Couples restrained timing/velocity variation to the physical render. Higher values add more believable phrasing, decay variation, and resonance. | 45–65% |
| Flesh ↔ Nail | Balances a soft finger/flesh onset against a brighter nail/string displacement. The attack is synthesized as a short physical transient rather than a generic click. | 45–55% for natural classical tone |
| Pluck Softness | Softens the generated pluck and recorded sample onset. Connected pitch changes use a slower legato onset instead of retriggering a hard transient. | 60–75% |
| Guitar Model | Chooses the voicing and tonal profile: concert, Spanish, flamenco, warm/bright nylon, fingerstyle, studio, or vintage classical. | Concert Classical |
| Re-arrange Amount | Host-automatable amount used by the Re-arrange and Pro modes to choose practical strings, frets, chord tones, and voice-leading. | 0% for source-faithful work |
The voicing pass favors playable classical positions, open strings, low fret travel, chord roots, and neighboring-string voice-leading. It is not a one-for-one MIDI pitch copier.
Tempo and Key Override are musical inputs, not one-time analysis results. Choose a manual key before or after Analyze; Nylonize keeps that selection when you press Convert to Nylon and uses it for the render and exported MIDI. Leave Key at Auto to use the detected key.
4. Place the virtual microphone
| Control | Character |
|---|---|
| Mic Position | 12th Fret is balanced; Bridge is focused and woody; Neck is rounder and fuller; Stereo Pair widens the image with a little more room interaction. |
| Distance | Close is intimate and dry. Increasing it softens the direct attack and increases the modeled room contribution. |
| Room | Dry, Studio, Room, and Concert Hall set the early reflection and tail character around the reconstructed guitar body. |
The renderer applies a high-pass around the low-end rumble region, a warm body band, controlled upper-mid brightness, and a mic/room response. This keeps the result from becoming artificially bright above roughly 1.2 kHz while retaining the string definition needed for a playable part.
5. Keep the tone natural
Upper harmonics are retained during the first part of a pluck and then damped rapidly over roughly 30–80 ms. The sustain is filtered warmer than the attack, with separate decay behavior for bass, middle, treble, open, and fretted strings. Finger entry varies subtly by string, and sympathetic/release resonance fades into the body instead of starting as a separate click. The body model combines uneven resonances in the low bass, warm low-mid, wood, and upper-body regions rather than applying one broad bass boost.
The analyzer uses local attack density to distinguish fast picking, strum, arpeggio, melody, and sustain. It debounces only when the timing and confidence indicate a duplicate, ignores small vibrato changes, and marks pitch movement without a clear transient as a connected gesture. That lets the render preserve riff articulation while using a quieter legato onset for slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs, and sustained movement.
6. Choose the exported length
Match Source Length is the default and is intended for DAW replacement: the exported file ends at exactly the original sample count. Include Natural Decay adds the body, sympathetic, and room tail after the source phrase. This choice is independent of Time Lock: Time Lock preserves note timing, while Tail Export chooses the file boundary.
7. Keep output levels safe
Peak Target controls the final conservative peak ceiling: -3 dBTP for mastering headroom, -1 dBTP for a normal production render, or 0 dBTP when you explicitly need maximum level. The default is -1 dBTP. The target is applied after the body, mic, room, and resonance stages so later processing does not unexpectedly recreate a hot output.
What the render is doing
Conceptually, the offline render follows this chain:
analysis → notes/chords → performance data → classical string/fret/finger voicing → nylon string samples → finger attack → sympathetic/open/chord/release resonance → body/cavity tone → microphone/distance/room → peak target
That order is why the result can remain aligned to the source while still gaining physical detail. The included recorded open-string classical-guitar bank is used when installed; a deterministic procedural fallback keeps the instrument usable if the bank is unavailable.
Troubleshooting
- Result is still too bright: move Flesh ↔ Nail toward Flesh, choose Neck or Studio Classical, increase Distance, and use Room rather than Dry.
- Result feels too flat: raise Realism modestly, move Distance away from Close, and try Studio or Room. Concert Hall is best used after the dry balance is right.
- Timing does not line up: enable Time Lock and use Preserve Performance or Naturalize. Re-arrange and Pro are intentionally freer.
- Output is too loud: choose -3 dBTP, then export again. Do not compensate by turning up the input file.
- No VST3 in the DAW: rescan the selected VST3 folder after installation. The standalone can be used immediately while the DAW rescans.
Nylonize is an offline instrument: render, listen, compare, and choose the interpretation that serves the track.