The beautiful scripted interface puts keyswitch-based performance control front and centre up to 16 effects can be racked up from a library of 30 guitar-orientated modules and the TACT (Total Articulation Control Technology) page facilitates customization of the Sustain and Mute articulation mappings. Capturing a Fender Stratocaster in four articulations (Sustains, Palm Mutes, Release Noises and Chokes) over three octaves (12 frets), with up to three dynamic layers and four round robins, it’s easily enough to get the job done for mix-ready lead and rhythm parts, the latter assisted by the handy Strumming mode.
Impact Soundworks’ Shreddage series of massively multisampled virtual electric guitars is widely acclaimed for its dazzling sound and stellar playability, and Stratus Free gives you more than just a taste of the full Shreddage 3 Stratus. As well as the main rhythm guitar instrument, you get four ‘Licks’ patches, too, each providing a collection of riffs, widdles and incidental bits and pieces for elaborating on the central strums.Īlthough evidently intended to serve as a pre-production tool first and foremost, there’s no reason why Songwriting Guitar shouldn’t also be used in actual projects – it sounds great, and is certainly more versatile than first appearances might lead you to believe. Three guitars are involved – an ESP LTD Deluxe, an Epiphone Custom and a Fender Strat TexMex, all plugged into a 1962 Drawmer preamp – and you get a good degree of governance over the sound thanks to the onboard EQ, envelope controls, filter and LFO-driven gate. Instead, think dark, dissonant and brooding, with plenty of sustained drones.Aimed at songwriters looking to conjure up instant acoustic and electric guitar parts for compositional purposes, 8dio’s cleverly constructed library lets you trigger major and minor chord loops in all 12 keys, with four keyswitching strumming rhythms and 12 keyswitching effects. Thrill is not really designed for light and cheery melodic parts. However, while there are conventional instruments amongst the samples, in the main, they are not played in conventional ways. The presets themselves are divided into Atmospheres, which are predominantly unpitched with the emphasis on sound design, and Clusters, which blend playable pitched sounds with sound-design elements. These recordings number just shy of 1000, and two pairs of these (each pair is termed a ‘Thrill’) can be combined to form a single preset. These range from purpose-made orchestral recordings featuring large string sections, brass and woodwinds, various vocals and numerous percussion sounds to synthesized sounds and various tailor-made instruments.
Thrill is build around a 40GB sample library that features an impressive and somewhat eclectic array of source recordings.And, providing the musical thrill you are after is of the dark, menacing, suspenseful kind, Thrill provides a suitably scary ride. NI describe Thrill as a “cinematic tension performance instrument”, and although there are presets within the instrument that can be played in a conventional sense, Thrill is perhaps closer to a sound-design tool. If you liked Rise & Hit, then I suspect Thrill will also be of interest as it is aimed squarely at the same sort of music-to-picture producers.It has proved very popular and you have, without doubt, heard it on numerous action/tension/sci-fi music cues over the last few years.
A previous collaboration was Rise & Hit (reviewed in SOS July 2014), a Kontakt instrument for creating tension risers and sound-design style ‘hits’. Thrill is the latest joint venture between Galaxy Instruments and Native Instruments.