Baritone Guitar Washes is a cinematic pad instrument for Kontakt. Its uniquely versatile WASHES sound design engine creates beautiful ambient swells, pads and pluck & stab sounds based on recordings with an aluminium neck baritone electric guitar custom-made for legendary Italian ambient composer Eraldo Bernocchi (Sigillum S, Obake, Simm, Harold Budd, Bill Laswell).
INTRODUCTION
BARITONE GUITAR WASHES is a versatile Kontakt instrument based on sampled recordings of a custom-made hand-built baritone electric guitar with an aluminium neck by NUDE Guitars (see pictures below). The deep resonance and incredible sustain of the instrument make it perfectly suited to designing long pads and other ambient sounds.
BARITONE GUITAR WASHES is based on our proprietary Kontakt engine (WASHES) that incorporates three layers of sound – Body, Grit and Air, each with a specific function and sound characteristics.
BODY LAYER
The Body layer contains the core guitar samples, in various pickup positions (Neck, Mid, Bridge) and playing styles (Harmonics, Straight, Ebow). These samples are looped/layered to create “swells” with close to infinite release times. It also includes several instances of “pre-washed” samples, swell sounds that were recorded using custom delay and reverb settings on a Kemper Profiling Amp. Sample start times, attack and release are highly customizable, allowing for anything from short, dry naturalistic pluck sounds as well as organ-like stab sounds (without the initial attack of the guitar pluck) via 10s risers that end abruptly to classic slow-attack and slow-release pad sounds.
GRIT LAYER
The Grit layer serves to add a distorted, dissonant, scratchy or bowed flavour. This can either be dialed in low in the mix for a sprinkling of darkness and texture, or dialed up to be a featured element.
AIR LAYER
The Air layer contains a few different instances of moving air (a household hoover, air blown across an Irish Low Flute) for some high-frequency/breath-like sizzle. This layer can be added to produce organ-type sounds (think Hammond or Wurlitzer) and hints of choir.
MORPHING
All three layers can be morphed by applying several target sounds (usually combinations of sounds from other layers). There are controls for direction, speed and strength of this morphing effect, allowing for maximum soundshaping capabilities.
There are also detailed FX controls as well as an “EDGE” control mapped to the mod wheel by default for some added saturation and spectral shaping to bring out extra dirt and presence.
The resulting palette of possible sounds is unique in its breadth, whilst still retaining the DNA of the original sound sources. Whether you’re looking for icy, thin trails, warm, sparkly harmony pads, or edgy, scratchy atonal textures, BARITONE GUITAR WASHES is guaranteed to have something for you.
KONTAKT INSTRUMENT
BARITONE GUITAR WASHES is a two-page Kontakt instrument designed for as a powerful tool for detailed sound creation.
MAIN PAGE
MASTER Controls for Volume, Pan and Stereo Width, as well as an “Edge” control for added saturation and spectral shaping and a main level meter.
FX Controls for Distortion (including Damping), Filters (LP, BP, HP), Delay (including up to 100% feedback time for endless textures) and Reverb (including length).
EQ Low, Mid and High Frequency EQ with variable Q controls.
LAYERS PAGE
BODY, GRIT and AIR Controls for Layer Source Sample, Volume, Sample Start, Attack and Release as well as a layer-specific level meter for each of the three layers.
MORPHING A number of controls are available for BARITONE GUITAR WASHES’ morphing capabilities. For each layer there is a selection menu for Target Sample and controls for Morphing Direction (base layertarget layer), Morphing Amount and Speed.
THE RECORDING SESSION
The guitar session with Eraldo Bernocchi (Sigillum S, Harold Budd, Bill Laswell) was tracked using an ultra-quiet Profiler Amp from German high-end manufacturer Kemper Amps owned by Eraldo himself.
GEAR BREAKDOWN - Custom hand-made NUDE Baritone Electric 6-string guitar with aluminium neck
- Kemper Profiler Amplifier
- D’Addario strings gauges .13-.62
- Cello Bow and Ebow
- Universal Audio A/D converters
- Blackstar Tube Amplifier for reamping stage
FEATURES AT A GLANCE - One compact Kontakt instrument
- Three layers – Body, Grit and Air
- 60 presets (snapshots) in total – 30 pads & 30 plucks
- Lexicon Reverb Modelling
- Based on Riot Audio’s proprietary WASHES engine
- Uses Kontakt’s AET Filter technology to morph and blend disparate sound sources
Update Patch:
- Fixes artifacts in the AET Filter engine (morphing)
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