Sonic Implants
Oct 1, 2001 12:00 PM, Dave Hill Jr.
Great-sounding guitars can be as elusive as Elvis's ghost. With occasional sightings in New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, the search for inspired-sounding, well-recorded, perfectly intonated guitars never seems to end. To aid in the hunt, Sonic Implants has released Amps and Pickups ($149.95), which is available for GigaStudio (GigaSampler), Akai, E-mu, Kurzweil, and SoundFont-friendly samplers or computers. Amps and Pickups delivers 563 MB of various electric- and acoustic-guitar samples of both chords and single-note sounds along with a selection of expertly recorded fretless, electric, and upright basses to boot.
Amps and Pickups is a single CD with 15 sample banks of guitar and 9 banks of bass. Each bank contains multiple presets that offer a variety of sounds within the same sample set. For instance, the Jazz Guitar Tones GigaSampler bank has presets for EQ1, EQ2, Chorus, Jazz Amp Guitar, TremVib Jazz Guitar, Auto Pan Jazz Guitar, and Slap Rez Jazz Guitar. Each bank offers plenty of sound-exploration possibilities. I especially enjoy combining guitars with the same MIDI channel. Strums from the Taylor and the Guild achieve an interesting 12-string effect, and mixing acoustic guitar tone with a Les Paul chunk creates a nice, fat tone. Also, one preset can have many tonalities, like open tones, mutes, harmonics, upstrokes, and downstrokes, depending on which octave you play on the keyboard. That can be a hassle if you need two full octaves of a certain chord or tone, which must be changed by expanding the sample play region in the GS editor.
Sonic Implants included several tone presets with a full five-octave range, which is useful for picking melodic lines or solos. Chords are handled a bit differently. Default chord presets comprise major, minor, and dominant seventh chords in all 12 keys. The presets play as follows: C2 = C major, C3 = C minor, C4 = C
In the batch of basses, Sonic Implants recorded the classic Fender Jazz Bass and some other reliable studio instruments such as an Alembic bass played through an Ampeg SVT bass amp; a Hofner Beatle bass through a Manley Variable MU compressor; and a Spector slap bass, which has a more than adequate studio funk sound. For those seeking upright bass, a dual-velocity Dynamic Acoustic Bass sample bank, complete with clack and growls, is present. If you prefer something more dark and heavy, check out the Hard Pick Rock Bass.
Each instrument in Amps and Pickups has been chosen carefully. The guitars include such noble steeds as the Les Paul Standard (played through a Fender Twin amp), a Rickenbacker 12-string, a Paul Reed Smith hollowbody combined with a Marshall amp, and vintage standbys such as a 1960 M65 Guild guitar running through a 1960 Gibson GA-5T Skylark amplifier. The popular Taylor 810 acoustic steel-string guitar rounds out the set. The blend of warm-textured raw sounds will please producers who are looking for a professionally recorded, coarse sonic starting point. Raise a pick to Sonic Implants for doing a marvelous job of extracting the essence of some favorite guitars and basses, leaving the coloration and processing up to the producer.
Overall Rating (out of 5): 4.5 Sonic Implants; tel. (888) 769-3788; e-mail studio@sonicimplants.com; Web www.sonicimplants.com
| Want to use this article? Click here for options! |  |
