SAMPLE SHOP

Giga Clean Electric Guitars

Published in SOS May 2002
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Reviews : Sample Shop

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Giga Clean Electric Guitars • • • •
GIGA CD-ROM SET

There are many wannabe guitar players in the keyboard world, and I'd have to count myself among them. However, really good (and by good I mean convincing) sampled electric guitars are hard to find, with multisamples of overdriven and distorted guitars played through various amp combinations invariably disappointing. With this in mind, Vintaudio have created Giga Clean Electric Guitars with the aim of capturing the accurate tone from great instruments so you can process it further with either an external amp, or one of the variety of amp simulators available today such as the Line 6 Pod.

Supplied on four CD-Rs, with rather uninspiring packaging, the library contains three different guitars, each chosen especially for its distinct character. The first, a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Custom, is, as Frank Sinatra might have said, so good they sampled it twice – once for each pickup. This is quite interesting because by combining the two pickup patches, you can simulate the sound of the middle pick-up position. The second guitar is a 1958 Fender Stratocaster, but perhaps the highlight is the final instrument in the collection, a Godin Artisan, which really has the most wonderful tone.

Each instrument was recorded through a Focusrite Penta and a MOTU 2408 MK II at a 24-bit resolution, and dithered down to 16-bit using Apogee's UV22. Every chromatic note was sampled at three velocities with the full natural decay, and using the Giga format's key-switch facility, you can switch between mutes, three neck positions for sustained notes, with hammer-ons and swells provided at mid- and high-neck positions.

Like many Giga libraries being released these days, Vintaudio are keen to claim full compatibility when importing the library into HALion. And, after trying this out for myself with HALion 1.1.1, I used HALion in preference to GigaStudio for the rest of the review. This was mainly because of the greater potential for effects within Cubase, and the 'processed' demo mp3s on Vintaudio's web site are produced with HALion for exactly the same reason. In particular, I used Steinberg's new Warp plug-in and became impressed with the flexible and playable results achievable with very little effort – you can hear some examples in the Soundbank section of SOS's web site at www.soundonsound.com/soundbank.asp.

To sound less formal, I had a blast with this library and found the patches really playable, especially when I became familiar with the configuration of the key-switching. It was shocking to see how quickly a self-respecting keyboard player could lapse into a guitarist's 'turn it up to 11' mentality!

The only real complaints I have with Giga Clean Electric Guitars fall into the 'well, it would have been nice' category, because what's provided is generally excellent. Some of the results often sound too clean, which might sound ironic given the name and aim of the library, but some fret noises would have been nice to add a little dirt to the performance. There are no harmonics, which is perhaps surprising, and other playing styles (maybe some strumming?) could have been the icing on the cake. A second volume, anyone?

Other than Quantum Leap's '56 Stratocaster, which provides a greater variety of playing styles (but only with the one guitar, and it's a good deal more expensive at £199 RRP in the UK), there isn't really much competition. So while playing guitar parts on a keyboard is always going to be something of a compromise, this library provides one of the best-sounding compromises right now, and at around £25 a guitar, it could be considered something of a bargain. Mark Wherry

	$134.95. Postage included in Northern America; add $4.95 for International orders.
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