Baritone Guitar Washes

Baritone Guitar Washes is a cinematic pad instrument for Kontakt. Its WASHES sound design engine creates 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, Osso, Harold Budd).

Baritone Guitar Washes 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.

Sound Applications

Baritone Guitar Washes' palette of possible sounds is wide, whilst still retaining the DNA of the original sound sources. It covers icy, thin trails, warm, sparkly harmony pads, edgy, scratchy atonal textures as well as an assortment of plucks with varying degrees of electric guitar realism.