Riot Audio’s Baritone Guitar Washes

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 Riot Audio's 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.