What Are The Best Guitar Plugins?
Simple Answer:
- Native Instruments Session Acoustic and Electric Guitar Series
- Ample Sound Guitars
- Impact Soundworks Shreddage Series
FORGET ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE!
While there are many guitar plugins on the market, these are the most polished, customizable, and inspiring sounds available. So I recommend you start with these:
Native Instruments Session Guitars (Kontakt)
Kontakt has been the flagship of sample libraries for most of modern sampling history. They have partnered with Drumasonic, an expert team of musicians and tech nerds who have been churning out the Session Guitar series over the last several years. They sound quality is amazing! You can chose to disable all effects and build on a raw sound, or utilize the cleverly curated presets with mix ready settings and tweak to your liking.
The first few versions were mainly loop/phrase based, but the developers have listened to the request of musicians to build out a hybrid version which allows both playing out the instrument and triggering phrases. There has been a consistent structure for key-switching, chord detection, and phrase triggering across the entire series. Using multiple Session Guitar products is a seamless experience. My favorites out of the series are Rickenback Bass, Electric Vintage, and Electric Sunburst Deluxe. All new releases eventually get packed into a version of NI’s Komplete Bundles.
Pros:
- Very impressive mix presets. All fx are customizable
- Included phrases and articulations are very easy to use
Cons:
- Slightly limited playing range. About an octave less than a typical Ample Sound guitar.
Ample Sound
In the early days, I visited AmpleSound head quarters in Beijing. I saw first-hand their dedication to the craft. As a small, passionate team, they brought new life to the guitar plugin market, which arguably started the fierce competition that exists today. The team at AmpleSound developed their own VST format and added some very interesting strum and riff features. They were also implementing feedback from users early in the process and delivered on many requests. Now the company has grown their catalog to over a dozen high quality guitars and ethnic instruments.
My favorite out of the batch is their Semi Hollow,
Pros:
- Deep riff and strum generator options with draggable midi.
- Largest playable keyrange for guitars in the premium caliber.
Cons:
- Included amp and fx modules leave much to be desire, but if you have guitar fx plugins, this is not a problem as built-in effects can be bypassed.
Impact Soundworks (Kontakt)
Impact Soundworks has a custom engine provides an authentic sounding emulation of how guitarists play. Their tones are quite impressive and there are a lot of advanced features packed into the interface. I particularly like instant doubling, tripling, or quadrupling of the signal with a simple click to give a wider sound. My favorites of the collection are Archtop, Hydra and Telos.
Pros:
- Console style insert fx chain.
- Intelligent strumming speed of chords based on velocity.
Cons:
- Slight learning curve to adjust settings to your playing style.
WHAT ABOUT OTHER GUITAR LIBRARIES?
Unless you need something these Kontakt libraries or Ample Sound cannot provide, DON’T BOTHER with the others. I’m notsaying that other products are “bad”. I’m saying that the workflow of the tools I mentioned above are the BEST on the market. I’m all about having less and doing more, so finding simply the best is better than having every product at your disposal. (Trust me, I have a graveyard hard drive with sounds I regret buying, hoping to get value out of them “one day”).
Conclusion
I wish we could replace all guitar libraries with physically modelled versions, but the technology isn’t there yet for guitars like it is for pianos. In the mean time, take my recommendations and thank me later.
-JBlongz
