Review: Guitar Pedals by Cinematique Instruments

Guitar Pedals is the latest addition to the Cinematique Instruments’ Colors Bundle. Thanks to a fully customizable 4 layer engine you can get countless sound possibilities. With the original guitar sounds turned into a brand new shape, this library is perfect both for composers and sound designers.

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Review: Guitar Pedals by Cinematique Instruments

Cinematique Instruments expands its Colors Bundle with this new library. It features guitar sounds shaped in a manner to get an interesting sound design tool, in accordance with the main purpose of the whole bundle. Score Tranquil and Score Tensed are the first two already released libraries and in the future LoFi Tapes and Vintage Synth will come to the light.
It runs in the full version of Kontakt (5.6.8 or above) and it doesn’t support the NKS protocol, therefore you don’t have to activate it via Native Access.
You can purchase it alone or within the bundle at a very special price. With the purchase you also get an 808 beat machine free of charge.

Guitar Pedals normally sells for 59.50€ from Cinematique Instruments

Thoughts

The library comes with one master NKI instrument. The GUI looks like the other libraries of the bundle as well as the windows and parameters. In the “Patches” window (the main one) you can select the preset you want to play by clicking on one of the colored cells, whose name is shown just above them when selected. The more you move to the opposite sides the more you meet the mood written at the bottom of the interface (left to right, from Airy to Crank), while the cells in the middle have a sort of mix of the moods depending on how close you are to one rather than to the other.
In the Easel window you can find a fully customizable 4 layer engine.

Playing around with this section you understand that the possibilities of this library are not limited to the patches in the main window only, but you can fully customize each of them. You can choose a sound to start with for each layer (or even just for some of them) and then shape it using the parameters below. The colored boxes at the top of the GUI represent the layer’s volume, that you can set using the colored horizontal bars below the name of each layer. The Solo function lets you hear that layer individually. Just next to it you can find the Pan slider at the center and the Tune tool on the right, thanks to which you can change the layer’s tuning up to 12 semitones up or down.

Moving down, you’ll meet a new line of parameters. The left one differs from layer to layer: the first layer features an Arpeggiator, the second and third a Mod Wheel button meaning that you can assign the volume of those layers to CC 1 by activating this control, and on the fourth one no tool is available on this slot.

Moving to the right there’s an LFO, available on each layer. If you click on that a window with a few parameters appears, where you can choose the waveform’s shape, change the tempo speed and the Intensity (which is the volume modulation of the layer). The third parameter is the Tone (basically a filter that lets you reduce the high or low frequencies), and the last one on the right controls the Attack. All these parameters and layers can be randomized by clicking on the Random button at the low right corner. The Master window includes some parameters to help you shape the sound even more.

Here you will find a Decay, Drive, Filter, Chorus, Reverb and Delay. The Main knob controls the whole output volume. If you click on the “e” letter button (edit section) available on some parameter, you access more options for the selected function while if you click on the other symbol, you assign that parameter to CC 1.

By opening the edit section, you can control more parameters as well as the velocity curve to assign to the Modwheel and therefore decide its behavior. As per the Reverb, there are 10 different types available, from smaller ambiences like “Chamber” to larger ones like a couple of Churches. If you activate the Chop function in the Main edit section, you can make the output volume modulate automatically and adjust the volume of the steps as well as the speed of the modulation. All those parameters are also CC assignable.

Generally speaking, this is quite a good library for composers and producers who want to add sound design to their works. You won’t find a genuine guitar sound here of course but everything is shaped to get a great variety of sound and most of the times you can barely notice that they come from a guitar. The two sides of the library, Airy and Crank are very different and this makes the product eligible for multiple uses, from intimate to more industrial and tensed scores. Moreover, the Easel and the Master windows let you create new sounds from scratch or just turn the default patches into something else, so you’ve got almost countless possibilities here. Very inspiring. One thing I love for sure is the Random function because it allows you to explore new paths that maybe you wouldn’t if you had to create a sound from scratch. I think Guitar Pedals is a great addition to the Colors Bundle and a good library to own both from composers and sound designers. I’m very curious to see what else will come out from Cinematique Instruments’ hat with the last two libraries of this series.

Facts

It includes one NKI instrument
It runs in the full version of Kontakt (5.6.8 or later)
It includes approx. 1.900 samples
It weighs 1.7 GB Compressed
You can buy it alone or within the Colors Bundle
As a bonus you get a 808 beat machine with purchase

Guitar Pedals normally sells for 59.50€ from Cinematique Instruments

Demos of Guitar Pedals by Cinematique Instruments

Videos of Guitar Pedals by Cinematique Instruments

Contributor Giuseppe Corcella reviews Guitar Pedals by Cinematique Instruments
“Guitar Pedals is the latest addition to the Cinematique Instruments’ Colors Bundle. Thanks to a fully customizable 4 layers engine you can get countless sounding possibilities. With the original guitar sounds turned into a brand new shape, this library is perfect both for composers and sound designer.”