Made for about two years in the 1960s and then rediscovered by artists like Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, who used it to great effect on a soundtrack to The Assassination Of Jesse James, the Guitaret has nothing to do with a guitar. And that’s the beauty of it: it doesn’t sound like anything else out there.
This extremely rare electro-mechanical wonder is just half of the story, though. It’s complemented by a collection of avant-garde atmospheric textures crafted from multi-layered abstract performances created entirely in the analogue domain.
Familiar yet strange
The beautiful cream-colored case of the Guitaret houses an array of tines connected to a pickup. The visionary Ernst Zacharias invented it to create a new instrument to break from traditional instrumentation. Like many innovative creations, it failed to excite the public, and after just two years, production ceased.
IAR YET STRANGE
the story
The beautiful cream-colored case of the Guitaret houses an array of tines connected to a pickup. The visionary Ernst Zacharias invented it to create a new instrument to break from traditional instrumentation. Like many innovative creations, it failed to excite the public, and after just two years, production ceased.
Its unique sits somewhere between a celeste, a music box, a hang drum, and who knows what else. It’s familiar yet strange enough to bring interest to whatever you’re working on and spark new ideas.
Electro-acoustic articulations
The Guitaret was deeply sampled through a hand-made tube preamp to capture all its natural warmth and character. Multiple repetition samples and extensively captured mechanical noises add to the hyper-real, organic feel.
And while the standard playing style of plucking the tiny tines sounds excellent, you need to hear the Guitaret performed with mallets! It’s extremely hard to perform it this way in real life, but that’s where samples come into play, right?
Afterglow articulations
The Guitaret has a darker side, too. The Afterglow collection fuses experimental processing with analogue tape, vintage synths, vocals, and extended playing techniques to create a collection of multi-layered, atmospheric textures.
Captured directly to analogue tape, each of the Afterglow patches is an instrument in its own right. Full of movement, dirt, and nostalgia, they help your productions to stand out from the crowd boldly.
* compatible with MPE and Expressive E Touché
The interface
An intuitive and creative interface invites exploration. Stay in the flow and get things done fast. All functions are presented at a glance, giving you an instant overview of what’s going on. What you see is what you get.
And since hands-on control is so much fun, all parameters are ready to be automated and MIDI-mapped for use with your controller of choice.
Requirements
1.39GB installed, twice as much required for setup.
Windows (10 or newer) and Mac (10.11 or newer). 8GB of RAM and an i5 or better CPU required. 64-bit only. MPE requires a compatible DAW. The download and setup are handled by Pulse, which makes it easy to manage all your Felt Instruments. The fiels are watermarked to you.
The plugin works in every major DAW that supports VST3, Audio Unit or AAX plugins, like Ableton Live 10 or newer, Logic, Pro Tools, Cubase, FL Studio, Studio One, Reason 12, Reaper etc.
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