Acou6tics

Following in the footsteps of Vir2 Instruments´ award-winning Electri6ity electric guitar virtual instrument, Acou6tics applies the same advanced technologies to re-imagining the acoustic guitar. Vir2 has meticulously recorded six different acoustic instruments: a steel-string guitar, twelve-string, nylon string, ukulele, mandolin, and guitalele, and presents them in astonishing detail. It features both plectrum and finger picking, and Blumlein stereo recordings alongside the piezo pickup perspective.

Thousands of samples across more than a dozen articulations were recorded for each instrument, including sustains, mutes, releases, legatos, hammer-ons and pull-offs, slides, harmonics, and effects. Acou6tics also features virtual room control with adjustable mic distance and sympathetic resonance.

Guitars:

•     Steel String (Plectrum & Finger Picked)
•     12-String (Plectrum)
•     Nylon String (Finger Picked)
•     Ukulele (Finger Picked)
•     Mandolin (Plectrum)
•     Guitarlele (Finger Picked)

Recording:

•     Recorded in Blumlein-Stereo with no phasing issues when mixed down to mono
•     Special recording process to minimize the recorded room while keeping the natural tone of               the instrument, leading to an completely dry, yet natural sounding guitar tone
•     All guitars are recorded with stereo micing plus additional piezo DI channel
•     Between 3000 and 7000 samples per instrument (4GB to 8GB wave files, uncompressed)

Articulations:

•     All articulations are available on all strings, all frets
•     Sustain (Plectrum Dn, Plectrum Up, Finger, Thumb, Finger Nail Dn, Finger Nail Up)
•     Muted (Palm Muted, Hand Muted)
•     Legato (Hammer On, Pull Of)
•     Slides (Slide Dn 1 & 2 Frets, Slide Up 1 & 2 Frets, Slide In)
•     Release (Normal, Buzz, Slide Dn, Pick Mute, Finger Mute)
•     Chucka-Chuckas
•     Harmonics
•     FX (Pick Noises, Body Knocks, Slaps, etc.)

Features:

•     Virtual room with adjustable mic distance
•     Physical correct sympathetic resonance

Free Kontakt Player included (version 5.3.0 or higher for livrary v.1.1 required)

Excerpt:

The long-awaited follow-up to Vir2's Electri6ity (Computer Music #159, 9/10) packs six acoustic guitars into an 11GB compressed Kontakt library. The guitars are steel-string (plectrum and finger), 12-string, mandolin, guitalele (plectrum), nylon-string and ukulele (finger). Each one boasts at least 12 articulations (hammer-on, pull-off, sustains, numerous slides and releases, etc), every one accessible by all strings on all frets. Chords are automatically detected and converted into up to 50 selectable voicings on the fly, and custom voicing libraries can be saved and recalled. The amount of tweakability and performance/behaviour editing on offer is staggering, although the consequential onslaught of samey-looking menus can feel a bit overwhelming at times. As Electri6ity users would expect, the sound is pretty much flawless. Bone dry raw samples (recorded via Blumlein pair and piezo mic) capture the essence of the Acou6tics' six guitars to a T, ripe for processing via the onboard effects. A thing of beauty.

"A brilliant way to bring the sound of acoustic guitars to your tracks. Hugely tweakable, and sounds like the real thing." 

Exerpt:
It's an incredibly-versatile system and almost magical in its realism, though you will want to spend time learning in order to program advanced parts. It's all configurable and the key switches can be customized, with the Playback section letting you tweak string and fret selection, noises, release and vibrato as well as chord pick speed and many more parameters. The Chords section lets you program your own custom chords and in Mics and FX you can add up to six effects each with variable controls and use the Distance and Room options to move the virtual mics around as well as working with the stereo mic and piezo signals.

The instruments are almost infinitely tweakable and, though it will require a little practice, you can achieve amazingly-realistic guitar parts without actually being able to play a guitar. As well as the more obviously impressive rhythmic strumming stuff it's fun to play around with the mandolin and ukulele, where the sound engine is able to add slides, squeaks and articulations for a truly realistic end result. Acou6tics is an excellent may to bring the warm, organic and involving sound of these instruments to your productions. The translation of keyboard input into guitar-style playing is something to behold and with a bit of careful programming, nobody will be able to tell that the tracks weren't played by a real person.

MusicTech Magazine

Alliant une très bonne prise de son et une programmation astucieuse, Acou6tics (six instruments) s’approche un peu plus du graal de la guitare acoustique samplée..

Fazit
Mit sechs wunderbar expressiv spielbaren Instrumenten mit einem nuancenreichen, kristallklaren Klang ist Acou6tics ohne Zweifel eine der besten  Gitarrenbibliotheken schlechthin. Sei es bei klassischem Solospiel, brillanten  Arpeggios oder modernen Akkordbegleitungen – mit etwas Übung lassen sich  bemerkenswert authentische Ergebnisse erzielen. Ein weiterer Gewinner aus dem Hause.