About Session Guitarist - Acoustic Sunburst Deluxe

Acoustic Sunburst Deluxe combines a pattern-based guitar library with a sophisticated multisample set designed to provide authentic-sounding melodies, picking and strumming patterns for songwriting and music production. The samples are taken from a carefully selected Gibson Custom Shop 1957 SJ-200 steel string guitar. For maximum sonic variety, the entire sample content was recorded using three individual stereo microphone setups that can be selected from the user interface.

The 'Condenser (AB)' mic setup uses two spaced condenser mics, a vintage Neumann KM84 and a Røde K2, through a vintage UA610 preamp to create a natural and detailed sound. The 'Dynamic (MS)' mic setup uses a vintage Sennheiser MD421 and a hand-picked vintage Gefell UM70 large-diaphragm condenser mic in a figure-of-eight setting to recreate the earthy sound of old rock and folk recordings. It was recorded through a vintage Neve 1272 preamp and subtly saturated with an Empirical Labs EL8-X without compression.

The 'Ribbon (AB)' mic setup employs two AEA R84s to deliver a rich and warm sound, leaving space for vocals and other instruments within the arrangement. The signals were converted by an SPL Madison A/D converter and fed via MADI to an RME MADIfaceXT, both externally clocked by an Antelope Audio 10MX Rubidium atomic clock.

For the first time in a Session Guitarists recording setup, an active hexaphonic pickup from Cycfi Research is used. Externally mounted to preserve the guitar's delicate sound, it captures the timing of each individual string in the pattern recordings. Complemented by a new evolutionary stage of the playback engine, Acoustic Sunburst Deluxe introduces a new realism to strumming and picking patterns.

A total of 254 patterns covering a wide range of musical genres and playing styles, single notes in many different articulations, round-robin variants and velocities in multiple positions over a range of up to almost four octaves, playable with both pick and finger, were played live by professional session guitarists Florian Körber, Eduard Hausauer, Jonas Roßner, and Joschi Joachimsthaler.

Each pattern also comes with an inspiring chord progression that can be dragged and dropped into the DAW. The strummed and picked patterns are grouped into song presets, each containing four to eight patterns and a matching sound preset. Patterns can be selected via key switches and played as chords on a MIDI keyboard. Playback is always in sync with the host sequencer. Phrases can also be dragged and dropped into the DAW for MIDI editing.

Acoustic Sunburst Deluxe comes with 35 carefully curated sound presets consisting of up to seven effects. These include various equalizers, reverbs, tape emulations, compressors and more. It also features the new Split FX module, making it possible to realize signal flows with a parallel multi-effects chain within the instrument.

At the heart of Acoustic Sunburst Deluxe is its superior playback engine. In its latest iteration, it features a completely new way of sequencing strumming patterns, resulting in the best-sounding strumming emulation in any Session Guitarist Series instrument. Just like with all the previous Session Guitarist libraries, you can seamlessly switch between patterns and change dynamics in real time to create true-to-life musical performances. Because all the nuances of the original performance, such as the exact timing and dynamics, are preserved, you will notice that the instrument feels very natural and organic. All built-in patterns can be played within a wide range of tempos with outstanding sound quality.