Evolution Boutique Acoustic

In the guitar world, the word boutique suggests an attention to detail that exists in limited production runs of guitars, resulting in a level of quality that's rare to see in mass produced instruments. Recorded using an acoustic steel string guitar built by legendary luthier Dana Bourgeois, Evolution Boutique Acoustic puts the fruit of his craftsmanship at your fingertips.

Until now, the majority of our virtual guitars are played with a pick. With Evolution Boutique Acoustic, we opted instead to focus exclusively on a fingerstyle playing approach. There are all sorts of little details that happen when your fingers are in direct contact with the strings. When playing softly, you can hear all the delicate, rich harmonics, while louder dynamics evoke a vibrant, sparkling tone.

As the time-honored adage goes, tone is in the fingers. We are firm believers in this, and the project was the perfect occasion to work with seasoned guitarist Michael Dowdle. His decades of experience as a performing and session guitarist is audible in every note. Michael Dowdle has recorded and shared the stage with artists such as Marie Osmond, The Osmond Brothers, Brian Wilson (Beach Boys), John Schneider, David Archuleta, The Jets, and many others.

The instrument was sampled at Rosewood Recording Company, one of Utah's most venerable recording studios. Guy Randle, the owner and recording engineer at Rosewood Recording Company, incorporated analog gear to skillfully sculpt and emphasize the rich tonal qualities of the guitar. Evolution Boutique Acoustic includes both the as-recorded signal as well as an enhanced signal that can be blended to your taste.

The instrument is hosted by our Evolution engine, which provides you with a wealth of appointments: a comprehensive collection of effects, built-in strumming patterns, and a generous amount of settings to tailor the instrument to your performance needs.

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Key Features:

- Built-in effects for production-ready acoustic guitar tones.

- Pattern editor and chord voicing system for authentic strumming and fingerpicking patterns.

- Adjustable pick position using our proprietary physical modeling technology.

- Powerful mapping system that lets you assign articulations to velocity ranges, MIDI CCs, and keyswitches.

Sampling specifications:

- 11.3 GB (compressed to 4.98 GB using the lossless NCW audio format) of 24-bit samples.

- Articulations such as sustains, palm mutes, fully muted notes, natural harmonics, plus special effects like string slaps, muted strums, body hits, and more.

- Legato samples for slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs.

- The articulations have 3 dynamics and up to 4x round-robin.

Evolution Boutique Acoustic licenses Native Instruments' Kontakt Player sampler software. Consequently, owning the full version of Kontakt is not necessary, and Evolution Boutique Acoustic operates without limitations within the free Kontakt Player application/plugin. This also allows the sample library to be listed in the libraries tab in Kontakt for convenient access.

Evolution Boutique Acoustic is NKS-ready. The integration with the Native Kontrol Standard presents many benefits, both when using the library in the Komplete Kontrol software as well as in conjunction with Komplete Kontrol hardware, such as the Komplete Kontrol S-Series keyboards and Maschine.

We recommend using Evolution Boutique Acoustic with a Komplete Kontrol S-Series keyboard for the full experience. While not a requirement, you will be able to take advantage of the Native Kontrol Standard for an intuitive connection between software instruments and hardware.