In Session Audio has released Desert Guitars, a free version of the forthcoming commercial Desert Guitars loop collection for Native Instruments Kontakt and all WAV compatible digital audio workstations.
I’ve never been a big fan of loop libraries and I pass on them most of the time, but this one by In Session Audio turned out to be an unexpected positive surprise for me. The thing with Desert Guitars Free is that the included guitar loops are not just well recorded and nice sounding, but also quite inspiring. Maybe it’s just me, but it actually made me pick up my guitar and plug it in for a little evening jam, whereas it did nothing apart from collecting dust for the past several months of its, er, guitar life (a side-effect of using virtual instruments for everything).
It’s important to point out that the free pack is available for a limited time only. Once the full commercial version of Desert Guitars hits the (virtual) shelves, the freebie pack will be removed from In Session Audio’s website, at least according to the information provided in the official announcement. The commercial version of Desert Guitars will be released sometime next week, so you should act fast if you want to grab the freebie pack.
Desert Guitars Free contains 36 guitar loops in WAV format, so it isn’t necessary to own Native Instruments Kontakt if you want to use these sounds in your DAW of choice. However, the custom Kontakt user interface provided with the NKI patch is tons of fun to play around with, hence you should definitely check it out if you have access to Kontakt or Kontakt Player (although the sound will time out after fifteen minutes in Kontakt Player).
The user interface allows you to combine three different guitar performances on the go (these are fully mapped across three octaves of your MIDI keyboard), which is pretty much the perfectly easy way to come up with new musical ideas. As I’ve mentioned before, Desert Guitars Free actually made me pick up my dusty guitar and spend a few hours jamming and coming up with a couple of song ideas. The pack also contains a mini pack of reverb impulse responses, which are also provided in WAV format.
Download
Desert Guitars Free is available for free download via In Session Audio (88.2 MB download size ZIP archive, contains 36 guitar loops in 24-bit WAV format, 1 instrument patch in NKI format for Native Instruments Kontakt).
