Spectrasonics Releases Hans 2 and Bizarre Guitar

January 28, 1999 -- Spectrasonics has released Hans Zimmer Guitars Volume 2, its long-awaited follow-up to Volume 1. Produced by Bob Daspit, who created most of these sounds for Zimmer's numerous film projects, this collection features new Pop sounds including a rich Jazz Guitar suitable for solo compositions, a spirited 1909 Gibson A2 Mandolin, a 1947 Lap Steel Slide Guitar, the Coral Electric Sitar, originating in the psychedelic sixties, the deep twang of the Electric Baritone, and finally, a brand new Steel String Acoustic Guitar, whose clarity, tone and balance are ideal for both fingerstyle compositions and soloing.

Among the more exotic instruments from South America are the Cuatro, a hollowed-out single piece of wood with four sets of strings that create shimmering tones, the Charango, a unique instrument with round, sparkling tones, the Cavaquinho, a high pitched guitar, and a bold Flamenco Nylon Guitar.

Perhaps most rare in this collection are the string sounds of the Middle East (created for the Prince of Egypt score), including the Oud, a fretless 11-string guitar, the Saz, perfect for traditional middle eastern arrangements, the Cumbus, like a 12-string with an Arabic accent, and the unusual Yayli Tambur, a long necked instrument capable of haunting drones and plucky melodies.

Many of the new instruments feature velocity switching, up and down slides, in addition to a new method for controlling vibrato with dynamics. Through precise, quiet recordings and innovative keyboard layouts, producer Bob Daspit has managed to capture all of the beauty, resonance, simplicity and character of these fine instruments.

Bizarre Guitar is a departure from the usual, evoking the music and textures of Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, Bill Frisell, Edge and Adrian Belew.

This unique collection from visionary guitarist Peter Maunu and Sound Designer Eric Persing, is an ideal companion to Spectrasonics' Distorted Reality series. Peter is well known for his long and distinctive collaboration with composer Mark Isham.

Neither a traditional guitar multisample library or a collection of "riffs," Bizarre Guitar blazes a new frontier of sound design via guitar. It features the extreme contrasts of breathtakingly beautiful ambience beds, searing harmonic slashes, strange funk and unsettling washes, all created with e-bow, tape loop techniques, signal processing tricks and the Roland VG-8(TM)guitar system.

The Bizarre Guitar CD-ROM versions include the Audio CD and the Groove Control(TM) method. This allows you to independently change the tempo and key of the rhythmic guitar loops, right from your existing sequencer. You can even quantize the feel, pitch bend and do tempo changes while keeping the groove locked to your sequence.

Both of these titles will be available in several native sampler formats, including Akai, Roland, Kurzweil and SampleCell.

Hans Zimmer Guitars Volume 2 is now shipping and contains two full CD-ROMs of multisamples for $299. Bizarre Guitar, shipping in March, will contain one CD-ROM plus the mixed mode Audio CD/CD-ROM and will retail for $199. North American distribution is by ILIO Entertainments.

For more information, visit their web site at www.ilio.com.