Axe Machina: 7-String Metal Guitar Library by Soundiron

Craig Peters sampled his custom Kiesel Aries 7-string guitar, tuned to A Standard. Soundiron describes the swamp ash body and birdseye maple neck as giving the instrument a robust, resonant tone.

The library covers single note and power chord sustains with palm mute variations. Sound effects include pinch harmonics, taps, mutes, pick scrapes in slow, medium and long lengths, fret noise, chokes, rakes and programmable slides.

The Direct (DI) presets contain the guitar with no preamp in between, so you can reamp the signal with the built-in effects or your own amp simulator. The Amped presets provide a hi-gain tone ready to play.

The interface offers real-time articulation selection, key-switch and mapping options, an arpeggiator, an auto-strummer, a sequencer and a full FX rack. Layered controls include LFO, filter, glide and arpeggiator settings.

The Main presets contain every sample in the library. The Lite presets use fewer round-robins to reduce RAM use. The Standard presets give access to individual strings, including overlapping notes, while the Simple variations use a standard crossover point on each string.

The FX rack holds 27 DSP modules across 8 slots that you can order freely. Modules include phaser, flanger, delay, distortion, amp and cab simulators, compressors, EQ and rotator. The reverb section adds 99 convolution rooms, halls, chambers and outdoor spaces, plus 40 custom FX impulses.