Global Offset will cut down the notes you play so they have the bare minimum (depending on how much you dial in) and less of the extra/natural sounds you’d hear with an actual guitarist.

Transpose will tune Stratus up or down by twelve semitones. Bite is basically an EQ to give it an edgier sound.

While you’re on the Main page you have access to some handy settings which can adjust some basic parameters of the plugin. The pages you can choose from are Main, Articulations, Performance, Strumming and Advanced. As you switch between those pages, the controls above the fretboard will change, but the other controls to left and below the neck are still accessible.

Across the top of the nicely rendered guitar are tabs to navigate to the different pages of controls. Below those controls are settings to use if you are working with a MIDI enabled guitar. There is a way to blend between the pickups using other controls that I will get to later in the review. On the left side are the Volume and Tone controls, as well as a pickup selector for neck, middle and bridge pickups. It has a basic Init preset to start with and you can use the browser menu at the top to switch between other presets. For this review I used the Kontakt Player.Īfter starting Stratus you are presented with the main display which has a nice looking partial-view of a Fender Stratocaster. To install Stratus you’ll need the latest version of the free Kontakt Player or the full version of Kontakt (and an OS and hardware compatible with Kontakt), 9 GB of disk space, 6 GB of RAM, and an Intel i5 or equivalent CPU. If you’d like to check out that review, you’ll find it here. I actually wrote a review on one of their other guitar libraries (Shreddage 2) in our September 2014 issue. Here are just some of the many powerful features you’ll find in Stratus: Poly Input, TACT 2.0 articulation mapping, hammer-ons and pull-offs, portamento slides, powerchord mutes, 30+ cabinets, custom IRs and much more. It is a brand new take on the sampled electric guitar, with 24-bit samples from the three separate pickups of the Fender Stratocaster. For this issue, I wanted to explore their latest offering: Shreddage 3 Stratus. Some of the reviews in our past issues include Groove Bias, Momentum, Super Audio Cart and Celestia. We’ve reviewed a fair number of their products over the years. Impact Soundworks are the developers behind several sound libraries which encompass orchestral, guitar, bass, drums, ethnic and many other types. From clean tones to full-on shredding, it has what it takes. Stratus is a highly realistic guitar sample library that simply exudes personality.

Shreddage 3 articulation map 88 key