Native Instruments has introduced Scarbee Funk Guitarist (http://macte.ch/bja96), a new Kontakt-based software instrument that puts a “virtual funk guitar” at the hands of producers. For use in the Kontakt 4 sampler and in the free Kontakt Player, it provides a range of rhythm guitar lines for funk, soul, hip hop, house, pop and other contemporary styles.

At the heart of Scarbee Funk Guitarist is a phrase concept that allows users to combine different guitar grooves and chord types via the MIDI keyboard. The integrated groove sequencer maintains a constant rhythmic flow, while articulations like up and down strokes, mutes, hammer-ons and slides are triggered automatically by the script-based engine of the instrument.

Scarbee Funk Guitarist is based on over 3,000 chords that were recorded in various voicings, multiple velocities and with all relevant articulations, resulting in over 130,000 individual chord samples. For the sampling process, a specially modified guitar with hand-selected components was used, equipped with a special pickup configuration that allowed multiple pickup positions to be captured simultaneously.

Scarbee FunkGuitarist is available for purchase in the NI Online Shop on DVD and as a download for US$119.