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PEDAL STEEL by Impact Soundworks - Available NOW w/ intro pricing!

Andrew Aversa

Lead Developer


Impact Soundworks is proud to announce the release of PEDAL STEEL, a virtual guitar that captures the true sound of this quintessential American instrument!

Developed by Dimitris Plagiannis, creator of our Django and Turkish Oud libraries, PEDAL STEEL allows you to create expressive performances: sonorous leads, chords, and harmonized melodies using just a single instance.

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Overview

You don't need to be an expert at playing pedal steel guitars to understand this virtual instrument: Dimitris has introduced a unique and intuitive way to perform melody & harmony parts without multiple tracks or takes.

In "Harmonized Mono" mode, you can play expressive lead parts in the right hand with automatic pitch bends and optional auto-vibrato. Holding harmony keys in the left hand while playing with the right triggers interval harmonies that intelligently follow your playing. With a few minutes of practice, you'll find it incredibly easy to play beautiful harmonized melodies!

If you want to dive in further, our bespoke harmonization editor allows you to define custom intervals and settings for each harmony key, opening up endless musical possibilities.

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Pedal Steel also includes our powerful CONSOLE modular mixer & FX rack. Here you can mix between DI and amped signals, plus use up to 30 different FX modules from EQs to custom amps, cabinets, delay, chorus, and much more.

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Instrument Walkthrough



Key Features


  • Nearly 10,000 samples recorded through DI (clean) and two amps
  • Three voicing modes: polyphonic, poly legato, harmonized mono
  • Six fret positions to choose from, altering the performance timbre
  • Manual and automatic vibrato modes
  • Beautiful automatic legato slides
  • Normal and harmonic articulations
  • Humanization options for timing, tune and noise

Demos

Enjoy our rich demo playlist showcasing Pedal Steel in many contexts!



Availability

Pedal Steel is available now for the intro price of $149 (MSRP: $199) for Kontakt Player and is fully NKS compatible.

Get Pedal Steel Now!
 
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YES. There hasn't been a legitimate pedal steel library since Wavelore's steel.

Super excited.

Hopefully it'll be as playable as WL's old library?

 
Wavelore's has been the only pedal steel library for many years now, as far as I know. I own it, but can't remember if it still works (I switched to Soundiron for the Theremin a few years back, as theirs is better and also I think I was concerned about how long a library would work that is from a defunct vendor, or at least a dormant vendor as the last I saw in these parts, the business is not active).

This has to be one of the hardest instruments to pull off via sampling, but looking at the GUI, there seems to be adequate controls. As with the real thing though, it might take some gymanstics to pull off a believable part in real-time vs. post-editing. But that's OK.
 
The Wavelore still works and I like it, but it's a pain in the ass.

Some great tone in this one, congrats! I hope the sweet vibrato of a real pedal steel is included and somewhat controllable, though that's probably pretty hard to do. I hear bits of it, but I don't hear it consistently.
 
One interesting point about Pedal Steel (and Lap Steel, and even regular Electric Guitar), is that the Volume Pedal preference is for one of three similar brands (I bought the Hilton Electronics version) that have super-high sensitivity, last forever, and are not potentiometer based. This is in stark contrast to an Ernie Ball type volume pedal, on all counts.

One could always go round-trip ADDA and do the same thing with a library, I suppose, but as the intent is NOT to colour the sound AT ALL, this also is an ideal candidate for MIDI, as the Volume Pedal itself isn't meant to be part of the "sound" as would be one's favourite distortion pedal (for instance).

But as standard MIDI only has 127 levels, I'd like to ask if this library will be implementing High resolution MIDI for some of the parameters (e.g. two-byte vs. one-byte, for far more detailed nuances on stuff like volume swells)? In a mix, it might not be noticeable, but if it's a naked soloed part and front-and-center, 127 levels on the programmed Volume Pedal might sound a bit too granular (at least, to discerning ears). It may be a moot point in this context though.

I agree that the Wavelore product was a PITA to work with. I always admire trailblazers though.
 
Kontakt doesn't support 14-bit MIDI CCs so that's not happening, but volume pedal CC is smoothed internally using a bit of lag processing directly on the CC modulator.

You can also adjust the volume pedal response with a shaper table.

This library is a loooot easier to use than Wavelore's in real-time. I think many people here will be happy, as Andrew has already said. :)
 
That all sounds very well-thought-out. I had been holding out on two pedal steel parts, wondering if I should do them instead on my lap steel (not that I'm very competent), but every other Impact Soundworks library has astonished me with its realism even after I start comparing to real instruments. :)

The Harmonization control is especially innovative, and typical of the sorts of ways that ISW attacks each instrument in a unique and studied fashion. I'm just hoping the intro price period won't end up being while I'm gone (godson's wedding coming up soon). I'll shoot them an email if that ends up being the case though; they've always been very accommodating.
 
New demos have been added to the player today! A lovely arrangement of the classic "Sleep Walk" tune by Santo & Johnny, as well as an original by Brad Jerkins. Enjoy :)

(Also - we should be on course for a release next week! Encoding from Native Instruments has just finished.)
 
New demos have been added to the player today! A lovely arrangement of the classic "Sleep Walk" tune by Santo & Johnny, as well as an original by Brad Jerkins. Enjoy :)

(Also - we should be on course for a release next week! Encoding from Native Instruments has just finished.)

Fantastic! Always loved that song and it really sells the quality of the library.
 
Great! I realized I didn't make my question clearer.

Are slides of a fifth and an octave possible, both up and down without a re-attack at the top note, and that note will still sound and can be vibrato'd?
 
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