60% off “The Cuatro” by Guareschi

A Creative Workstation For Realistic Tunes & Atmospheric Landscapes

Overview

The Cuatro was sampled using a beautiful long-neck cuatro (17 frets) from Barquisimeto, Venezuela. It has been used for over 15 years in many movie scores, TV series, and music productions.

The Cuatro was meticulously sampled to capture its authentic timbre. Each note has four dynamics with 4 RR per dynamic, a total of 16 samples per note. Besides chords, palm mutes, and many other articulations, Guillermo Guareschi has created additional modes: Octave, Double Cuatro, and Andean Tuning. These modes will give you a fresh palette for creating big and rich sounding arrangements for ensembles or solo cuatro pieces.

Custom-made equipment was used for this presentation. Krystalos Audio technology was present in all the chains of the recording process. Guillermo Guareschi has designed Krystalos Audio optimizers to produce an organic and detailed analog sound with the latest digital equipment.

The Cuatro will give your music a new approach and inspire you to create beautiful harmonic progressions and melodies.

The Cuatro Interface

PROGRAM NOTES

When the NOTES button is pressed, a menu with seven different articulations appears.

• Natural Tuning – consists of the whole range of the instrument.
• Palm Mute Natural – consists of palm muting the strings and picking them with the nail. It is excellent for creating rhythmic melodic patterns.
• Palm Mute Up/Down – consists of the palm muting the strings with the nail pulsing with a different attack.
• Snap Notes – consists of snapping the strings, pulling them up, and releasing them.
• Dizzy Notes – is a special effect created by playing the notes with a guitar brass slide.
• Harmonics – all harmonics have been chromatically sampled.
• Tremolo – notes were sampled by playing chromatic tremolos with a hard tortoise pick.

PROGRAM CHORDS

• Staccato – the chord is played by pulling on all four strings and releasing them, immediately cutting off the sound.
• Gliss Down – consists of chords played at a high position on the fretboard and gliss them down rapidly.
• Strums – chords were strummed with different dynamics. They automatically snap to the project tempo. Major, minor and dominant chords are available using the key switch.

PERCUSSION & FX

On this menu, you can find noises and fx. Most of them are sampled in multiple dynamics and round robins. You will find all kinds of inspiring sounds here to make organic percussion accompaniment and interesting fx to use in many situations.

MAIN CONTROLS

On this panel, you can adjust different parameters and choose other programs.

• Close Fader: Controls the volume on the main microphones.
• Ambience Fader: Controls the volume of the ambient microphones.
• Dreamy Fader: Controls the volume of a special sound-designed patch.
• Body Noise Sliders: Controls the volume level and presets for the body noise of the cuatro.
• Sensitivity Buttons: Choose SOFT, NORMAL, or HARD depending on how hard you play.
• Round Robin Buttons: There are three different types of activation samples.

MODES BUTTONS

Besides NATURAL TUNING, Guillermo Guareschi created three additional modes.

• Double: In this mode, two cuatros sound at the same time.
• Octave: From the second octave, all the notes will be octaved.
• Andean: This mode behaves as if the Cuatro has eight strings.

Phase: Under the Ambience fader is the Phase button. Pressing this inverts the phase of the ambient signal. Sometimes using an instrument out of phase is the sound that works for you. Try it to see what sounds better on your mix.

REVERB CONTROLS

Under this menu, you can choose the impulse response and the reverb parameters.

For more information read the User Manual HERE.