Silk is the fourth Virtual Guitarist instrument from UJAM. Like the other three (Iron, Amber, and Sparkle), Silk is optimised for one purpose. To produce great-sounding guitar tracks with minimum fuss. The interface is intuitive, and it is a great songwriting tool that allows you to generate parts for the ideas you are working on simply and efficiently.
Nylon Strings
Silk is a picked nylon string guitar instrument recorded with two high-end studio microphones. The top part of the interface deals with how the instrument is played. In other words, what phrases and patterns it plays, and how it plays them. The bottom half is dedicated to the shaping the sound of the guitar.
The Interface
The interface is a pleasure to use. Performance wise, the central focus of what is played are the banks of style phrases. A simple key switching system allows for changing phrases either in real time or from within your DAW. And the added octave for bass notes is a welcome addition to the Virtual Guitarist palette of chord voicing options. The performance section allows you to have phrases fluidly shift from being played either behind or ahead of the beat, with either loose or tight timing, swung or straight, and with dynamic variations between the picked notes.
Blend The Mics
Blend the two microphones in various configurations, and use the Character knob to give your guitar part the right texture for your mix. Picking can be captured from anywhere along the fretboard between the bridge and the neck. The Animate knob adds anything from subtle depth and movement to a lively comb filtering effect. Delay, reverb, doubling, and even fret noise can also be incorporated into the sound of the instrument.
Conclusion
This is a great instrument for non-guitar playing songwriters (like me). Silk makes it easy to add and edit nylon string guitar parts to your songs as you are developing them. And the sound shaping parameters give you everything you need to use these parts in a finished mix. It's absolutely worth checking out. Get a free demo version here.