Axe Machina

A Next-Generation Virtual 7-String Guitar for Kontakt and Kontakt Player

Axe Machina is a deeply sampled virtual electric guitar instrument built for modern metal and aggressive music production. Created by Soundiron founder Craig Peters, this library captures the raw power and precision of a custom multi-scale Kiesel Aries 7-string guitar, tuned to A Standard and designed for crushing low-end clarity.

The instrument features 24 frets, a swamp ash body, birdseye maple neck, and Guitarmory Polaris pickups, strung with D’Addario XL 10–64 gauge strings. The swamp ash body delivers a tight, resonant tone with a natural attack that translates perfectly into high-gain and modern metal contexts.

Axe Machina includes meticulously sampled single-note sustains and power chords, with multiple palm-mute variations. A wide selection of performance and sound-design articulations are also included, such as pinch harmonics, muted notes, pick scrapes (short, medium, and long), fret noise, chokes, rakes, and slides.

Shape your tone using the pristine direct-input signal for re-amping through your favorite external amp simulators, or jump straight into production with the custom re-amped tones crafted using Neural DSP software. The flexible interface provides real-time articulation control, key-switching and mapping options, an arpeggiator, auto-strummer, sequencer, and a powerful integrated FX rack — all within a streamlined, performance-focused GUI.

The Main presets contain the complete sample set along with all advanced performance features. Lite presets reduce round-robin depth for lower memory usage, making them ideal for large projects. DI presets provide the unprocessed guitar signal with no tonal coloration, perfect for external re-amping. Amped presets deliver a modern, high-gain sound straight out of the box, dialed in by Craig Peters.

Standard presets give you access to individual strings, allowing overlapping note ranges and detailed control across the fretboard. Simple presets streamline this behavior with fixed crossover points for faster workflow and traditional playability.

The modular FX rack features 27 DSP effect modules, assignable across 8 slots in any order. Effects include classic phaser, flanger, delay, distortion, amp and cabinet simulators, compressors, EQ, rotator, and more.

The convolution reverb includes 99 high-quality room, hall, chamber, and outdoor impulse responses, along with 40 custom FX impulses designed for creative sound design. A collection of factory FX chain presets is included to help you get started quickly.

Specifications

• 8 powerful Kontakt .nki instruments (requires full Kontakt 6.2.2 or later)
• Single-note and power-chord sustains with multiple palm-mute layers
• Extensive performance articulations: harmonics, mutes, scrapes, rakes, slides, chokes
• 62,630 stereo samples in unlocked WAV format
• 24-bit / 48 kHz uncompressed PCM audio
• Approximately 31.9 GB installed
• Advanced multi-layer interface with filters, LFOs, glide, arpeggiator, and sequencer
• Fully modular FX rack with convolution reverb and custom impulse responses