OTS Rubber Bridge

[Larry Shelby]

The rubber bridge guitar has exploded in popularity in the last few years, a new favorite in indie rock and folk music, even making notable appearances in pop music.

Presenting Evolution Rubber Bridge. Extensively sampled using a nearly century old parlor guitar that was converted to a rubber bridge guitar and fitted with a Tokyo-style gold foil pickup. This hybrid acoustic/electric guitar includes both a stereo mic signal and a pickup signal that can be blended independently, offering a wide spectrum of inspirational tones.

As part of our Evolution series, the sample library includes a built-in effects suite, flexible articulation mapping system, and a strumming pattern editor. If you've used any other Evolution libraries, you'll already be familiar with the interface and workflow.

Evolution Rubber Bridge is normally $179 USD, but until May 31st you can pick up your copy at an introductory discount of $139.

Use the link below to watch the walkthrough video and listen to audio demos.

MORE INFO

https://www.orangetreesamples.com/products/evolution-rubber-bridge

 

Edited May 17, 2022 by cclarry

[Bapu]

With my orange slices + CC points and the fact that it's the only guitar I don't own in the full Guitar Bundle, my price is $69.71 . Schweeeeeeet Dealio.

Edited May 17, 2022 by Bapu

[ALC]

Hm.  Never heard of rubber bridge guitars before.  Had to go and research.

https://www.guitarworld.com/features/reuben-cox-really-good-rejects-documentary

https://studentofguitar.com/rubber-bridge-guitars/

Any other good links?

[Olong Johnson]

Deleted.

Edited May 17, 2022 by Olong Johnson

[Greg Schlaepfer]

Here's another link to add: https://reverb.com/news/the-rubber-bridge-guitars-taking-over-indie-music

They're a pretty recent invention--just in the last few years--but have really taken off, used by artists like Bob Dylan, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Phoebe Bridgers, Madison Cunningham. And of course, Aaron Dessner played one in Taylor Swift's Folklore album (the track Invisible String, for example).

At first I thought the guitar would end up having a pretty specialized sound, but it turned out way more versatile than I imagined. Being able to blend between a purely electric sound from the pickup to the mic'd acoustic sound adds a new dimension to the tone that none of our other guitar libraries have. One of my favorite sounds is running the pickup out an amp with spring reverb, and then mixing in the acoustic sound of the guitar--check out the "Warm Springs" factory preset for an example of that. It's sorta modeled after this Madison Cunningham performance. As you can hear, the rubber bridge guitar supports vocals really nicely, because it doesn't crowd the high frequencies like a bright steel string guitar sometimes tends to.

And unlike typical acoustic guitars, the rubber bridge guitar sound is friendly to adding overdrive/distortion. The gold foil pickup installed in the guitar is what you'd use in an electric guitar, so it's very different than the piezo pickups you'd find in an acoustic guitar for adding the option of amplification. The effects chain in Evolution Rubber Bridge are set up so that the pickup signal runs through all the guitar pedals and amp/cab emulation, while the mic signal only goes through the rack effects.

[Olong Johnson]

2 hours ago, Bapu said:

With my orange slices + CC points and the fact that it's the only guitar I don't own in the full Guitar Bundle, my price is $69.71 . Schweeeeeeet Dealio.

That's a great price. I got 6% off with my slices for a total of $74.26 for the full guitar bundle upgrade.

[Fleer]

Pretty pretty interesting!

[John]

It sounds incredible. I just ordered it. Orange Tree makes great sample libraries.  

[PavlovsCat]

6 hours ago, John said:

It sounds incredible. I just ordered it. Orange Tree makes great sample libraries.  

Exactly. I never heard of a rubber bridge guitar until recently and absolutely love the sound. I can't wait to download this library and play it. 

Edited May 18, 2022 by PavlovsCat

[fret_man]

I wanna know where I can buy rubber bridges so I can outfit one of my guitars.

[abacab]

 

[Bapu]

 

[Greg Schlaepfer]

1 hour ago, fret_man said:

I wanna know where I can buy rubber bridges so I can outfit one of my guitars.

The guitarist for this project made his out of a block of jeweler's rubber. I can get you more information/photos if you'd like.

Making this sample library has me curious about adding a rubber bridge to a P bass, too, since adding some amount of muting to those is so common for certain styles.

[abacab]

51 minutes ago, Greg Schlaepfer said:

Making this sample library has me curious about adding a rubber bridge to a P bass, too, since adding some amount of muting to those is so common for certain styles.

 

[PavlovsCat]

This is the video that made me a total fan of the rubber bridge guitar, and of Madison Cunningham. 
 

 

[Larry Shelby]

Where's that confounded (rubber) bridge?

[PavlovsCat]

1 minute ago, cclarry said:

Where's that confounded (rubber) bridge?

"The Crunge," for 100 points. Zeppelin is one of my favorite bands. 

[abacab]

 

[Grem]

Well, listening to the links ALC posted, I decided I really don't like the tone. I am definitely not.looking for a rubber Bridge to put on any of my guitars. 

I am sure OTS lib's are excellent.  Though I haven't listened to thier demo yet. 

[Greg Schlaepfer]

Here's a video composer Zach Heyde just posted, featuring the Evolution Rubber Bridge library. In the video, he demonstrates a bunch of the presets and features included in the library as well as showing you how he used Evolution Rubber Bridge in his demo track, "The Enigma Machine."

 

Edited May 20, 2022 by Greg Schlaepfer
Trying to get the YouTube embed right :)