These two short audio examples demonstrate various elements of the ambient virtual guitar sounds and performances I discuss in the written workshop in SOS October 2026.
www.soundonsound.com/techniques/cubase-15-create-ambient-guitar-parts-halion-sonic
All the guitar performances were produced using Cubase’s HALion Sonic VSTi and stock plug-ins that can be found in all tiers of Cubase 15, including Elements.
Ambient Guitar Parts Audio Example 01
This file contains three parts, as follows:
i) Using a single HALion Sonic electric guitar preset, the Chord Pads are used to step through the standard chords of the C major scale. Each chords is played as a standard triad (root, 3rd, and 5th), much as a single hand might play them on a piano keyboard. No additional processing has been applied to the HALion Sonic guitar sound.
ii) As above, but using the Chord Pads configured with the ‘open’ guitar-style chord voicings described in the article (the 3rd is played an octave higher, and with the substitution of the Em and Bdim). This is still the unprocessed guitar sound, but the wider spread of the notes and the higher frequency content already lend the chords a more atmospheric feel.
iii) As in (ii), but now with the VST Amp Rack guitar amp/cab emulation shaping the guitar tone, and the Roomworks plug-in adding a long reverb tail. The chord voicings and the processing/effects combine to give us an even more atmospheric character.
Ambient Guitar Parts Audio Example 02
This example again contains three parts. Each contains a short solo guitar performance created using the processed guitar sound you can hear in (1iii) and open chord voicings created using the Chord Pads:
i) A performance based on full chords played using the Chord Pads, this provides an example of the gentle ambient guitar textures these sorts of chords can provide.
ii) This performance uses the Chord Pads Pattern Player mode. I created a very simple, one-bar MIDI chord arpeggio (programmed in a regular MIDI clip) and then drag-dropped this into the Pattern Player. Designing the MIDI pattern yourself in this way gives you have full control over how the chord is arpeggiated, so you can emulate different fingering patterns that might be used on a guitar.
iii) As for (ii) but using a combination of different performance patterns, and using the Key Editor to ‘comp’ the final performance into a single take, to inject some variety.