by John Kindred
– Publisher —
IK Multimedia continues its quest to deliver high-quality virtual instruments for the recording artist. The company’s latest virtual instrument focuses on the bass.
MODO BASS® is a customizable physically modeled bass that is easy to use and delivers a realistic sound that captures the essence of the real instrument. MODO BASS® offers the ability to create a bass arrangements that focus on how the instrument is played and how it sounds. With the ability to adjust human technique, whether that be fingerstyle or pick, choose different types of bass instruments, pickups, and amplification, and so much more, MODO BASS® offers an all-in-one product for use in your DAW to create incredible sounds for your recording projects.
Is it all too good to be true? There are a lot of pretenders out there with products that require a lot of work to produce a usable sounding instrument for your recordings. Obviously, this can be a painful, laborious process. With MODO BASS®, the recording artists can be up and running within minutes after installation and replace whatever plugin being used in their DAW of choice with a few clicks of the mouse.
There a few questions when looking for that ultimate bass plugin to satisfy home recording enthusiasts, and professional musicians, engineers or producers.
1. Does the plugin provide enough volume?
2. Does the plugin sound like a bass?
3. Can I make the plugin sound like a bass?
For the most part, free bass plugins are very limited in quality. Lacking realistic sound and low volume levels, it becomes difficult to compete with recorded guitars, vocal, and quality drum plugins. At the end of the day, the product is muddy, without definition and ultimately just fills the role of low-end noise setting in your mix. Synth basses, well they sound like a synthesized bass or keyboard, and are oftentimes artificial and unrealistic.
Well, MODO BASS® satisfies these questions. Once setup within your DAW, you can instantly remove all those other plugins you were using to try and make any bass plugin sound like a bass. Basically starting off with MODO BASS®, you won’t need any additional effects or cabinet simulators, or whatever.
MODO BASS® sounds like the bass instrument because it is physically modeled after the electric bass. You have 12 bass instruments to choose from, as well as a solid state or tube amp and cabinet to match. You have the ability to have four effects in a chain running (Octaver, Distortion, Chorus, Compressor, Delay, Envelope Filter or Graphic EQ).
If that’s not enough, you have the ability to set:
• Play style: finger, slap, pick, mute
• Where your strumming hand plays on the string.
• Types, gauge and age of strings.
• Electronics pickups and wiring.
• MIDI control of critical parameters that you can automate in real time.
This is just an amazing plugin! And it is the first plugin to physically model an electric bass turning it into a virtual instrument. And yes it does sound like the real thing. It’s easy to use out of the box and fully tweakable to your liking. Along with the choice of running MODO BASS® in your DAW, you also can run it as a standalone interface, which is complete with recording features. The plugin works with MAC or PC, so everyone is pretty much covered.
MODO BASS – Overview
Here are all the features:
• The first physically modeled electric bass virtual instrument
• Groundbreaking real-time modal synthesis technology — no samples used to create sound
• Recreate virtually every electric bass sound imaginable
• 12 iconic bass models that span the history of recorded electric bass
• Models the entire act of playing an electric bass – player, instrument, FX & amp
• Ultra-small memory footprint
• Choose playing style — pluck, slap, and pick
• Freely move the playing hand for realistic performance
• Customize string force, fingers used, pick thickness & technique
• Customize string number, scale, tuning, gauge, construction, action, age
• 20 faithfully recreated, interchangeable iconic bass pickups with volume
• Choose active or passive electronics with parametric EQ
• Under-bridge piezo pickup with blend
• 7 bass stomp box effects configurable in 4-slot chain
• 2 iconic bass amps – Solid State and Tube derived from AmpliTube
• FX and amp global bypass for routing
• Optimized resizable interface
• Works as a 64-bit plug-in or standalone instrument for Mac/PC
• Full MIDI control with MIDI learn, key switches
• Full DAW automation control support
Look, if you’re not looking to purchase a bass and related gear for your recording projects and learn how to properly play the instrument, then, for the money, MODO BASS® can fulfill your needs with relative ease.
