With so many great sounding, playable bass VI’s around, choosing between them can be difficult. With an array of models, MIDI, and virtual amps and rooms available, we look at one instrument that has all the sounds with a different way of doing things.

VI’s - The Good And Bad

Virtual instruments have made a steady ascent in recent years. Beginning with the modest, but often computer-melting, pioneers from the turn of century, these tools have evolved into slick, believable musical presences that have vastly improved the quality of recorded music from non-instrumentalists. This is especially noticeable with production music for television, with many programmes enjoying believable symphonic backdrops that frequently outrun the quality of the actual show. At the ‘band’ end of things, drums, keys, and increasingly fretted instruments sounds’ slot in easily behind real vocals or other organic sources.

Up until quite recently, many of these instruments had one Achilles Heel; the enormous installers containing the many gigabytes of content needed to pull the trick off properly. As any musician knows, the sheer number of permutations arising from the average performance is virtually infinite. Developers must decide what the essentials are, but even these are many. Modern computing has helped enormously to alleviate this, owing to enormous, ever cheaper storage, combined with ample amounts of RAM to hold and fire off sounds when needed.

IK Multimedia MODO BASS 2

With a healthy amount of sample-based instruments on the market, IK Multimedia instead recently released their second incarnation of their MODO BASS instrument, which works using technology hiding in plain sight: synthesis. The advantages of this become apparent to anyone needing the nuance of a real performance and the thousands of variations required that a sample based instrument would simply have to forgo. By synthesising the bass strings, and associated modifiers in real time, the instrument gives essentially continuous control over elements such as playing position or virtual electronics. For those working on the move, the tiny installer presents a miniscule payload that comes down in a few minutes even on the flimsiest of connections.

IK Multimedia continue:

MODO BASS 2 isn’t a virtual instrument by definition, it’s a completely different technology that redefines realism from a computer-based instrument. MODO BASS 2 is the only technology of its kind that models the entire process of playing bass. Every component that contributes to the unique tonal properties of a bass player playing the instrument has been modelled, and the effects of each component on the other ones have been recreated to give you a dynamic, living, breathing and ever-changing performance.

Coming in three versions, MODO BASS 2 CS comes with IK’s P-Bass model, MODO BASS 2 SE comes with 4 models, with the full MODO BASS 2 version landing with all 22 models. Extra instruments from IK’s extensive library are also available for around $69.

Watch in the video how we match a real existing bass part with MODO BASS 2 before looking at some of its other instruments. We also explore how its architecture opens up possibilities when shaping sounds within the instrument:

Taking On The Sample-Based VI

Getting convincing sounds from a virtual bass instrument is viable thanks to a whole raft of useable solutions taking slightly different approaches. With others relying on existing real recordings to achieve their sounds, as a dedicated bass guitar/double bass instrument MODO BASS 2 is unique owing to its real-time synthesis-based architecture. Not only does this take up much less drive space and RAM than other VI’s, but it also affords the kind of control that would be hard to implement with a sample-based instrument. The fact that it sounds great certainly helps as well.

MODO BASS 2 CS is the free version of MODO BASS that users can expand with instruments from IK Multimedia. Get your copy below.