Best bass VSTi

[RoadHousePiano]

Hey all, occasionally I have to play left hand bass when our bass player can't make a gig. I've been using a B3 bass sound with my Nord Stage. I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a VST bass. I see that NI has a bunch of different Scarbee samples. I have Amplitude so I wouldn't need a VST with a lot of amp variations.

 

Thanks

[midinut]

Spectrasonic Trilian is awesome. May be overkill. Just saw a new one called Modobass or Mondobass or something.

[Geoff Grace]

I haven't tried Modo Bass yet, but judging from everything I've read and heard, it looks like the best bet for electric bass and it's on sale until the end of this month. That said, Modo Bass doesn't cover synth bass or acoustic bass. Trilian does.

 

Trilian has got to be the best all-arounder, but I wouldn't use it for slap bass. For that, I'd turn to the Scarbee Jay Bass, or East West Ministry of Rock 2.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[Mark Schmieder]

For slap bass, I have found MODO Bass to be the best at sounding natural and avoiding machine gun tendencies.

 

I used to find Trillian useful for plectrum style bass occasionally, compared to my other libraries, but I can't think of any remaining bass tasks where MODO Bass doesn't come out on top, except maybe fretless, for which I use Orange Tree's Iconic Bass.

 

Bear in mind that I do all of my own patches; I don't like the presets. But it's quite quick to program MODO Bass, compared to other VI's. Don't forget the semi-hidden amp settings.

[davinwv]

I'm still a huge fan of Scarbee JAY-Bass and MM-Bass. I also have his PRE-Bass, but I don't use it nearly as much.

 

For uprights, the one in the Kontakt Factory Selection Library is surprisingly good, as is Back Beat Bass by Art Vista.

[Mark Schmieder]

Uprights are a whole other topic. I just bought the new one from Fluffy Audio but haven't used it yet (too busy). Will be interesting to see if it finally pushes VSL off its pedestal. :-)

 

The Scarbee stuff is still pretty good, in sonic character, but not in playing realism. Too many "wrong string choices" going on.

[Reezekeys]

My .02 - for live work I would not get hung up on the multi-gigabyte deep sampled basses with finger squeaks, fret noises, etc. For recording, when you want to polish things up and make it sound as real as possible - yes. But you'd probably be surprised at how well a less "complicated" sampled bass will sound when you're playing it live. I have a few basses but they're pretty old  I think they're the "Bass Legends" from back in the day of Akai samplers. They sound fine on a gig and they're fun to play because you're not getting unexpected jumps in the sound when a high velocity triggers a slide or fret noise sample. Again, just my opinion from years of doing this. YMMV.

[RoadHousePiano]

My .02 - for live work I would not get hung up on the multi-gigabyte deep sampled basses with finger squeaks, fret noises, etc. For recording, when you want to polish things up and make it sound as real as possible - yes. But you'd probably be surprised at how well a less "complicated" sampled bass will sound when you're playing it live. I have a few basses but they're pretty old  I think they're the "Bass Legends" from back in the day of Akai samplers. They sound fine on a gig and they're fun to play because you're not getting unexpected jumps in the sound when a high velocity triggers a slide or fret noise sample. Again, just my opinion from years of doing this. YMMV.

This is really what I was looking for. I appreciate the feedback from everyone but I'm really just looking for something that will sound like a bass for the rare gig that my bass player cant get to. I currently use a B3 bass sound from my Nord Stage Classic. So really, any dedicated bass VST should work infinitely better than what I've been using.

[RoadHousePiano]

I'm still a huge fan of Scarbee JAY-Bass and MM-Bass. I also have his PRE-Bass, but I don't use it nearly as much.

 

For uprights, the one in the Kontakt Factory Selection Library is surprisingly good, as is Back Beat Bass by Art Vista.

I'm gonna probably go with the Jay or the MM. Price is right and for my purposes, seems like the best option. Thanks

[davinwv]

I'm still a huge fan of Scarbee JAY-Bass and MM-Bass. I also have his PRE-Bass, but I don't use it nearly as much.

 

For uprights, the one in the Kontakt Factory Selection Library is surprisingly good, as is Back Beat Bass by Art Vista.

I'm gonna probably go with the Jay or the MM. Price is right and for my purposes, seems like the best option. Thanks

 

I use the JAY on rock and country, and the MM on soul and funk. So, if you play all of those styles, you might want to pick up both :-)!

[whannah]

I know you're asking about VSTi's, but I use a minitaur for left hand bass and it's great. I turn the filter way down. With some decay and no sustain on the envelopes it gets pretty close to behaving like a string bass. Obviously its not going to fool anyone, but it gets the job done with a small package that's easy to carry and never crashes (unlike a laptop)

 

Also, +1 for spectrasonics. The older Trilogy bass sounds great as well.

[Mark Schmieder]

FM Bass, and Organ Bass, are great substitutes, in many contexts, but not as much for rock material where a bright plectrum sound is required.