Bass modeler test

[DankStar]

I made some patches for bass using my harley benton DNA fx. This was with a plexi amp and a panda holy bass cab IR. Drums are ML essential and the loops are from ugritone’s thrash essentials (I finally learned how to preview loops in reaper, much easier now).

The unit doesn’t have a bass amp except a bassman but it sounds kinda blah. Most all of the clean guitar amps sound decent for bass, especially with a boost in front.

https://m.soundcloud.com/dank-s-tar/hb-bass-test

[El Dunco]

Nice. Very “Dawn Patrol.” Bass modelling is getting better and this sounds very cool! I’d love to hear how it goes with some guitars.

I always found using guitar sims for bass a bit difficult with the eq controls set for guitar frequencies, not bass. Until recently, so many bass specific sims and IRs seemed like an afterthought. It’s probably because back in the day so many bassists used guitar rigs, your track has a very old school, early thrash/NWOBHM vibe. The tone instantly brings Nuclear Assault to mind.

My favourite bass sim for thrash is the Acoustic 360 model included my Boss 16 track recording unit. It’s so good, I had our bassist at the time run a Traben Array into the Boss unit with that preamp sim, into a tube poweramp and 2x10 cabinet with a single beta52 right on the sweet spot for a whole album (and nearly smacked my sister one for absentmindedly wandering into the studio and nearly moving the damm thing!) Didn’t even grab a DI.

The result was similar to the AiC Facelift bass sound, but more metal (even brighter with more grind. I guess the Traben pickup locations are similar to the Spector P/J and it had a 3 band for the active EQ so we could just keep pumping the mids all the way.)

I don’t know what it is about Acoustic bass amps but they do the piano-like, metallic midrange so well (the inspiration being Meshuggah’s Contradictions Collapse bass tone as Peter Nordin used an Acoustic 370 through a PA speaker so go figure!)

It’s far from portable though so I should definitely make a “profile” of that sim. There’s also a crazy freeware bass plugin called “Slapmaster.” It has a dirt simple GUI and can sound like any bass amp you can imagine and pairs nicely with bass cab IRs. However, it has a LOT of adjustable parameters so it’s time and effort intensive and you really need to know what you’re doing. I do have a bunch of presets for anyone who has Slapmaster and finds it intimidating though.

[DankStar]

Thanks for the details - you actually listed two things I listened to in my car today as what I believe are the ultimate bass sounds (dawn patrol and the contradictions collapse album), that’s crazy. Sadus’s debut and Mob Rules are other ones worth mentioning.

I was even wondering how they got the bass sound on that meshuggah album, it’s so good. Now I know, very cool.

I’ll check out that bass plug-in. There’s a free one I’ve been liking but I don’t know it by name, I’ll need to look again.

[El Dunco]

Thanks for the details - you actually listed two things I listened to in my car today as what I believe are the ultimate bass sounds (dawn patrol and the contradictions collapse album), that’s crazy. Sadus’s debut and Mob Rules are other ones worth mentioning.

I was even wondering how they got the bass sound on that meshuggah album, it’s so good. Now I know, very cool.

I’ll check out that bass plug-in. There’s a free one I’ve been liking but I don’t know it by name, I’ll need to look again.

That’s an awesome coincidence. I guess we “hear” bass in metal the same way, wanting it to be really present and clear in a genre where it often isn’t. Peter Nordin told me directly what he used when he was in Meshuggah when the old tandjent boards were still up. All I had to do was ask. Specifically, it was one of the older Ibanez Soundgear basses into the 370 with an 18” PA speaker.

I’m glad I’ve kept backups of all my favourite vst plugins because I can’t even find reference to the existence of Slapmaster anymore, let alone the amp sim. I also have a much simpler, pared down versiom called Freakslap (even has a Faith No More Preset.). It was very forward thinking of them to allow the option to turn off the native cab sims as bass IRs have gotten better. The huge growling bass track in this song is my G&L into SlapMaster, painstakingly dialled in the mix, sent to a class D power amp, then to a 4x10 and mic’d up and blended with an Ampeg 8x10 IR.

https://on.soundcloud.com/nLnZr9Y4tpDpzBJf6

[DankStar]

Sounds great and it does have that piano type vibe that meshes with the guitars

[Inflames626]

I dig the bass tone too. First thing I thought was Megadeth.

[DankStar]

I dig the bass tone too. First thing I thought was Megadeth.

Thanks for checking it out - Ellefson has always had a pretty mean tone.

[Inflames626]

That’s an awesome coincidence. I guess we “hear” bass in metal the same way, wanting it to be really present and clear in a genre where it often isn’t. Peter Nordin told me directly what he used when he was in Meshuggah when the old tandjent boards were still up. All I had to do was ask. Specifically, it was one of the older Ibanez Soundgear basses into the 370 with an 18” PA speaker.

I’m glad I’ve kept backups of all my favourite vst plugins because I can’t even find reference to the existence of Slapmaster anymore, let alone the amp sim. I also have a much simpler, pared down versiom called Freakslap (even has a Faith No More Preset.). It was very forward thinking of them to allow the option to turn off the native cab sims as bass IRs have gotten better. The huge growling bass track in this song is my G&L into SlapMaster, painstakingly dialled in the mix, sent to a class D power amp, then to a 4x10 and mic’d up and blended with an Ampeg 8x10 IR.

https://on.soundcloud.com/nLnZr9Y4tpDpzBJf6

Solid work El Dunco. The bass and drums hit hard and very tasteful guitar tone.

[DankStar]

here's the free bass plugin I like (not used in the above clip). Lots of cab options (or you can bypass the cabs), and has built in gain & compression which is handy:

https://lostin70s.com/shop/guitar/bass-deluxe/

[Inflames626]

My observation of plugins is:

If:
There is a freeware plugin, use it.

Else:
There is probably a torrent containing that plugin.

[El Dunco]

Solid work El Dunco. The bass and drums hit hard and very tasteful guitar tone.

Thankyou. My partner wrote the song, I just played on it and produced it. She realised she had switched gears and her metal song suddenly became a dreampop song so I convinced her to double down and commit to making it a fusion of the two which by the comments, people actually seem to appreciate!

There’s maybe one metal elisist among every hundred comments who doesn’t like it because it not “tr00 metal” enough but I kind of expect that.

Anyway, back to Dank and his nice bass tone. I’ve jacked his thread enough by not knowing when to shut up and I feel bad.

[El Dunco]

I dig the bass tone too. First thing I thought was Megadeth.

You hear it too right? Homage to Dawn Patrol! Before that, the general tone sounds like it would be right at home in late 80s Nuclear Assault, that awesome Dan Liker snarl. (I am not consolidating my comment replies anymore until this forum gets sorted out because I’m sick of my edits erroring out…)

[Inflames626]

El Dunco, I didn't think it was unacceptable to genre at all. Reminded me of this Canadian 80s synthpop metal band, The Birthday Massacre You might dig it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX16zzkabBs

[El Dunco]

Duuude! I fkn LOVE The Birthday Massacre! Red Stars, Goodnight, the whole Walking With Strangers album is absolutely killer. My fiancée does too so we jam on their stuff all the time. She can pull of Chibi and even kinda looks like her too.