Steinberg Virtual Bass - A real Veteran!

Today I want to feature a real veteran of the Bass VST Plugins. It is the Steinberg Virtual Bass. Until today I had the old version, which had, from my point of view, everything the new version has, and looked like that:

While searching a download link for you today, I came across this newer version, which is kindly provided as a 64-Bit version also:

I want to set clear one thing first: If you expect to get a realistic sound of a real Bass equipped with strings from this plugin, you will be disapointed. The whole thing really sounds too synthetic. But this plugin is the one, which comes closest to the sound of a real E-Bass of all, commercial plugins included, Bass VSTs I tested so far. If there's somebody reading this and thinks he knows a VST which does this job better, please tell me about it. I allways love to learn. But keep in mind: We are not talking about expensive sample players with gigabytes of sample libraries, but pure BassSYNTHESIZERS which do the job without using samples. To emulate the sound of a real stringbass is, as the sound of a real accoustic guitar, a hard job to accomplish for a synthesizer. And here the Steinberg Virtual Bass does a quite good job. The settings are kept quite simple. One can change the position and shape of the plectrum. Also one can smoothly change the position of the pickup. Dear bassplayers: Try this with your real hardware bass ;) There is also a control for the damping of the strings. But this damps the strings just to a certain degree. You will not get the PLOPP of a 100% damped string with this. Also there is a control for the release time of a string, but extreme values do not work here either. After all one can achieve quiet good results, especially when using automation of the controls.

Quality: One should expect from Steinberg, the inventors of the VST technology, that they did a great job at this plugin. And that expectation is not disapointed. The Steinberg Virtual Bass is a stable, rock solid and ressource friendly VST with a GUI which even not very smart people, who have a basic understanding about what an E-Bass is, should be able to grasp. Because this plugin is very old, it runs great on very old computers. I didn't test multiple instances in a DAW, because one very seldomly needs more than one bass unit in a single song. ;)

Conclusion: The Steinberg Virtual Bass is, from my personal view, the VST Plugin which best mimics the sound of a real E-Bass. It is ressource friendly and incredibly stable coded. I indeed think, that it should not be missing in any VST collection.

STEINBERG VIRTUAL BASS IS PART OF THE STEINBERG CLASSIC COLLECTION VOL. 1
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD!

Taurus - A legendary Basssound!

Being a fan of the rockband Rush, I came across the sound of the legendary Basssynthesizer Moog Taurus quite early. My first album by Rush was the album "Moving Pictures" from 1981. And that album was strongly influenced by the sound of the Moog Taurus. That sound fascinated me since I heared it for the first time because of it's powerfull characteristics. When a friend of mine told me a time ago, that there is a VST developer at Smartelectronix, who developed a free VST replica of the Moog Taurus, I was kind of sceptic first. Would that VST be able to really reproduce the sound of the original. The first preset gave a definitive answer, and that answer was YES! If one plays that preset, one hears exactly the same sound which one knows from the intro of "Tom Sawyer", the first track on the album "Moving Pictures". The setting possibilities are exactly the same as on the original Synthsizer. The operating is not unneccessary complicated. Despite the simple user interface, the Taurus is able to produce a big variety of sounds.

Quality: Little RAM usage, small CPU load, no problems with multiple instances. The Taurus didn't crash or cause any other problems ever.

Conclusion: This is a Plugin which should be in every collection of Vintage Synthesizer VST Replicas. The sound is deliberate synthetic and is immitating the original directly. Who is looking for sounds of real String Basses, will not be happy with the Taurus. But if you are looking for the 70s and 80s Synthbass, you will love the Taurus.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD TAURUS!

Triangle II - A Bass Monster and more!

I didn't have to think alot about which VST I want to present to you in the first Post of this Blog, because there is really only one music software companion, which was so VERY usefull from the start for my Digital Music Production. It is the Triangle II which was released by RGC Audio and is now on the Cakewalk site for any reason. I like the Triangle II especially for FAT Bass and used it a lot for my (Dub) Reggae productions. But it is also usefull for any other kind of Music, such as Techno and Electronica. The first presets of the VST really tell that this Synth is ideal for creating Bass. The Bass Controls at the left bottom of the interface are your way to create a real Monster Bass, from mighty Subbass to crunchy Techno Style. Just another bass VST? No, there is a lot more: Once you hear the Presets after the 26th one, you will enter the domain of total synth madness and will hear what this VST is able to do. For legal reasons, I refrain from copying the technical specs of the VST to this Blog, but you can easily read them on the Cakewalk product description site. Stability and Quality: The Triangle II is one of the few VSTs that never crashed my DAW and never caused any problems. The Interface is clean but for beginners a bit hard to get into. There's just too many knobs to learn about what they do. The Triangle II runs smoothly even on ancient Computers. I think I remember, that it even did it's job quite well on my old Pentium II 233 Mhz. Multiple instances running at the same time are also causing no problems. Conclusion: The Triangle II is an indispensable Tool in my sound arsenal and should be part of any serious VST collection. CLICK HERE TO GET THE TRIANGLE II VST !!!