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bayswater wrote:

HCMarkus wrote:absence of legato mode is somewhat disconcerting (as noted previously) but can mostly be overcome with pitch bends and footswitch happy feet.

There is also C0 to hammer ON/pull OFF.

You are correct sir. Thank you!

waxman wrote:Yay! Marcus welcome to the party you wild and crazy guy.... Did you go to DP 9.12? I've been using Sierra and DP 9.12 for about 10 days and it's flawless and fast. MODO is the real deal. VI of the year award?

I was holding out for the next version, but seeing how well this has worked so far, 9.12 is soon to be installed.

Color it strange: Discovered this morning Safari won't let me log in to MOTUNation! Using Chrome at the moment... EDIT: Must allow cookies to log in. Fixed.

Oops. I missed the half-price thing.

But having seen someone up above point out that it won't do fretless was enough for me to not care. I was certain I had heard a fretless sound in the demo, but I must have been fooled by pitch bend or something.

Oh, well. Lah di dah.

This thing really is amazing. So much attention to detail. It's been awhile since I was so impressed with a new VI. I love Spectrasonics' Trillian, but MODO will now get first call for fretted electric bass. I'm going to keep an eye out for future IK-M offerings. ...anyone else notice that it won't apply vibrato to played notes that have been assigned to open strings? Smart!

The second preset that I posted last night, replaces the main Trillian patch. There's no comparison in terms of realism, phrasing, versatility, etc. -- though Trillian was quite good for its time and often came out on top, with Orange Tree Samples and Impact Soundworks being the main ones giving it a run for its money (Scarbee's stuff was long ago surpassed, as was Pettinhouse's).

Gravity Jim wrote:But having seen someone up above point out that it won't do fretless was enough for me to not care.

There seems to be a general expectation that an update will add fretless. But I have to wonder whether a 100% modeled electric bass should or could be stretched to product a good fretless bass. Surely that would be another new model?

Glad to hear that people are enjoying MODO BASS so much. I just wanted to address a few minor items I've seen crop up in this thread.

1. You don't have to go to your IK User Area to get manuals for installed IK Products. You can find them in the locations in this FAQ: http://www.ikmultimedia.com/faq/2497

2. Fretless options have been requested and are a strong contender for inclusion in an update.

3. Since the pre-order/intro pricing is no longer available, we are offering a $/€199.99 crossgrade from any previously purchased IK product with a value of $/€99.99 or more. You can even use JamPoints to lower that price by up to 30%

This VI is amazing. Absolutely nails the sound, and I've played all of those model bases - the character really comes through. It's spectacular. And on my laptop, the whole disk real estate commitment for electric basses has gone from gigabytes to a few hundred megabytes, while sounding at least as good and often better.

BUT since IK is listening here, and this is generally a forum for grownups only, I'm going to reiterate a request:

It needs noises. Unfretted and fretted slides, pickup claps, the dirt and grit of a real performance. No, it doesn't strictly need these things when buried in a mix. But this VI is so good it could stand up under a microscope - exposed, highlighted - IF it has those things.

At the moment, there's an easy enough workaround - it you own any of the older, non-monolithic Scarbee bases, (Jay bass, P-bass), just delete all the folders in Samples that don't pertain to fret noises, resave with samples, and you have small versions that you can use with MODO to add what's needed - just need to eq to approximate the model bass you're using if it's not a J or a P.

But IK should wrap these noises into the instrument to make it truly complete. I would say if it's challenging to implement in the model itself, then don't: just resynthesize a collection of samples of same and trigger contextually. Even if the final size of the instrument is increased by a couple hundred MB - no one will care. But what it will add will be overweight in terms of its impact during exposed performances.

And, please IK —

Add legato triggered hammer on/off.

In other words:

- keep the existing momentary key switch for hammer on/off, for when that's desired to he used to trigger hammer on/off

- add a key switch that turns on and off legato hammer on/off. When that's on, playing legato triggers hammer on/off automatically

This is essential for playability. If frees you from having to use the existing momentary key switch for hammer on/off every time you want hammer on/off. Some passages you just want it auto triggered by legato playing.

IK please add this.

Thank you for the suggestions, and thank you for the kind words.

Hmmm.... perhaps it's just me but this MODO bass doesn't seem that groundbreaking to me - I have had Propellerhead Reason Bass Refill for several years and I find it brilliant - the basses are sampled really well (my Fender Precision sounds pretty identical to the sampled model in Reason Bass so I have no doubt the other models are similarly accurate). The fretless bass sounds are really good too.

The process of doing slurs, hammer ons and offs, slide noise, and switching string sample for repeated notes, is so easily handled by holding down various notes on the keyboard while playing (or added afterwards on the MIDI edit) makes it easy to get a really accurate bass sound as if played by hand.

I have to admit at times I substitute my played bass track for a MIDI version because it makes it easier to change key which I have had to do at times.

I can't speak highly enough of Reason Bass Refill but it seems to be off the radar for a lot of people and not even rated. It's been around for years and is difficult to improve - I can't see anything in MODO Bass that would make me want it more than Reason Bass Refill.

I have a James Tyler JTV59 Variax and you soon get over the fun of moving virtual pickups around and changing bridge position etc. In the end you want usable sounds. With bass sounds this MODO Bass facility seems overspecified and gimmicky especially when you want a bass to sit in a mix. So I would recommend anyone checking out the Reason Bass Refill before you go down the MODO route.

Guitar Gaz wrote:Hmmm.... perhaps it's just me but this MODO bass doesn't seem that groundbreaking to me - I have had Propellerhead Reason Bass Refill for several years and I find it brilliant

I think you're kind of missing the point a bit. The reason refill is sample based. It's 3.45GB in size. If you do any sort of repetitive bass line you will run into round-robinitis. Scarbee has been a heavy hitter in bass VIs for a long time. I think Thom Skarbye walks on water when it comes to sampled basses (and, thankfully, other instruments, because his days sampling basses are now over unless he does a multimiked acoustic). His NI Rickenbacker pushes sampling of a bass to the very edge of what that technique can accomplish. It's awesome. But they're huge, multigigabyte libraries and they still can't do repetitive lines with the authenticity that MODO can.

The MODO Bass app is 7 *megabytes*. On a laptop, that makes a difference. With repetition on a string, it sounds better; the excitation of a note occurs while taking into account the previous excitation from the notes before. No sample-based instrument does or can do that. With transitions, hammer-ons, etc, same thing: you hear the effect of the previous state of the string on the current note. Supremely real sound. Sampling simply cannot achieve this.

Could you get by without MODO? Absolutely, no doubt.
But that does not mean for a second that there aren't very powerful reasons to get this amazing step forward in modeled VIs.

As has been said above, it's not flawless; the control scheme could use more customizability and it could definitely benefit from the addition of a legato hammer-on range parameter and from the inclusion of slide noises. But there's still nothing like it, and nothing that nails the core sound of a bass being played with such crazy precision.


P.S. Big retro love for the Variax - I have the Variax Bass. Absolutely no top end, but you've still gotta love the ambition. It's like an old teddy bear.

Guitar Gaz wrote:Hmmm.... perhaps it's just me but this MODO bass doesn't seem that groundbreaking to me -

For me the groundbreaking bit is the ease and speed of getting a usable track using a keyboard. I have samples that sound "real", and I've trialed many more, but while the samples sounded like a bass, the phrases didn't. I'm not the best bass player, but I always ended up going back to the real instrument. The MODO is brilliant in that respect. They've somehow managed to get it working well with a keyboard controller. I haven't heard the Reason bass, but I've tried the Scarbee and I like MODO better.

jloeb wrote:

Guitar Gaz wrote:Hmmm.... perhaps it's just me but this MODO bass doesn't seem that groundbreaking to me - I have had Propellerhead Reason Bass Refill for several years and I find it brilliant

I think you're kind of missing the point a bit. The reason refill is sample based. It's 3.45GB in size. If you do any sort of repetitive bass line you will run into round-robinitis.

Not arguing but I don't think I am missing the point - I don't tend to have any issues with repetitive bass lines as there are alternate notes you can trigger - and for me this is a bass and not a lead instrument playing solo. As for the size of the Refill - well I don't have a size problem and I am not on a laptop - I have some of those Reason modelled pianos and modelled sounds can be good especially if you have memory problems so I do understand. Playing Reason Bass on a keyboard is no problem for me - the key switch options seem just as varied as shown on the MODO Bass.

I prefer playing real bass but the Reason Bass Refill samples are so good that it is a very good alternative without too much fiddling about. It's simple, intuitive, and the sounds are good - I recommend it if you already have Reason and use it.

But I don't doubt that MODO Bass will have it's fans _ but having used Reason Bass Refill for many years I don't think what is offered by MODO Bass is that groundbreaking in terms of playing real sounding bass lines - yes they are modelled rather than samples, but all the key switches to get real sounding performances are not new - Reason has had these for many years and the sounds are real. I am not dissing MODO Bass, I am sure it's great - but don't forget Reason Bass Refill which is still excellent and not very expensive for what you get. And it has a fretless bass along with all the other basses.

Guitar Gaz wrote:Hmmm.... perhaps it's just me but this MODO bass doesn't seem that groundbreaking to me -

Being mobile is a trend that will become common. Apps like MODO, tools like Slate Ebundle and other new technologies that allow working on a laptop anywhere and anytime are great. So yeah MODO and the rest are game changers but without a new paradigm a person might not get it.

Yes. Pianoteq is another VI that equals or surpasses it's sample-based competitors. ...not to hijack the thread, but I'm curious what others are out there?