Instruments range from the more obvious Fender, Music Man, Gibson and Rickenbacker basses right through to the Hofner ’Beatle’ violin bass via Ibanez and Warwick. A keyboard and fingerboard view of the notes played runs along the bottom of the screen. The Models view shows images of the 12 basses on offer, with the selected one shown in detail in the centre of the page. The GUI has tabs to change between the Model, Play Style, Strings, Electronics, Amp/FX and Control views. Modo Bass relies on modal synthesis technology, which is used to model each string as a nonlinear resonator that interacts in a realistic way with the action of the player as regards picking technique and string position. Other variable controls may be assigned to MIDI controllers, but don’t respond to conventional DAW automation. All the little organic noises produced by real basses are recreated, but placed under user control, and there are specific playing nuances that can be activated using keys (MIDI notes) outside the normal range of the instrument. Just like the real thing, the tone varies depending on whether you use your fingers or a pick and the sound also changes appropriately depending where you pluck the string relative to the bridge and how hard you pluck it. Your thoughts are most likely to turn to a decent sample-based virtual instrument, but Modo Bass might just have you thinking in a different direction.Īpparently this instrument was eight years in development and was worked on in collaboration with a major university, the idea being to model not only a large number of classic basses but also to allow a realistic degree of interaction in the way the bass is played.

Unless you plan to record a real bass, adding convincing bass guitar to your tracks can present a challenge. IK’s modelled bass instrument offers both realism and a fantastic degree of real-time control.

Ik multimedia modo bass