The world of plugins has a huge collection of creativity to offer. With software developers all over the world bringing their passion for music to you and your DAW, the average producer now has access to a collection of instruments that would have made synth and guitar freaks of the 20th century fall down and wet themselves.
With so much choice out there, we’ve reached a period of specialisation. Certain softsynths now excel at certain tasks, with their unique features contributing to different types of sound. There’s one area where things aren’t so clear, though: bass.
Which soft synths offer the right types of oscillator to generate great bass tones? How can you find a good acoustic bass, emulated in VST and AU format? What’s the best 808 plugin emulation? Which will work well for hip hop producers? Where can you find a free Fender Precision Bass emulation?
With this guide to the best bass-focused instruments out there right now, we’ll show you the best bass VST plugins out there. Mixing your bass sounds though, is up to you.
IN SHORT: The Best VST Plugins for Bass
– Loopmasters Bass Master (£49): Ultimate sampled bass sounds from classic synths and other sources, with extra sub bass energy. The best solution for instant – and instantly creative – bass sounds.
– Spectrasonics Trilian ($299): The ‘Total Bass Module’ offers both synthesis and 34GB of meticulously sampled bass guitar instruments. This is the comprehensive solution for those who can afford it.
– UJAM Virtual Bassist (€129 or €169): Three plugins, also available as a bundle, that offer great bass guitar sounds and virtual players to play them if you desire.
– Spitfire LABS Amplified Cello Quartet (FREE): For lovers of orchestral and/or experimental creation, this free AU/VST plugin
– Novation Bass Station (Plugin) (£45): The plugin version of the hardware synth that’s been inspiring musicians for 25 years. This is a great way for beginners to get started down the road towards hardware synths.
– Arturia Mini V (€149): One of the best Minimoog emulations out there – for that classic monosynth bass tone and legendary oscillator and filter sound.
– Ample Bass P Lite II (FREE): A Fender P-Bass emulation in your DAW for absolutely no money down.
– AudioRealism ABL3 (€95): Probably the best way to get the classic sounds of the Roland TB-303 Bass Line synthesizer, with a very realistic sound and some modern improvements.
– Native Instruments TRK-01 ($99): Both bass and kick, generated by the same instrument, complete with easy controls to combine the hardest two instruments in mixing.
– DopeSONIX Bass Engine: The sounds of three decades of basslines, including modern 808s and vintage sampled b’lines, makes a great resource for hip hop producers.
– More Ways to Bass: It’s not all about the plugins. Get more creative with your bass using samples, effects and production techniques.
Bass Master (Loopmasters)
VST / AU
Bass Master currently costs £49 from Plugin Boutique
Bass Master is a synth in every regard, but it’s dedicated to bass sounds. You can find standard synth parameters such as filtering, envelopes and effects, but instead of traditional oscillators, Bass Master’s sounds are generated from two layers of samples.
With 250 mix-ready presets, 217 oscillator samples to choose from, taken from a mix of legendary synthesizer hardware and modern digital synths, there are plenty of sonic combinations to score using Bass Master. And with the huge sampling pedigree behind the Loopmasters brand, it’s a seriously powerful choice for deep subs, biting full-range basslines and creative, expressive bass sounds.
Each sample ‘layer’ comes with its own envelope, there’s a mixer to blend between the two sounds. Bass Master offers 13 filter types with optional keytracking, and LFO and envelope modulation for the filter’s cutoff. There’s also bass-specific effects processors from Distortion, Chorus and Reverb modules, and a Frequency Booster to cook the output signal.
The instrument now has expansion packs available to bulk up its sonic capabilities. You can also get these with the synth in a discounted bundle.
Bass Master currently costs £49 from Plugin Boutique
Trilian (Spectrasonics)
VST2 / VST3 / AU / AAX
You can get Trilian from the Spectrasonics website at a cost of $299.
Taking is a Who’s Who of electric bass instruments, and sampling them for this huge, epic instrument, Trilian impresses in its range of sounds and also their quality. Whether you’re looking to pull up a fretless double bass, a classic Fender P-Bass, a Roland SH-101 or a PPG Wave synth, Trilian’s got the hall of fame ready and waiting.
If it’s possible to forget the huge wealth of sounds within Trilian for a second, you can come back out and explore its effects and programming capabilities. The arpeggiator – which is compatible with Spectrasonics’ Omnisphere and Stylus RMX packages – joins modulators like LFOs and multistage, loopable envelopes to enhance and animate any bass sound.
There’s also a roster of effects you might recognise from Omnisphere version 1, including dual filters with 19 types, dynamics effects, EQs, chorus, phaser and flanger, delay and reverb, and more. Being a bass-focused plugin, Trilian also offers amp and speaker modelling, to add some real-world air and circuitry into your patches.
You can get Trilian from the Spectrasonics website at a cost of $299.
Virtual Bassist (UJAM)
VST / AU / AAX
Virtual Bassist costs €129 per instrument, or €269 for all three plugins, at the UJAM website. 30-day free trials are also available.
There are actually three Virtual Bassist plugins in this suite, each one giving its own flavour of classic and distinct bass tones – and playing styles – to the mix.
You can play any of the Virtual Bassist series as traditional sample-based instruments in Instrument mode, letting you play whichever notes you choose at any time. Switch over to
Player mode, though, and your MIDI notes start triggering entire phrases.
Royal is perhaps the most ‘standard’ Virtual Bassist here, bringing finger-picked tones similar to those of a studio session player, and the sonic settings to tailor this kind of playing to any mix. Mellow brings a more acoustic approach. With a fingered upright bass, for jazzy and calmer styles. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Rowdy hammers out harder rock and metal tones, with effects to match.
With the Player modes, you can use keyswitches to define common phrases, style phrases, intros and fills, and your chosen Virtual Bassist will play along. You can also define the chords of your backing using MIDI, letting the plugin do the work in note selection.
Effects are mostly shared between the different component instruments. Character, Compressor, Equalizer and Octaver parameters remain consistent between the plugins, although their effects change slightly.
Meanwhile, other parameters are tailored to the instrument in queastion, with the Drive knob on Rowdy and Royal swapping for a Room knob on Mellow, for example, or Royal’s Pickup blend switched with a Fuzz control in rowdy and a mic Position knob in Mellow.
Virtual Bassist costs €129 per instrument, or €269 for all three plugins, at the UJAM website. 30-day free trials are also available.
Amplified Cello Quartet (Spitfire Audio)
VST2 / VST3 / AU / AAX
This plugin is available as part of the LABS series of free instruments from Spitfire Audio. After downloading the LABS shell, you can install individual instruments such as this one.
The London-based high-quality sampling company have been building a series of interesting, esoteric instruments that all run for free inside the LABS plugin host. Seemingly, the idea is to bring out a few interesting sampling projects that wouldn’t necessarily sell too well, and give them away for free to showcase the Spitfire pedigree. Amplified Cello Quartet fits the bill perfectly.
Taken from recordings of four cellos played through effects pedals and amps, this instrument doesn’t give you many controls to tweak – it stands back and lets the audio say it all. It’s perfect for experimental soundscapes, suspense in soundtracks, and slicing and resequencing.
This plugin is available as part of the LABS series of free instruments from Spitfire Audio. After downloading the LABS shell, you can install individual instruments such as this one.
Bass Station (Novation)
VST / AU
The Bass Station plugin is available for £45 at Plugin Boutique. A trial version is also available.
The original Novation Bass Station is a hardware monophonic synth that’s contributed more than its fair share of sounds to electronic music since its release in 1993. Anyone seeking classic bass sounds from iconic dance, techno and trance tracks – and often normal synth sounds from them too – should find them in abundance in this plugin recreation of the original hardware.
Coming directly from Novation, you know the Bass Station plugin will be a fair recreation of the original hardware. The plugin itself is now a few years old, but less so than the hardware Bass Station. This is a simple option for bass, but if you’re looking to get started in the world of electronic music and are aiming at a hardware synth purchase in the future, this could be a great way to jump off.
The Bass Station plugin is available for £45 at Plugin Boutique. A trial version is also available.
Mini V (Arturia)
VST2 / VST3 / AU / AAX
Arturia’s Mini V plugin costs €149 from the Arturia website and is also available as part of the V Collection.
What better tool for creating synth basslines than the granddaddy of all synths, the Minimoog?
Now at version 2, Arturia’s Mini V plugin, also available as part of the company’s huge V Collection softsynth package, is one of the best emulations of that classic synth you can get your virtual hands on.
Sporting near-as-damnit emulations of the original synth’s circuitry, including three oscillators, the now-classic ‘ladder’ filter, and the ‘Contour’ envelope controls, this recreation has the original sound down in all the right places, and also goes further in offering extra features such as the Motion Recorder and Curve Editor for modifying how your own ‘Mini’ works.
Other additions throughout the Mini V include a Vocal Filter, Automation, a Mod Matrix, Delay and Chorus processors, and many more thoughtful inclusions.
Arturia’s Mini V plugin costs €149 from the Arturia website and is also available as part of the V Collection.
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Ample Bass P Lite II (Ample Sound)
AU / VST / AAX
Ample Bass P Lite II is a free download from the Ample Sound website.
Ample Sound have spent the last few years carefully making their way through a series of modelled guitar ROMplers, and with so many six-strings, four-strings, and many more variations under their belts, a couple of freebies were almost inevitable.
To demonstrate the Ample Sound brand, Ample Bass P Lite II models a classic Fender Precision Bass, putting 443 samples (in half a gigabyte) over your MIDI keys, with Sustain, Hammer On, Pull Off and Accent articulations to switch between. You can also switch to Tablature view, which can load tab formats.
P Lite II is a cutdown version of Ample’s main Ample Bass P sampled instrument, but this free version still manages to include features like fingering noise, capo logic and ‘auto buzz’ for some sophisticated and realistic bass sounds.
Ample Bass P Lite II is a free download from the Ample Sound website.
ABL3 (AudioRealism)
VST / AU / Reason Rack Extension
You can grab ABL3 from the AudioRealism website – it’s €95.
Squelch! One of the most idiosyncratic – and funnest – ways to mess with bass is to use a Roland TB-303 emulator. While the original Japanese bass synths currently sell for crazy money, plugin emulations make the 303 ‘acid’ techno sound far more accessible, and AudioRealism’s ABL3 is widely recognised as one of the best.
Not only is ABL3 a hugely authentic emulation of Roland’s original TB-303, it also goes above and beyond it, offering functions like Pattern Edit view, a Wave Analyzer to read and recreate other 303 patterns, step recording, vibrato and more. This is truly one of the best ways out there to get your tunes on acid.
You can grab ABL3 from the AudioRealism website – it’s €95.
TRK-01 (Native Instruments)
VST / AU
You can get TRK-01 on its own for $99 from the Native Instruments website. It’s also available as part of the Komplete bundle of NI plugins, and the cutdown TRK-01 Bass plugin is included as part of Komplete Start.
One of the hardest parts of music production is to come up with a kick and a bass that gel well together and provide that crucial solid foundation for the whole mix. TRK-01 aims to solve this problem by providing sound generation for both kick and bass, and also the means to mix the two together by making common mixing techniques instantly easy.
TRK-01’s Kick and Bass components appear side by side. You can sequence and design the sound for each, and apply modulation and effects, too. So far, so synthy, but the best part about TRK-01 is the Bass and Booster sections.
The Bass section pushes the low end of your kick and bass combo into overdrive, cooking it harder for an extra weighty sound, while the Booster helps to automatically push the kick and the bass back apart so that the two can be present in the mix together, all while retaining that extra weight.
You can get TRK-01 on its own for $99 from the Native Instruments website.
Bass Engine (DopeSONIX)
VST/AU
Bass Engine costs $80 from the DopeVST website.
Serving up three distinctive decades of bass sounds, this simple VST and Audio Units plugin should be high on the list for hip hop producers seeking instant results. Using a huge bank of sampled bass sounds, the plugin gives you access to everything from sampled vinyl bass to modern trap 808s.
With its distinctive early-sampled sounds of vinyl records recorded through MPC 60s and SP-1200s, Bass Engine’s 90s bank lends an old-school hip hop flavour to your bass explorations. The 00s bank focuses more on hardware synths of the day, such as the Korg Triton, while keeping some of the sampled feel as well. The modern 10s bank pushes up the sub slider, focusing on trap-style 808s and more modern synth sounds.
Bass Engine costs $80 from the DopeVST website.
The Bass Engine interface also incorporates Pitch, Pan, Glide and Volume controls, and ADSR enveloping. The plugin also comes with 50 ready-made MIDI basslines to run into it.
More Ways to Bass
With all this talk of plugins, it’s easy to forget that there are tons of sampled Basslines and More Bass Sounds out there via Loopmasters and Loopcloud, making it easy to lay down instant bass from some of the best sound designers and pro artists out there.
Don’t forget to consider the processing side when constructing your bass sounds, as well. With bass-tailored effects like Little Labs’ Voice of God hardware and its software emulations adding weight to bass using a resonant high-pass filter, and plenty of analogue-style tube-modelled and modern digital distortion and saturation plugins out there, there’s far more to look for than just bass instruments.
