Digital synthesis has many advantages, despite what the analogue purists say, and especially when it comes to bass: rock hard attacks, weird harmonic structures that can poke through a mix and total output-level reliability for mixes and, in particular, dancefloors.
Using the excellent emulations of some classic digital synths from Arturia, we built a set of bass instruments to create 72 bassline loops and 12 multisamples. The synths used were the CMI V (Fairlight), Synclavier, Prophet VS, CZ V and DX7 V all of which sound stellar and provide distinct sonic characteristics.
What you need to know
This sample collection offers a variety of loops and hits in seven folders, labelled by tempo.
The instruments are included as multisamples which run from C1 to C6 and, where necessary, have their sustain loop points embedded into the WAV file for easy transportation into samplers. A set of SFZ files are also included to save any manually key mapping. All multisamples are run with four even spaced notes per octave (C, D#, F# and A).
All the samples are supplied as WAV files so can be imported directly into your DAW or sampler of choice. Because they're royalty-free, you're welcome to use the samples in your music in any way you like - all we ask is that you don't re-distribute them.
The samples are supplied in a zip file, so you'll need to extract them before you can see them. Enjoy!
Example sounds
Digital bass samples: click to download
These samples originally appeared in Future Music Magazine. Check out the latest issue for many more.
Head over to the SampleRadar hub to download over 80,000 more free samples.
