MusicRadar Verdict
Ample Bass Acoustic II sounds jaw-droppingly realistic and offers more sound and performance shaping than most users will ever need. Beautiful.
Pros
- +
Fantastic sounds.
Cons
- -
Very few.
MusicRadar's got your back Our team of expert musicians and producers spends hours testing products to help you choose the best music-making gear for you. Find out more about how we test.
Ample Sound continues in its ongoing guitar emulation mission with a massively multisampled
Guild B-54 CE acoustic bass, just shy of 5GB in size.
The DI signal and two mic channels have been sampled separately, and full control is enabled over their relative mix levels, mono/stereo/mid-side configuration, width and frequency content (via Ample Sound's redesigned EQ - three parametric bands plus low and high cut).
As usual, every note has been sampled at every fret, eight keyswitched articulations are covered (Sustain, Palm Mute, Hammer On/Pull Off, Natural Harmonic, Legato Slide, Slide In/Out, Pop/Slap, and Dead Note), and a range of lifelike noises can be independently mixed in (Fret, Release, Accentuation, Buzz, etc).
You can also have the instrument play itself by loading tab files into the Tab Player, which has been customised specifically for bass notation and articulations.
“It’s better in every way. The second version took what the first could do and made it five times as useful”: Waleed on Digitakt II, Ableton Live and overcoming creative block
“Why am I using this digital monstrosity when it flies in the face of all my principles that I have acquired over decades?”: Guthrie Govan makes the case for the all-digital guitar rig – it’s all about the F-word
“This is a bass that I fell in love with at a pawnshop and used to play the first Rage record”: Ernie Ball Music Man and Tim Commerford team up for a pair of limited run signature StingRay basses
