With Ample Bass Acoustic II, Ample Sound nailed it! A fantastic sample set in a wonderful engine that seems to fill in all the noises, squeaks and slides so you can produce top-notch performances with realism.
Ample Bass Acoustic II is an acoustic bass virtual instruments packaged in AmpleSound’s own sample playback plugin. The instrument’s sample set is based on samples of a Guild B-54 CE Acoustic Bass guitar.
The Ample Bass Acoustic II (or ABA as Ample Sound lists it ) is AU / VST (3) / AAX or RTAS plugins compatible with both PC and Mac. There is a stand alone version included but for the purposes of this review I tested the ABA V2.4 in my DAW (Logic Pro X) on a Mac.
Ample Bass Acoustic II is available for $119 (USD) from Ample Sound
Thoughts
Ample Sound are shaping a new paradigm with virtual guitar instruments using their own native plugin engine and it really shines with the Ample Bass Acoustic II. I don’t say this lightly as my very favorite “real world” instrument to play is my acoustic bass guitar. I love the contrast between the hi-pitched squeaks of fingers on strings, sliding to trigger the low end resonance of the instrument. With Ample Bass Acoustic II, Ample Sound have nailed it!
So when I finally had a chance to register and load up the instrument I was already sceptical, but ABA II blew me away!
With the Ample Sound products I updated to the latest release V2.4. The playback, realism and clarity are above any top-shelf acoustic bass kontakt libraries I have been using. The plugin has some huge advantages including the Tab Player.
The TAB Player allows you to import TAB files right into the instrument. It support GPX (Guitar Pro tab format). And right from the Ample Engine you can drag TAB performances to your DAW’s midi channels for customization and tweaking.
Another huge PRO for the library is the articulations. ABA II comes with 8 articulations: Sustain, Palm Mute, Natural Harmonic, Hammer On & Pull Off, Legato Slide, Slide in & out, Pop & Slap and Dead Note. The instrument is able to slide from note to note with seemingly realistic noises of fret and finger all while triggering great sounding and accurate samples.
Onces you have perfected a playback engine with great sample, it’s the little noises and imperfections that make a guitar library performance nearly indistinguishable from the real thing . . . Ample Bass Acoustic II does this with flying colors.
Another great thing Ample Bass Acoustic II offers is the options for sculpting the tone of your instruments playback. You can mix and process both of the Mic playback and DI playback samples separately. You also can get a variety of sounds with the stereo and mono modes.
Although the instrument is easy to playback with realism once you can command the keyswitches, the engine gives you access to the Sample Editor, letting you peak behind the curtain to see the round robins in action also allows for loading and saving of Tuning Settings.
The standout for me is the the Auto Legato Mode Switch which triggers legato automatically for slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs with extreme realism.
Now there is a lot more to this engine so be sure and check out the videos from “Reverend” (below) for more details about the library and see if it is right for you.
Facts
Ample Bass Acoustic II requires 4.89 GB of free hard disk space and is compatible with Windows Vista or newer and Mac OS X 10.7 or higher. The instrument runs as an AU, VST, AAX or RTAS in your host DAW or in Ample Sound’s stand alone wrapper.
Ample Bass Acoustic II is a sample library which is naturally recorded on every single fret. No destructive editing and dynamic processing are applied. The instrument features 8 articulations: Sustain, Palm Mute, Natural Harmonic, Hammer On & Pull Off, Legato Slide, Slide in & out, Pop & Slap and Dead Note.
The Legato articulations can be used to achieve legato notes of any duration, pitch and polyphony and Ample Bass supports alternate tunings to the lowest note B0.
Ample Bass Acoustic II is available for $119 (USD) from Ample Sound
I am a composer creating score and song for advertisements, films, television & interactive. I use virtual instruments and sample libraries daily in my work.
www.DonBodinMusic.com
