Recording - July 2020 - 44

- Review by Paul Vnuk Jr.

Toontrack EZbass
Virtual Bass Guitar
Meet your new
bass player-
SERIOUSLY!
Twenty-One years ago, Toontrack launched the virtual
drum program Drums From Hell. DFH paved the way to
Superior Drummer (now in Version 3) and the EZ lineup
of products that include EZdrummer, EZkeys, and EZmix.
Now the EZ rhythm section is complete with the addition
of EZbass. EZbass is designed to offer trick-the-ear bass
lines and grooves that are quick and 'EZ' to add to your mix.

All about that bass

EZbass is both a virtual bass instrument and a virtual bass
player. It's available for Windows and OS X as a standalone
program or as a VSTi in your DAW of choice. The program
launches with a representation of a five-string bass guitar, and
below this, the standard Songtrack lane where you add and
massage your MIDI bass grooves.
Across the top of the window are tabs labeled Bass, Grooves,
Grid Editor, Drums & Keys, and Audio Tracker.

Choose your axe

EZbass comes with two bass guitar libraries sampled from
A0 to E4, in both pick and finger-played styles. Choose from
a vintage passive J-style bass and a modern bass with an
active, punchy tone.

Dial in the tone

The sound is shaped by standard tone and volume controls
for each pickup. You can add amp, room, overdrive, and effects
from an EZmix-style library of presets with names like Driven,
Seventies Rock Amp, Funk Octave, Distorted Metal Pick, and
more. These are expertly curated to offer quick, familiar bass
tones in a variety of styles. Parameter adjustments are ganged
together to single knob controls. If you want to get deeper or
use your own amp sims, effects, or even re-amp, simply use the
DI (dry) preset.
Tuning can be adjusted in octaves, semitones, or in cents to
fit your track. There are three available tunings: Perfect, Bass,
and Piano. Perfect is each note exact and separate, Bass takes
44 RECORDING July 2020

into account actual bass intonation and tuning fluctuations, and
Piano is based on stretch tuning.

Groovalicious

MIDI grooves can be imported, dragged and dropped, or
written from scratch directly in the Songtrack panel. Additionally, clicking the Grooves tab lets you select between a collection
of starter bass lines in styles ranging from Blues, Boogie, Country, Funk, Metal, Pop/Rock, Reggae, Soul, R'n'B and beyond.
Each style includes song collections with intros, choruses, verses, and more, in a variety of tempos and feels.
Once you have a style selected, pull it into the Songtrack to
alter the notes, feel, complexity, and form of the part.

Songtrack

The Songtrack in EZbass expands on its previous EZ incarnations and is split into Song Parts (a collection of chord
changes), Chords, and MIDI (the individual notes). The Songtrack contains simple controls for altering the feel and complexity of the song part with options for velocity, dampening,
and duration, as well as an amount control that will add or
subtract notes from the groove-if you've ever wanted a bass
player to play less, this is the knob for you! You can also add
note transitions and slides.
Chords are changed with a pull-up chord wheel (taken from
EZkeys). To edit notes, we move to the Groove Editor tab,
which opens a piano roll-style MIDI editor. You can edit note
value, length, and velocity, and here you also get access to one
of the coolest features of EZbass: like the playing articulations
in an orchestral or brass library, EZbass comes with a great
selection of bass-specific articulations such as which finger is
playing the note, ghost notes, percussive hand slaps, and of
course finger popping.

Add bass to any track

The final two tabs focus on adding bass grooves to preexisting
songs. The first one, Drums & Keys, is where you can drag in
any melodic or percussive MIDI file, and if it's melodic (Keys) in
nature, EZbass will analyze the key and chords and generate a

Recording - July 2020

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