SCARBEE releases Black Bass Amped 1-4 for Kontakt 2

Sampler and Sampling discussion (techniques, tips and tricks, etc.)
RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

SCARBEE releases Black Bass Amped 1-4 for Kontakt 2

SCARBEE today released Black Bass Amped 1, 2, 3 and 4 - four reamped editions of the successful Black Bass library for N.I. Kontakt 2.2.

Each of these products has its own distinct sound and is designed to fit certain musical styles. The amped editions provide an easy way to get the sound you want out-of-the-box without the need for expensive amp simulators or tweaking amp settings. Other than the looks and the sound the amped versions work just like the original Black Bass D.I. library - they use the same sophisticated script and programming.

Black Bass Amped 1-4 is produced and recorded by SCARBEE director Thomas Hansen Skarbye himself and developed together with Kontakt script wizard Nils Liberg to create a truly innovative and highly playable instrument for musicians, composers, and producers looking for a unique bass sound.

Scarbee Black Bass - Amped 1
For rock and pop oriented music productions. The amp and cabinet used for Amped 1 is a classic setup giving you a powerful and tight bass sound.

Scarbee Black Bass - Amped 2
For heavy rock oriented music productions. The amp and cabinet used for Amped 2 is a classic setup giving you a powerful and hard bass sound.

Scarbee Black Bass - Amped 3
For rock oriented music productions. The amp and cabinet used for Amped 3 is a classic setup giving you a powerful and mildly distorted bass sound.

Scarbee Black Bass - Amped 4
For R&B and pop oriented music productions. The amp used for Amped 4 gives you a fat and crispy bass sound.

Image

Features
  • Real-time playable - with the exception of cross hammering and trills all of the articulations in the list given further below can be triggered without the need for any keyswitches. Eg. Hammer-on & pull-offs are triggered by legato playing and fast grace notes by fast legato playing.
  • A powerful user interface pushing the Kontakt user interface to its limits: a fretboard display gives an overview of the playing position and for each string what fret and articulation (displayed as a unique symbol) that are used - dynamically updated as you play.
  • All four strings sampled.
  • Each string is monophonic so new notes abort earlier notes, giving a perfectly realistic bass.
  • Automatic string selection - play and the script selects the most suitable string for you. Use keyswitches to limit the string choice or to move the active playing position (placement of left hand). The automatic string selection is tailor-made to work well with every articulation.
  • Automatic alternation of right hand index and middle finger samples (can also be controlled using keyswitches).
  • Convenient keyswitch mode - a keyswitch affects the following note or remains active as long as it's pressed - making it easy to quickly return to the default mode of operation.
  • Slide mode - play a note legato while holding the sustain pedal pressed to trigger a slide. The velocity will determine a slide speed anywhere between 60 to 480 bpm. Slides use real interval transitions sampled in three different speeds for realism and employ a new technique invented by Skarbye/Liberg to significantly reduce RAM usage. Slides are available for every interval up to an octave down and up from the current note. It's possible to play multiple slides consecutively to go up and then down.
  • Chord mode - makes it possible for notes to be automatically assigned to the right strings even if the notes of a chord don't arrive exactly at the same time.
  • Control over release samples - random alternation between more or less tight (how quickly they are dampened) release samples where the proportion of each can be controlled by the user. Select a default release type and use a keyswitch to toggle between the default behaviour and the other type.
  • Pickup-hits - randomly inserted where they are most likely to occur in real-life playing.
  • The user can set the probability of a pickup-hit to occur.
  • The sound of Mr. Scarbee's own fingers.
  • EQ and Effect Presets - direct in the instrument user interface.
  • Integrated documentation for all settings - direct in the instrument user interface.
Articulations and playing techniques
  • sustains
  • mutes
  • harmonics
  • hammer-on & pull-off
  • fast grace notes
  • slides - in practically any speed
  • trills & trill-tails
  • buzz-trills
  • cross hammering
  • chords
  • chord slides
  • percussive slides
  • index and middle finger alternation
  • three different sets of release samples: loose, tighter and tight.
  • pickup-hit noises
  • fret noises
This initial release features fingered playing style and contains more than 4 000 samples.

SCARBEE Black Bass Amped 1, 2, 3 and 4 for Kontakt 2.2 will be priced $99.00 each.
Crossgrades from one Black Bass edition to another will be available in their online shop for $69.00.
SCARBEE products can be ordered on both DVD/CD media and as direct-downloads from the online shop: http://www.scarbee-shop.com.

For more information, visit their web site at http://www.scarbee.com.
Last edited by Mr.Scarbee on Wed Sep 26, 2007 4:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Thomas Hansen Skarbye
Singer, Bass Player & Creative Director, SCARBEE
Websites: www.scarbee.com
MySpace: www.myspace.com/scarbee

Post

Wow that's the best news of the day (with PoiZone 2 ^^).

Keep 'em coming.

Post

Holy heck, those demos sound great. :shock:

Post

Maybe I don't get it, but wouldn't purchase of the original library and say Amplitube SVX get you in the same ball park? Or did you re-record each sample with different external pre-amp/speakers/microphones etc?
rsp
sound sculptist

Post

zvenx, if you already own Amplitude SVX and are comfortable with tweaking its settings then your first choice would probably be the original D.I. library. Black Bass Amped 1-4 have been prepared for those who want a carefully designed amped sound right out of the box and don't own expensive high-quality amp simulators or have time tweaking settings. The D.I. and Amped 1-4 editions might appeal to slightly different audiences. Whereas D.I. offers a bit more flexibility in terms of sound shaping if you have the right tools, the amped editions provide a quick and easy way to a final sound suitable to the musical style of the user.

By the way, the Scarbee products page has an overview of the different editions with direct links to mp3 demos of each. I recommend it to everyone who wants to compare the sound of the different editions.

Nils
_________________
Script developer @ Scarbee

Post

Is there any way of finding out what amp combinations were used for these? Even privately? I bought the DI Black Bass and have access to some software amps, including a bass amp. So I'd love to be able to find the settings since I'm not a tone expert, but I already bought BB last week.

If not, no big deal. But if it's possible, let me know.

By the way, anyone debating on the purchase, Black Bass is AMAZING. Truly the ultimate in playability. I'll be posting my review of it soon, but if you like what you hear, you will like what you play even better. It's inspiring and easy to create a pretty realistic bass part with very little tweaking.

Brent
My host is better than your host

Post

Some people would rather have an out of the box sound and not tweak there own. There were a ton of earlier posts that said the Black Bass didn't work for "this" style or "that", so Scarbee offers 4 distinct versions for various styles. I say it's pretty clever.
iMac• OS X 12.6 • Logic Pro X • Motu Interfaces • Kontakt 6• Superior 3.0
Writer • Vocalist • Producer • Filmmaker
https://soundcloud.com/myronzmusic

Post

I know that. Black Bass works great for me. I am just curious about which amp settings were used.

Maybe you weren't talking to me though. Sorry if you weren't. Just making it clear that I love the sound of the DI BB and prefer the flexibility.

Brent
My host is better than your host

Post

mojamusic wrote:Some people would rather have an out of the box sound and not tweak there own. There were a ton of earlier posts that said the Black Bass didn't work for "this" style or "that", so Scarbee offers 4 distinct versions for various styles. I say it's pretty clever.
It is. The amount of control just seems ideal. As I said in another post, this really would seme to be the future of sample libraries. I suppose ram limitations continue to be a problem implementing this in, for example, orchestral libraries.

But, even though I am a technoboob, I have no problem with having to use 20 or more key switches or controllers to have all the artculations for a particular instrumen in real time. It is far quicker to hear all the articulations that way than loading them into your sampler one by one. Also, once you know what you want to use, you can hit them in real time (or close enough).

Yep, ram is the big roadblock and 64 bit is slower coming than we hoped. What about solid state hard drives, would that allow you immediate access to all your samples?

Anyway, I am rambling here. But imagine having immediate access to every instrument with every articulation at your fingertips. That would be nice!

Good luck with your bevy of basses, Mr. Scarbee! Now I have to listen to those basses on a decent sound system.

jeffn1
To Hear Original Instrumental "Progtronic Rock" Music, go to:

https://open.spotify.com/album/0rPidJwBYGmKZFUV4joAKN

Post

I would have much preferred an update of J Slap'n Fingered (of which I much prefer the sound as compared to black bass) in the spirit of black bass

Post

jeffn1 wrote:

But, even though I am a technoboob, I have no problem with having to use 20 or more key switches or controllers to have all the artculations for a particular instrumen in real time. It is far quicker to hear all the articulations that way than loading them into your sampler one by one. Also, once you know what you want to use, you can hit them in real time (or close enough).

Anyway, I am rambling here. But imagine having immediate access to every instrument with every articulation at your fingertips. That would be nice!

Good luck with your bevy of basses, Mr. Scarbee! Now I have to listen to those basses on a decent sound system.

jeffn1
I think that Black Bass is as close to this as we've ever seen. There are over a dozen articulations, and you can access every one of them except for two without ANY keyswitches. All live, real time playing.

With disk streaming in many top samplers, these dreams are more achievable. But you're right, to have an entire orchestra of THIS amount of depth all at your fingertips in a project, all loaded at once, is a ways off. I still prefer to use inferior samples for many things until mixdown when I'll substitute better samples. But in the case of Black Bass, it's just not something you can throw in during mixdown. You actually have to PLAY it to get the results.

So I hope that technology keeps advancing to a point where we can allow more stuff like this.

Brent
My host is better than your host

Post

AKJ wrote:I would have much preferred an update of J Slap'n Fingered (of which I much prefer the sound as compared to black bass) in the spirit of black bass
It's being looked into... 8)

Nils
_________________
Script developer @ Scarbee

Post

that's good news :-)

Post

that's great news.... cause I have it and hardly use it.
rsp
sound sculptist

Post

The new J Slap'n Fingered will be called: RED BASS. Read it here:

http://www.scarbee.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=67#p67

Post Reply

Return to “Samplers, Sampling & Sample Libraries”