IK Multimedia MODO Bass 2 €299.99 PC MAC

Refining their low-end generator with new tones and stylistic options, IK Multimedia affirm their brilliance for making virtual session players

It used to be a common slight levelled at young bass guitar wielders, that the only reason they took up their four-stringed instrument was because they’d thrown in the towel with learning guitar, and plumped for something easier. It’s a juvenile dig typically made by those who’ve little understanding of the amount of skill, rhythmic and melodic dexterity required to handle a bass properly. While production and arrangement innovations come and go, the bass guitar still remains a fixture across genres. From funk to rock, R&B to rap, solid, ambidextrous basslines, driven by human finger-flair and melodic improvisation, aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

While many of us may have a dusty old bass kicking around in our home studios, and naively assume that laying down an adequate bassline is a quickish job, getting a solid and considered bass tone, and refining the detail and impact of our basslines can steer a track into a much more professional-sounding sphere.

IK Multimedia’s MODO Bass 2 essentially grants the user with a complete virtual bassist, with up to 22 basses including an opulent new double bass model and a few fretless options. Building on the initial entry in the MODO Bass line, first released back in 2016, MODO Bass 2 is a slick refinement of what made that virtual instrument – the first properly physically modelled electric bass, we might add – such a staple of many of our VI libraries.

Low key