Getting good plug ins for bass on Logic Pro X

[liffordmark]

Lads and Ladies
I have my own studio at home and do bass tracks for different artists from here.

Just wondering is their any top plugins to be added to my Pro logic X to enhance the flat EQ of my bass.

Thanks in advance for any advice offered.

[xgsjx]

I'm watching this thread with interest.
I got LPX a couple of months back & just recently got a Komplete Audio 6 interface which comes with some software which includes a version of Guitar Rig.
But for bass, I'm liking Logic's own suite of FX & the bass amp designer is pretty good.

[liffordmark]

It is very good but was wondering is there any further plugins that would enhance the bass too

[chardbass]

Good use of EQ and compression are your first ports of call.
You could Google "free Saturation plugin" to see what there is to dirty your sound up a bit- it can always helps bed things into a mix at times. I have a few- check these out too-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx5a3l3B37c

I use the Softube plugin and have used Bark Of The Dog on a few things (not just bass)

[Skol303]

Lots of free bass amp 'wares on the market. Check the Free VSTs link at the top of this forum.

If you don't mind spending a few quid, I'd also highly recommend this:

http://www.softube.com/index.php?id=bar

Softube make excellent plug-ins (they're the top end of the low end, if that makes sense!) and this is no exception.

[Musashimonkey]

Not looking to derail, hope you don't mind these questions;

Is the bass room soft tube plug in worth the money?

Are there more bass effects and cab sims available when upgrading from garage band to Logic? Does that make it worth the upgrade?

[xgsjx]

[quote name='Musashimonkey' timestamp='1452430655' post='2949825']
Not looking to derail, hope you don't mind these questions;

Is the bass room soft tube plug in worth the money?

Are there more bass effects and cab sims available when upgrading from garage band to Logic? Does that make it worth the upgrade?
[/quote]
No idea about the plug in that you're talking about, but the upgrade from GB to LPX opens up 2 hugely customisable amp sims (one for bass & one for guitar) & also a customisable virtual pedalboard. It also opens up a huge amount of depth & editing to all the effects, instruments & the virtual drummer.

The bass rig sim has 3 types of head (4 if you count the DI). A vintage style one, a modern amp & a droptop. It also has multiple styles of cab & driver combinations that can be mic'd with 3 different types of mic.

The pedalboard is pretty cool too.

If you're comfortable with Garageband, then Logic is worth every penny. It's like moving from painting by numbers with a handful of colours, to having a n artists paintshop at your disposal.

[roman_sub]

[color=#222222]There are plenty of plugins that could "enhance" your recorded bass tone: compressors, EQs, modulation/ effects (e.g. chorus), amp models, etc etc. Too many to go into detail here... if you want an all-in-one "channel" strip, Overloud Mark Studio comes closest to emulating a real bass amp rig, Softube Bass room is a nice tool (though I find it somewhat less "interesting"), and Waves CLA Bass is a very good "quick and dirty" solution for getting bass sound to sit in the mix. Ampeg SVX is also cool but souds less well "defined" in my view. Just my experience.[/color]
[color=#222222] [/color]
[color=#222222]I would say that the bass processing is really mix-dependent, so a good quality clean DI track may better in many cases as the producers can then add their own processing chains to taste... If I was tracking bass for someone else, I would start with the best quality DI box you could afford, run through a good hardware/software compressor on a *light* setting to even out some peaks and then send the DI, maybe together with an amp (/ processed) track to give them a choice.[/color]

[Skol303]

[quote name='Musashimonkey' timestamp='1452430655' post='2949825']
Not looking to derail, hope you don't mind these questions;

Is the bass room soft tube plug in worth the money?

Are there more bass effects and cab sims available when upgrading from garage band to Logic? Does that make it worth the upgrade?
[/quote]

Depends! Just like ‘real world’ gear choices, software is a very personal thing.

I like the Softube amp room, but then I’m a sucker for their products generally. I find it very quick and easy to dial-in usable tones for just about any mix, with useful pre-sets to get me started. As with all Softube products it’s certainly not the cheapest, but as a company they do make superb emulations - especially of vintage analogue gear (most of them endorsed by the hardware manufacturers). Their compressors are especially good.

But …every DAW has its own collection of amp sims, EQs, compressors and other dynamic effects. All of which tend to be very good and perfectly usable. There’s really no “better or worse” when you compare them all, just the odd nuances that might be more suited to your own tastes and workflow.

Logic is certainly a very good progression from GarageBand and well worth the money. I used it myself for a short while (borrowed from a friend on a laptop) and found the built-in effects to be very good quality, certainly on par with (or better than) most 3rd party products. I didn’t make the switch from my DAW of choice (Propellerhead Reason) as I found Logic slightly more cumbersome for certain tasks - but that’s probably down to my own lack of familiarity more than anything else. If I ever did decide to switch DAWs I’d probably plump for Ableton, as it’s by far the market leader in many ways. But I’ll probably just stick to what I know. If it ain't broken, etc...

PS: You can download a demo of the Softube Amp Room if you have an iLok key. Link here:

http://www.softube.com/index.php?id=bar

[charic]

I really quite like BIAS which has allsorts of amps, the GTR stuff is pretty good for bass too although I was a little disappointed by their guitar stuff

[paul_5]

I swear by Waves RBass®. Really fattens everything up.

[ironside1966]

I do a fair bit of collaboration online mostly mixing and production but some bass playing also.
When providing tracks it very tempting to try and impress the recipient, with a great fat bass sounds and overcomplicated playing but when someone sends me stems to mix I like to receive them with has little processing has possible, no eq or compression. As long has the parts are well played and recorded there should be no problems. I like the freedom and flexibility to add my own processing.
Try La2a emulation on bass it’s very easy to use and works well most of the time, I use the UAD ones but that needs a card and can work out expensive but the IK Multimedia is good. Native Instruments do one and I believe Softube do something similar.