Here are our pick of plugins you might consider to put the fun back into fundamental! 

Considering all the attention electric guitars get in the plugin world, basses feel very much the poor relation. However, as any bass player will tell you, the crowd might be looking at the guitarist but they are dancing to the bass player!

Levelling - WaveRider Tg from Quiet Art 

As long as it’s in tune and in time, the next thing any bass track needs to be is audible throughout. A solid, even bass track is essential to a good mix but before you reach for a compressor, consider some levelling. We like the leveler in Sound Radix’s POWAIR and Waves have their excellent Bass Rider but my tool of choice for these duties is Waverider TG from Quiet Art. It’s effective, easy to set up and the ability to tweak the action of the levelling by editing the automation it writes makes it a perfect halfway point between the convenience of compression and the control of automation. Check out our detailed review along with an example using bass guitar.

Compression - Custom Opto From Slate Digital

Even if you are using levelling, the chances are you are also going to be using a compressor on your bass track. I think it’s a legal requirement! The go-to compressor for bass has to be the LA2A. The gentle, can’t-get-it-wrong nature of opto compression along with the colour of the tubes make this venerable studio favourite the default choice for many. The only thing about an LA2A is that you don’t have access to the attack and release. That isn’t a criticism, it’s kind of the point of an LA2A but for that reason we’re going with the Custom Opto from Slate Digital. It does everything an LA2A does and gives access to attack and release so you can get a bit more creative, or not. The choice is yours.

Amp - Ampeg B15 From Brainworx/UAD

Unlike electric guitars, bass guitars have far fewer classic amps to choose from. Modern bass amps are powerful and efficient, they have comprehensive tone shaping capabilities but they don’t really have identifiable personalities. The obvious choice here is the Ampeg SVT, and it’s a fine amp, though I once toured a show which used five of them (yes you read that right) and I’ve never quite forgiven the insanely heavy SVT and equally impractical 8x10 cab for that. There are many very capable bass amp plugins and unless you are using a real amp I strongly suggest using one to ‘knock the corners’ off the DI bass you’ll inevitably be capturing too. I’ll suggest the plugin I use more than any other, the B15 from Brainworx. It does everything from wooly vintage to hairy rock and used with my Apollo, the low latency tracking experience is flawless.

Timbre Shift  - Surfer EQ From Sound Radix

Shaping sounds using EQ is only partially effective because of the static nature of equalisers. If you are boosting a particular area which happens to be lifting the 3rd harmonic of the bass line, that will only be the case for a single note, as soon as the note changes so does the harmonic being affected. This happens for all pitched sounds but is particularly audible on bass content. Pitch tracking EQs fix this extremely effectively, the EQ analyses the incoming audio and identifies its pitch in real time and boosts and cuts move with the note, in the same way as a synth filter tracks the keyboard. The original and best pitch tracking EQ is Surfer Eq from Sound Radix. If you track bass you owe it to yourself to have this plugin.

Saturation - BOD From TSE Audio

While you can dial in saturation on the amp, I invariably introduce some saturation on the DI. Usually not enough to perceive as in any way dirty but enough to bed the bass in to the track. There are many excellent choices here. SoundToys Decapitator is a perennial favourite and for flexibility FabFilter’s Saturn 2 is unsurpassed but If you’re a Pro Tools user I’d recommend the plugin I use more often than anything else, Avid LoFi. The trick is to dial in only a hint of Distortion (under 1.5). If you needs something more strident then the ancient, but still excellent Sansamp is hard to beat. The names of the controls are confusing but we have an article which might help. If you aren’t a Pro Tools user Softube Saturation Knob is still hard to beat and its free. On the subject of free, the BOD bass overdrive is an emulation of the Sansamp bass overdrive pedal and is free and brilliant. Get it free here.

Alignment - Little Labs IBP

If you are using both an amplifier and a DI then you’ll need to make sure the two aren’t causing each other issues when summed due to time of arrival differences causing phase cancellations, something bass instruments are particularly susceptible to. The best known tool for this job is Sound Radix’s Auto Align. If you want the ‘right’ answer to how to align the two signals then this the way to go. However for bass, and especially guitars, sometimes you might like the effect of combining the two signals slightly out of phase. IBP from  Little Labs is a manual phase rotator and can be used to dial in the sound by ear. This can be very satisfying and for simple examples like a DI and a single mic on an amp isn’t too challenging. I probably wouldn’t try it on a multi miked 4x12. I’ll leave that to Auto Align.

What are your picks for bass?