Reason Electric Bass 24 Bit

Propellerhead Reason Electric Bass 24 Bit

The Reason Electric Bass ReFill puts eight fully playable electric bass guitars into your Reason rack. Featuring selectable basses and bass rigs plus a wide selection of music style patches, this ReFill lets you add dynamic, natural sounding bass lines to your productions.

Instruments

We wanted the Electric Bass ReFill to cover a wide range of styles, so in order to get the bass sound right we needed to find the right instruments. Here is the all-star bass team:

Fender Jazz Bass - 1968

One of the most recorded bass models of all times. This particular instrument is in original condition with no parts exchanged.
Pickups: two bipole pickups connected in parallel.
Strings: Ernie Ball Nickel Round Wound (a couple of months old).
Character: Very dynamic bass which sounds very different depending on playing style and is therefore suited for a wide variety of musical styles. Very direct sound with lots of presence.

Famous users: Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Geddy Lee (Rush), Leland Sklar, Jaco Pastorius.

Fender Precision Bass - 1965

The Fender Precision bass was the first mass-produced electric bass model and is probably the most best-selling electric bass of all times. The first 'P-bass' shipped in 1951 and it's still being manufactured today.

The P-bass with flat wound strings played with the fingers produces the typical warm and 'round' 60s/70s R'n'B and Motown sound.

This particular instrument was sampled played with fingers and there is hardly no distortion in the samples - not even in the loudest velocity layers.

Pickups: 2 single coil (1 pick-up for 2 strings) that work like a humbucker.
Strings: Ernie Ball Flatwound for less overtones and more 'round' tone.
Character: Very deep and warm sound with characteristic mid-range and only a little high end.
Famous users: James Jameson (The Funk Brothers, Motown), Donald 'Duck' Dunn (Stax), Pino Palladino.

Fender Precision Bass - 1978 - played with a pick

This P-bass is very similar to the 1965 P-bass described above. The big difference in sound mainly depends on the round wound strings and the fact that it's played with a pick. It also has a maple fretboard which gives it a harder and more transient tone.

Pickups: 2 single coil (1 pick-up for 2 strings) that work like a humbucker.
Strings: Ernie Ball Round Wound.
Character: The round wound strings played with a pick makes the sound very rich of overtones, perfect for rock, new wave and punk music.
Famous users: Adam Clayton (U2), Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath), Sid Vicious (Sex Pistols).

Gibson EB-0 - 1972

The short scale EB-0 is one of Gibson's most popular bass models and was manufactured between 1959 and 1979. The design is very similar to the popular Gibson SG electric guitar.

Pickups: One EB humbucker.
Strings: Ernie Ball Round Wound.
Character: The EB-0 is renowned for its deep and fat sound. It's very suitable for distorted sound.
Famous users: Jack Bruce (Cream), Bill Wyman (Rolling Stones), Glen Cornick (Jethro Tull), Andy Fraser (Free), Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth).

Gibson Les Paul - 1969

An American medium scale bass with British sound manufactured between '69 and '71. The body is made out of solid mahogany, set 3-piece mahogany neck with rosewood fretboard. Due to its heavy weight the Les Paul bass is more popular in the studio than on stage.

The first Les Paul bass was a low-impedance instrument which required a transformer to play through standard amps. The output impedance on this particular instrument has been modded to suit standard amps, though. In Reason Electric Bass, only the signal from the neck pickup was sampled. On the other hand, it's the neck pickup that provides the characteristic Les Paul sound.

Pickups: Two humbucking pickups that were modded to high-impedance. Reason Electric Bass only uses the neck pickup.
Strings: Ernie Ball 5-string vintage round wound set (more than 10 years old). The thinnest string is not used.
Character: Plunky sound which sits right in the mix. A lot of mid and low end with a distinctive attack. Sounds similar to a hollowbody bass.
Famous users: Suzie Quatro

Kay Hollowbody - 1963

The Kay Hollowbody electric basses were sold on mail order in the US and were quite inexpensive. Because of the low price the Kay bass could be found almost anywhere in studios across the US and has appeared on many recordings over the years.

This model (in very good condition) was chosen for the Reason Electric Bass ReFill for its dirty and muted 60s sound. It was played slightly muted with a pick, and only with down-strokes.

Pickups: Gibson Thunderbird humbucker.
Strings: Pyramid Gold Flatwound.
Character: A 'plunky', hollow sound similar to that of the Les Paul bass.
Famous users: No-one that we know of by name but it has appeared on numerous recordings.

Music Man StingRay 5 - 2001- 5 string fretless

The MusicMan StingRay first came out in 1976 and was designed by Leo Fender. It was one of the first production electricbasses with active electronics. It featured a 9V battery to power the built-in preamp and EQ. This particular instrument is a 5-string, fretless one and was sampled without the characteristic vibrato.

Pickups: MusicMan Humbucker active.
Strings: D'Addario Stainless Flatwound.
Character: The StingRay doesn't produce the traditional fretless sound but a more solid and round tone with fantastic frequency response. When you play chords on the StingRay the notes harmonize extremely well together.
Famous users: Tony Levin, Mick Karn (Japan), Louis Johnson (Brothers Johnson), Pino Palladino.

Rickenbacker 4001 - 1974 - played with a pick

Rickenbacker guitars and basses have very unique design which make them easy to spot wherever they appear. The very popular 4001 model first came out in 1961 and this particular red/white Rickenbacker 4001 bass was manufactured in 1974. It's owned and played by Swedish bassist Stefan Fandén.

Pickups: One humbucker (bridge) and retrofitted with a Toaster (neck).
Strings: Elixir .040-.095 Super Light round wound with Nanoweb coating.
Character: Rickenbacker basses have a very distinctive tone with a rich frequency content - almost pianolike. The 4001 bass has a neck-through construction for really solid sustain.
Famous users: Chris Squire (Yes), Geddy Lee (Rush), Lemmy (Motörhead), Roger Glover (Deep Purple), Paul McCartney, Roger Waters (Pink Floyd).