Wilkinson Audio has announced that the ZomBass 2 electric bass guitar sample library for Native Instruments Kontakt is now being offered as a free download on their website until January 1st.
ZomBass 2 is one huge sample library, occupying 3.34 GB of hard drive space when extracted. All of this hard drive space doesn’t go to waste, though, since the library offers up to five robin variations per articulation and four velocity layers per sampled note, resulting in very natural sounding performances out of the box. Zombass 2 also features quite a few different articulations, such as up/down picking, slides, hammer on/off, tapping, fret noise, etc.
See also: Best Free Bass Guitar Samples! (WAV/SFZ/NKI)The user interface doesn’t offer tons of options apart from alternative picking speed settings and basic amplitude envelope controls, but that’s simply because most of the instrument’s parameters are controlled via key switching. You’ll need to be familiar with how key switching works in Kontakt in order to get the most out of ZomBass 2. On the other hand, quite a few basic performance parameters are fully automated, so for example the picking up/down samples will alternate automatically according to the speed threshold that you set on the user interface. Overall, the instrument is very easy to control and it’s possible to get some very convincing results with just a bit of effort and fine tuning in the piano roll.
The included bass samples sound very good and will work best for heavier music styles such as metal and hardcore. The samples are fully DI (direct input), meaning that you’ll need to add a virtual bass guitar amp and a cabinet simulator to the signal chain in order to get the proper sound. The instrument that was sampled for the library is a Fender Jazz Bass with Pro-Steel strings.
ZomBass 2 is normally priced at $20 and it is offered as a free download until January first. You’ll need a valid email address in order to sign up for your free copy of the library. Since it’s such a huge download, the Dropbox account that is used for hosting the library was down yesterday, but things seem to be back to normal today. Either way, prepare yourself for a somewhat longer download that is definitely worth the trouble if you’re looking for some good sounding bass guitar samples.
Video Demo
Check out the ZomBass 2 demo video:
Download
ZomBass 2 is available for free download via Wilkinson Audio (2.77 GB download size, ZIP archive, contains 1 instrument patch in NKI format for Native Instruments Kontakt).
Last Updated on December 10, 2015 by Tomislav Zlatic.
