Martinic has released Kee Bass, a freeware virtual instrument plugin that emulates the Rheem Kee Bass monophonic string bass keyboard.
Kee Bass is a freeware emulation of the Rheem Kee Bass, one of the first analog string bass keyboards. Martinic’s software version of the original instrument is available as a VST and AU plugin for compatible DAW applications on PC and Mac. Martinic specializes in developing emulations of vintage organ instruments. They released several freeware virtual organ instruments over the years, but most of their older plugins are now discontinued. To be more precise, they were replaced by the Vox Continental V and Farfisa V, premium plugins that were developed by Martinic for Arturia.
Martinic’s latest piece of software emulates the solid-state electronic circuitry of the Rheem Kee Bass in an attempt to fully recreate its sound. The instrument doesn’t use samples at all. Instead, it relies on subtractive synthesis and circuit modeling to emulate the sonic characteristics of its hardware counterpart. The result is a fat-sounding analog bass instrument which is also very simple and easy to use.
Additional controls are revealed in the Settings menu.
The plugin’s user interface copies the design and the layout of the Rheem Kee Bass. The front panel features the bass boost control slider, a bypass switch, and a set of four switches for adjusting the tone, fuzz, sustain, and decay modes. These controls are handy for changing the basic characteristics of Kee Bass’s timbre and shape but they don’t allow the user to drastically change the instrument’s sound.
Surprisingly, clicking the Settings button reveals the advanced editing panel which offers a set of control parameters that weren’t present in the original instrument. Here, the user can freely adjust the low-pass filter’s cutoff and resonance values, play with filter modulation, fine-tune the volume envelope, activate the polyphonic mode, or transpose the keyboard. Unlike the original Rheem Kee Bass keyboard, the Kee Bass plugin covers the full 128 MIDI note range. This means that it can also be used to play lead sounds or even simple analog-style pads.
To download your free copy of Kee Bass, visit the product page linked below and click the “Claim your free license” button. After completing the checkout process, you will receive a personal license number that covers all upgrades through Kee Bass version 1.x.x. When installing the plugin, be sure to select the downloaded key file to pre-activate the software.
Kee Bass is available for free download via Martinic (2.44 MB download size, EXE installer, 32-bit & 64-bit VST/AU plugin format for Windows & MacOS).
2 Comments
EZEQUIEL MORFI
onMartinic is such a great developer! I’m glad to see he or she is back on the freeware path. Their emulation of the Farfisa and the Vox Continental are still the best around and were freeware pieces of software before they were bought by Arturia!
Ethyl Ester
onI still use the 2 Matinic plugs that used to be freeware before Arturia picked them up and they are of the highest quality. So I can’t wait to try this one out! That GUI is gorgeous and, knowing how good Martinic plugins are, I’m sure this one is as good as it looks.