Soundmagic offers Sienna Bass, a FREE acoustic bass plugin for Windows.
The Sienna Bass acoustic bass plugin is Windows only, but hopefully, a macOS version will follow.
Redjoy Reza, an audiographer and musician (as well as the developer behind our free BPB Cassette Drums plugins), created Sienna in his studio. Now, we can all share the sound of his acoustic bass in a plugin that weighs in at just around 7MB.
Some people will always say a plugin can never sound as good as a real bass. In my opinion, it’s a bit of a pointless debate and makes little difference if it’s true or not.
If you are using a bass VST, it’s probably for one of the following reasons.
- You can’t play bass guitar;
- You don’t have a bass guitar;
- You don’t have access to a bassist;
- You don’t think the project merits the expense/hassle of bringing in a bassist.
If any of those things are true, then a bass VST is absolutely a valid choice.
The only thing that matters is whether it sounds convincing or not, and that depends on a few things. Firstly, the plugin’s quality, which varies from one to another. Secondly, your ability to get the best out of it; I’ve seen some outrageous performances with a bass VST and a MIDI keyboard.
Lastly, and most importantly, plugins like Sienna and even relatively expensive products like IK Multimedia’s MODO Bass rely heavily on context.
Assuming average ability, how convincing it sounds depends largely on how exposed it is. The average user will struggle to recreate Jaco’s Portrait of Tracy. But, the same user could use it across multiple genres in a well-mixed song without many suspecting foul play.
In other words, I think a virtual bass can sound real with the proper use and context. Does my opinion justify my lengthy rant? Probably not.
Sadly, I can’t tell you how good Sienna sounds as it’s Windows-only for now. So please let me know in the comments if you try it. Soundmagic has put out good-sounding freebies before, like Neo Piano One.
I own MODO Bass, and I like it, but there are other freebies around like Ample Bass P Lite II. Or, TAL-Bassline, if you want to get synthy.
Sienna is available in 32/64 bit VST format for Windows. There is a file extraction password, so make sure you read the guidelines on the download page.
Download: Sienna Bass (16.1 MB download size, ZIP archive, 32-bit & 64-bit VST2 plugin for Windows)
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18 Comments
Gregory Smith
onHey James
I don’t regard your expressing your opinion as a rant. I’m interested in your opinion.
James N
onHey Gregory, thanks for the comment, I hope you’re well!
Cheers!
frozenjaZz
onWe all have our opinions, but I know many excellent music producers that use VSTi for guitar and bass even though they are good guitarists / bassists :)
I am a guitarist and always mix “real” and “fake” guitars in my productions. This allows me to have sounds and textures I could not recreate with my 2 guitars / one bass.
Neytcev
onPerfect, let’s use all possibilities for the best final results! :)
James N
onGreat comment, and it’s similar with orchestral software. Many composers will record live players, but add weight in some areas with software.
I think there are still a lot of people who dismiss guitar/bass software instruments before even trying, which is a loss.
Cheers!
Numanoid
onI don’t get why the download is password protected, it is a legit plugin ?
And why not just state the password instead of giving it like this: “There is a password to extract the file.The password will be a capital letter. It will be the the first letter for the product on the left most shown below.”
Tomislav Zlatic
onMy guess is that they’re discouraging people from reposting/sharing the direct download link online.
Numanoid
onAs far as I can tell, this product is made with Maize sampler, and then I guess it would be easy for the dev to export it as an AU as well ?
Tomislav Zlatic
onMaize Sampler AU plugins don’t work in newer versions of macOS, so some developers have discontinued macOS support altogether.
j
onyes this was annoying… even i put that letter, doesnt work… meh.. i guess i delete it.
Darryl Lim
onWorked for me, just one capital letter.
Peter Mullins
onZip password doenst work, wasted time.
Darryl Lim
onThis actually sounded good! Maize Sampler means sample based? If this had a few round robins it would’ve been perfect!
Tomislav Zlatic
onYeah, all Maize Sampler plugins are sample-based.
mike
onFinally extracted it after reading the clue regarding the password, is has no connection for me to the name of the plugin but to the items displayed on the web page, so it could be changed regurlarly . Also had to use 7-zip on both zip files, the transfer file and the sierra bass file.
DMN
onThis plugin must be very special and valuable,
as it is the only one in many hundreds I have tried
that demands a password.
Shame I’ll never know how vitally important it is,
due to the single letter pass defeating all attempts by Winrar to open it.
Hence deleted for being such an annoying waste of time.
Roger
onI bet they put a password on it because they worked hard and have trouble “letting go.”
Which is sad, because an artist needs to be OK with the process of creating, ‘perfecting,’ and letting it out into the world. And after that, you lose control of your work.
You can’t control who listens to your song. If you’re giving away free VST/Instruments/Samples, you can’t control who gets it and how it’s shared. If you want to some type of control over it, you need to charge money for it.
After reading the comments…I’ll put this on my “meh-maybe” list. If I remember to download it, I might spend a few minutes guessing this apparently complicated password. Otherwise, sort of a hassle.
$0.02
See ya!
SoundMan
ondownload link (transferxl) is broken :\