Sound Samples

This page is being updated to new media formats - stay tuned!

STD
Defi_Mobo Fred Motte, Bordeaux, France
Excerpt of a demo song. Direct recording, some compression used, but no tone controls. Slap-style with drums and guitar.
STD-V plek Heiko Eulen, Germany
STD-V, soundholes, 2x HB pickups. Recorded direct into a Mac, no processing other than volume. Played with a plek (pick).
Solo Jam Greg Holmes, Canada
STD-V, 2x Rough Crystal humbuckers, BassXX preamp, soundholes. This one is tuned like a bass, but played like a classical guitar. "Just play it like a bass, man!", they keep saying. Someday. Someday.
Solo Jam Greg Holmes, Canada
STD-V, 2x Rough Crystal humbuckers, BassXX preamp, soundholes. Same bass as the previous example, but this time with some EQ provided by the BassXX preamp. Uses open strings.
Solo Jam Greg Holmes, Canada
STD-V, 2x Rough Crystal humbuckers, BassXX preamp, soundholes. Again the same bass as the previous example, and now a different EQ setting from the BassXX preamp. This is a tapped excerpt of "Sultans of Swing".
Unplugged STD-V Walking UNPLUGGED! Greg Holmes, Canada
Imperial Blue STD-V, recorded acoustically. This sample was recorded with two consumer-quality hand-held microphones. The mics were a few inches apart, pointing at the body near the pickups, in an attempt to capture what your ears would hear. I played a typical walking bass line (it sounds like an upright bass with frets). Compare this to the Soul-IV Walking sample below.
 
L-BOW
Muse - by Ecliptic Craig Kickbush, Australia
L-BOW-VI, 3x pickups, Roland GK kit. The first song of their CD launch at Uber, Brisbane, Australia. More at their site.
P is for pressure MP3, 3.1 MB, 03:20, 44kHz, 128kbs, stereo Professor T, Germany
L-BOW-V, cut bow, passive. Mainly fingerstyle, recorded direct and multi-tracked. More here.
Besame Mucho Heiko Eulen, Germany
Red Baron
L-BOW-V, 2x Kent Armstrong humbuckers, DaCapo preamp. Recorded at a live concert in Germany. Finger-style bass solo with drums and other accompaniment.
Shibuya Heiko Eulen, Germany
L-BOW-V, 2x Kent Armstrong humbuckers, DaCapo preamp. Recorded at a live rehearsal with the band Blue Lounge.
"I Love You" (by Cole Porter) - short version Greg Holmes, Canada
L-BOW-V, 3x Rough Crystal stacked humbuckers, DaCapo preamp disengaged (passive). Here's a solo instrumental performance of Cole Porter's beautiful tune. For this MP3 file, I just played once through. I used a BassLab L-BOW-V five-string bass, but put lighter strings on it and tuned like a guitar, but two frets down (actually D-G-C-E-A, with the D matching the standard bass 2nd string D). I "tapped" the notes, with both hands on the fretboard. The rich, organic tone of the instrument really shows, as I let the notes ring. No hurry here!
All B Experiment EXPERIMENTAL! Greg Holmes, Canada
L-BOW-V, 2x Rough Crystal humbuckers, BassXX preamp disengaged (passive). As an experiment, I tuned all 5 strings of an L-BOW-V down to the low B. Of course, the very loose G string showed some pitch instability - it was tuned almost 2 octaves lower than normal on the standard 34" scale! I played the strings from thick to thin (the first note is the normal low B string), and you can hear the upper harmonics change slightly from string to string. My goal was to show that the BassLab Tunable Composite material would allow strings to be tuned lower than normal and still sound good, making the BassLab material the best choice for extended-range instruments.
Low F# Experiment EXPERIMENTAL! Greg Holmes, Canada
L-BOW-V, 3x Rough Crystal stacked humbuckers, DaCapo preamp disengaged (passive). This sample is from a different L-BOW-V five-string bass. The low B string is tuned down to F# (at 23Hz). It's a good tone for 125 guage string, even though 160 would have been closer to the proper guage for an F#. This is another illustration of what is possible with the BassLab Tunable Composite material.
Unplugged L-BOW and Voice UNPLUGGED! Greg Holmes, Canada
Silver L-BOW-V, recorded acoustically. This sample shows how loud the acoustic sound is. I talk and play at the same time, and you can hear how loud the bass is acoustically. Recorded with a cheap mini-boom microphone directly into the 1/8" input on a laptop computer. The mic was just sitting on the desk in front of me. This L-BOW-V is tuned higher with thinner strings, like the top 5 strings of an 8-string. The tuning is explained in the sample.
Unplugged Silver L-BOW Fingers UNPLUGGED! Greg Holmes, Canada
Unplugged Silver L-BOW Tap UNPLUGGED!
Silver L-BOW-V, recorded acoustically. Two more examples of the silver L-BOW-V with the tenor tuning. Again recorded with the mini microphone directly into the 1/8" input on a laptop computer. The first sample features a classic-guitar fingerstyle technique. The second sample is all two-handed tapping and hammer-ons.
Unplugged Black L-BOW #1 UNPLUGGED! Greg Holmes, Canada
Unplugged Black L-BOW #2 UNPLUGGED!
Black L-BOW-V, recorded acoustically. Two examples of a black L-BOW-V with normal 5-string bass tuning (low B). Again recorded with the mini microphone directly into the 1/8" input on a laptop computer. The two samples are musically similar.
 
SOUL
tapping Buco Dub Daniel Verdier, France
Soul-VI, Roland GK kit. Daniel Verdier and his Soul-VI. He has a nice white tribal design on the upper horn.
Soul-IV_PUs Heiko Eulen, Germany
Soul-IV, soundholes, 2x HB pickups. Recorded direct into a Mac, no processing other than volume. Starts with bridge PU, then both, neck only in the end.
Soul-IV_slap Heiko Eulen, Germany
Soul-IV, soundholes, 2x HB pickups. Recorded direct into a Mac, no processing other than volume. Some slap and finger stuff. (A bit of background noise on this one.)
Soul-IV-mids Heiko Eulen, Germany
Soul-IV, soundholes, 2x HB pickups. Recorded direct into a Mac, no processing other than volume. This one in active mode, bridge pickup + 70%, neck volume, bass/treble flat, mid + 40%, lower-mid selected.
Unplugged Soul-IV Walking UNPLUGGED! Greg Holmes, Canada
Unplugged Soul-IV Chords UNPLUGGED!
Unplugged Soul-IV Long UNPLUGGED!
Imperial Blue Soul-IV, recorded acoustically. These samples were recorded with two consumer-quality hand-held microphones. The mics were a few inches apart, pointing at the body near the pickups. The first one is a walking bass line (compare it to the STD-V Walking sample above), the second is a series of chords, and the third is a strum down the open strings with a long sustain.
 
DN1000
Softemment Daniel Verdier, France
Double-neck STD-VI fretted/fretless. Starts with chordal rhythm part which has been EQ'd with the on-board preamp. Then the pop-slap "drum part" enters, followed by the bass part played fingerstyle. Finally, the melody part enters, played on the fretless neck.
Daniel Daniel Verdier, France
Double-neck STD-VI fretted/fretless. A mellow jazzy tune played in two parts: bass and chords under a solo line.
 
GUITAR
Shred This III Gabriele Pala, Italy
STD-Guitar, 7-string, 2x pickups, headless, left-handed. Gabriele having some fun on his guitar.
FVGTube MUSIC - Azure Agony "Mystic Interiors" Azure Agony, Italy
STD-Guitar, 7-string, 2x pickups, headless, left-handed. First music video of prog-metal band from Italy. Gabriele is playing his BassLab guitar.
GearGossip BassLabTheta Guitar Thomas Schuber
Theta Guitar, 6-string, 2x classic pickups. Review (or preview, since this is the first prototype without any refinements) of the Tele-Style Theta classic guitar by Basslab.
GearGossip Basslab Standard Guitar Thomas Schuber
STD-Guitar, 6-string, 2x humbicking pickups. A review of the standard guitar by basslab. Definitely not the sound the shape suggests.
BassLab Guitar David Wallimann, USA
STD-Guitar, 6-string, 2x active EMG pickups. David Wallimann of Glass Hammer showing the orange STD guitar.
Silver Guitar Clean - Strumming Greg Holmes, Canada
Silver Guitar Clean - Fingerstyle Jazz
Silver Guitar Clean - Fingerstyle Funk
Silver Guitar Clean - Harmonics
STD-Guitar, 3x pickups, Ibanez ZR bridge, BassXX preamp, silver. These four examples show the clean sound of this guitar with various musical motifs. Each motif is played 6 times, using all available pickup combinations, starting with the neck pickup. Recorded directly into the computer, with no processing.
Neck Pickup: Dimarzio Evolution DP158 Humbucker
Middle Pickup: Dimarzio DP116 HS-2 Single Coil
Bridge Pickup: Dimarzio Evolution DP159 Humbucker
6-pos rotary selector (Neck, Neck+Middle, Middle, Neck+Bridge, Middle+Bridge, Bridge)
Silver Guitar EQ Greg Holmes, Canada
STD-Guitar, 3x pickups, Ibanez ZR bridge, BassXX preamp, silver. This example features the on-board BassXX EQ, which was used to add some sparkle on the highs and tightness to the lows. No external processing was applied. Note that the BassXX preamp is not standard equipment in guitars, but it is an excellent upgrade.
Silver Guitar FX - Shred Picking Greg Holmes, Canada
Silver Guitar FX - Sparkly Fingers
Silver Guitar FX - Whammy Bar
Silver Guitar FX - All Tapping
Silver Guitar FX - More Two-handed
STD-Guitar, 3x pickups, Ibanez ZR bridge, BassXX preamp, silver. Various ad-lib samples which show the silver guitar with different pickup combinations and effects (provided by Guitar Rig). The Sparkly Fingers sample uses the tremolo bar a bit at the end, but the Whammy Bar sample goes crazy with it. The clicks at the beginning are the strings going completely loose and hitting the pickups, but it's still in tune for the harmonics at the 12 second mark. In fact, the guitar was still in tune for the last two samples, both using two-handed tapping (no picking or strumming).