It emerged from a desire to deepen our knowledge of the more percussive sides of the acoustic bass guitar. While it’s a stringed instrument traditionally activated by plucking with fingers, nails, or a plectrum, we wanted to see what happened when we treated it as a percussive resonator and a stringed tonal loop-machine. It’s about moving away from the “expected” and finding the “unconventional” in a familiar wooden body.

Usually, you’re plucking a string to get a clear fundamental. But when activating the string’s vibration with different sets of mallets, you get a completely different transient profile. We’ve explored extended techniques where the “strike” is as important as the “note.” It’s a dive into the physics of how a large, hollow body reacts to a mallet versus a fingernail.

• Rhythmic Underscore: Using the brush patterns to create a sense of “clockwork” tension.

• Organic Sound Design: Layering the needle “rubs” underneath synth pads for added grit.

• Hybrid Orchestration: Doubling other instruemts with rubber mallet hits to add a percussive “bite.”

• Unusual orchestration tools : Try the single-patches or the loops, and see what it brings of inspiration. These patches will help you get your music on more interesting pathways.
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• And not to mention how well these sounds fit into film-noir, true-crime, spy-jazz and psychological thrillers .  

This library is sonic gold for building tension. Because it’s an acoustic bass sample library, it has a physical weight to it. Use the mallet hits for a quirky, heartbeat-style pulse, or the knitting needle “rubs” to create an unsettling, forward motions that feels “real” to the listener. And the single-note patches can actually be quite emotional! Just listen to the demos. 

While the source is 100% organic, the library is designed for the modern hybrid composer. 

Someone also sent us a track, where a loop was used as a hip-hop groove, underneath vocalists rapping. 

The acoustic bass guitar has a more “contained” resonance than a double bass, which makes it incredibly punchy in a mix. Because it is basically a large guitar with bass strings, 

It has a faster transient response. It’s less “boomy” and more “tight,” which is exactly what you want when you’re using it for percussive, rhythmic underscore.

To use Beaters-on-Bass , you require the Full Retail Version of Kontakt 6.4.2 or later. The library requires approximately 4.1 GB of free space for installation. Note: The free Kontakt Player is not sufficient.