“As it name suggests this is a module filled with 808 and basses sounds… well… it also features a lot, and I mean, a lot of cool extras! Any Hip-Hop, Trip-Hop, Dubstep, Dub, EDM, or any style that needs some big, fat 808 sounds should have this in his/her arsenal! And yes, this sounds freaking loud!
Overview
The New Era 808 & Bass Module is a sample based instrument… well, that’s not entirely true, cause in fact, it’s two instruments. Depending on the presets category, it could be a monophonic five octaves keyboard or an eight-voices drum machine with individual outputs and a mixer.
The tuned kicks and basses presets will open the monophonic keyboard. This has a pretty clean and intuitive interface: just four knobs and the keyboard itself. As I’ve mentioned this is monophonic, so if you held a note and play another on top, the new note will be triggered and the sustained one will stop sounding, but won’t retrigger when you let go the new note. Just last note priority in here. There’s no aftertouch, but you get velocity, and this is true for the drum machine too. It will respond to pitch bend, but that’s all for MIDI implementation. The four knobs in the instrument control the volume, the pan, glide time and distortion amount. The glide time can be really long, so just a little bit of glide will do the trick. As for the distortion, well… who doesn’t love an 808 with distortion? This can bring lots of harmonics, and passed the 12 o’clock position, my guess is that it also acts as a brick wall limiter, so, hey, you want it louder and punchier? Yes, you can!” – Rafael Hofstadter/Producer Spot
