Hey. I want to find a VST emulation of Mesa/Boogie M-2000 Head (Bass Guitar Amp). Any ideas what plugins have it under their hood?

 

You mean the basis rack? Honestly, I don't recall seeing it transported into the digital realm...

 

Yes, Basis M-2000. I don't think they have any other bass amps with 2000 in the name. Or do they? The direct quote from the player is "Mesa Boogie 2000 heads"

 

it must be the basis... it was quite popular back in its day, but it does nothing more than other Mesa heads can do on their own...
if you are looking for that kind of sound, Amplitube should be your best bet...

 

my bass player had that amp back in the day. it wasn't very good sounding, it was pretty flat and compressed sounding. we played Korn/staticX kinda music and very low detuned. not a very dynamic amp at all.
closest thing I would use is a Ampeg VSt and keep the eq flat and use compression and you'll be in the same ballpark but much better sounding. that's what I use now to track the bass guitar.

 

played it few times, didnt like it. it's bad sounding bass amp IMO. Mesa should just stick with guitar amp, their bass amp suck ass soo hard IMO. hahaha. that's why nobody emulates it. it's selling for $600 everywhere. One of the cheapest ever Mesa amp.

 

Thanks for your suggestions guys!

That's exactly what I want to experiment with. Korn's bass sound from 2002-2003. Their bass player said he used this exact head, so I thought it would be good to try. "Ampeg SVT Suite" is that the plugin you use?

I see that Amplitube actulally has official Mesa Collection for guitars. So they might emulate some of their bass heads someday

Maybe. But the guy managed to create his signature sound with the thing and I like it. However, I'm starting to realize that the particular model is not that important. I found Mesa M9 Carbine and Bass 400+ emulations in Line6 Helix plugin. So I'm pretty sure those can do the job

 

A good engineer would definitely 200% reamp the bass, it's that bad. There's a reason why 95% of the bass sound in every record ever is the sound of Ampeg amp even when the bass player didn't use the Ampeg amp at all. You can get away with any Ampeg bass amp emulation ever. Darkglass or Orange AD200 if it's distorted bass, there's nothing NeuralDSP Parallax can't do for the distorted bass sound too.

 

a cheap mesa rack module, that's why was pretty popular... but yeah it was kinda bad at its job...

 

I've dabbled with trying to get Korn's (Freak on a Leash) bass tone before and I've gotten close enough for my own taste with both the venerable TSE BOD as well as Ignite's SHB-1. The key was to dial up the presence/highs and gain quite a bit and blend back in lots of DI. I have no idea what Korn's 2002 bass tone was like.

 

Last edited: Oct 29, 2023

I think it's pretty much the same as in Freak on a Leash. I just remember that around 2003 it was the most pronounced in the mix, so I picked those years for example
Yeah, completely ditching the mids and boosting lows+highs through the roof works with active pickups

 

I use the UA plug in because I have the Apollo interface, the Ampeg suite is basically the same thing. the trick to the Korn bass sound is getting the grit, the deep bass and the ticking sound of the stings when attacked. usually by killing the Mids.

I try to drive the signal as hot as I can (bass had active pick ups), let it overdrive/distort a bit, then eq and compress to taste. Korn is pretty compressed (at least their old stuff, and that's the sounds I like best). my bass player totally had that sound when he cranked up his amp and I can duplicate it pretty good on the computer with the vsts. its more of a percussive sound than a bass guitar though. there's times in the mix you need to screw around with eq to balance the bass sounds or the percussive attack sounds.
I don't do the Korn sound on bass tracks that much anymore, mostly because its a tough balance in the mix and everyone will think you are ripping off Korn. lol. but I use the ampeg plug for bass on every track , just different eq settings and stuff.

the funny thing about all of this, my bass player eventually sold the m2000 and bought a GK head and it sounded better and could do the same thing but less compressed. he just bought a rack DBX160a rack compressor to do the Korn sound when he used his 5 string.

 

That's true But Fieldy was ripping off RHCP and Faith No More in his own way. And back in the day I wished more bands sounded like this. Technically speaking 90% of other bass players in bands sound exactly the same (buried beneath guitars, just creating foundation). And they are ripping off the ones who came in 70s (Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin). But nobody says they're copycats because those sounds are considered "classic" and are not that prominent in the mix. For example, tapping on guitar is something very common now, but I'm sure people would call you Eddie Van Halen imposter in the past if you did that