Impact Soundworks Shreddage 3.5 Darkwall [KONTAKT]

If you’re looking for a prog metal bass that delivers power, mayhem, and punishing attitude, look no further than Shreddage 3 Darkwall. We’ve captured every last gritty detail of a Dingwall bass in all its brutal glory: a colossal low end, an aggressive attack, and a massive versatility of tone. Available in Drop E as well as standard tuning, Shreddage 3 Darkwall is mix-ready and primed to breathe fire into every kind of production from prog metal to djent to heavy rock.

About the Library

After over a decade of killer metal virtual guitars, it’s time to introduce the first dedicated metal bass in our Shreddage line: Shreddage 3 Darkwall! This library combines the stunning realism and power of our Shreddage 3.5 engine with a signature metal sound brought to fame by Nolly, Lee Sklar, Jacob Umansky, and others: a monster low end, an aggressive attack, and an impressive versatility in tone thanks to the three individually sampled pickups.

Choose the Drop E tuning if you want that mega-low doom sound, or go with standard tuning for a wide variety of metal and heavy rock sounds. The weight and body of Shreddage 3 Darkwall is primed for prog metal, but it shines in everything from heavy djent to hard core punk to grunge.

Bring the growl, the doom, the malice, and the power of this towering bass into your productions without the expense or the months-long wait time of buying an actual Dingwall. Thoroughly sampled and optimized for a realistic performance, Shreddage 3 Darkwall brings you a low end with seismic power, a percussive attack, and an incredibly versatile tone that will set fire to your prog metal, djent, numetal, and heavy rock tracks.

Going the Extra Distance to Capture THAT Sound

For our first dedicated metal bass, what could possibly be more inspiring than a Dingwall NG3 6-string bass? With its fanned frets, 37″ B string, three pickups, and famed Darkglass Tone Capsule, the NG3 is renowned for its massive low sound and an incredibly versatile tone.

The internal hardware limitations of the NG3 prevented us from recording neck, middle, and bridge pickups separately through the Darkglass preamp. But that didn’t stop us. We got our hands on three Darkglass preamps and wired them separately, outside the physical bass, to each of the pickups. The result was identical performances captured in the three distinct tones of the pickups.

Designed for Plug and Play – OR Create Your Own Unique Sound

Shreddage 3 Darkwall lets you perform realistically right out of the box – no need to dive into editors. The Shreddage 3.5 Engine automatically moves around the neck and frets in the way a live player would, using a natural picking style. You can also quickly audition a huge variety of well-designed tones using the 30 provided snapshots. Each snapshot comes with its own unique signal chain in the Console page as well as specific configurations on the Main page.

Or, if you’d rather make it your own, Shreddage 3 Darkwall makes it easy to pop the hood and start customizing both the performance and the tone.

On the Main page, choose specific fret positions and strings to get the just sound you want – the way a live performer would. Further tailor the performance by choosing from several picking modes.

If you’re looking to build a custom tone from scratch, the Console section gives you everything you need. Create your own signal chain for each of the pickups and master channel with over 25 effects, including cabinets, amps, dynamics, IQs, pedals, reverbs, phasing effects, and others. Or send your signal directly into a separate amp sim, such as our Shreddage Amp XTC.

Articulations

We strove for ultra-realism by sampling up and down strokes on every string, along multiple frets, in an array of dynamics and articulations: sustains; sustain shorts; staccato longs; staccato shorts; palm mutes; hammer-ons and pull-offs; legato slides; tapping; harmonics; buzz trills; and pitched and unpitched release samples. All articulations are conveniently mapped and editable.

Kick that dreaded machine-gun effect to the curb: we’ve provided up to four round robins per note, so no robot sound here! And, no matter how much you play, the strings will never wear out, and you’ll never have the expense of paying for custom length strings.

The Shreddage 3 Engine

As with the entire Shreddage series, and especially with the updated Shreddage 3.5 engine, Shreddage 3 Hollomatic offers fast and intuitive editing. Want a more aggressive performance, or a specific style of picking or fret movements, or a different tone? The controls on the main page let you handle this customization easily and quickly. Controls for the bridge / neck pickups, tone, bite, extra attack, pitch bend, vibrato, and multi-tracking options let you shape the sound.

Use the controls on the Console page to blend seamlessly between the two pickups to get exactly the sound you need. The Performance Style and the Fretting and Picking modes let you dial in just the right playing style, and the force string and hand position parameters give you even deeper control of tone and variation.

Our meticulous attention to detail, exhaustive sampling, thoughtfully designed UI and advanced Shreddage 3.5 capabilities all work together to bring you a guitar that is faithful to the original and both powerful and easy to use in your own productions.

Console Modular FX Rack & Mixer

Console is our mixer, modular effects rack, and pedal board, designed to give you full control over your virtual guitar tone. Unlike our previous FX racks, which were limited to a small amount of preset modules, Console gives you 30 effects modules to choose from!

These include multiple EQs (digital and analog-style), compressors, spatial FX, modulation FX, amps, distortion pedals, reverbs, and a selection of over 30 custom cabinet IRs recorded just for Shreddage 3! These cabs cover all the most important sounds you would want, with both dynamic & condenser mics in multiple positions plus a ribbon mic for certain models.

Using Console, you can easily save and load FX chains or presets between projects or even different Shreddage 3 products. It also allows you to mix and blend between guitar pickups, with custom inserts on each if you’d like.

Over 19,000 pristine 24-bit samples

Includes neck, middle, and bridge pickups recorded separately, each through its own Darkglass Tone Capsule preamp! DI (direct in) so you can use any amp tone. Over 26GB (uncompressed) of meticulously sampled audio.

Signature 7 string bass tuned to drop E

An essential bass famed for prog metal but ideal for any heavy context, including djent, numetal, heavy rock, and even hardcore punk or grunge. We took an already legendary 6-string bass and added one more.

All crucial articulations

Fingered sustains, staccatos, pops, tapping, harmonics, FX, slides, hammer-on, and pull-off.

Realistic performances through meticulous sampling

Every string sampled from open up to the highest fret with up to 4x down/4x up strokes per note and XYZ dynamic layers.

31 production-ready tone snapshots

From hi-gain amped options to clean but still heavy playing.