ACQUA - Graphite

Designed by Acustica with N4 library developer SoundDrops (http://sounddrops.it/), the Graphite bass amp emulator is fully endorsed by GR Bass (https://www.grbass.com/), the innovative and dynamic Italian manufacturer of bass amplifiers and cabinets. This is the first Acqua Plugin product in VST, VST3, AAX, AU format fully dedicated to the needs of bassists and is without a doubt one of the most authentic and modern sounding bass amp plugins that you will find on the market today.

The challenge was to faithfully recreate the sound of the GR Bass One head in combination with the AT 212 bass cabinet, both produced by GR Bass. The GR Bass One head is designed according to their ‘PURE SOUND’ philosophy, producing a realistic sound with natural transparency. The AT 212 bass cabinet is the lightest 2x12’’ cab available in the world: it is part of the revolutionary AeroTech series, and an example of the incredible technical advancement that GR Bass has achieved with its Carbon Fiber cabinet line.

Thanks to its intuitive single-screen interface, whatever musical style you are playing, fingerstyle, pick or slap, this plug-in will adapt, providing you with the pure sound and punch of the GR Bass ONE head and the AT 212 cabinet, for a huge amount of ultra-solid bass tones ready for any genre! For any further tuning and sculpting of your sound, please don’t forget to use the powerful 4-band equaliser, then add to the output mix any dose you like of your D.I. signal by using the relevant controls at your disposal.

Graphite is accurately tuned with enough power to shake your studio from the ground up!
 

What you get

Graphite includes:

• an emulation of the GR ONE bass head
• an emulation of the AT 212 (2x12") bass carbon fiber cabinet sampled with four different classic microphones, expertly selected and placed.

The Graphite plugin comes in a standard version and an alternative 'ZL' (zero latency) version which is suitable for use when tracking, at the cost of extra processing resources, but less latency, very handy if you need to play in real time. For further details consult the user's manual in the Overview section.
 

Head features

Transparency is one of the main characteristics of the GR ONE solid-state head; It includes a 4-band equalizer which allows you to sculpt the sound according to your needs, but that’s not all: in addition to the usual low- and a high-shelf controls, two additional mid-band equalizers allow you to choose from three central frequencies each, and to top it all, deep and bright filters give you control over any extra punch and/or definition you might need.

Cabinet features

Compared to other similar wooden cabinets on the market, the AT 212 (2x12'') carbon fiber cabinet has better focus, sonic detail, richer tone and a more open sound, not to mention its much lighter weight. After careful design, an intense sampling and optimisation phase, and thanks to the invaluable contribution of the GR Bass team themselves, Acustica was able to effectively capture the essence of this cabinet with all its tonal shades, harnessing it all in this plug-in and offering you a sound as close as possible to the original.

Graphite GUI
 

Several design choices determined the sound and final characteristics of this product:

• the recording studio (https://www.elfostudio.com/) with its high-profile functional design offered a really interesting live room with excellent acoustics and a natural and balanced reverberation in frequency response, which further enhanced the great sound of the sampled equipment.
• an effective strategy to achieve the best possible sampling.
• a careful selection of the four microphones: an American dynamic microphone (model 57), an American ribbon microphone (model R10), a German FET condenser microphone (model 47) and a German dynamic microphone (model 421); 
• accurately chosen microphone positions;
• an optimisation of the product in the development phase that guarantees a low consumption of CPU and the possibility of interacting with the plugin in a natural way and with minimal latency, and all this without affecting the sound quality in any way.

Key features

• GR ONE Solid-state amplifier, complete with a powerful semi-parametric EQ section and an adjustable high quality D.I. output.
• Input and Output LED meters.
• AT 212 Carbon fiber cab (2x12") captured by 2 microphone setups which can be used individually or in pairs, with 4 different mic models each, plus a switchable tweeter emulation.
• Freely adjustable cab settings with independent mic management, closely emulating a real bass recording session.
• Easy-to-use graphical user interface.
• Low CPU usage and low latency.
• Presets available, suitable for different playing techniques.

HOW TO TRY A PLUGIN:  TRIAL MODE

• Create a user account (if you do not have one yet) on our website
• Download and Install Aquarius, our products manager, for either Mac or PC
• Log in to Aquarius using your user email and password.
• Type the product name in the 'search' field inside Aquarius to find the '(trial)' version of the product, then click on the thumbnail or the 'Install' button. This will take you to the product page (the trial version of a product is also visible in the 'related products' section on the right)
• Select the right plugin format according to the DAW you are using and click 'Install'.
• Aquarius will download, install, and authorize the trial product automatically.
• Run your DAW. You're set!

For details about the installation/authorization process, please refer to this page.

Technical Specs

• Available sample rates: 44.1kHz | 48kHz | 88.2kHz | 96kHz
• M1 macOS Monterey Compatible
   

* The introductory period implies the product may receive improvements, changes, or fixes available through Aquarius Desktop updates during the first four weeks of its release.
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