Toontrack Fretless EBX for Metal: Your Next Bass Tone Upgrade

You can’t have a crushing metal guitar tone without a killer bass tone sitting underneath it. It’s the unspoken truth. That low-end foundation is what gives heavy guitars their weight and power. Get the bass wrong, and your mix feels hollow and weak, no matter how good your guitars sound.

This is where having a ton of options and precise control becomes non-negotiable. And while recording a real bass is classic, the modern metal workflow often demands a more consistent, controllable, and perfect source. That’s why so many producers are turning to virtual instruments, and the Toontrack Fretless EBX Sound Expansion for EZbass is a seriously powerful tool for the job.

What is the Toontrack Fretless EBX?

At its core, the Fretless EBX is a sound library for Toontrack’s EZbass platform. It’s a meticulously sampled, custom-built, Ibanez-style fretless bass. Going fretless might seem like an odd choice for metal at first, but that signature smooth "mwah" and gliding articulation can add a unique character to your bass lines, especially in the midrange where all the grit lives.

The expansion comes with a range of presets from clean and round to gritty and distorted, along with its own library of MIDI grooves. For metal producers, this means you’re getting a high-quality, perfectly captured DI signal that’s ready to be re-amped, distorted, and molded into a monster.

Why Programmed Bass is King in Modern Metal

Before we even get to mixing, let’s address the elephant in the room: using a virtual instrument for bass isn’t cheating. In fact, it’s pretty much the industry standard for modern metal. Guys you’ll find on the Nail The Mix instructors list are programming bass on huge records. There are a couple of huge reasons why.

The Intonation Problem with Low Tunings

Ever tried to record a bass player in Drop G? It’s a nightmare. The lower you tune and the thicker the strings get, the more prone they are to intonation issues. If the player frets just a little too hard, the note goes sharp. You can try to fix it with Melodyne or Auto-Tune, but it often sounds glitchy and unnatural. You end up spending hours editing a performance that still feels slightly off.

A virtual instrument like the Fretless EBX completely solves this. Every single note is perfectly in tune, every time. You get all the human feel from the velocity and MIDI performance without any of the acoustic instrument's physical limitations.

It's All About Workflow

Think about the amount of editing a real bass performance needs to lock in with quantized drums and tight rhythm guitars. You’re typically time-aligning every transient and pitch-correcting every note until it’s rock solid. By the time you’re done, it might as well have been programmed. Starting with MIDI just cuts out the most tedious part of the process and gives you a flawless foundation from the get-go.

Mixing Metal Bass with the Fretless EBX

This is where the real fun starts. The key to a modern metal bass sound that is both massive in the low-end and articulate enough to cut through dense guitars is the split-bass method. Since you’re using MIDI from the EBX, this is incredibly easy to set up.

You’ll create three tracks in your DAW, all triggered by the exact same MIDI performance.

The Modern Split-Bass Method

The core idea is to process the high and low frequencies separately to maximize both clarity and weight.

The "Grit" Track (Highs)

This is your aggression layer. The goal here is distortion, clank, and midrange character.

1. Duplicate your EZbass track. On this new track, load up the Fretless EBX.
2. High-Pass Filter: Slap an EQ like the FabFilter Pro-Q 3 on it and set a steep high-pass filter. Start around 250-400Hz. You want to completely remove the fundamental low-end from this track.
3. Distort It: This is where you go crazy. Run it through a bass distortion plugin like Neural DSP’s Parallax or the Darkglass Ultra. You can even use a guitar amp sim like the Archetype: Gojira. Don’t be shy—the goal is to create a nasty, aggressive tone that sounds thin and harsh on its own. The Fretless EBX’s smooth slides and articulation really shine through this kind of processing. For more tips on this kind of aggressive frequency carving, check out our guide on EQing modern metal guitars.

The "Weight" Track (Lows)

This track is all about the clean, solid foundation.

1. Use your original EZbass track. Keep a clean, full-range DI preset from the Fretless EBX loaded up.
2. Low-Pass Filter: Use another EQ to gently roll off the high end. A low-pass filter around 400-600Hz will help it stay out of the way of the Grit track.
3. Compress It: You need this low-end to be incredibly consistent. A compressor with a fast attack, like a Slate Digital FG-116 emulation of a classic 1176, is perfect for taming peaks and keeping the level locked in. Aim for steady gain reduction to glue the bottom end together. Learn more about how the pros use this technique in our deep dive on metal compression secrets.

Adding the Secret Weapon: The Sub Layer

For that final touch of chest-thumping low-end that you feel more than you hear, many producers add a third layer: a pure sine wave.

1. Create a Synth Track: Load up a simple synthesizer like Xfer Serum or your DAW’s stock synth (Logic’s ES2 is great for this). Set it to a basic sine wave.
2. Copy the MIDI: Drag the same MIDI part from your EBX tracks onto this new synth track. You may need to pitch it down an octave to get it into the true sub-bass range (typically 30-60Hz).
3. Filter Aggressively: Use an EQ to cut everything above 80-100Hz. This track should have zero midrange or treble. It’s pure, fundamental weight.

Putting It All Together for a Massive Foundation

Now, just route these three tracks (Grit, Weight, and Sub) to a Bass Bus. Blend them together to taste. You now have independent fader control over the clank, the body, and the sub-bass of your performance. Need more attack in the chorus? Nudge up the Grit track. Guitars getting too dense in the bridge? Pull the Grit track back a bit and let the clean low-end carry the section.

This level of control is the key to a professional-sounding metal mix. Tools like the Toontrack Fretless EBX give you the perfect source material to build this kind of massive, detailed, and modern bass tone.

Of course, seeing this in action is the best way to learn. Imagine watching the producer behind your favorite album build a bass tone like this from scratch, explaining every plugin choice and automation move as they go. That’s exactly what you get inside Nail The Mix. Check out our massive catalog of past mixing sessions to see how the world's best producers get it done.