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Overloud Mark Studio 2 Review | Reviewer's Revival

6/26/2018

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Overloud Mark Studio 2 [Exciting, Deep] Review

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​Italian amplification specialist, Markbass®, has been producing some of the finest, most powerful-sounding bass rigs for the better part of two decades now (EST. 2001). Markbass® amps are world class in build quality, features, reliability, and obviously, sound quality. Fortunately for those of us longing for that definable bass sound in our ITB (In-the-box) mixes, Overloud has collaborated with their countrymen – bringing us their prolific Mark Studio 2 amp simulation plug-in.
Mark Studio 2 bests its forbearer, Mark Studio 1, by upping the anti from three amp heads and six cabinets to six amps and nine cabinets, respectively. A selection of six modelled close mics is on hand, as is a satisfying (virtual) midi-controllable pedal board layout.  Also included in the booty are a couple of front (room) microphones. Polishing off the kit is a built-in precision tuner with optional output mute. All of this bass-a-licious-ness is presented in an easy to use, intuitive UI (User Interface) complete with a robust, simplified preset manager.

A notable change, welcomed by all customers, is whenever a company *lowers* its prices, instead of raising them. This is just such a case in point – Mark Studio 2 offers more, and costs less, than its predecessor, coming in at only € 109/$129 (usd). Mark Studio 1 bore an exorbitant price tag of € 190 a few short years ago. Generous upgrade prices reduce that amount by no less than 40%, and during annual sales events, even more so.
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Having been a zealous admirer of IK Multimedia’s Amplitube "Ampeg" offerings since years, it took me a long time to even bother investigating Overloud’s Bass amp emulation – if it aint broke, don’t fix it, right? I’m embarrassed by my own neglect and oversight in this regard.

The day came when I just couldn’t seem to produce the bass sound that I clearly heard in my head – the project I was working on wasn’t coming together properly at all. Then I was reminded: “Hey! There’s an NFR of Mark Studio 2 in the drawer of my reviewer’s bench, let’s hear what that sounds like.” What unfolded was reminiscent of a scene from one of those girlie Hallmark movies – I fell in love and caught the strains of an angelic choir, while undulating in a euphoric “Ah Ha” moment.

It was immediately right there – that sound!

Punchy, powerful, detailed and authoritative, without any hint of obnoxious boominess or rampant thud. Given that Mark Studio 2’s interface is sleek and easily navigated, it took me very little time to dial in a suitable bass amp sound. My J-Bass sprang to life and now seemed to be placed perfectly in the mix. Don’t get me wrong – there will always be projects yearning for that rock-proven "SVT" seasoning, but I’d learned an important lesson:  it’s all about having different flavors in the studio pantry.

Installation:

​Mark Studio 2 may certainly be considered compact, taking up only 27 MB of HDD space. The demo is unlocked by a C/R activated license code, on up to three different systems (MAC or PC) – plus a standard USB thumb drive.  Otherwise, the product remains in DEMO mode and is restricted to a maximum session instance of 10 minutes, where the plug-in cannot be saved (or rendered).  The feature-set remains fully accessible, but for only that brief duration (per session) and as mentioned, cannot be rendered or bounced.

​If your machine is connected to the internet, you may optionally choose to tryout an unrestricted demo of the product for a 15 day trial period instead.
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Overloud products can be authorized & activated on standard USB key.
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​To my chagrin, Overloud products regularly “phone home” to ensure that they are legitimately authorized – even after authenticated activation. Personally, I’m not an advocate of these kinds of “Big Brother” tactics, but due to software piracy, I suppose the company is simply protecting their own assets. You are only permitted to authorize one USB key at a time; however, you can activate three computers in addition to the USB key.

Visual Design & Functionality:
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Mark Studio 2 shows off a very user friendly, well-put-together interface. In keeping true to original Markbass® motif, the UI relaxes our eyes with rich charcoal and medium gray color tones, having appropriate mustard-y/amber accents to keep things lively looking. Pleasant, 3D-ish lighting and shading effects impresses one’s imagination that they’re working with top-notch gear in a refined studio environment.
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​Along the top of the plug-in’s window, we have an inconspicuous row of menu items: Preferences, Manual, Info and Help. The preferences menu brings up a panel wherein the user can backup presets, manage activation status, and administer midi assignments for the pedal board setup. 
As one would expect, Manual brings up the user’s manual in your system’s default PDF viewer. Info does just that – displays the current software build, developer’s names, and et cetera. Lastly, the Help item engages contextual help/tips.
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Hovering your mouse cursor over each knob brings up a contextual help popup, describing exactly what the knob is for. Clicking on a knob displays that parameter’s present value, while ctrl + click resets it to its default value.  The ‘weighting’ of each knob and slider is smooth and fluid, free of erratic, unwieldy jumps, allowing easy adjustments and velvety control.
​Mark Studio 2’s default screen highlights the amp heads, but when you hold your mouse cursor over the neatly tucked away pedal board, you’ll notice that the cursor changes to a magnifying glass. This indicates that you can simply click to zoom up the pedal board, exchanging its position and focus with the amp head. 
As you can see in the accompanying image below, a full featured preset manager is built-in, granting easy access to over 100 categorized factory presets, as well as permitting limitless user-created banks and presets.
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In the center block of the lower panel we find the aforementioned pedal board (or amp head, as the case may be), and a convenient tuner. Speaking of the pedal board, we have a tidy assortment of must-have effects processors specific to the bassist’s typical needs. From left to right you’ll find stomp boxes for octave shifting, envelope filtering, distortion, compression and chorus/flanging.
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Click to Zoom
All of the included effects sound very good, and are easy to tailor. Most of the production work that I’m involved in calls for more traditional studio bass parts so I tend to enlist the compressor and chorus (perhaps a hint of distortion), but not so much the more creative ones, such as the ‘Env-Filter’. That said, it all depends on which genre of music one is producing. If your EDM or Hip-Hop styled tracks need a dose of “Wah Bass”, or extreme sub frequencies, it’s super convenient to have FX on deck for those purposes.
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Directly alongside the tuner is a trio of drop down combo boxes from which we can select our respective amp heads, cabinets and microphones. Rounding out this section is a pair of sliders dedicated to manipulating mic placement.​

​On the right most side of this bottom panel we have a column of handy-dandy sliders for blending 
Dry (pre-processed) signal, Ultra (low end) boost, Tweeter (if applicable to the selected cab IR), Room and Rear (rear cabinet mic) levels.
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Click to Zoom
​Unfortunately, this lovely GUI may be lost on some since it was developed six years ago, with much smaller screen resolutions in mind. Thus it is well due to be revamped with a larger and resizable interface; much like Overloud did with their production of Mark Studio’s guitar oriented sibling, “TH3”.
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​Another glaring omission from this otherwise impressive bass amp sim, is the sore lack of global attenuation controls. Generally speaking, most of us have long since learned enough to ensure that our recording levels are gain-staged correctly coming in from our respective audio interfaces. Notwithstanding, a global input control would still prove handy. Likewise, a global output (and perhaps a built-in, clean output limiter) would polish the plug-in off perfectly. This is the only major fault I find with Mark Studio 2, yet for this reason, Overloud loses a turn and may not collect $200 past GO. *Grin.

Sound Quality:

Pure, punchy bass delight! Although Overloud released Mark Studio 2 way back in 2012, it remains one of the best sounding bass amp emulations available. Honest-to-goodness, y’all, this suite of Markbass® bass amp emulations sounds great! Your bass’s notes remain focused, articulate and well represented.

​Even while colouring the tone with crunch and compression, your bass tracks sound alive and potent. Each amp head provides a unique tonal variation – perspicuous from its fellows. Nonetheless, all six amps share the sonic attributes that are definitively, Markbass®.

​Of the six, I find the “R 500” and “Little Mark” heads both produce the cleanest sounds, while “MoMark” is the punchiest and snappiest of the lot; albeit, MoMark has a little less “badda-bing, badda boom” on the low end. 
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R500 - Click to Zoom
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Little Mark - Click to Zoom
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MoMark - Click to Zoom
My personal favorite out of the collection is the TA-501 due to its even-tempered, clean, tube-like sound and built-in (variable) compressor. TA-501 also covers a lot of tone-shaping ground in that it can rumble extremely deeply, punch your gut in the mids, and part your hair with its laser-sharp high end.  Notwithstanding, the 501 can easily be coaxed into bearing its teeth with tube-esque overdriven pre-gain settings as well.
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​With its ability to brightly bring out the 
zing from a P-bass, or a Yammy BB415, you’ll reach with anticipation for the “Classic 300”. If you are looking for a ‘crunchable’, rock n’ roll SVT replacement, you won’t go wrong choosing the TTE500, especially if you pair it with the 108-CL cabinet – it has lots of gritty attitude when you start to push it. Mind you, it also growls back at ya. *Wink.
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TA 501 - Click to Zoom
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Classic 300 - Click to Zoom
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TTE 500 - Click to Zoom
There are a generous number of tone-shaping options available here; taking into consideration the tonal differences offered up by Mark Studio’s cabinets, amp heads and microphone types. My personal experience with Mark Studio 2 has been that the included pedal board compressor is more than suffice, eliminating the need for further processing with 3rd party or DAW compression plug-ins. Following suit, the on board chorus is lush and sounds just right. As a matter of fact, all of the on board pedals sound good, standing up well against any competing amp sim’s fare.

​Below, are six of the nine cabinets (IRs) stuffed into Mark Studio 2. In addition to the cabinets shown here, Mark Studio 2 also contains the 104 HR (4 10s, no tweeter), 121 HR (Single 12, no tweeter ), and the 121 HR (Single 12, no tweeter).
Click the images to Zoom
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151 HR - Punchy and full ranged
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106 HF - Huge depth & punch w/ Tweeter
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152 HR Seriously a classic!
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108 CL - A rock Legend
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104 HF - Thump and punch
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TRV 121 - Powerful, deep, but compact w/ tweeter

CPU & Memory Consumption:
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As are most Overloud plug-ins, Mark Studio's CPU consumption is delightfully nonchalant. As a point of reference, Overloud’s Mark Studio 2 never consumes more than 3% or 4% of a CPU core within Studio One Pro 4.x on my i7 7700 HQ. Howbeit, “Amplitube 4.x” is considerably more hungry, requiring 9% to 12% on the same system (using a simple instance of a classic SVT head, cabinet and tube compressor).
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Click to Zoom

Concluding Remarks

​I’m very thankful to have Overloud’s Mark Studio 2 in my production toolbox. It sounds great, looks good, and is super light on system resources. This plug-in is easy to dial in and it provides a broad spectrum of bass processing goodness. I realize that it’s not the newest, ‘Whiz Bang’ technology on the block, but again I say: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”  Nevertheless, I am hoping that Overloud will revisit Mark Studio’s UI design and that the company re-releases the product with a resizable/scalable interface. 
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    4 out of 5 Stars
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:: Pros

-  Highly convincing and believable Bass amp tones.
-  Intuitive, easily-navigated preset manager.
-  Attractive, well laid-out GUI.
-  High quality, studio-grade sound.
-  Good selection of bread n’ butter Bass FX.
-  Super simple to configure.
-  Works as expected, NO finicky surprises.

:: Cons

-  Understandably, for a plug-in released in 2012, the GUI is too
    small when viewed on contemporary, high DPI screens. A nifty
​    new resizable GUI would be much appreciated.
-  Omission of global attenuation controls is a serious oversight.

To check out other Overloud goodies, take a shot over to the company's web site:

www.overloud.com
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​Brother Charles is a freelance writer, Gospel music artist and minister. Charles had been a professional touring musician during the nineties; working primarily as a lead guitarist in the Canadian country music industry. Brother Charles is also involved with music production and quality home recording.

Intellectual Copyright - 2018 - All rights Reserved. This review may not be copied or reproduced in whole, nor in part, without express written permission from the author.

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