I get the sound I'm looking for without bass enhancers. It was nice of Waves to give it away, though.

sharke
...like most plugs, it's quite possible to dial in settings that make it sound worse, and I have no doubt that RBass is the same.

When trying out any new plugin, I always start with two assumptions: a) if it sounds bad, I'm probably not doing it right, and b) it's probably more capable than first impressions might indicate.
 
But RBass only has two controls, not counting the output volume fader. The number of ways one might screw it up are few. I honestly think I pretty much exhausted all the possible combinations in the first ten minutes.
 
I dropped RBass into at least a dozen projects. These were all finished songs where the bass had already been tweaked and massaged, so I started each test by bypassing all effects. I first listened to the bass track both in solo and in context with no processing, to get the original sound in my head. I then compared with RBass applied, and then with the original effects restored. In each case, I monitored with SPAN at the bottom of the fx bin in order to see what was happening with the spectrum as well as to aid in volume matching. I listened with main monitors and then with two different headphones.
 
I repeated this test with many projects, although I admit they were all my own projects and therefore had some general commonality. I did not try it on, for example, any metal tunes or hip-hop. But within the constrained test set, there was not a single instance where RBass made the bass track sound better. In every case it took on a muffled, plastic tone, lost transients and lost its place in the mix. In every case the volume rose, requiring about a 6dB reduction to match volume with the original.
 
On a couple projects, I also compared RBass to my most-used bass-warping tools: FabFilter Saturn, Voxengo LF Max Punch, Voxengo Boogex, and plain ol' compression and EQ.
 
Granted, this is not an apples-to-apples comparison. Saturn gives you a ton of possibilities, including multi-band envelope shaping and dynamics expansion. Boogex is a distortion plugin with EQ and dynamics control. LF Max Punch probably comes closest to RBass, but has far more options. The justification for comparing these to RBass is that I use them all for bass treatment. In every case, RBass came in a distant fifth runner-up.
 
I'll keep it around on the chance that someday the right track will come along that suits RBass. But as far as I can tell at this time, RBass is quite useless to me. If you disagree, I'd love to hear a before-and-after comparison clip that illustrates a marked improvement with RBass.

They gave away the Oneknob Louder plug last November.

vintagevibe
If you know how to use it it's wonderful.  If was getting the results that you are getting I would never use it.  I use it all the time.

I've heard this exact sentiment expressed many times. At one time I even considered paying full retail for RBass on the strength of such enthusiastic testimonials, and I was quite pleased when this freebie offer came along. 
 
But if there's a trick to "knowing how to use it", then please educate me!

I have two waves plugins...One Knob louder and now this one. I reinstalled waves to try this, but I'm about to delete it again. That waves cloud (I guess) makes Sonar's scan take forever and I just feel like Waves are over priced. I can't see me ever buying anything from them with the cost and the wup nonsense.

bitflipper

vintagevibe
If you know how to use it it's wonderful.  If was getting the results that you are getting I would never use it.  I use it all the time.

I've heard this exact sentiment expressed many times. At one time I even considered paying full retail for RBass on the strength of such enthusiastic testimonials, and I was quite pleased when this freebie offer came along. 
 
But if there's a trick to "knowing how to use it", then please educate me!

For me the trick is having a specific goal and finding the best frequency.   It can do wonders for snares by just adding a hint of depth but you have to find the right frequency for each snare.  For my live show I play through a Fishman SA220 line array which doesn't have or actually need a sub for fat tight bass.  But there is a lower limit that 6" speakers just cannot reproduce.  For my backing tracks I can get low end that the speaker is not capable of.  That is because the Renaissance Bass add the harmonics that the lower frequencies would create and my speakers can reproduce that.  It's not a set and forget effect but with some experiementation it can do great things. YMMV yada yada yada ...

Renaissance Bass is MaxxBass v2.0 with a new skin & fewer controls.
 
This is supposedly a 2007 quote* from Waves:
The Renaissance Bass technology is the 2nd-generation development from the patented MaxxBass algorithm, and uses the psychoacoustic properties of the hearing mechanism to increase perceived bass.
*http://www.gearslutz.com/board/1656003-post12.html
 
 
Here is the current description from Waves web page:
Using Waves patented MaxxBass® psycho-acoustic technology, Renaissance Bass makes tightening up the low end easier than ever 
 

plug-in links:
http://www.waves.com/plugins/maxxbass
 
http://www.waves.com/plugins/renaissance-bass

Jeff M.
...I'd bet all of Bapu's plugins that Bit doesn't have EZMix2  

You'd be right. 
 
I am saving up for DubTurbo, though.

You can just about finish off the Renaissance Series by buying the
Musicians 2 Bundle from EveryPlugin for $41.30.  It has all but one of the Renn Collection 
other then Bass, which we just got for free..that's 75 percent off of the M2 bundle...
 
http://www.everyplugin.com/shopping_cart.php?sort=1a&page=4 

ohgrant
 You're right Larry, I tried a few of those out a while back and liked them. $59 I could pass up, $41.30 I could not. Thanks again. That's it for me until closer to Christmas.  

Yea, I'd have to agree. Defiantly they delivered on the crazy deal pledge. Best deals I've seen from them on a Black Friday. Tap 2 was the main one I wanted from that, love it on vocals. Still a pretty ugly win 3.0 looking GUI, but sounds great.  

sharke
I use Maxxbass all the time and find that when you use it correctly, it adds clarity to the bass and makes it sit in the mix better. It doesn't work in every situation, but there have been times when I've been tearing my hair out trying to get the bass to sound more intelligible and Maxxbass has worked wonders. Of course like most plugs, it's quite possible to dial in settings that make it sound worse, and I have no doubt that RBass is the same.

Exactly. Don't put it on the mix unless you are trying to fix a bass problem. I find it incredibly useful in defining the kick and, occasionally, some bass parts.
 
Regards,
Dan
 

I decided to see what it would do in an actual mix instead of simply setting up tests.  it definitely gave the kick more "oomph" but instantly the clarity on my low end was gone. I ended up taking another approach.  I cloned the kick track, used a high pass on one and a low pass filter on the other, essentially splitting my kick into hig hand low.  I used the Rbass on the low and a transient shaper on the high.  I would have probably got a similar result by using a sidechain compressor to trigger a sine wave but this was slightly simpler.

Good advice. I have fallen into that trap. I know the teens at the studio I volunteer at fall into it all the time

Milt
I'm going to stay away from Waves from now on.

And another one comes into the light.