Scarbee MM-Bass – 10
2.2 Thomas Hansen Skarbye – The Bassist and Producer
When I was a boy, I wanted to be a great Magician, I wanted to amaze the audience and
leave them wondering: “How did he do that?“ Years later, I am still very fond of “illusions“
in any media. I watch almost every movie that raises the bar of Special Effects and I share
true interest in computer and console games with my sons for the same reason. These days
my magic wand and top hat are the Scarbee Sample Libraries.
I have played in various funk bands as a bassist during my younger years, but started soon
to compose music for TV documentaries and aimed for a career as a lm composer. After
composing, producing music on more than 150 commercials for TV and Cinema (even work-
ing with Oscar winning director Bille August), I began to create Sample Libraries and Virtual
Instruments as I wanted better sounds to use for my productions. These products are used
by top artists around the world on albums and live.
Due to “Carpal Tunnel Syndrome“ (weak wrists) I invented an articial way of playing bass
using software in 1998 and released the Scarbee J-Slap & J-Fingered in 2000.
Originally planning a fretless bass release, I instead decided to take a break from the basses
and do some “easy“ vintage keyboard sounds to use in my productions. Ironically it took me
5 years to complete the Vintage Keyboard Collection and the Vintage Keyboard FX plugin!
Not exactly an easy job as I expected, but this is me in a nutshell; I go into something, dig
deeper and deeper and slowly revealing the secrets and soul of the instrument and can not
stop until the job is done.
The MM-Bass project started in 2005 with the rst sound recordings. Four versions was
dumped before I nally found the right bass, strings and playing position. I wanted to nd the
sound that was closest to my identity as I had been searching all my life for the right sound—
playing various bass brand in the world—with no luck. When listening to all my favorite bass