Steinberger Bass vst .....where are you?!!!

[One Horse Town]

Can anyone help with this? I'm talking about the American-made Steinberger Bass guitar (XL2 I think) which was particularly popular in the 80's/90's in both recording and live applications. The sound is massive particularly when it's chorused. Is there a virtual instrument available for this? I'm no guitarist so even if I could track one down (big money these days) it would be useless. A friend said that Sonar used to have a 'braintree' version which came bundled with it but having contacted Cakewalk they responded with so much vagueness that I gave up trying. In any case I've already got Cubase so I don't need another DAW thanks. Anyone?

[One Horse Town]

Anyone there ......London calling? I realise that probably that a large proportion of readers weren't even born in the 80's but there must be older musos out there that might be able to help?

[Dave B]

Can't help with actual samples, but any decent bass samples where the bass has humbuckers should be fine. It will be more to do with the amp / mic'ing and the playing technique. I used to have one and it went to my bass player who loved it. But it was more about the playability than the sound. He went on with other headless basses, but finally got something more traditional last time I saw him. It still always sounded like him playing...

[One Horse Town]

Thanks Dave - don't know a thing about guitars so what would be a near equivalent (with humbuckers) that's more likely to be available as a sample?

[jaminem]

A musicman stingray library
You can get a Native instruments one from Scarbee...

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/p ... ass-amped/

[Dave B]

Excellent suggestion. The musicman is a lovely deep, warm tone. Whatever your requirements, that should be a really good alternative.

[C.LYDE]

I remember the bass well enough, but I believe its popularity was due to its active circuitry, which back in the day was a rare thing unless one was using a boutique bass like an Alembic or Status Graphite…

As far as sample libraries go, the options are plentiful, however I think the important aspect is the ability to trigger playing techniques that replicate realistic playing. NI’s Scarbee is definitely an excellent affordable option, and certainly does not lack in the tone options.

[One Horse Town]

Thanks for all the replies - a link below to an early example with Dee Murray/ Elton John .....the intro and in particular ending at 3.45 onwards is the sound I'm after.

https://youtu.be/52jug8ot0qA

[jaminem]

The stingray will do that if you dig into the strings so would need to check if there is some control of the attack on the scarbee, but it sounds more like a phaser than a chorus to me. Compressed quite a bit too.....

[One Horse Town]

Yeah you're right - sounds like a phaser more than a chorus....perhaps he's using both. I'm not a guitarist but when you say 'dig into the strings' does that mean more attack? How would you do that with a sample?

[jaminem]

ok, so in 'real life' a lot of the sound that comes out of the bass happens based on where you strike the string, how hard you strike it, and with what. So this sound to my ears would be made with a pick hitting the strings quite hard around the pickup area. This is basically what 'digging in' is, i.e. getting a lot of edge and attack into the string to give an edgy almost percussive sound.

Now looking at the scarbee it has a lot of playing articulations so you hopefully have a chance to recreate this, although I can't see anything specific that describes what I'm talking about.

tbh I wouldn't get to hung up on it, if you have an amp sim the samples are £59 so its probably worth a go...

[trkkazulu]

Hi,

I know that i'm really late to the party here. I was a Steinberger bass endorsee for many years and am currently an endorsee of Ned Steinberger's new company NS Designs. I own a few Steinberger L and XL basses and i will tell you that there is nothing like a Steinberger! A Musicman is no substitute. Now, to solve your problem (late, i know) some years ago, i provided bass guitar content for the original Apple Loops Library. I did all of those loops on my 1982 Steinberger L2. This is also the bass that i played on Five's "Slam Dunk Da Funk" and Britney Spears' "Crazy". So, if you have access to a Mac with Logic installed, you'll be able to cut up and use those loops in any way that you'd like. In addition, there are a few sampling CDs out there with me on that same bass. Among them are "Roots Reggae" and "On The Jazz Tip". Both from Sounds Good and available from various distributors online. The best source for my early Steinberger bass content is PowerFx (http://powerfx.com/).

I hope this helps and feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. Oh, i also have a Fiverr gig where i do sessions.

Thanks,

Jair-Rohm Parker Wells