Can anyone recommend any quality bass guitar sims out there that sound great and can do things like slides etc. as well as remain sounding like a bass as you play the higher notes.
A quick scan in Digital Village has come up with the following :
Vir2 BASiS Virtual Instrument Software http://www.dv247.com/invt/53273/ - this looks the part so was wondering if anyone has heard of it or uses it
pleae dont take this the wrong way, but if you can`t get a decent bass sound with a proper bass & a halfway decent DI, what makes you think you`ll get a good bass track ou t of software?
You are still going to have to put the notes in the part & if it is a limitiation of your actual playing ability, that is going to translate even worse via a sampler of a bass.
May I politely suggest that you find a really good bass player locally & ask him to play while you record?
That way you are more likely to find out if it is your gear or your playing that is causing the problem.
What bass do you have, by the way, and is it your first instrument?
(Not the firdst one you bought, but the instrument you regard as being your forte)
It has excellent samples and articulations but is a little behind in terms of scripting and doesn't have round robin.
It's worth noting that the guy who has just done the Core Bass stuff also works for ManyTone (Manybass) and is hoping these samples will end up in a much more powerful updated ManyBass! That would be the ultimate for me!
Hey thanks for that!!! I was going to say I needed it down to a low B and the Cherry ones do that. They certainly sound the part and are really excellent value for money.
I am going to download the Manybass demo as well. (What's round robin by the way?)
Ivan SC - the reason I've got frustrated is not because of my playing it's a combination of things - going from the set up of the bass through to the processing of it all to get a smooth sound.
If I just program it all in with 24 bit samples I'll get the even sound I've been looking for and can concentrate on writing stuff. My main instrument is the guitar anyway so I don't see it as a major sacrifice
Imran500 wrote:I am going to download the Manybass demo as well. (What's round robin by the way?)
My understanding of round robin is a type of scripting which some samplers support. It basically eliminates the "Machine Gun" effect of fast repeated notes.
I'm very happy for someone to step in and correct me if I'm wrong or do a better explanation.
Just me being a luddite again - I have always found it easier to just plug in and record.
WEnt through a stage of midi`ing everyhting, including the instruments I could actuall yplay well "because it saved time"
Nowadays the sampled stuff is a LOT better than it used to be, I suppose.
Before you spend the money, have you tried damping the strings with a bit of sponge or cloth at the bridge?
Fattens everything up and of course evens stuff out.
You also might want to try playing with a pick when the strings are damped, also try different positions with your right hand.
But there again I just started using B4 and Battery3 so who am I to talk?
IvanSC wrote:
Before you spend the money, have you tried damping the strings with a bit of sponge or cloth at the bridge?
Fattens everything up and of course evens stuff out.
That's quite interesting actually I might give it a shot.
I'm still weighing it up because I'm thinking of selling my bass. That would leave me bass-less for the first time in years!!
Ultimately I just want a smooth bass sound that sounds good in the mix with no hassles. These programs use 24 bit samples so sound quality wise I just know it's going to fit the bill, especially after I've added further processing
24 bit in itself is fine, but doesn't prove "quality" as such. Hobby recordists are using 24bit nowadays.
I agree with people, I'd persevere with a real bass unless you find you simply can't play the parts you want. Ivansc's first point of testing the gear with a seasoned player is right on the money IMHO. Bass's sound so utterly different in the hands of diferent players. I hope I'm not teaching you to suck eggs here, but you could try playing (plucking) in different spots on the string, and try using a lighter or heavier touch. One very established player I recorded recently plays with a feather-light touch with thin strings. The sound though is great. I don't consider myself a bassist, but I know just enough to get decent parts to tape, and, boy, have I enjoyed it all.
The string damping "trick" is very cool, and then there's various string types that can smooth a bass's tonality and change it's dynamic - I.e Flat's. A real amp or clean DI with bass amp sim can also greatly help sit a bass tone into a mix.
Can`t stress enough that if you are a halfway decent bass player and an average sequence programmer, the best samples in the world arent going to get you a graat bass line.
I thought I had some pretty cool sounding sequenced lines until I heard myself playin gbass on something I had done years ago, which is what has made me return to doing it the old fashioned way.
I am a much better bass player than I am sequencer, apparently!
Imran500 wrote:I'm going to sell my bass and Sansamp DI because I have had enough of trying to get a pro-bass sound!!!
DI'd bass on it's own often sounds "unreal" in a mix (it doesn't sound recorded/mic'ed up and is too full range - need to get some speaker roll-off/compression action going!).
I use Amplitube's SVX to bring some life to the bass parts - i.e. make them sound recorded. Works a treat!
NB the sansamp *is* an amp-sim of sorts - when you set it up that way.
I do like DI on certain things though, once it's tweaked.
Someone played me a demo recently with a particularly sickening DI'd slap on it though. That was just "wrong"...
Most of the ones I mentioned go down to the Low B which is cool - I'm still waiting for Vir2 to get back to me because that comes with the Kontakt player making it the cheapest
Any half-decent bass sample library plus Kontakt will work, but I find it almost impossible to get the feel of a bass guitar from programming, no matter how many articulations you might have in the library — because they're things you have to actively think about and can't play by feel as you can a bass.
If you don't have a good bass, amp, cab and player, you can get decent results using a damped bass, DI, Ampeg SVX and mix processing that might include transient designer, tape saturation emulation, EQ and limiting. As always, it will depend on the genre and the sound of the mix...
To be honest I'm not trying to completely recreate a bass guitar through a bass sim. All I want is a perfectly played and most importantly great sounding bass track that fits in the mix and takes the worry away from that part of things.
For my songs the main work is obviously going to be vocals and guitars. I just want the bass to sound even and sit nicely in the background, I'm not bothered about getting maassively creative with that side.
Imran500 wrote:To be honest I'm not trying to completely recreate a bass guitar through a bass sim. All I want is a perfectly played and most importantly great sounding bass track that fits in the mix and takes the worry away from that part of things.
Then as I said before, get 'Ministry of Rock' and use the Music Man bass. Sorted.
Imran500 wrote:To be honest I'm not trying to completely recreate a bass guitar through a bass sim. All I want is a perfectly played and most importantly great sounding bass track that fits in the mix and takes the worry away from that part of things.
Then as I said before, get 'Ministry of Rock' and use the Music Man bass. Sorted.
Nice - I'll check it out. I've sold my bass today so I'm on a one way ticket outta bassland.
I found out that you can download Chris Hein picked bass with Kontakt for like 60 euros which is bloody good value so that will be top of the list. Only problem is it's a 2GB download
