Real bass guitar tones

Fretwired

This looks interesting - modelled bass guitar tones.

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/modobass/

guitarfishbay

Some of the Sound Cloud clips sound very programmed to me, the rock pick p bass sounds like a badly edited beginner.

I actually think this will sell well to people who mix the bass as an extension of the guitar, as you can get away with a lot in that style and it's easy to get it tight and even, and no need to buy new strings.

I like the concept but it's one of those things where if you're really familiar with the instrument anyway you're going to prefer a real performance, and programming a real performance will probably take just as long as playing it properly if you're a guitarist who owns a bass. This is coming from my limited experience of programming strings attempting to sound realistic... Lots of articulations and dynamics to consider

octatonic

guitarfishbay said:

I like the concept but it's one of those things where if you're really familiar with the instrument anyway you're going to prefer a real performance, and programming a real performance will probably take just as long as playing it properly if you're a guitarist who owns a bass. This is coming from my limited experience of programming strings attempting to sound realistic... Lots of articulations and dynamics to consider

Agree.
Plus learning to play bass is a marketable skill- learning to program this plug-in unlikely to get you any gigs.

Fretwired

I was thinking more about using a MIDI equipped guitar to gain access to a range of bass sounds.

guitarfishbay

Fretwired said:

I was thinking more about using a MIDI equipped guitar to gain access to a range of bass sounds.

Right but can it reliably sense slides, hammer on and pull off, pick playing vs finger playing vs slap, and picking position etc just from you playing the guitar?

Entering the notes isn't the hard part, it's the articulation and dynamics. This usually involves a lot of MIDI control stuff, for example you might automate a value to switch between finger and slap, another for hammer on vs picking the note, another for slide between note vs play each note independently, another for picking position etc etc... 

Fretwired

guitarfishbay said:

Fretwired said:

I was thinking more about using a MIDI equipped guitar to gain access to a range of bass sounds.

Right but can it reliably sense slides, hammer on and pull off, pick playing vs finger playing vs slap, and picking position etc just from you playing the guitar?

Entering the notes isn't the hard part, it's the articulation and dynamics. This usually involves a lot of MIDI control stuff, for example you might automate a value to switch between finger and slap, another for hammer on vs picking the note, another for slide between note vs play each note independently, another for picking position etc etc... 

I have a couple of MIDI equipped guitars and a Roland MIDI interface. The tech is there .. it will depend on the IK product.

guitarfishbay

I'm honestly not understanding how you could control that many parameters on the fly with playing dynamics and a foot. 

Fretwired

If they offer a free trial I'll give it a go and let you know ...

stratman3142

Looks interesting. But I'm aiming to try to play real bass on all of my recordings now, unless it's synth bass. 

I'll sometimes start with Scarbee Jay Bass while I'm getting ideas together, but replace it with real bass later.

Having said that, I'm tempted to upgrade my old copy of Trilogy bass to Trilium.

guitarfishbay

This appears to be how you control it. Pretty cool but again to get best results this will need considering along with the notes.

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/joomla/images/ik_images/product_page/modobass/1.0/big/modobass_control.jpg

Fretwired

stratman3142 said:

Looks interesting. But I'm aiming to try to play real bass on all of my recordings now, unless it's synth bass. 

I'll sometimes start with Scarbee Jay Bass while I'm getting ideas together, but replace it with real bass later.

Having said that, I'm tempted to upgrade my old copy of Trilogy bass to Trilium.

That's what I do .. I have a Fender Jazz bass and a top of the range Squire which sounds ace. I sometimes fancy a bass sound that's not Fender.

stratman3142

I downloaded Trilian today. It was a relatively low cost option for me because I already had Trilogy and only had to go for the upgrade. I've been playing with it for a few hours (which is why I'm up in the early hours) and I'm extremely impressed. 

It's worth considering as an alternative, provided you've got loads of hard drive space. I moved the 33GB library to another drive to my OS drive.

https://www.spectrasonics.net/products/trilian.php

But the clips of the IK product sound very good and I expect it will have a much lower footprint, as it's based on physical modelling.

 

mrleon83

Unless it's really cheap i don't understand the point, you can pick up a cheap bass and it'll sound better I'm sure .. i don't understand the demographic on this at all... vat drums are great as they loud but bass? 

Fretwired

mrleon83 said:

Unless it's really cheap i don't understand the point, you can pick up a cheap bass and it'll sound better I'm sure .. i don't understand the demographic on this at all... vat drums are great as they loud but bass? 

They have modelled various basses - that's the point. You can get different tones via one instrument. It's like saying I have one amp what do I need an amp modeller for ... it may well be you don't. So if you have one bass and like it's tone this product is not for you, but if you want different sounding bass guitars it could be just the thing. We'll see ..

stratman3142

End up getting it, owing to my VST addiction. I just couldn't resist before the price goes up. It's pretty impressive.