Bass. What VI do you like for bass?

[buzzsmith]

Cool. I loaded it in just a little bit ago and took a Trillian bass line and assigned it to the Rickenbacker. Found a sound or two.

Had to pull the velocities back, but liking.

Need to search for a manual or tips.

Don't quite understand the key switches...yet.


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[musicman691]

Cool. I loaded it in just a little bit ago and took a Trillian bass line and assigned it to the Rickenbacker. Found a sound or two.

Had to pull the velocities back, but liking.

Need to search for a manual or tips.

Don't quite understand the key switches...yet.


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There's a downloadable pdf manual at this NI page: http://www.native-instruments.com/en/pr ... cker-bass/

As to the keyswitches amongst other things you can assign what string certain notes are played on; IOW you could have the low E string play all the way up the neck rather than going from the low E to the A string, etc.

[wonder]

I have used Trilian since it was Trilogy.

I have yet to find another Upright bass that sounds even remotely as good/accurate.

You can do all the knocks and fingerboard slaps and body taps you want. Its supremely chock-full-o-nuts.

[mhschmieder]

Wonder, would you care to share some tips on Trillian's upright then? I probably spent twenty hours altogether, over three separate sessions, and couldn't get anything that sounded remotely organic, with a tremendous amount of tweaking. Maybe I missed some mic settings pages.

[Rusty Shackleford]

I have Straight Ahead Bass and Drums (Brush and Sticks) but haven't figured out how to use them yet, I can't get them to trigger single hits for some reason; they keep going into loop mode. I almost think that might be all they do, based on some forum discussions?

Both these instruments are playable outside of triggering loops - I don't think SA Bass actually has bass loops. SA Drums (Brush and Sticks) has individual multi-samples you can program drum-machine style in addition to tempo syncing grooves to a sequence.

[Rusty Shackleford]

I have used Trilian since it was Trilogy. I have yet to find another Upright bass that sounds even remotely as good/accurate.

The ability to control the direct and mic input levels in Straight Ahead Bass offers a level of flexibility and realism that is worth checking out. I have found in some settings the wood sound of the bass comes through better in a mix with SA Bass than Trillian.

[Killahurts]

I just used "The+Upright" that came with MachFive for the first time on a song. It sounded pretty realistic to my ears. It has the all important room mics, close and DI, all mixable. Makes it a lot easier to have it sit into a mix.

My only complaint is that it is too real in one regard- it's hard to get note volumes even, because some notes resonate and ring out louder than others, just like on a real acoustic bass. Messing with velocities didn't really fix this for me..

Still a good one to try if you have MachFive or Falcon.

[musicman691]

I just used "The+Upright" that came with MachFive for the first time on a song. It sounded pretty realistic to my ears. It has the all important room mics, close and DI, all mixable. Makes it a lot easier to have it sit into a mix.

My only complaint is that it is too real in one regard- it's hard to get note volumes even, because some notes resonate and ring out louder than others, just like on a real acoustic bass. Messing with velocities didn't really fix this for me..

Still a good one to try if you have MachFive or Falcon.

What you cite is one of the reasons compressors find their way into a bass rig for both acoustic and electric bass. I'd try an LA2A emulation on the track.

[Killahurts]

What you cite is one of the reasons compressors find their way into a bass rig for both acoustic and electric bass. I'd try an LA2A emulation on the track.

Ha! That's exactly what I did!

[monkey man]

Wonder, would you care to share some tips on Trillian's upright then? I probably spent twenty hours altogether, over three separate sessions, and couldn't get anything that sounded remotely organic, with a tremendous amount of tweaking. Maybe I missed some mic settings pages.

Mark, I read somewhere that some folks find Trillian's implementation "clicky", meaning that they felt there was too much attack / fingerboard slap inherent in the samples.

I can't comment on this as I haven't tried it yet, but Trillian is the only bass VI I have as I bought into Spectrasonics last year as I always said I would. Hopefully it'll work for me, and who knows, it may even do so for you, although I acknowledge the fact that your requirements are likely far more exacting than mine.

[mhschmieder]

Probably it was only the Straight Ahead Drums where I had trouble with the default loop mode. I might have had other reasons for bumping their upright bass library down the list.

As others have noted, even the free versions of the UVI and/or AcousticSamples uprights are quite well recorded and very woody. I use Vienna Suite to tame upright bass tracks -- primarily with notch filters to get rid of the resonance of open strings. I use some light tube-emulating compression as well, from Vienna Suite, but an LA-2A would probably do the trick just as well.

The VSL Upright is probably still on sale for a bit longer, as they have marked down all of their download string libraries during a recent sale. It's cheaper than quite a few of the others discussed here, and hard to beat. You also get a gazillion articulations to work with. NONE is more flexible!

If you can live with the note range of the AcousticSamples or UVI libraries -- whether the free versions or the paid versions -- I imagine they could be easily coaxed with just a bit of EQ and compression. As I said earlier, I am VERY impressed by them, but can't use them as I usually need to go a bit below "E". Of course, I could use Melodyne after-the-fact, but it doesn't sound natural to me on low notes. Others might not be bothered by such trickery.