Bass. What VI do you like for bass?

[Armageddon]

Speaking of bass vi's has any developer done one for the Rhodes Piano bass like Ray Manzarek of the Doors used? Preferably for Kontakt.

I always thought the Rhodes bass was just the lower 32 notes of a 73-key Rhodes piano? I have Elektrik Piano for Kontakt, which isn't too bad, but I mainly use Lounge Lizard 4 nowadays, which is synthesized rather than sampled. Probably not as good as the real thing (what is?!?): https://www.applied-acoustics.com/lounge-lizard-ep-4/

[mikehalloran]

The Rhodes went through many changes over the years. I'm not sure that changes were made in the piano bass.
http://www.fenderrhodes.com/history/narrative.html

I've never heard a VI that nailed the Fender Rhodes bass. Otoh, a VI that sounds like the Doors would have to combine a Rhodes bass with a Fender Precision with the option of dropping the P-Bass. Twentieth Century Fox is one of the few cuts that used the Rhodes only for about 30 seconds—the Precision comes in at "But she's no drag..." Once you know the difference, it's easy to hear that the Rhodes/Precision was their normal sound till the Rhodes bass was dropped altogether.

I owned a Fender Rhodes bass and sold it not long after. A couple of friends and I were discussing the strengths (none) and weaknesses (many) and realized that we were all talking about the same unit, bought from and sold back to The Starving Musician in Santa Clara.

[artfarm1]

Be sure to check out EastWest's 'Ministry of Rock' basses! (either Vol. 1 or 2)

These basses really 'work'! And not just for heavy metal or rock. Lots of choice for fine-tuning what you need with each instrument.

Terffic sampling and sound. A real foundation.

[mhschmieder]

I have Straight Ahead Bass and Drums (Brush and Sticks) but haven't figured out how to use them yet, after about two hours of trying (and reading the manuals). 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?

Trillian is unusable in my view; one of my bigger wastes of money. The upright sounds like a piezo pickup, or a poor miking job, or both. It doesn't even sound acoustic. It might work for rockabilly?

For versatility of coverage of styles, Orange Tree Samples Pear Bass is a good concept in need of an overhaul (hint hint) as the sampling is early (i.e. an old library by now) and not as deep as others. But it is quite good at targeting every conceivable genre and style (jump swing, etc.).

VSL remains my top choice by far, for upright bass. In fact, it sounds almost the same as what my own upright sounds like to me when I play it. Very impressed, but it is a bit hard to slot into the mix without some EQ and even a bit of compression. I experiment with different attack/etc. to see if that helps it cut through better. I've made a lot of progress in that regard lately.

Acoustic Samples AkousKontr is actually very good (even the free version is quite good), but they didn't use a hip-shot tuner on this German upright or the Chinese upright used for The Upright, so you can't take it below E. I need my upright to extend down to D at least, and this is common as so many players use hip-shots. Miroslav Philharmonik's jazz/folk/etc. oriented upright patch also suffers from this oversight.

D. Smolken Rubner Double Bass is a curious library as it is based on a 1958 Otto Rubner Double Bass that is tuned in fifths! I own a few other upright libraries too, but each disappointed in different ways.

I own way too many upright bass libraries and the original question was about bass guitars so I'll switch to that instead. It's also much easier to make recommendations, as there are really only a couple worthwhile libraries out there for bass guitar so far, in terms of believable phrasing and articulation.

[mhschmieder]

Impact Soundworks Shreddage Bass has it all over the others for realism. And it works for stuff other than metal. After all, it's a five string MusicMan Sterling. Here's a good review:

http://bedroomproducersblog.com/2016/02 ... ge-bass-2/

I must not have upgraded to v2 as it is a six-string bass that down-tunes the bottom string to G for more overall range. I think I decided it's silly for me to spend any more money on bass and/or guitar libraries as they'll only be used at the early song arrangement phase anyway (at most).

Chocolate Audio recently released a well-done Yamaha BB-Bass library called "BBass V".

Orange Tree Samples has Cherry bass (a Schecter Stilleto 5-string) and Iconic Jaco (Fretless, of course, and unquestionably the best in class so far).

I haven't worked enough with Pettinhouse since v2 of DirectBass came out, to give a strong recommendation for or against, but should point out that he also provides some useful patterns (MIDI) in a lot of styles, which can often help with proper articulations and the like when doing mock-ups. All of his libraries are decent and well-programmed, and get updated now and then.

Scarbee's libraries were good in their time, and still not a bad choice (and for most of us, part of package deals by now). One of their biggest flaws is in string choice for different notes (or especially a tendency to use open strings, which is 100% a no-no in my book unless playing a specific modern bass that has an actual Zero Fret). The timbre is pretty realistic, but phrasing isn't so organic, just like the keyboard libraries that were once tops but have been surpassed by Gospel Musicians.

I actually find Scarbee's libraries useful though, because it can be quicker for me to quickly try them out on a song than to plug in and record each of my basses, in terms of making an initial guess as to which bass will work best for that song.

Possibly Trillian could fill that role as well, but I am so unsympathetic to how it was recorded (nothing personal against Eric Persing; I actually love Omnisphere and that is why I assumed I would also like Trillian), as I tend to like a warm and dark sound that is very woody, vs. a metallic and bright "fresh round wound" sound.

[Armageddon]

Be sure to check out EastWest's 'Ministry of Rock' basses! (either Vol. 1 or 2)

These basses really 'work'! And not just for heavy metal or rock. Lots of choice for fine-tuning what you need with each instrument.

Terffic sampling and sound. A real foundation.

I own Ministry of Rock 1, and while there's a lot to like about the basses, especially the articulations, I have a lot of problems with the fact that they don't include DI versions to allow you the ability to run them through your own amp sims (or real amps via re-amping). I imagine they might have corrected that in Vol. 2.

[musicman691]

Be sure to check out EastWest's 'Ministry of Rock' basses! (either Vol. 1 or 2)

These basses really 'work'! And not just for heavy metal or rock. Lots of choice for fine-tuning what you need with each instrument.

Terffic sampling and sound. A real foundation.

I own Ministry of Rock 1, and while there's a lot to like about the basses, especially the articulations, I have a lot of problems with the fact that they don't include DI versions to allow you the ability to run them through your own amp sims (or real amps via re-amping). I imagine they might have corrected that in Vol. 2.

Nope. MOR2 is an interesting thing - they have DI for the guitars but the basses were recorded through full rigs. See here: http://www.soundsonline.com/Ministry-Of-Rock-2

And Mark:
Thanks for your thoughts on both the uprights and electric basses. The situation I am looking at for the moment is for rockabilly and also for covering some of the David Gilmour stuff where Pratt plays upright (he uses both acoustic and electric uprights on some stuff).

[mhschmieder]

Hmm, for the Rockabilly stuff then, you might want to look at Orange Tree Samples Pear Bass since he really maximized that library for that style, even while providing presets for quite a few genres that are overlooked by most upright bass libraries.

[Armageddon]

Nope. MOR2 is an interesting thing - they have DI for the guitars but the basses were recorded through full rigs. See here:

It seemed to me I might have read that before, so I figured that might be the case. In MOR 1, I believe that their Ibanez patches and one of their Les Pauls have DI on the right channel, but most of their guitars and all of their basses are a different amp on either side, which is pretty limiting. Most sample libraries now are DI only, which makes their choice even more baffling.

[musicman691]

Hmm, for the Rockabilly stuff then, you might want to look at Orange Tree Samples Pear Bass since he really maximized that library for that style, even while providing presets for quite a few genres that are overlooked by most upright bass libraries.

Thanks for the tickler on Pear bass; now I have at least two to choose from. And it looks like Orange Tree has a whole bunch of stuff I could use; my credit card just went ouch

[musicman691]

Nope. MOR2 is an interesting thing - they have DI for the guitars but the basses were recorded through full rigs. See here:

It seemed to me I might have read that before, so I figured that might be the case. In MOR 1, I believe that their Ibanez patches and one of their Les Pauls have DI on the right channel, but most of their guitars and all of their basses are a different amp on either side, which is pretty limiting. Most sample libraries now are DI only, which makes their choice even more baffling.

Doug has a long history of doing some oddball things and that's a shame as at the core their stuff has some pretty good sounds. The NI Rick Bass is at it's core a di sample set with everything else added on ala carte and that's why I like it.

[Armageddon]

Doug has a long history of doing some oddball things and that's a shame as at the core their stuff has some pretty good sounds. The NI Rick Bass is at it's core a di sample set with everything else added on ala carte and that's why I like it.

I actually love the P-Bass and some of the other patches on MOR1. The lead guitars are especially well-done. However, after spending $500 for MOR1 back in 2007, I was very bummed out when I discovered that most of the patches were just a re-mastered version of Phoenix's "Guitar and Bass" sample library CD he'd originally done for the Akai format. I've still got MOR on my drive, and there's definitely occasions I've used it on tracks, but my Kontakt libraries blow it away. I really wish they'd allow third-party developers to write for the PLAY format.

[musicman691]

Doug has a long history of doing some oddball things and that's a shame as at the core their stuff has some pretty good sounds. The NI Rick Bass is at it's core a di sample set with everything else added on ala carte and that's why I like it.

I actually love the P-Bass and some of the other patches on MOR1. The lead guitars are especially well-done. However, after spending $500 for MOR1 back in 2007, I was very bummed out when I discovered that most of the patches were just a re-mastered version of Phoenix's "Guitar and Bass" sample library CD he'd originally done for the Akai format. I've still got MOR on my drive, and there's definitely occasions I've used it on tracks, but my Kontakt libraries blow it away. I really wish they'd allow third-party developers to write for the PLAY format.

That will never happen Doug keeps a tight rein on his baby. Nick has little say in the company to tell the truth.

[buzzsmith]

I have Trillian but since I saw this thread (actually been thinking about something different for a while) I bought the NI Scarbee Rickenbacker late yesterday afternoon.

I'd have more of a report, but it took almost an hour as I also had to update Kontakt as the library would not run with 5.2.1.

The update procedure was not at all intuitive, but finally accomplished.

More on the actual VI's sounds and usefulness as I "play" with it.

Buzzy


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[musicman691]

I have Trillian but since I saw this thread (actually been thinking about something different for a while) I bought the NI Scarbee Rickenbacker late yesterday afternoon.

I'd have more of a report, but it took almost an hour as I also had to update Kontakt as the library would not run with 5.2.1.

The update procedure was not at all intuitive, but finally accomplished.

More on the actual VI's sounds and usefulness as I "play" with it.

Buzzy


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There's a lot that can be done with the Rick bass; you just have to dig into it. Had it since it's initial release and really like it. It's not a small ram load at over 400 meg for either the palm muted or picked versions. I tend to use the palm muted version more than anything.