how do i make a guitar sound like a bass, which kind of processor do i need§

[tapper mike]

Kala Ubass
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MaULwCER2U

It's so much more advanced for playing technique over an asbory


I've had a fender precision bass and a steinberge knock off. I often think about acquiring another bass. If I did it would be a Kala.

[arkmabat]

a used bass at guitar center can go for like $60

[swegguar]

sadly in argentina you get a shitty bass for 400$ which is like 2000 US$ in real economy, cheaper than that it's used, broken unusable or chinese that will break just by deciding to go to the musdic shop.

[Hink]

sadly in argentina you get a shitty bass for 400$ which is like 2000 US$ in real economy, cheaper than that it's used, broken unusable or chinese that will break just by deciding to go to the musdic shop.

well that's really rough but I'm not sure just being Chinese built means it will break easily. However that matters not, it seems a cheap bass is out of the question so what is the next best idea? You have to understand that a guitar pitched down electronically is going to sound like a guitar pitched down electronically, you cannot get around that (many of us have tried and tried again). If you have to do it this way I would get the biggest strings you can find and try tuning the guitar lower. I know someone who tunes his guitar so the E string is a B, I dont care for it but he loves it...however this might swapping strings back and forth.

Is ebay out of the question? Sorry, I do not know much about life in Argentina so please forgive my ignorance. What's the deal with stuff being shipped from elsewhere in the world? Are shipping rates through the roof as well? Of course there are other sources besides ebay if shipping is a viable solution, even going the the Marketplace here with a wanted to buy thread.

My next suggestion would be samples, there some nice velocity layered bass samples out there and with layers much can be done with ease. I doubt many people will ever know the difference because after all it is a real bass. I would suggest posting in the sample forum here a question about bass samples.

Good luck, I hope you find a solution that works well for you

[swegguar]

I totally get where you're going. My choice is guitar to MIDI, and there's a nice library called oranges tree something chocolate desert, I really don't recall the name.
Nice to have music stuff chat, isn't it§

[swegguar]

If you want to know a little about argentina, you can google for José María Arancedo's latest declaration on violence in argentina. Sorry if polithycs is not allowed, it's not a polithycal comment anyway.

[JCJR]

Thanks Tapper, that ubass looks nice.

My only electric bass is a peavey, two pickup design similar to fender jazz bass. Bought it used at a guitar shop cheap. I consider it a very playable good sounding bass, which was in good adjustment when purchased and remains so today.

Maybe my impression is mistaken, but at least in my locality peavey guitars and basses appear to have low resale value. They just don't get no respect. On the other hand, the peavey guitars and basses I've seen used for sale appeared to be well made, playable axes. As far as I could tell. So maybe a good brand to keep an eye on, shopping used.

[tapper mike]

It's sad but true Peavey guitars have a low resell value. I bought a few used at pawn shops during the 80's for $40. The quality was fine and it was made in america (though could have used better pickups) but they didn't move.

Peavey never gained a rep as a big name in guitar making, even when evh jumped ship from MusicMan Most of it's rep was from guitar amps and inexpensive PA systems.

[ghettosynth]

It's sad but true Peavey guitars have a low resell value. I bought a few used at pawn shops during the 80's for $40. The quality was fine and it was made in america (though could have used better pickups) but they didn't move.

Peavey never gained a rep as a big name in guitar making, even when evh jumped ship from MusicMan Most of it's rep was from guitar amps and inexpensive PA systems.

Yep, I've had two Peavy generation series guitars, I still have one, and I quite like it. I also have a cheap Yamaha bass which I like a lot and, second hand, it cost me less than dinner for two.

I've played a lot of guitar to midi systems and I've never found that they gave me the same tone that I can get from a real bass, and let's be clear, I suck at bass but I can still hear the difference. The new stuff is much better, but it's not cheap. I also don't think that keyboard is a good choice for most guitar players if you're not already a keyboard player. The learning curve for getting keys to sound funky is longer than the leaning curve for stretching your fingers around a bass.

[JCJR]

Media development fellas at the company I worked for-- Reported pretty good results from, as best I recall, widi and melodyne. They were using the programs for getting a headstart on transcriptions. As best I recall the results usually required some cleanup, but they reported it much faster than doing transcription entirely by hand. They were working on many instrument types, not just guitar.

Some widi reviewers say it works good on guitar, and pitch to midi tends to be most accurate on clean monophonic music tracks. So it might turn out not too labor intensive to record guitar bass lines, do minimal glitch editing, transpose down an octave and get midi bass lines. In fact, if it didn't feel too bizarre, even better conversion (less glitch editing) might result from playing the bass lines an octave up on guitar, because audio to midi typically has an easier time on higher pitches, and a little harder time on low pitches.

Am under the impression that widi would cost less than melodyne, unless the other melodyne features are coveted. They offer a demo download so it wouldn't cost anything to try and see--
http://www.widisoft.com/english/mp3-midi-products.html

[RunBeerRun]

Does it need to be hardware? That seems to be what's going on, but then you'll need a synth, I mean if it's all software you have either freeware monophonic audio to midi, which would work in a mix, but not low enough on latency for standing out, and there's audio input synthesizers.

[skipscada]

Another vote for "get a bass". Mine is ultra-cheap, and I have no chops at all, yet still easily make much better bass lines than when I tried programming them in the piano roll.

Perhaps someone can lend you one? You could program very simple lines when you compose and overdub them when you get your hands on an instrument. Or even invite a bass player to do it.

[swegguar]

This isn't a democracy. I demand silence. Good night.

[RunBeerRun]

Ha ha, I respect that. Let me know if you need any help locating existing freeware.

[tapper mike]

This is one trick I figured out about getting a closer to bass sound with my ztar.
I set up each string as a "zone" with it's own midi channel. Then I set up the zones for poly (more then one note "per string"

In my host I'll set all four channels up to the same bass patch and turn off polyphony (one not per channel/string) and fine tune the portamento. That way I can obtain better legato playing while still being able to do harmony. Hor my ear when using a sample library you really need 5 sets of samples for velocity with each set having at least 3 subtle yet different sound for effective round robin. I've pretty much given up on putting that much detail for a midi'd bass sample.

yeah love playing midi stuff and still prefer the real deal every day of the week.