Bass Steel Drum plugin

[Eriias]

Hello!

I am looking for recommendations for a plugin that best captures the sound of a bass steel pan. I currently own the 8dio steel drum vst for Kontakt, and while it's been great for the steel band overall, I feel like the bass range doesn't really give the rich, boomy sound I remember from my days in steel band.

The only other major hit I found is spitfire audio's steel drum, which apparently is only a lead and cello pan. Does anyone have experience with that particular instrument? Does it cover the bass range at all, or am I right to ignore it in this instance?

Any recommendations would be very welcome, including any ideas on how to work the 8dio one to make it sound better.

Thank you for your time and assistance!
-Eriias

[JerGoertz]

If you're willing to go algorithmic instead of sampled, I betcha AAS Chromophone 3 would be able to produce a presentable Steel Drum.

[Eriias]

Unfortunately, I don't know anything about that sort of thing. I have only the faintest idea of what you mean by algorithmic. :/

[Jim Martin]

AUTO-ADMIN: Non-MP3, WAV, OGG, SoundCloud, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter and Facebook links in this post have been protected automatically. Once the member reaches 5 posts the links will function as normal.

you might want to checkout Pianoteq's Steelpans: https://www.modartt.com/steelpans (https://www.modartt.com/steelpans)

[JerGoertz]

Unfortunately, I don't know anything about that sort of thing. I have only the faintest idea of what you mean by algorithmic. :/

The 8DIO sample library you own is a "sampled instrument", meaning it's many, many recordings ("samples") of a real-world steel drum; the appropriate one is played back when you strike the appropriate key on your MIDI keyboard at the appropriate velocity.

An algorithmic VST instrument, like Chromaphone 3, uses a mathematical model (in this case, a "physical model", as the Steel Drum being modeled is a physical instrument) of how the instrument produces sound, then computes its output sound based on this model.

[Double Tap]

I'm afraid I've not tried steel drum vsts but have you tried using EQ to adjust the sound? I would suggest boosting the frequencies of particular notes in the 50-200hz range. From what I remember of hearing steel drums, they tend to have a booming, resonant quality on some notes more than others.

To get that resonance, you could take an equaliser, add a bell / peak notch to the curve, then increase the Q knob so it becomes really steep. Then you move the peak around til you hear a more resonant booming quality to the notes. Or you can find the frequency of the right note (like, for example C is at 65.41hz at the second octave on a piano) and boost the gain in that area.

Apologies if you know all this stuff. It might be that there's something about the character of the VST that isn't quite right as well.

[Spring Goose]

I don't know about bass steel drums. There's a Kontakt instrument by Audiothing called Tank Drum which is a "Steel Tongue Drum".

It requires the full version of Kontakt. Tank Drum costs £22.

https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/ ... -Tank-Drum