Hey. I'm preparing to sample my Ibanez bass, and perhaps a friends Gibson SG. Basically what I'm wondering is this: in an ideal world, what frets would you sample to get the best sampled bass? Since you can play the same notes on different strings, in different positions, there are many ways to do this.
Would you go Open-1-2-3-4 on the first three strings, and then Open-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 or something on the fourth string? Or something more balanced?
To avoid this, ideally each string should be sampled seperately, like in Realguitar. But this makes the samples much harder to use - either you'd need a special vst 'shell', or a different program for each string, and use 4 midi tracks for the whole bass. I don't really want to go that route, for simplicity sake.
Thoughts?
What technique to use for sampling guitar/bass?
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- KVRAF
- 2582 posts since 24 Apr, 2003 from Canada
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- KVRAF
- 6937 posts since 4 Jun, 2004 from Utrecht, Holland
Yeah, I have a thought... Try it out, go have some fun. Start with 2 notes each octave, maybe go for 4 notes each octave so it only shifts up.down one half. Skip the open strings, or stick them in a different program. It sounds too different.
Warning: maybe a bass guitar is a bit different (maybe that will work!) but sampling guitars has nearly always been a very frustrating & fruitless activity.
Warning: maybe a bass guitar is a bit different (maybe that will work!) but sampling guitars has nearly always been a very frustrating & fruitless activity.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 2582 posts since 24 Apr, 2003 from Canada
Well, actually I've sampled bass before... And I'm trying to improve on my previous method 
which was actually alot like what you suggest - samples every three frets I think.
Sampled bass is imo much more usable than guitar since most songs don't call for Victor Wooten bass solos
thus you can usually fake it. Sampled guitar can be usable as well, if you use it carefully as a backing instrument. Upfront in a mix can be disaster...
edit: you can download my initial sampled bass (now at least 5 years old) at the site in my sig.
which was actually alot like what you suggest - samples every three frets I think.Sampled bass is imo much more usable than guitar since most songs don't call for Victor Wooten bass solos
thus you can usually fake it. Sampled guitar can be usable as well, if you use it carefully as a backing instrument. Upfront in a mix can be disaster...edit: you can download my initial sampled bass (now at least 5 years old) at the site in my sig.
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- KVRAF
- 6937 posts since 4 Jun, 2004 from Utrecht, Holland
Another idea: make the upper velocity layer slapped. I always have been looking for such a thing, and always stopped looking and used a real bass.
Or maybe a seperate slap/pluck program?
Or maybe a seperate slap/pluck program?
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- KVRAF
- 6740 posts since 25 Mar, 2002 from sheffield, england
I never really bothered making guitar multi's as I'm a guitarist myself, although I do have an acoustic guitar harmonics patch for my A3000 that I'm very fond of!
Bass can work well otoh. I would also avoid open strings, except the low "E" (if its a 4-sring).
Although it gets a bit tedious, I would suggest sampling the same notes on different strings and choosing which to use when building the patch in the sampler: in my experience its really hard to tell whether notes will sit well mapped next to each other on the keyboard until you try them..
I got good results once by sampling twice for each note, picking once at the bridge and once at the neck, which I then arranged with a velocity cross-fade.. doubles patch size and creation time though.
(Though I also created smaller "Bridge" and "Neck" patches at the same time).
A good trick can be to sample an unpitched string slap sound, which can be used to add a percussive attack to high velocity notes.
I tend to record everything into one 24-bit file to start with, and apply any processing (compression, normalization etc.) to the file as a whole before editing, to preserve the natural relative dynamics of each note.
Bass can work well otoh. I would also avoid open strings, except the low "E" (if its a 4-sring).
Although it gets a bit tedious, I would suggest sampling the same notes on different strings and choosing which to use when building the patch in the sampler: in my experience its really hard to tell whether notes will sit well mapped next to each other on the keyboard until you try them..
I got good results once by sampling twice for each note, picking once at the bridge and once at the neck, which I then arranged with a velocity cross-fade.. doubles patch size and creation time though.
(Though I also created smaller "Bridge" and "Neck" patches at the same time).A good trick can be to sample an unpitched string slap sound, which can be used to add a percussive attack to high velocity notes.
I tend to record everything into one 24-bit file to start with, and apply any processing (compression, normalization etc.) to the file as a whole before editing, to preserve the natural relative dynamics of each note.