So after "the last bass I'll ever need".... [UPDATE]

[RBH]

I do a pretty hard cut with a low pass filter around 2.5K to remove the click sound. Some basses can get rid of the click with tone control only. It sounds kind of MEH when playing it soloed - but can work in a mix.

[Xoo]

19 hours ago, Shane_B. said:

For years I've been fighting my J/P bass. I've tried all kinds of strings, set it up to factory specs. Played harder. Played softer. No matter what I do I get fret noise that sounds like metal tapping when I fret.

I was listening to 4 track recordings I made back in the 80s the other night. I used my brothers Ibanez bass and I didn't get any of that noise so I don't believe it's my playing. That Ibanez was a beast. Extremely heavy. Solid natural wood body. Active pups. I don't know how anyone could play that thing live for any length of time. It was really heavy.

I've always found Fender/style basses do this, so it's not just you.  I hate their sound (OK, there are some exceptions where that works, but precious few in my opinion).

[Shane_B.]

22 hours ago, Bapu said:

I had a senior moment

Well thank goodness you didn't have a señorita moment.

[Notes_Norton]

When saxes were out of style during the psychedelic years, I had a P bass. With the chrome ashtray and the chrome pickup cover. I actually prefer them that way. I think they look better and they don't make it that much harder to change the strings.

It was a heavy beast, the scale was long which improved the stretch of my fingers, I put flat wounds on it, and kept the damper under the "ashtray".

I sold it along with the Ampeg. I now have a Japanese lawsuit era J Bass which I got used for little money because somebody etched their name in the headstock,  but it's mostly wall decoration now.

Playing bass is fun for me, but I don't play it much anymore. When I make my duo's MIDI backing tracks, or my Band-in-a-Box aftermarket styles, the keyboard is the best way to enter the bass lines.

Notes ♫

[Shane_B.]

34 minutes ago, Notes_Norton said:

Playing bass is fun for me, but I don't play it much anymore. When I make my duo's MIDI backing tracks, or my Band-in-a-Box aftermarket styles, the keyboard is the best way to enter the bass lines.

That was one of the things I really liked about BiaB. Bass, and steel guitar. I really do like that program. BTW ... I saw a list of bug fixes in the latest version. They fixed the problem I was seeing when changing key and wrong notes being played while using Realtracks ... which they denied till they were blue in the face the whole time I was trying to get help with it. Familiar story eh? coughsonarcough. Oh the irony. LOL! I wish I could demo it but you can't with the Realtracks. I would absolutely buy it again if I knew that part was truly fixed. I really liked BiaB.

What I usually end up doing is I'll export my bass line to midi using Melodyne and use Cakewalk's SI Bass VST. The Bass, String, and EP SI VST's are very usable. The drum one not so much for me. I'm used to Session Drummer 3. It will be a sad day for me when SD3 won't work anymore. It's the only drum VST I've ever used. I've used samples from Studio One in their generic little sampler, but it's a pain to set up. They have some excellent free drum samples on their Exchange group.

[Byron Dickens]

Being a big Iron Maiden fan, I actually want that clackety noise.

Steve Harris gets that with flatwounds and fingers. I'm not him; roundwounds and a pick is the best I can do.

[Xoo]

4 hours ago, bdickens said:

Being a big Iron Maiden fan, I actually want that clackety noise.

Steve Harris gets that with flatwounds and fingers. I'm not him; roundwounds and a pick is the best I can do.

Steve is the exception to my rule ?

[Shane_B.]

4 hours ago, bdickens said:

Steve Harris gets that with flatwounds and fingers.

I tried flatwounds because I read they solve the clacking problem. Didn't do a thing. They were cool though. Took a bit to get used to them. I may sell this one and try something else. The problem is there is an extremely limited selection of left handed bass guitars. This one feels great. Neck fits my hands perfectly. 

[Notes_Norton]

On 11/16/2021 at 10:46 AM, Shane_B. said:

That was one of the things I really liked about BiaB. Bass, and steel guitar. I really do like that program. BTW ... I saw a list of bug fixes in the latest version. They fixed the problem I was seeing when changing key and wrong notes being played while using Realtracks ... which they denied till they were blue in the face the whole time I was trying to get help with it. Familiar story eh? coughsonarcough. Oh the irony. LOL! I wish I could demo it but you can't with the Realtracks. I would absolutely buy it again if I knew that part was truly fixed. I really liked BiaB.

<...snip...>

 I write the old-fashioned pure MIDI styles for Band-in-a-Box because there are only a couple of occasions where they play wrong notes, and then they aren't wrong per se, just added where they don't belong.  That is, if you create the style properly.

Examples for a C chord (and others if you change the root)

1) You are to enter C5 it's supposed to play what people call a power chord. I don't use "power chord" because a chord need 3 notes. Instead, it's a root-fifth interval, C and G for a C5 chord. But BiaB will add the 3rd, inserting an E

2) If you add a Cdim you get a Cdim7 adding the A to the Cdim chord.

With good MIDI synthesizers, you can get 95% of the sound of the real instrument, without the wrong notes and you won't need mega-gigabytes of real tracks on your HD.

Listen to the unedited hi-def samples here:

http://www.nortonmusic.com/styledemo.html

They were done with a mediocre synth, the General MIDI band of a Ketron SD2 synth module. I have better synth modules, but I wanted to use a low-mid-priced module so as not to disappoint my customers.

Notes ♫

[Shane_B.]

49 minutes ago, Notes_Norton said:

I write the old-fashioned pure MIDI styles for Band-in-a-Box because there are only a couple of occasions where they play wrong notes

The problem BiaB had that I ran in to was with Realtracks only. It didn't happen if I used Midi. They were aware of it but denied it was a problem. They tried to say it was how the "embellishments" were baked in to the Realtrack samples but it wasn't and the proof of that is the fact that they actually did fix it without re-recording 1 Terabyte of samples. ?

But yes, everything I threw at it via Midi was 100% accurate. I really liked the old Roland VST stuff. What was it called, Roland Virtual Sound Canvas? I'm not sure. There were 2 or 3 VST packs you could get. I tried those many years ago and they were excellent but they stopped supporting them and they don't work any more on 64 bit. I still have a few songs I used them on and I can't tell them from real orchestra's. They were excellent imo.

 

[Royal Yaksman]

Am I seriously the only one in this thread who thinks the OP would be far better off saving the money on stringed wood shortcuts and just finally putting the time and effort into learning to fart in key?

[craigb]

1 hour ago, Royal Yaksman said:

Am I seriously the only one in this thread who thinks the OP would be far better off saving the money on stringed wood shortcuts and just finally putting the time and effort into learning to fart in key?

Training?

 

[Royal Yaksman]

5 hours ago, craigb said:

Training?

 

With just a little more wetness to the effect and a lot more flammability to the gaseous components in the air, he will be beating bands requiring bassists off with a stick! And probably his hands too...

[Notes_Norton]

20 hours ago, Shane_B. said:

The problem BiaB had that I ran in to was with Realtracks only. It didn't happen if I used Midi. They were aware of it but denied it was a problem. They tried to say it was how the "embellishments" were baked in to the Realtrack samples but it wasn't and the proof of that is the fact that they actually did fix it without re-recording 1 Terabyte of samples. ?

But yes, everything I threw at it via Midi was 100% accurate. I really liked the old Roland VST stuff. What was it called, Roland Virtual Sound Canvas? I'm not sure. There were 2 or 3 VST packs you could get. I tried those many years ago and they were excellent but they stopped supporting them and they don't work any more on 64 bit. I still have a few songs I used them on and I can't tell them from real orchestra's. They were excellent imo.

 

That's the problem with software synths. My 1987I Roland MT32 is still working. When I bought it, Mac used Motorola CPUs and Windows 3.1 was their current OS.

My Yamaha TX81z is still working, and it also dates from 1987.

Both of these have some cheesy sounds by today's standards, but they also have some excellent sounds that have never been duplicated.

Software synths may be less expensive up front, but as computers evolve, they go extinct, and you have to buy again, and again, and again. In the long run, the hardware synths are not as expensive as the software offerings.

Hardware synths made in the 1980s still work today. Plus, I can mix them with my newer synths, picking the best sound for each part from my array of synth modules.  Not much software from the 1980s still works today.

Notes ♫

 

[SteveStrummerUK]

On 11/7/2021 at 7:01 PM, Bapu said:

My oh my, what a big one you have.

[craigb]

Are you calling him a Big Pick Strummy?

How rude! ?

[Bapu]

27 minutes ago, SteveStrummerUK said:

My oh my, what a big one you have.

Pick engulfs new instrument stylishly

[paulo]

23 hours ago, SteveStrummerUK said:

My oh my, what a big one you have.

 

22 hours ago, Bapu said:

Pick engulfs new instrument stylishly

 

Bapu obviously likes large over compensatory king size

[craigb]

 

[Doc H]

Ed……

 

I found the last bass you’ll ever want or need: