I record the guitar and then tune it down one octave. Then I also add a MIDI bass behind that. The guitar part adds the twang, and the MIDI bass adds the oomph
This can be made quite good, actually. You have to test different settings of the elastique down tune, what sounds most natural for your particular recording.
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// MVHMF
I never always did the right thing, but all I did wasn't wrong...
The free Kontakt Player has the free version of Guitar Rig. There's a preset called "70s Octave Solo" which gives a good enough impression of bass gtr for recording purposes.
Often I don't know what the bassline is until playing/recording over a couple of looped bars a bunch of times, "feeling out" the line.
When finished recording I run those items through an audio to MIDI converter [with pitch bend enabled*, I use JamOrigin] and record the MIDI that can then be run through a bass Vsti such as Amplebass.
A couple of things to note: If using tuning lower than standard you can use Reapitch to transpose the audio track an octave higher so the audio-to-MIDI converter can read it better, as higher pitched frequencies are more easily detected. In fact you can experiment with pitching up the audio any amount, for perhaps better MIDI conversion results whenever bc of course once it's MIDI it can easily be transposed back to wherever you want.
The track template I use for this operation is a Folder track and two tracks within it. The Folder track has the audio-to-MIDI converter vst and the bass Vsti, both disabled. Right click on the [Folder track] Record button and choose "Record: output" and from the second drop down menu "Record: output (MIDI)" This makes the Folder track ready to convert audio to MIDI after you've recorded the audio.
The other tracks have Guitar Rig [70s Octave Solo preset] -I use two tracks [one at a time] for convenience, it can be done on just one of course. When finished recording the audio, disable Guitar Rig so a clean raw signal is sent to the Folder track, enable the audio-to-MIDI vst on that track and record the playback as MIDI.
You might need to experiment with volume levels feeding the audio-to-MIDI vst for best results.
This method seems a bit long winded at first but is pretty efficient once familiar with it.
* Note that after pitchbend information has occurred you may need to enter a pitch value of '0' [8192] to reset the tuning as the Vsti will read the MIDI according to the last pitch value received.
I record the guitar and then tune it down one octave. Then I also add a MIDI bass behind that. The guitar part adds the twang, and the MIDI bass adds the oomph
This can be made quite good, actually. You have to test different settings of the elastique down tune, what sounds most natural for your particular recording.
Add a little amp sim bass enhancement to this technique (minus the added midi bass part) and its pretty convincing. I often do this when I am recording remote, and lack a midi controller. (or am too lazy to connect it)
The most convincing and for sure glitch free way is to record it at double speed and then stretch it out with "preserve pitch" off. It obviously only works if you can actually play that fast.
There are three ways to record a good sounding bass guitar sound -
1 - Buy a bass guitar - even the cheapest bass guitar with ten year old strings is going to sound better than messing about with a guitar and pitchshifting.
2 - Write the line out in midi, whether that's by hand on piano roll or in a tab editor that exports midi files, and then use a sample player with bass guitar samples.
3 - Ask someone who plays bass to play the line for you. You could show a bass player the line on the guitar and ask them to play it on the bass. The other way could be if you record the line(s) on guitar, export as mp3 files to a file share site and ask a bass owner online if, with all the necessary info (tempo etc.) they'd be kind enough to record the line for you.
You can get a cheap secondhand bass cheaper than a night out, these days - a new one can be had for not much more.
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Another thing to consider is scale length. Typical guitars (Les Pauls/Strats ec) range between 24 and 26 inches and a P or J Bass is 34. Some 5 string basses have a 35 inch scale. You're not going to get the same quality of tone a bass was designed for.
I think I remember several of those threads by the OP. It's always the same helpful hints about pitchshiting, OP hating the idea of getting a real bass guitar then everything repeating few months later. Just get a Squier precision ffs.
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I think I remember several of those threads by the OP. It's always the same helpful hints about pitchshiting, OP hating the idea of getting a real bass guitar then everything repeating few months later. Just get a Squier precision ffs.
While you're on, any ideas about a VST that can make my biscuit tin sound like a snare drum?
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"As long as I stay between the sun & my shadow, I guess I'm doing well."
I have some good results with pitched down guitar, but it is so much easier with a cheap bass.
Maybe takes some time to get used to the thick strings, but you get there.
For the tricky bass lines there are several on this forum that gladly would help.
I think I remember several of those threads by the OP. It's always the same helpful hints about pitchshiting, OP hating the idea of getting a real bass guitar then everything repeating few months later. Just get a Squier precision ffs.
Oooh, you'right. Maybe the mods could make it sticky to save the OP the trouble?
__________________ it's meant to sound like that...
"Pitchshift" is obviously the way to go, but which pitchshift algorithm?
* REAPER offers Elastique Soloist, Elastique Pro (with formant correction) and Direc LE. Which of these is preferred for guitars? Or perhaps an imported algorithm?
* Formants can darken or brighten vocals, and can change female vocals to male, or vice versa. Are formants also relevant to guitar strings, and should they be preserved, lowered, or raised when lowering a string's pitch?
"Pitchshift" is obviously the way to go, but which pitchshift algorithm?
* REAPER offers Elastique Soloist, Elastique Pro (with formant correction) and Direc LE. Which of these is preferred for guitars? Or perhaps an imported algorithm?
You have to check which one is best for you and the material you record. I use Elastique Pro to down tune my guitar to bass.
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Originally Posted by juliansader
* Formants can darken or brighten vocals, and can change female vocals to male, or vice versa. Are formants also relevant to guitar strings, and should they be preserved, lowered, or raised when lowering a string's pitch?
Again, you have to try what works best for you. In my case I mostly use "Preserve Formants (Lower Pitches)" but sometimes higher pitches gives better twang.
2 - Write the line out in midi, whether that's by hand on piano roll or in a tab editor that exports midi files, and then use a sample player with bass guitar samples.
Jam Origin's Midi Guitar converts your guitar output directly to midi in real time (its polyphonic too) and allows you to "play" a sample based vsti the way a keyboardist would.
With a decent Bass vsti it will sound MUCH better than what you can get out of using an octave effect on a guitar.
Jam Origin's Midi Guitar converts your guitar output directly to midi in real time (its polyphonic too) and allows you to "play" a sample based vsti the way a keyboardist would.
With a decent Bass vsti it will sound MUCH better than what you can get out of using an octave effect on a guitar.
Yeah, that occurred to me, in a roundabout way, after I last posted - my idea being get a MIDI pickup system.
I've had a pitchshifter as part of my guitar setup since the 80s. I've never heard any pitchshifting do a convincing bass sound.
When it comes down to it, it's easier and cheaper, ultimately, to buy a bass guitar and learn how to use it, and I wouldn't even waste time using a short scale bass, either, as I don't think they sound that much better than 'shifting guitar.
If I didn't own basses, I'd get a bass playing mate to do my bass lines, or I'd go the MIDI route.
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"As long as I stay between the sun & my shadow, I guess I'm doing well."
If going the audio to MIDI route be careful to reduce any vibrato that you might normally use...it can sound unnatural for typical bass playing (a little is OK).
Apart from real physical bass, Jam Origin's MidiGuitar is the deal. I did some comparisons of it's latency versus that of hardware MIDI pickups in both a Godin piezo system and an hexaphonic add on thing...minor differences, and hard to pick a winner because for example MidiGuitar won on the low notes but the others won on the high notes, but actually irrelevant because with audio to MIDI you have to adjust the MIDI afterwards anyway (quantize, or quantize/humanize, or manually..whatever).
I'm a guitarist but I've done some tracks using real bass where half way through editing the track (timing things, weird noises, EQing wolf tones etc etc), I end up deciding to use a VSTi anyway. Another thing is that if you have nicely polished picking hand fingernails ready to use for guitar, your bass playing technique is limited. I have the same problem trying to play keyboard..fingernails get in the way.