Bass Pedal that gives a acoustic bass sound

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JDPadgett

JDPadgett

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I tried to search the forum for this and got nothing. Is there a bass pedal that emulates a stand up acoustic bass sound? I’m sure you can’t make it sound just like a acoustic bass but is there a pedal that moves closer to that sound?
 
If there is, I've never heard of such a thing.
For years, bass players have tried to get close to the double bass sound......and not managed it. The fretless bass doesn't do it, the acoustic bass guitar doesn't do it although with flatwound strings and a bit of string buzzing it gets a bit closer than anything else. But that close is the kind of closeness that Canada has to Scotland as opposed to England....
Back in the 2004~2012 period when I'd sold my double bass because I'd heard these brilliant samples and thought that to be the answer {to a question I wasn't even asking at the time !}, I tried so many different VSTis and none of them did it. I tried out electric double basses and none of them really sounded like a double bass to me. Maybe I'd just tried the wrong ones.
In the end, come 2012, I just bought a cheap double bass again ! And I've not regretted it. It sounds like a double bass !? ??
 
use a sampler. roland has high quality bass samples. they are clean basic recordings. throw a compressor on the outputs..make it.
 
You simply want a bass pedal *controller*. A midi controller. The peds in the size and shape you want that squirt midi but don't pretend to make sounds on their own.
There are very expensive versions and there are versions you can hack together yourself like i did on the very cheap.
Anything in between.
Then you're down to simply finding the patch you like. I have an old Kurzweil module (1000PX) with an Acoustic Bass patch that's astonishingly good - it's basically a sample. All the good patches are generally gonna be samples.
 
There's a ton of acoustic simulator pedals for electric guitar. What happens when you run a fretless through one of those? Since basses are simpler instruments, I'd be a little surprised if there isn't a decent bass version already even.

Honestly, it's probably a matter of dialing in EQ and compression.
 
I just purchased a Fender ashbory bass from a guy on reverb.com to try and get that thump on my recordings. I have watched YouTube videos of people playing these things, and they seem to have that vibe. It arrives next week.

I have a short scale Washburn acoustic bass guitar that I have tried multiple methods, including Impulse Response plugins, to get closer to the upright sound. The best sound I have gotten is by lowering the pitch of a duplicate bass track by an octave and mixing it with the original bass track until it is just barely noticeable. The idea is to simulate the overtones/vibrations of the top of a large upright. Not perfect, but it gives the overall mix a little bit fuller bottom that perhaps an upright would provide.
 
I bought a real one like Grim - but my favourite pretend one is the two double basses in the NI instruments Factory Sounds - couple this to a MIDI pedal board and I doubt anyone would know.
 
The sampled double bass sound on my Casio workstation sounds better than trying to imitate with a bass guitar.
 
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grimtraveller said:
If there is, I've never heard of such a thing.
For years, bass players have tried to get close to the double bass sound......and not managed it. The fretless bass doesn't do it, the acoustic bass guitar doesn't do it although with flatwound strings and a bit of string buzzing it gets a bit closer than anything else. But that close is the kind of closeness that Canada has to Scotland as opposed to England....
Back in the 2004~2012 period when I'd sold my double bass because I'd heard these brilliant samples and thought that to be the answer {to a question I wasn't even asking at the time !}, I tried so many different VSTis and none of them did it. I tried out electric double basses and none of them really sounded like a double bass to me. Maybe I'd just tried the wrong ones.
In the end, come 2012, I just bought a cheap double bass again ! And I've not regretted it. It sounds like a double bass !? ??
Click to expand...
Thank you
 
How about a Roland V-Bass? Ive always used them for the Synth features, not for the double acoustic bass models. They are in there, and have complex features in the options, like bowed playing and body sizes..

V-Bass? VB-99 is a table top, but the V-Bass is a floor pedal? VB99 is more detailed with PC USB connectivity. That VB-99 is a marvel of modern bassic science.
 
How do these VBass track bits sound? They are raw presets. I tried to find the most realist acoustic bass thump in the 40 or so AC presets. Are these convincing of a real upright's thump?...last one is a Trace Eliot active.


20220925_174001.webp
 
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LazerBeakShiek said:
How do these VBass track bits sound? They are raw presets. I tried to find the most realist acoustic bass thump in the 40 or so AC presets. Are these convincing of a real upright's thump?...last one is a Trace Eliot active.
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I'll take #5. The first two have a lot of string vibration. Third lacked bottom, almost a flat-picked sound. Fourth is a bit muddy. Sixth sounds like a finger picked electric bass.

I'll go with #5 but it could stand some more rounded richness in the lower end. I hear most of the tonal qualities (and thump), but no rich woodsey tones.
 
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spantini said:
but no rich woodsey tones.
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Neither do I. Im working on a theory that every track needs to be hard limited and then turned back up..otherwise they sound pericing when you turn it up and crank the volume. The brickwall stopper helps even it out, so it can be loud. Its only a theory.
 
LazerBeakShiek said:
How do these VBass track bits sound? They are raw presets. I tried to find the most realist acoustic bass thump in the 40 or so AC presets. Are these convincing of a real upright's thump?...last one is a Trace Eliot active.


View attachment 121772
Click to expand...

None of those basses sound anything remotely like a double bass.
My music may be relatively shitty, but I'm really fussy about my instrument sounds. I remember those useless keyboard sounds from the 80s and 90s that were supposed to emulate various instruments like violins, double basses and trumpets. They sounded like tortured birds or tortured birds playing underwater marimbas .
When VSTis came along, that was a suitable revolution and many samples actually sound like the instruments they're meant to be emulating, because they are them, not some shitty synthesized attempt.
But some samples still struggle; the two that really do, to my ears are trumpets and plucked double basses. I had a fairly good one that I sold back in 2012 when I just bit the bullet and bought a double bass, called Danny Thompson bass or bass samples. It was by far the best I ever came across and I came across plenty between 2004 and 2012 ~ but the fact that I just went out and bought an actual one in the end tells you what I ultimately thought of it.
My double bass is probably the shittiest sounding double bass this side of Kharkiv ~ but it sounds like a double bass ! Even badly played, it sounds like what it is. I've yet to hear an emulation or VSTi that does.
But like I said, I'm fussy.
 
wretchasketch said:
Here is a snippet of the Fender Ashbory on a Bluegrass instrumental track
Click to expand...
No offence, and it would do if there was absolutely nothing else {with a bit of tweaking}, but it doesn't really sound like a double bass to my ears. It just sounds like a bass instrument.
rob aylestone said:
my favourite pretend one is the two double basses in the NI instruments Factory Sounds - couple this to a MIDI pedal board and I doubt anyone would know.
Click to expand...
I think I have these two; is it the ones called "Jazz upright" and "Upright bass" ? Mine are in the Kontakt factory sounds and I've been having a quick play with them. They very much sound like the Danny Thompson samples. I have to say though, if you tweak the tone knob more to the left, they are good, very good. These are what I'd probably recommend to someone that wasn't going to actually buy a real one ~ which basically means pretty much everyone but you, me and Raymond, Rob !
 
Lets hear some 'fresh' Grim.

That Ashbory clip was pretty good.

I never thought the V-Bass was that impressive. Most of those acoustic presets I never used before. Just the Synth stuff.
 
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LazerBeakShiek said:
Lets hear some 'fresh' Grim
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I don't know what you mean by that.
However, if you click on my sig, on Soundcloud, there's a song called "Ralph and Louisa" on which I use the Danny Thompson double bass samples. I like the song, but I've always thought the double bass sound on it is a bit twizzy. It almost works, but it's too clean. Whereas "Tint the pallid landscape" and "Wedded blitz" feature my actual double bass and they just sound like a double bass to me.
LazerBeakShiek said:
That Ashbory clip was pretty good
Click to expand...
Well, we can beg to differ on that.
LazerBeakShiek said:
I never thought the V-Bass was that impressive
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This is probably the only place that 'V-Bass' and 'impressive' show up in the same sentence when it comes to sounding like a double bass. o_O
 
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