Virtual instruments for Reaper
April 8, 2011 3:12 PM
How do I get a decent bass guitar on my laptop (in Reaper)?
So I'm getting back into recording after a 15 year hiatus. Back then I was mostly just using an 8 track recorder and a mic. I took a digital music class around '98ish (using Cakewalk and Soundforge), so I'm not a total newb, but a lot of that has clearly been forgotten. And now I'm trying Reaper.
I've figured out how to compose a MIDI track, but right now it's just a generic synth. What I would like is a plucked bass guitar sound.
I'm not up on the terminology, so I'm not even sure what I should be looking for. A VSTi plugin? A sample I can tweak? Or do I really need to just get my hands on a bass? Any help would be appreciated.
posted by team lowkey (11 comments total)
So I'm getting back into recording after a 15 year hiatus. Back then I was mostly just using an 8 track recorder and a mic. I took a digital music class around '98ish (using Cakewalk and Soundforge), so I'm not a total newb, but a lot of that has clearly been forgotten. And now I'm trying Reaper.
I've figured out how to compose a MIDI track, but right now it's just a generic synth. What I would like is a plucked bass guitar sound.
I'm not up on the terminology, so I'm not even sure what I should be looking for. A VSTi plugin? A sample I can tweak? Or do I really need to just get my hands on a bass? Any help would be appreciated.
(That all said, for bass guitar parts I just plug in a bass guitar)
posted by unSane at 6:53 PM on April 8, 2011
posted by unSane at 6:53 PM on April 8, 2011
The 4Front Bass VSTi is a decent approximation of a dry electric bass, and it's free. You could route it through a virtual guitar/bass amp VST and cab impulse to get closer to the precise sound you are looking for.
If you're prepared to spend money, I like the Scarbee Pre-Bass kit for Kontakt, though Trillian is also very well regarded (I haven't tried it myself).
posted by vanar sena at 5:04 AM on April 9, 2011
If you're prepared to spend money, I like the Scarbee Pre-Bass kit for Kontakt, though Trillian is also very well regarded (I haven't tried it myself).
posted by vanar sena at 5:04 AM on April 9, 2011
Yeah, I'm not looking to spend any money yet since I'm just getting my feet wet. For any future projects, I'd probably want to just get my brother's bass out of storage. For now, I'm just playing around to see what's possible with the tools. And learn about the process if there are some instruments I can't get my hands on.
That 4Front Bass VSTi seems to be just what I was looking for. Just changed the MIDI track's FX from ReaSynth to 4Front Bass, and Bob's your uncle. Still sounds like a synth, but definitely good enough for free.
If I were looking for something more specific, it looks like I would set the FX to ReaSamplOmatic5000, point it to an audio file, and that would give me a MIDI controlled sample? Is that right? Is there some format for a bank of samples that mimic a live instrument scale, or is it just always a single sample that is pitch shifted up and down?
And if I got super serious and purchased something from Kontact, does it run as a plug-in Reaper, or on its own outside of a DAW?
posted by team lowkey at 6:31 PM on April 9, 2011
That 4Front Bass VSTi seems to be just what I was looking for. Just changed the MIDI track's FX from ReaSynth to 4Front Bass, and Bob's your uncle. Still sounds like a synth, but definitely good enough for free.
If I were looking for something more specific, it looks like I would set the FX to ReaSamplOmatic5000, point it to an audio file, and that would give me a MIDI controlled sample? Is that right? Is there some format for a bank of samples that mimic a live instrument scale, or is it just always a single sample that is pitch shifted up and down?
And if I got super serious and purchased something from Kontact, does it run as a plug-in Reaper, or on its own outside of a DAW?
posted by team lowkey at 6:31 PM on April 9, 2011
There are unfortunately as many sample formats as there are samplers. There was an attempt to standardiize them using SoundFonts but it seems to have died a death although there are still a bunch of free SoundFonts out there and many samplers will import/convert them.
Kontakt will run as a plugin (the usual way it is used) but you can also run it standalone like a hardware sampler. However you will probably run into latency issues doing this (ie the sample plays 30 ms after you trigger it, enough to bug you, trust me). DAWs have latency compensation built in.
Bass is such a simple instrument to record that I always use the real thing, generally DI'd and often just compressed and EQd although sometimes I send it through an amp sim. It depends how adept you are on the bass. I usually find what I play on the bass is MUCH more interesting than what I play on the keyboard, not least because of slides and palm muting and all that stuff, which is possible to program, but much slower than just playing it. Not to mention the intangible 'feel' thing.
posted by unSane at 6:47 PM on April 9, 2011
Kontakt will run as a plugin (the usual way it is used) but you can also run it standalone like a hardware sampler. However you will probably run into latency issues doing this (ie the sample plays 30 ms after you trigger it, enough to bug you, trust me). DAWs have latency compensation built in.
Bass is such a simple instrument to record that I always use the real thing, generally DI'd and often just compressed and EQd although sometimes I send it through an amp sim. It depends how adept you are on the bass. I usually find what I play on the bass is MUCH more interesting than what I play on the keyboard, not least because of slides and palm muting and all that stuff, which is possible to program, but much slower than just playing it. Not to mention the intangible 'feel' thing.
posted by unSane at 6:47 PM on April 9, 2011
Also, to make an instrument sound 'real' you need a bunch of different samples. Different notes, different velocities, different techniques. You can keep it really simple -- samples a fifth apart, say (eg E0, A0, E1, A1 etc) and just one velocity, or you can go completely nuts like the Scarbee libraries do. If you just use one sample it will sound okay played at its original pitch and maybe a fifth up or down, but increasinly odd after that.
posted by unSane at 6:52 PM on April 9, 2011
posted by unSane at 6:52 PM on April 9, 2011
keyboard bass can work some of the time, with certain kinds of music - but i really have to cast my vote for get a real bass and learn to play it
it's more real, it has better feel and it sits in the mix a lot better than synth bass does
posted by pyramid termite at 9:56 PM on April 9, 2011
it's more real, it has better feel and it sits in the mix a lot better than synth bass does
posted by pyramid termite at 9:56 PM on April 9, 2011
It would definitely be a lot easier and sound better to just play it live... I just don't have a bass on hand right now. With this particular song, I'm not too concerned with making it sound real (it's really simple anyway; practically mathematical).
It is really interesting to hear about this sampling stuff, as I've never used it before. I expected the "normal" way this would be done is with a software synth. But instead you have a library of thousands of recorded samples playing each note with different styles... plucked, picked, slapped, muted, etc., and you choose the sample you want? That does sound really time consuming compared to just playing it. But also really valuable if your skills are, shall we say, limited.
Since you mentioned latency, that brings up another issue I had. I'm plugging in my guitar through an M-AUDIO MobilePre. If I add an effect and monitor live, there's like a half second delay. Is that normal? Processor limited? Anything I can do about it, or should I just be resigned to adding the effects after recording?
And thanks for your guidance. Things have really changed in home recording since the 90's. And I wasn't too adept back then.
Also, what's a cab impulse?
posted by team lowkey at 10:27 PM on April 9, 2011
It is really interesting to hear about this sampling stuff, as I've never used it before. I expected the "normal" way this would be done is with a software synth. But instead you have a library of thousands of recorded samples playing each note with different styles... plucked, picked, slapped, muted, etc., and you choose the sample you want? That does sound really time consuming compared to just playing it. But also really valuable if your skills are, shall we say, limited.
Since you mentioned latency, that brings up another issue I had. I'm plugging in my guitar through an M-AUDIO MobilePre. If I add an effect and monitor live, there's like a half second delay. Is that normal? Processor limited? Anything I can do about it, or should I just be resigned to adding the effects after recording?
And thanks for your guidance. Things have really changed in home recording since the 90's. And I wasn't too adept back then.
Also, what's a cab impulse?
posted by team lowkey at 10:27 PM on April 9, 2011
Convolution reverb. In short, you need a convolution reverb plugin and a set of impulses that simulate a speaker cabinet (lots available on this site. There are plenty of free convolution reverb plugins around depending on your platform, I'd shop around KVR Audio or the like.
BTW, I strongly recommend grabbing all of the Native Instruments freebies, including Kontakt Player. Unlike many of the other DAWs, Reaper doesn't come with a set of instrument plugins, and these will get you going quickly.
posted by vanar sena at 11:30 PM on April 9, 2011
BTW, I strongly recommend grabbing all of the Native Instruments freebies, including Kontakt Player. Unlike many of the other DAWs, Reaper doesn't come with a set of instrument plugins, and these will get you going quickly.
posted by vanar sena at 11:30 PM on April 9, 2011
The way that the multisample libraries work is that you often map one octave of the keyboard to an articulation or style. So for example if you hold down C in that octave and play a note elsewhere, it's sustained. If you hold down D it's muted. If you hold down E it's a slide down to it. F is a slide off the note. G is a slap. I'm making this up but you get the idea.
Velocity and aftertouch are simply mapped from the keyboard.
So to play one of these instruments what you might do is play in the melody live and then play the articulations on another pass. It can sound very realistic when you do this and is not particularly complicated once you know the articulations. Also, playing the bass samples through an amp sim or whatever signal chain you use for a real bass makes a lot of difference as the sample will generally be a clean DI version unless they have built in some speaker simulation or whatever.
posted by unSane at 7:19 AM on April 10, 2011
Velocity and aftertouch are simply mapped from the keyboard.
So to play one of these instruments what you might do is play in the melody live and then play the articulations on another pass. It can sound very realistic when you do this and is not particularly complicated once you know the articulations. Also, playing the bass samples through an amp sim or whatever signal chain you use for a real bass makes a lot of difference as the sample will generally be a clean DI version unless they have built in some speaker simulation or whatever.
posted by unSane at 7:19 AM on April 10, 2011
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/fires up Reaper, hang on
Reaper has the ReaSamplOmatic5000 sampler which ships with it but it doesn't have any samples that I can see and I don't know what format it accepts (you could always RTFM).
There are tons of bass samples out there. If you want a cool virtual sampler with a terrific library, Kontakt may be your best bet, but I'm sure if you delve into the weeds you can roll your own.
posted by unSane at 6:52 PM on April 8, 2011