Bass Sim VST/Plug-in?

You may want to check out 4Front Bass. It can be found at this link here.

Ok I see what you mean. I don't know of any freeware versions. Voxengo offeres the LF-Max which can do something of what you are looking for.

I have a similar effect on my Digitech GNX3000 and it get's flaky as the signal decays as well. I have a similar effect in my Line6 Gearbox. However I can't seem to find any freeware that would address this. You might PM SteveStrummerUK he might know of one.

ORIGINAL: TomN

I think I learned something today. Am I correct in saying I can't use that Bass VSTi thingy unless I am using Midi?
BTW, I am also a Midiot.

He he - great word Tom!

Generally speaking, VST = audio; VSTi = MIDI

Steve,

Thanks. I can get passable bass lines using my Boss BR-600 effects as long as the strings are played frequently. If I have to hold the notes without playing them, as the signal decays, the sound gets a little flaky. Normally, even this isn't a problem if there is a rhythm part over top of it, but I have a project going where its the bass, a lead and not much else.

dwardzala,

Your probably better off just getting a bass. By the time you find a plug, or buy a different hardware sim you could just have bought a nice used Yamaha or Fender/Squire and laid down your tracks. If you have a keyboard you might be able to use whatever bass sound it has but you mentioned being a "midiot" so I'm guessing you don't want to go that route either. Just get a bass and you'll be happier.

Check out THIS thread we had about bass guitars.

Hi (again) dwarzala... just replied to your post about getting a bass in another thread.

Before I got my bass, I was in the same situation as you... trying to use my regular guitar to do bass parts. Here's how I went about doing it (copied from an older post in another thread....)

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I have been using my regular guitar to come up with and to record bass parts. The results can vary, but I'm finding it surprisingly effective.

I don't have a fixed forumula for doing this. But basicly and most recently, I use the neck pickups with an appropriate tone control setting and send that into a bass-boosting patch in my POD X3 -- not one that actually tries to shift the octaves (which as other have said has its limitations), but one that just boosts low end and fattens and rounds the sound. My guitar has an additional 6db boost knob at (I think) 650Hz that I use to fatten it up. I then tweak the various settings in the POD, including the EQ and compressor modules, to deepen and round out the sound. This gets me closer to a basic (and relatively "unprocessed", so to speak) bass sound.

I then do additional processing in Sonar. I use EQ and additionl compressing, amp and/or tape sims, and so on to further sculpt the sound. I've tried transposing down an octave, but I don't find it as effective.

Definitely, there are certain kinds of bass sounds that cannot be gotten this way. But it can work depending on your needs. It's also an interesting process.

With real bass, or even with sampled bass, one of the issues is how to process/shape/sculpt it so that it fits in the mix. This typically involves rolling off some low end, compressing, maybe shaping the mids to bring out the upper harmonics, and so on.

Doing bass with a regular guitar, which is an octave higher, the issues are a kind of mirror image: you need to increase the low end, without overdoing it; while the mids are already more present, but you don't want them to sound too thin or bright and "guitar"-like. In both cases the sound needs to be shaped and made to work with the mix. The issues are pretty much the same, only you approach them from a different angle.

The fact that regular guitar strings have a smaller vibrating mass than bass strings is no small factor -- I think that's why some kinds of sounds seem beyond this approach.

But overall, I'm finding that it works nicely for what I'm doing, which is some kind of rock -- not super uberheavy, but not too lite either.

Importantly, I find it much easier to get the kind of bass parts that I like by using a guitar than by using a keyboard... the articulations are much better, and that alone helps make it work. You just have "think bass" when you're doing it.

FWIW.

I found the DSK bass to be very nice. I was in a struggling boat trying to find a good bass sim and was just about to buy a bass when I found this free plug. Some of the basses included are mediocre but there are some nice ones in there with the right eq applied. My fav. is the Yamaha bass that's included (to me it sounds the most realistic). There are also a few synth basses but I use it only for the real basses. Do a google search for DSK bass and it should come up.