Vern C
One other question/query:
Seeing as the OP said the EB5 programs are good for metal, I can only assume that there's round robins, or at least multiple velocity layers?
Actually, no. Again, I tend to do things a little differently. IMO a physical bass string is only one "sample." If you hit it harder, it gets brighter and the pitch might shift a bit if you hit it really hard. You can create these changes with a synthesis engine by tying velocity to brightness and judicious use of pitch envelopes. To my ears, that sounds more natural and "linear" than velocity-switching. You can't get away with that with all instruments, but you can to a great degree with bass.
I'm working on a sampled bass instrument now (Gibson Midtown bass) where I'm using Melodyne Editor to remove the pitch shift at the beginning of the note so it can be controlled
entirely by the synth engine. So far the results are really promising in terms of creating a realistic plucked string sound that responds convincingly to velocity.
It also helps that when recording, engineers tend to even out the bass with compression. That removes a lot of the dynamics anyway. I've done multisampled basses, but never turned them into commercial products because I liked the sample+synthesis end result better.
With bass, I also program the mod wheel to to basically anything other than vibrato
. That can give some real control over the sound.
FWIW this song uses the EB5 expansion pack. Several bass players have thought it was a physical bass, not a virtual one. (Also FWIW the "Rickenbacker 12-string" sound is from the Gibson Gold Top expansion pack, and all the amps are CA-X series amps.)