Hi all,
 
I'm about to start recording a  new song, and have been thinking that a jazz string bass would fit the bill in this case better than an electric bass for the bottom end.
 
I'm wondering, if I play the part on my electric bass, doing my best to think as a double bassist, and then convert from an audio file to a midi file (through Melodyne I guess?), whether it's likely to sound any good (that is, at all authentic) if I send the resulting midi to, say, the Orange Tree Core Bass Pear vst. 
 
Or would it likely sound better if I played the Core Bass Pear vst (through Kontakt) directly on my keyboard, where I can hear the resulting sound as I play? I guess I play keyboard ok, but I do generally come up with better and more natural bass parts while playing my bass.
 
Thanks for any caveats or other insights :)
LJ
 

http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3362332
 
Kenny had good results on bass guitar, I've considered getting a good acoustic bass sample set at some point for the same reason

I have done what you want to do many times.  Just play your bass with no effects, drag the audio track to a MIDI track and you are done.  You may have to do a little editing, I've have to do very little. 
 
 

Thank you very much for those helpful replies, Kamikaze and MarioD and also to Kenny for his great advice in your link, Kamikaze. That is exactly what I was hoping to hear! 

This has been my favorite trick now with old songs I didn't like the way my real bass sounded. Especially for backing tracks where it's best if the bass is exactly the same song to song. 
I played the part perfectly but there might be string buzzes and just a few minor passing notes that might have been better but hard to punch in once you forget what settings you used etc. 
Drag and drop to a fresh midi track and in seconds you have a midi track that should sound pretty darn close to what you played. 
 
I find one of the major artifacts is the note duration overlaps to the next note on the majority of notes. 
So I highlight all and pull the duration back just enough to fix them. I then Quantize. This really tightens things up between the kick and the bass.  
There also might be a few false triggers and octave jumps but generally it's a 10 minute job and your good to go. 
 
For now I'm happy enough with a custom patch I made with SI bass. For backing tracks it's perfect and I'll stay with it as now I'm committed to over 50 songs! 
 
But for serious recordings I'm going to be looking at as many bass VST'
s as Possible, I want to try demos etc. 
I think I'll start a thread and see what people recommend. 

What great tips, Cactus Music! Thank you very much -  That durations trick may come in handy!

I think you may also try to keep the original bass somewhere low in the mix. That is what worked for me many times.

Thanks, Afrodrum! That tip makes perfect sense and I will definitely give it a try. :)