What is your favorite realistic sounding synth bass included with X1?

I think I have a handle on creating basic drum tracks with SD3 + step sequencer. So now, although I am a rather proficient bass player, I'd like my first adventure into tonal MIDI construction to be a simple bass track to go over top of my beats. I'm just building a basic 12 bar blues song. What bass synths should I take a look at for a nice rich and natural sound? Thanks.

Right on, millzy. I figured that's what I should go for as it is in many of the vids but wanted to get the forum's opinion before proceeding. It's hard to wade through everything that is included with Sonar. Any other suggestions are obviously more than welcome though. Maybe some Dim Pro stuff? Cheers.

cclarry


Although I like Studio Bass, I find I get much more "believable" sounds from
the Bass patches in Dimension Pro...

But that's just me...

+1

Sooo... which Dim Pro bass patches, specifically? By the way I'm getting a really nice and real drum sound now with SD3 and the step sequencer. Tweaking all the fancy controls and messing with velocities is even making it so I can duplicate my hacky old style of playing acoustic drums. But obviously I just want realism... not hacky. lol...

Yep. I like TTS-1. It hasn't been updated in a long time though, that's why you have to tweak it to get it to work.

If you want a decent freebie outside of the supplied bases try this :
http://www.yellowtools.us.p21/cms/index.php?id=842

Independance Free is what i use all the time for synth basses.

Cheers,
jerry

Dim Pro has some excellent patches

I like Fingered & Slapped.




I refuse to be drawn into justifying this statement

The studio bass is good, but I miss the articulations I get out of my Tyros 2 (also available on Motif) MegaVoice sounds.  Off topic a bit, but what would be the best purchased Virtual Instrument electric bass?  Best = good sound, wide variety of basses, various articulations, not a total CPU or memory hog.  Obiouvsly need Precision, Jazz, Rick, etc.

What kind of bass: upright, electric, fretless electric, synthesized? What kind of music? Not enough information. 

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. Maybe I'll try the Studio Bass first as that seems to have a rather simple interface for a n00b like myself and then explore the fancier stuff. A couple of things I'm curious about... can I use the Studio Bass GUI to input my MIDI data then swap it out for another synth like Dim Pro? Second, is it possible to record my old P Bass and then convert the notes to MIDI? The reason I ask about that is the pickup is a little thin and noisy on the P but it plays well. If I could track my performance and then cycle through the various bass synths it would be super useful. Again, thank you for all the responses.

Beepster


Second, is it possible to record my old P Bass and then convert the notes to MIDI? The reason I ask about that is the pickup is a little thin and noisy on the P but it plays well. If I could track my performance and then cycle through the various bass synths it would be super useful. Again, thank you for all the responses.

Yeah, you can convert pitch-to-midi but depending on the source material and how complex the part is you'll get mixed results. Again, may take some tweaking. Some of the noise reduction software is pretty good and you might be able to tweak the recorded audio instead with eq/comp etc.

Another vote here for the basses in Dimension Pro. If you have exp pack 3 even more so. 

Hey I just checked out the Dim Pro basses as per some of the suggestions above. I laid down a quick groove, selected the 'Simple Acoustic' patch under 'Real Basses' and I'm diggin it, it sounds great! There were some other good ones also, however I coudn't say Fingered and Slapped was my cup of tea!

Bub


The most realistic bass, in my opinion, is the upright that is in TTS-1. Studio Bass can be ok, but it takes a lot of tweaking to make it sound real in my opinion.

There is also a couple of realistic sound bass sounds in ZETA1.

I bought a bass and do it myself now, but there are times that I still use the upright in TTS-1. You can go from soft and boomy, to strings clacking on the neck, depend on velocity.

Make sure you go in to TTS-1's options and set it to 'Light Load' mode if your projects are over 44.1 kHz. If you don't, all you'll hear is a buzzing sound when you play a midi note.

Bub, thanks for pointing out the upright bass in TTS-1.  I think it has a terrific sound.  Sonar has so much great stuff buried in it... I wish I had more time to discover it all (and remember how to find it again..).

@FuddyDuddy... yeah it is a real pain digging through all the hundreds of folders. I think I'm going to get into the habit of keeping a notepad log of file paths with descriptions of stuff I like. That way I know where to go back to when I want to use it. I'm also going to start creating folders when I start making a new song where I can copy all my loops and stuff to for easy access while I work. Gotta keep organized.