Hello techniques forum!
 
I was wondering if any of you had any tips & tricks for making an electric bass sound acoustic! I'm not necessarily talking about making people think I actually played a vintage, full-size contrabass, but more to make create a similar feel within genres such as bluegrass, roots and acoustic folk. 
 
I've been using transient designers to suck away sustain and obviously EQ to add boom and remove shimmering string noises but I don't think I'm fooling anyone. 
 
Anyone had any luck with this (I'm not looking for bass sample libraries BTW :))?
 
Sven

Expander... Plenty of 'punch'

Playing technique is very important. You must pull and slap the strings like you would a real db.

Karyn
Expander... Plenty of 'punch'

 
Probably, I hadn't thought of that! Thinking about it, it seems to me that reducing sustain with a transient shaper achives the same goal and more. Or am I not thinking hard enough?
 

Playing technique is very important. You must pull and slap the strings like you would a real db.

That IS a good point... Too much pull and slap are the kind of things I try to avoid when playing electric bass. I'll try dialling in a sort of muffled woody tone before I record to see if that invites a more upright bassy kind of playing! Thanks!

Are you playing a real electric bass? This tip showed after doing a google search:
 
http://www.talkbass.com/threads/discovered-a-technique-to-emulate-acoustic-double-bass.571866/
 
There might be some other approaches here too:
 
http://forum.cockos.com/archive/index.php/t-71138.html
 
 

Jeff Evans
Are you playing a real electric bass? This tip showed after doing a google search:
 
http://www.talkbass.com/threads/discovered-a-technique-to-emulate-acoustic-double-bass.571866/
 
There might be some other approaches here too:
 
http://forum.cockos.com/archive/index.php/t-71138.html
 

 
Lot's of good ideas in those threads. I'll be sure to try them out! I'm not looking to buy a second (fretless or specialty) bass and I don't want to fit my P-bass with flatwounds as I need the "real" bass guitar sound and sustain for other stuff, but there are some interesting techniques in there!
 
Sven

Sven, have you thought about using Dimension Pro? I know that you said you weren't looking for sample libraries, but there's a double bass patch on there that you can tweak until it sounds almost dead on. I used it on a 30's/40's big band song and it sounded really good. You can adjust it to get that short string decay that I love so much on the old records.

SvenArne

Karyn
Expander... Plenty of 'punch'

 
Probably, I hadn't thought of that! Thinking about it, it seems to me that reducing sustain with a transient shaper achives the same goal and more. Or am I not thinking hard enough?
 

There's a big difference between a transient shaper and an expander.
 
As the name implies, a transient shaper works on the transient...  They are great for changing the attack/sustain of percussive sounds that only last a fraction of a second.
 
An expander works the opposite of a compressor and affects the entire note, not just the initial transient.  Think of it as a noise gate with slow attack/release times.   Give it lots of gain and high ratio so your peaks get even louder when you pull/slap the strings. A fast release time will kill off the sustain.  Add fist fulls of mid eq to enhance the boxyness of the sound.
 
Instant upright bass.

Tried the trick from Jeff's Talkbass thread with a thick sock under the strings at the bridge and plucking hard up by the fretboard. Really cool!
 
Ran it through a 810 cab from Amplitube to get rid of the DI-ness (I know you don't generally mic speakers when recording double bass, it just sounded better). Added a lopass filter and a peak of EQ to try and bring out some pseudo-woody midrange at ~1200 Hz (any higher and the "electricity" of the bass became too obvious). Finally added a little room verb to make it sound more like it was recorded with a condenser. 
 
I tried using an expander like you said Karyn, for further diminishing the sustain, but they all started distorting before I could get the effect I was trying for. So I used iZotope Alloy's Transient Designer to do it (though I couldn't go overboard with that either before the sound got messed up...
 
Think it turned out pretty nice and I think might fool some people within the context of a mix:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wfjnutu9ngv0jtj/Fauxbass.mp3
 
Tips on how I can improve this further are welcome!
 
Sven

I think you have done a lovely job and created a very nice bass sound here. I love the playing and the groove and the line! I get a million ideas just listening to it. Would you mind if I built a track over that.
 
The room is just a tad obvious (for me) but I like the idea of it. If it was a small ensemble I probably would make the room a little smaller and return just a little less of the room. The room gives the bass a nice stereo image though and I like it. (you could always control how wide that bass reverb is too)

Jeff Evans
I think you have done a lovely job and created a very nice bass sound here. I love the playing and the groove and the line! I get a million ideas just listening to it. Would you mind if I built a track over that.

Thank you for the encouraging feedback, I'd love it if you could use it for something (PM me for an unprocessed wav)!

The room is just a tad obvious (for me) but I like the idea of it. If it was a small ensemble I probably would make the room a little smaller and return just a little less of the room. The room gives the bass a nice stereo image though and I like it. (you could always control how wide that bass reverb is too)

Yeah I might have gone overboard with the verb, but in the moment, the more I added, the more it sounded like a mic'd acoustic instrument rather than a DI'd Fender bass. Furthermore, the stereo width made the bass track less defined when played along with the rest of the arrangement, and I feel that a double bass always sounds more "vague" in a mix than a bass guitar for better or for worse.

Sven