Jazz upright bass

[kgdrum]

Excellent - is this still held in high regard?

iirc the developers website got hacked,they lost the content and it took a couple of years for them to re-release the library.
I don’t have it but I seem to remember people saying the newer release doesn’t sound as good as the original.
Again I don’t have this so I’m just retelling what I recall according to my hazy memory.

 

[Zanshin]

Hey, I thought about it, maybe what I hear on recordings and think it is slap, is not really slap.
I just hear those clicks played by the bassist, and maybe mistakenly think that it is slaps.

Here for example, maybe you can help me:


Whenever the bassist in the video stops the strings and you hear this pronounced click, what technique does he use, if not slapping?

Like I mentioned above.. vsl calls it hard stop. Here’s the walkthrough for the synchronized version:



48 secs in he demos it. Not Paul’s best walkthrough haha but should give you an idea of what the instrument can do. I assume the VI version has the same arts but I don’t own it.

 

[chlady]

Ample Sound ABU. Bolder Sounds Roots Upright Bass.

+1 for Ample sound ABU upright that's been my go to bass for a while.

 

[DSmolken]

Hey, I thought about it, maybe what I hear on recordings and think it is slap, is not really slap.
I just hear those clicks played by the bassist, and maybe mistakenly think that it is slaps.

Here for example, maybe you can help me:


Whenever the bassist in the video stops the strings and you hear this pronounced click, what technique does he use, if not slapping?

I call those string muting noises. Hard stop works as well. Not sure of this has an "official" standard term in the jazz world.

 

[re-peat]

Whenever the bassist in the video stops the strings and you hear this pronounced click, what technique does he use, if not slapping?

Those are not slaps, Hag. That’s either a string touching the neck (occurs most often with the two lower strings) or simply the sound of dampening a string (which, on an upright, will often produce a rather pronounced sound - and when the neck is close mic'ed, as it frequently is, you'll hear it even a lot more than you would in unmic'ed conditions). Nice video, by the way. Also illustrates within 5 seconds how ridiculously primitive and inadequate all bass libraries, even the serious ones, still are.

Talking about the serious ones, I can only include five or six in that category (everything that follows is strictly personal opinion of course): Ample Sound, Premier Sound Factory, VSL, Trilian, Fluffy and maybe the Bolder too. (The latter being capable of lot more than just the roots-y material it was mainly developed for.)

Everything else, to me, is wholly unsatisfactory. And some of it not even rises above what I would call the Sunday Afternoon Hobbyclub level.

Never liked the Straight Ahead. (And have said so since the earliest days of its release, and me buying it, in almost every jazz bass thread on VI-C, but I have never been able, despite posting several audio examples to illustrate my points with, to dissuade a single soul from purchasing it.)
I do like the concept of the library and the reasoning behind it, yes, but I just don’t like the sound of this bass. For starters, I think it is poorly recorded. And its strings sound dead and choked, I find. And a bit rubbery (in a non-appealing way) too.

Huge and undying respect for OrangeTree, but I never could get along with any of their guitars and certainly not with the upright bass either. Can’t tell for sure, but it always sounded to me as if OrangeTree trims its samples too close to the transient of the note. The result being that their stringed instruments don’t sound plucked (not in the way I like a plucked string to sound, anyway), they simply start abruptly. Way too abruptly, for my taste.
Not wild about the other aspects of the Pear bass either — always reminds me of a rompler-kind of upright bass patch to me — but it’s mostly that absence of a nice pluck that quickly made this library of hardly any use to me.

Stopped using the ArtVista too, I fear. Again, it’s from a company and a developer I like, but I allow goodwill and sympathy to compensate for only so much and that 'so much' is in this case nowhere near enough, I’m afraid, to like this bass library.
Don’t quite know how it happened, but this bass sounds very compressed to me, even if you don’t come anywhere near it with a compressor. It’s a characterstic that makes it quite a satisfying choice for certain stylings or genres, I suppose, but I don’t think it does well in anything jazz or jazz-related.

(...) one of my favorites, Charlie Mingus (...)

Up until VI-C’s last but one GUI-change (during the latter days of the Frederick Russ reign), my avatar, now a blank square, depicted Charles Mingus. Of all the musicians/composers I could have picked, I chose him. Only to say how unspeakably important he and his work are to me.



_

 

[Martin S]

Those are not slaps, Hag. That’s either a string touching the neck (occurs most often with the two lower strings) or simply the sound of dampening a string (which, on an upright, will often produce a rather pronounced sound - and when the neck is close mic'ed, as it frequently is, you'll hear it even a lot more than you would in unmic'ed conditions). Nice video, by the way. Also illustrates within 5 seconds how ridiculously primitive and inadequate all bass libraries, even the serious ones, still are.

_

Exactly. These slapping noises are unavoidable when playing upright jazz bass pizzicato. Even on my electric upright it’s very pronounced. It happens regardless of which type of strings the player is using (gut, steel-core, synthetic-core).

I agree about the current offerings of upright jazz bass libraries. They are not there, yet. Also remember, that the sound of the upright bass is extremely individual; very much depending on the player, the bass itself (size 4/4 - 3/4 - 7/8 - 1/2) and how it’s setup (fingerboard, sound post placement, string height/thickness/tension), how the player strikes the string (1 finger, 2 fingers, tip of finger or side of the finger - the more ‘meat’ of the finger that touches the string, the more of the fundamentals of the note is projected), etc.

 

[sinkd]

Good ones are: SA Samples, Fluffy Audio, Trillian. I also want to mention Modwheel’s The Lowdown v2.

+1 for The Lowdown. I also have SAS and just used it on a cue.

 

[zeng]

+1 for Ample sound ABU upright that's been my go to bass for a while.

Hello...how are you mixing this beast?

 

[SergeD]

Since this thread covers upright bass, is somebody could comment about this one?

Upright Bass Sample Library VST AU AAX Kontakt Virtual Instrument plugin - Adam Monroe's Upright Bass

Adam Monroe's Upright Bass Sample Library Vst Plugin Audio Unit page providing audio clips, video, and buy options for Adam Monroe's Upright Bass

adammonroemusic.com

While for some it's maybe not a stellar library, to my ears it sounds raw and natural, more on the side of to much less rather than to much processing, after all this instrument is acoustic and this attribute must be kept without compromise.

Any opinion about this library?

 

[muratkayi]

Hi
Chris hein bass is good. Comprehensive articulations and options for configuring them. Different strings sampled, gut metal and something else I don't remember. Has note repeat keys for walking bass, same note, octave and dead slap sound

It's all pretty dated UX wise, but the result can sound pretty nice if you take your time to learn it (the VST I mean)

 

[gzapper]

Those are not slaps, Hag. That’s either a string touching the neck (occurs most often with the two lower strings) or simply the sound of dampening a string (which, on an upright, will often produce a rather pronounced sound - and when the neck is close mic'ed, as it frequently is, you'll hear it even a lot more than you would in unmic'ed conditions). Nice video, by the way. Also illustrates within 5 seconds how ridiculously primitive and inadequate all bass libraries, even the serious ones, still are.

Talking about the serious ones, I can only include five or six in that category (everything that follows is strictly personal opinion of course): Ample Sound, Premier Sound Factory, VSL, Trilian, Fluffy and maybe the Bolder too. (The latter being capable of lot more than just the roots-y material it was mainly developed for.)

Everything else, to me, is wholly unsatisfactory. And some of it not even rises above what I would call the Sunday Afternoon Hobbyclub level.

Never liked the Straight Ahead. (And have said so since the earliest days of its release, and me buying it, in almost every jazz bass thread on VI-C, but I have never been able, despite posting several audio examples to illustrate my points with, to dissuade a single soul from purchasing it.)
I do like the concept of the library and the reasoning behind it, yes, but I just don’t like the sound of this bass. For starters, I think it is poorly recorded. And its strings sound dead and choked, I find. And a bit rubbery (in a non-appealing way) too.

Huge and undying respect for OrangeTree, but I never could get along with any of their guitars and certainly not with the upright bass either. Can’t tell for sure, but it always sounded to me as if OrangeTree trims its samples too close to the transient of the note. The result being that their stringed instruments don’t sound plucked (not in the way I like a plucked string to sound, anyway), they simply start abruptly. Way too abruptly, for my taste.
Not wild about the other aspects of the Pear bass either — always reminds me of a rompler-kind of upright bass patch to me — but it’s mostly that absence of a nice pluck that quickly made this library of hardly any use to me.

Stopped using the ArtVista too, I fear. Again, it’s from a company and a developer I like, but I allow goodwill and sympathy to compensate for only so much and that 'so much' is in this case nowhere near enough, I’m afraid, to like this bass library.
Don’t quite know how it happened, but this bass sounds very compressed to me, even if you don’t come anywhere near it with a compressor. It’s a characterstic that makes it quite a satisfying choice for certain stylings or genres, I suppose, but I don’t think it does well in anything jazz or jazz-related.



Up until VI-C’s last but one GUI-change (during the latter days of the Frederick Russ reign), my avatar, now a blank square, depicted Charles Mingus. Of all the musicians/composers I could have picked, I chose him. Only to say how unspeakably important he and his work are to me.



_

Thanks, for that.

Mingus definitely had a sound, and the 60's jazz bass sound is different from modern ones in so many ways. My favourite bass player, who I hire with string quartets or jazz gigs up here in Canada, now tunes in 5ths from C and has such a great sound and feel.

So far from the demos only the VSL library seems reasonable, though I expect its fussy to use and you'd need to really play it in so that the attacks aren't quantized but that the note speaks on the beat instead. Even so, like all sample libraries, it doesn't do nearly what a real player can do. But on a budget and a deadline I'd take out my credit card for the VSL one.

What's your opinion on that library, its the one you didn't mention?

 

[Montisquirrel]

+1 for Ample Sound.
They also have a Demo for you to try. Very nice GUI and some nice features.

 

[Kuusniemi]

There's also Acoustic Samples' The Upright: https://www.acousticsamples.net/bass/the-upright Personally love the free Kontr in their Free Collection: https://www.acousticsamples.net/bundles/as-free-collection

 

[wilifordmusic]

Those are not slaps, Hag. That’s either a string touching the neck (occurs most often with the two lower strings) or simply the sound of dampening a string (which, on an upright, will often produce a rather pronounced sound - and when the neck is close mic'ed, as it frequently is, you'll hear it even a lot more than you would in unmic'ed conditions). Nice video, by the way. Also illustrates within 5 seconds how ridiculously primitive and inadequate all bass libraries, even the serious ones, still are.

Talking about the serious ones, I can only include five or six in that category (everything that follows is strictly personal opinion of course): Ample Sound, Premier Sound Factory, VSL, Trilian, Fluffy and maybe the Bolder too. (The latter being capable of lot more than just the roots-y material it was mainly developed for.)

Everything else, to me, is wholly unsatisfactory. And some of it not even rises above what I would call the Sunday Afternoon Hobbyclub level.

Never liked the Straight Ahead. (And have said so since the earliest days of its release, and me buying it, in almost every jazz bass thread on VI-C, but I have never been able, despite posting several audio examples to illustrate my points with, to dissuade a single soul from purchasing it.)
I do like the concept of the library and the reasoning behind it, yes, but I just don’t like the sound of this bass. For starters, I think it is poorly recorded. And its strings sound dead and choked, I find. And a bit rubbery (in a non-appealing way) too.

Huge and undying respect for OrangeTree, but I never could get along with any of their guitars and certainly not with the upright bass either. Can’t tell for sure, but it always sounded to me as if OrangeTree trims its samples too close to the transient of the note. The result being that their stringed instruments don’t sound plucked (not in the way I like a plucked string to sound, anyway), they simply start abruptly. Way too abruptly, for my taste.
Not wild about the other aspects of the Pear bass either — always reminds me of a rompler-kind of upright bass patch to me — but it’s mostly that absence of a nice pluck that quickly made this library of hardly any use to me.

Stopped using the ArtVista too, I fear. Again, it’s from a company and a developer I like, but I allow goodwill and sympathy to compensate for only so much and that 'so much' is in this case nowhere near enough, I’m afraid, to like this bass library.
Don’t quite know how it happened, but this bass sounds very compressed to me, even if you don’t come anywhere near it with a compressor. It’s a characterstic that makes it quite a satisfying choice for certain stylings or genres, I suppose, but I don’t think it does well in anything jazz or jazz-related.



Up until VI-C’s last but one GUI-change (during the latter days of the Frederick Russ reign), my avatar, now a blank square, depicted Charles Mingus. Of all the musicians/composers I could have picked, I chose him. Only to say how unspeakably important he and his work are to me.



_

First, fell in love with Charlie after hearing Better Git It in Your Soul. I love all of the incarnations of his orchestra. Gold star for Eric Dolphy.

Really llke your Ample Sound demo/experiment.
Questions,
1. Did you need to use a lot of key-switching or play it in one shot? If you did post performance key-switching was it quick or tedious/ time consuming?
2. Any post processing to the bass sound?
3. Is that their own player and/or any problems?

thanks for your time and straight talk.

Steve

 

[re-peat]

Steve, thanks. I can’t really remember whether that AmpleBass excercise involved much key-switching and/or editing. I doubt it very much though, because I usually make such audio examples — the one for the Fluffy bass is another one — within a few hours of buying the library, mostly to express and share my first positive impressions and, inevitaby, before I’ve learned all there is to learn about the library.

What I am sure of however, is that nearly everything I post — bass demo-wise — is 90% played in one shot. I’ll obviously correct the odd wrong note or pitchbend mistake or something like that, but if I can’t get anything satisfying out of a bass library by improvising on the instrument in real time, my enthusiasm for the library quickly diminishes. As, for example, it happened with the VSL instrument. It’s a fine, high-quality library, no doubt about it, but having to manage key-switches at both ends of the keyboard, and also having to be very careful about the position of the modwheel at all times, those are things that really dampen my playing enjoyment.

I don’t remember anything about the processing of that Ample track. Probably a bit of EQ’ing — all bass libaries need that — and some room reverb, I suppose. One of the many nice things about the Ample is that most everything you need to make the instrument sit in a mix, is now built into the software: an able compressor, a fine EQ and wholly satisfying delay and reverb. Most people will probably turn to third-party plugins for this type of processing — I often do too — but it’s all there if you need it and, seriously, it’s not bad at all.

- - - - -

Here’s a comparison of the Premier, the Ample and the VSL bass, in various settings and appearing in the order named. (I did this rather quickly earlier this morning, so please allow for some roughness and unfinishedness.) Everytime I switch basses during this comparison, you’ll hear a finger cymbal, just to avoid all risk of confusion.

The one that makes the best impression on me here, is the Premier. Something about its pluck, its dynamics, its touch, its releases, and, well, its timbre, sound and presence that appeals to me more than the others. Personal thing, of course. But the Premier is the only one I can come close to believing. (I still don’t believe it completely, far from it, but considering what it is — a sample-based attempt at simulation —, I can believe it enough to be pleased with it and be able to work with it.)
And the Premier also reigns supreme (by some distance, if you ask me) when it comes to doing double-stops. (Check the closing section of the comparison.) Unique among sampled basses, the Premier can actually make double- or even triple-stops sound beautiful and expressive. (The Ample is decent in this regard, in my opinion, and the VSL, well, … no, thank you.)

Another thing I don’t like about the VSL is that its pluck has a sort of knocking quality (cleary audible in the first section of the comparison), and it also is severely lacking in dynamic colour, I find (unlike the Premier) which gives its performances often a somewhat aloof, unengaged, sterile character. On the plus side, it’s got a good, quite unique tone (one that, like Larry Seyer’s sampled bass, often reminds me a bit of the sound of Eddie Gomez), it’s a pretty good walker too (thankfully, those ‘knocking’ plucks get masked when you walk alongside drums) and if you master all its available articulations and included FX, you really have a powerful instrument in your hands.

But it’s no Premier. The bass that, in my view, comes closest to the Premier is the Fluffy. Much better than its price may make you think it is.

Here’s a little thing done with the Bolder, just to illustrate, what I said earlier, that it’s capable of a lot more than strictly roots-y stuff. (It's again one of those which I did soon, perhaps too soon, after buying the library.)

And below are a few more comparisons. These are all very old audio examples and their sound leaves rather a lot to be desired — was what I was thinking when I listened back to them, for the first time in quite a long time, prior to posting —, but they should give a fairly good idea about how the showcased instruments compare and what their individual strengths and weaknesses are.

- Side-by-side / Premier vs Straight Ahead
- Side-by-side / ArtVista vs Premier
- Walking Premier
- Walking Straight Ahead

_

 

[kgdrum]

@re-peat

If you don’t mind me asking are the examples of the Premier that you’re using the original version or is it the newer iteration after the site was hacked? I’m asking because many users say the new version doesn’t sound as good as the original.
I don’t have either one and I was interested in the Premier before the site was hacked and I’ve been reluctant to buy this newer release with all of the reports by users stating the newer version is different than the original.
As a Premier G enthusiast have you compared the two different Premier G releases and do you come to the same conclusion that other users have made about the quality inferiority of the later release?


Thanks

 

[re-peat]

My examples are all done with the original version of the Premier, kg. I never upgraded because, in a very uncharacteristic moment of dagobertduckness, I felt I had to pay too much for the new version. I don't know how Premier arrived at their upgrade prices for long-time users — there must be some reason to it, but I can't spot it —, but the fact of the matter is that, adding to what I already payed for the original library (and its v1.2 update) I would have payed more twice what a new customer has to pay for the Premier bass in its current version. Sorry, but no. It's the same with the Premier piano. Didn't upgrade that one either for the same reason.

The original does everything I expect it to do anyway. Haven't heard anything from the new one that makes me feel I have to have it. And you're right, there appears to be some dissatisfaction among users about the new one. The newly implemented legato, for example, seems to be only so-and-so.
I'm afraid I can't say anything about that though. Hopefully someone who can compare both the old and the new versions, will chime in.

One other thing: my Premier patches are heavily edited versions of the default patches. Heavily edited. Increased dynamics, ADSR modulated by velocity, very different release-sample response, slightly increased randomness of certain parameters, ...

_

 

[kgdrum]

Thanks @re-peat

 

[Dietz]

-> https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Music ... #9: Duke Ellington's "In A Sentimental Mood" played by Christof Unterberger - one of my all-time favorite VSL demos.

 

[wilifordmusic]

Steve, thanks. I can’t really remember whether that AmpleBass excercise involved much key-switching and/or editing. I doubt it very much though, because I usually make such audio examples — the one for the Fluffy bass is another one — within a few hours of buying the library, mostly to express and share my first positive impressions and, inevitaby, before I’ve learned all there is to learn about the library.

What I am sure of however, is that nearly everything I post — bass demo-wise — is 90% played in one shot. I’ll obviously correct the odd wrong note or pitchbend mistake or something like that, but if I can’t get anything satisfying out of a bass library by improvising on the instrument in real time, my enthusiasm for the library quickly diminishes. As, for example, it happened with the VSL instrument. It’s a fine, high-quality library, no doubt about it, but having to manage key-switches at both ends of the keyboard, and also having to be very careful about the position of the modwheel at all times, those are things that really dampen my playing enjoyment.

I don’t remember anything about the processing of that Ample track. Probably a bit of EQ’ing — all bass libaries need that — and some room reverb, I suppose. One of the many nice things about the Ample is that most everything you need to make the instrument sit in a mix, is now built into the software: an able compressor, a fine EQ and wholly satisfying delay and reverb. Most people will probably turn to third-party plugins for this type of processing — I often do too — but it’s all there if you need it and, seriously, it’s not bad at all.

- - - - -

Here’s a comparison of the Premier, the Ample and the VSL bass, in various settings and appearing in the order named. (I did this rather quickly earlier this morning, so please allow for some roughness and unfinishedness.) Everytime I switch basses during this comparison, you’ll hear a finger cymbal, just to avoid all risk of confusion.

The one that makes the best impression on me here, is the Premier. Something about its pluck, its dynamics, its touch, its releases, and, well, its timbre, sound and presence that appeals to me more than the others. Personal thing, of course. But the Premier is the only one I can come close to believing. (I still don’t believe it completely, far from it, but considering what it is — a sample-based attempt at simulation —, I can believe it enough to be pleased with it and be able to work with it.)
And the Premier also reigns supreme (by some distance, if you ask me) when it comes to doing double-stops. (Check the closing section of the comparison.) Unique among sampled basses, the Premier can actually make double- or even triple-stops sound beautiful and expressive. (The Ample is decent in this regard, in my opinion, and the VSL, well, … no, thank you.)

Another thing I don’t like about the VSL is that its pluck has a sort of knocking quality (cleary audible in the first section of the comparison), and it also is severely lacking in dynamic colour, I find (unlike the Premier) which gives its performances often a somewhat aloof, unengaged, sterile character. On the plus side, it’s got a good, quite unique tone (one that, like Larry Seyer’s sampled bass, often reminds me a bit of the sound of Eddie Gomez), it’s a pretty good walker too (thankfully, those ‘knocking’ plucks get masked when you walk alongside drums) and if you master all its available articulations and included FX, you really have a powerful instrument in your hands.

But it’s no Premier. The bass that, in my view, comes closest to the Premier is the Fluffy. Much better than its price may make you think it is.

Here’s a little thing done with the Bolder, just to illustrate, what I said earlier, that it’s capable of a lot more than strictly roots-y stuff. (It's again one of those which I did soon, perhaps too soon, after buying the library.)

And below are a few more comparisons. These are all very old audio examples and their sound leaves rather a lot to be desired — was what I was thinking when I listened back to them, for the first time in quite a long time, prior to posting —, but they should give a fairly good idea about how the showcased instruments compare and what their individual strengths and weaknesses are.

- Side-by-side / Premier vs Straight Ahead
- Side-by-side / ArtVista vs Premier
- Walking Premier
- Walking Straight Ahead

_

Thanks again for taking the time to do this and then explain your thought process.

Steve