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Bass Amp auv3
I'm pretty sure I know them all but if you have any other ideas I would like to check them out.
I tried everything I have last night and nothing I have seems to provide a nice, clean, fat bass sound. Everything had some distortion.
What I've tried:
THU
Yonac complete
Nembrini Blackice Beta Gamma
Yonac Tonestack
Lostin70s Bass Deluxe
Gain Stage Vintage Clean
Tonebridge
AuroraDSP Mammoth (an obvious fail on this challenge)
- edit - Just realized now going through everything I didn't try GE Labs. Will give that a try tonight. Might also try the Nembrini BST100 and Soundmaster. They might do a clean.
I don't really want to buy another Nembrini amo ($$$ 
) but any comments on it's ability to do what I after would be worth reading.
Anything else out there?
Comments
There’s an SVT emulation in MixBox. It can do fat and clean.
Give the Nembrini PSA1000 or PSA1000 Jr a try.
I find that it works well for clean fat bass.
Good call. I’ve never used those but I use the Sansamp PSA-1 in ProTools for bass all the time. I’m assuming the Nembrini versions are pretty much the same?
Yes. They are very close.
Cool, completely forgot it did guitar amps and had no knowledge of the SVT. Definitely trying that.
And this. I didn't realise these were a Sansamp emu. Nearly tried them last night but will tonight.
Thanks for the tips.
Did you try Black Ice Gamma with its input gain turned way down? Nembrini amps are very sensitive to input level. I find that getting clean sounds requires dialing down the input gain on the "rack" page and keeping the gain low on the main page.
@Ailerom this is worth investigating beyond the apps, as there is no reason you shouldn’t be able get a fat clean bass sound from what you mentioned above.
Nembrini PSA is an amazing app, but its entire point is adding color, saturation, harmonics, bite, and distortion, so that one won’t help you for a clean tone.
For clean bass I use Nembrini Blackice and TH-U. For Blackice try a clean preset with both the input knob and output knob down to around 10 o’clock. In THU there are the bass sims which are good, but there’s a rig pack called Bass Rigs Vol. 1 which is amazing, and I’ve recorded using clean presets from it with a touch of reverb-delay. It gets clean, it gets fat.
Here’s where I’m going with this. For a real clean bass guitar tone, many people recommend that you just record the bass direct and dry. No sims, no processing. There’s so much you can do post with a dry bass track. So in theory, this dry bass track should be totally clean right? But what if the pickup on your bass is hot or naturally overdrives. What if the bass frequencies are overwhelming your consumer headphones, and the distortion you hear is just sympathetic headphone vibration? What if you’re whacking the low e string so hard that it clips the input? What if you’re letting the note ring out and it clips the output?
You need to tell us what you hear and see when it’s just you playing the bass dry and direct into AUM, nothing loaded. What is your AUM input and output meter showing when you play? Do you hear any dirt from the pickups? Are your headphones buzzing unnecessarily? If you find that your direct dry tone is the cleanest and most preferred, then just use that and add dimension and fatness to it with other effects, not an amp sim. But what that means is your gain staging and levels are fine and if you use amp sims you just need to tweak the sims to be clean, which is easy to do. If your dry-direct tone is not pristine clean, or if your headphones are too easy to drive (32-38ohm), then you’ve found your problem and it’s not the amp sims.
I did. I dialed it down so low that it started to lose character. Anything above that had slight distortion. The bass is clean as though.
Recording in Cubasis3 but I think you've nailed it. I was probably driving into the amps too hard. I turned off the amps and the bass sound nice and clean but with the amp on it is over driven. I dialed down the ratio and softened the knee and it has made a huge difference. I'm not sure why this scenario has never popped up on desktop.
Bass is dry, straight in to the interface, peaking below -6db. Not ideal but at least it is clean. Its only an old AU $500 Yamaha RBX260 bass so never going to sound great.
I didn't think the (possibly) over compressed but clean sounding signal could still over drive the amps. Does that sound possible. I don't get how that could happen. The closest I had found to clean was the Vintage Boost preset in THU. But everything is sounding clean now, so thank you.
You may be recording too hot. While there isn’t a standard on this it’s common to record in the region of -16 to -12.dBFS (I.e. treat that as 0dBVU in analogue terms).
I can find references if you want
I have recorded for 35+ years starting with a Tascam 688 (well really a Fostex 4 track, but that was some serious learning stages). I'm still learning things that an engineer probably takes for granted though. The track I am referring to here has one section where I grab a pick and play for 8 bars. That's the -6 part. The rest is closer to -12. Serious question, as long as it is not clipping though does it matter if it peaks at -0.00001?
Maybe I'm a bit caught in the days of higher noise floors tape recording. I still try to get the biggest gap between the two. So yes, I probably do aim too high, but again, I don't let anything clip and I don't know why it is necessary to record such a low signal.
As mentioned above, you don’t need a bass amp sim to get a good bass sound (I record direct into Cubasis then tweak with a bit of compression, saturation and EQ using the channel strip module).
Having said that, I sometimes use Klevgrand Reamp and Klevgrand Stark which I find work v well with bass (much better than with guitar).
Even if your bass guitar signal peaks at -6db, there could be transients on the attack and release that go above that, because of the bass frequencies. It’s good to keep your bass signal at around -12db.
If your interface is set too hot or if your pickups are higher output, you need to tame that there at the source, not once the sound is already in the DAW. Because there you’re just turning down the volume an already too hot signal, and not necessarily the gain level.
You don’t run into this as much on desktop because input gain staging is more sophisticated on desktop, where you can control it both on your interface and in the daw. Often times with iOS either the interface gain control OR the daw gain control is disabled.
Another thing to consider, maybe you don’t think you’re running your signal too hot, but perhaps the bass amp sim itself has a threshold and less headroom and it’s designed to distort and saturate at -6db. I mean, I’d design it like that. Another vote for signal being too hot possibly. Nembrini definitely is like that, if my signal is too hot coming in all the amps sound dirty, and I prefer to lower my signal on the interface itself or on the guitar, rather than with the Nembrini input knob, because that doesn’t necessarily solve the problem if what’s coming into Nembrini is already too hot.
If I were you I would eye ball it inside THU. Maybe open it standalone and take a look at the vertical meters on each side of the screen. The left meter (input) should stay about 2/3 of the way up and in the upper quadrant, but never ever into the red. And the right meter (output) should go as high as possible but definitely before the red. Both the dry signal and a signal with a sim loaded should do that.
Also, are you judging the level of distortion based on what you hear in your headphones monitors, or listening to the recording of the passage and that’s what’s distorted. I just want to eliminate the interface and headphones out of the equation.
In any case, it shouldn’t really matter that your input is slightly lowered, you can make it all up by turning up the master output level to your heart’s content.
Have you tried Mammoth?
Probably right, but I like the sound of guitar and bass amps. So I guess that is what sounds "good" to me. Also, my bass is crap (well, by some standards) so an amp can do a lot to make it sound better (to me).
Yep, it's in the list. I love it. Not so good for clean though. Or is it?
@Ailerom in TH-U if the meter on the left edge of the screen touches red when you play hard, your signal is too hot. And th-u on iOS doesn’t have an input gain knob or control, so you must adjust it on the interface/bass.
Then if the meter on the right edge of the screen is too low, or what you’re hearing is too quiet, simply go to the “Master” control menu in th-u upper left corner, and turn up the master volume slider. This is different form the volume on the amp sims. It’s the master out level just like the master out slider in AUM.
Or if the output is too loud/red/high, simply turn that master volume slider down to approx. -6db.
Maybe that is why the problem is occurring. Better metering on the desktop? What I hear seems to match what I see there. On the iPad I don't even know if there is an accurate meter. Youlean?
Passive pickups. Input on the Shure Mvi is at about 3.
Not sure about this but the interface shows a level setting. Not sure if that means anything though. Either way, the signal is not indicating anywhere near clipping on the meters. The loud bit is playing with a pick (showing -6 on the master).
Now that's a good one. I've read a bit about gain staging but I just keep doing what I do. I guess that right there is a good reason alone for recording at -12, just to reduce the likelihood of dealing with that scenario.
Do you think the THU meters are more accurate?
Well, both initially but since recording all I'm listening to is the recorded signal on ATH-M40x headphones.
That's what I thought. And again, I probably should stop thinking like this but I'm trying to record the loudest signal above the noise floor. Perhaps in this digital age I should forget that and just mindlessly aim for -12?
I'll have a look at that tomorrow. Easier to hit strings into the Standalone than to work out how to get a recorded file to play through the standalone THU.
My time hands-on with tape was limited to a dodgy old 4-track borrowed from a friend for a time. Tape does not have a hard ceiling like digital, level is a combination of avoiding noise floor and getting the desired amount of colour.
Back in 16-bit digital days it was necessary for different reasons of noise floor to stay close to FS, 12 bits on a 16 bit system is ~-12dBFS and ideally you’d want to stay above that, then older converters were likely struggling to produce the full 16 bits. My first good soundcard was an Event Gina - 20 bits like wow!
Another factor is that any plugins with non-linearity will make an assumption of where nominal level is - you need to be round about that to get the expected sound. I think there have been mentions of it being easy to drive Nembrini plugins too hard.
@Ailerom -12db is a good sweet spot for guitar and bass. -6db input is just too hot and bothered at the input and pre-processing. Because -6db (or -3db) is what you want to aim for at the output, before you master/normalize. What that means is going too hot at the input or wanting to be closer to 0db is a mistake, because all the instruments and signals coming in are cumulative right? So everything hot together will overload your track all over the place. You need a “safe” input level for each instrument, so that all together they can output safely as well. When I started recording in iOS, I also wanted my input at -6db or -3db, but it was really just about wanting the output and what I wanted to hear to be louder, not the input gain to be raised.
There actually is a good reason to run the input of the guitar or interface hot and at -6db, or even -4db. It’s to get natural break up and saturation from the amp sim, or an edge of break up sound. You are essentially “driving” the amp sim with such a hot input. So running your guitar/bass signal that hot is a deliberate “edge of breakup” approach. And this is exactly what you’re trying to prevent with your bass signal.
TH-U metering is good for eyeballing it. If the left input meter only goes up half way, that’s totally fine. It doesn’t need to be higher. Just get the right output meter to go as high as possible but not in the red, adjust it with the Master Volume slider in the master menu, not on the actual amp sim. Because as you said, you want to retain the character of these sims and fx as designed, not have a weak or anemic signal because your input is too low. So get to -6db or -3b on the output or in post, definitely not on the input.
For reference, my strat dry into aum with nothing loaded shows around -28db input level. So I always need to raise that with overdrive and master output. My les Paul shows -9db, so it’s already hot. P-Bass shows about -15db. This is just my baseline readings with nothing loaded. With those numbers there’s room to do anything. You can’t go back in time if your recorded signal was too hot. But you can certain bump it up later in post and out at no cost to you.
@Ailerom : different amp sims have different algorithms and may treat input levels differently. You need to experiment with each to see. For example, Nembrini amps get driven to distortion at lower input levels than THU, so knowing that I will always bring down the input level in Nembrini and compensate by turning up the output.
My raw input level before the amp sims leaves plenty of headroom. There is no reason to try to maximize level into the iPad: you want to eliminate any possibility of your loudest playing getting near 0.
You may want to play with a compressor before sending to the amp sim if you are looking for a totally clean sound. The Nembrini can do it but the process may be counterintuitive.
Fwiw, a lot of great players in the studio use only compression and eq.
I just tried a couple amps in ToneStack and both do not distort. You must have your in or out levels too high. I’ve tried some bass specific amps but most of the guitar ones will give you a decent undistorted tone.
Yep, not sure why but I liked recording into tape. I don't recalled ever having peaking issues. The meters on the Tascam were pretty good. Recording seemed a lot simpler, not just because of the forgiving input.
That is really interesting. I had no idea that was the case. How to you measure the input signal so accurately. Even in Cubase the readings are not easy to see. Is that level difference anything to do with SC vs HB or are pickups just different?
Thanks. I've sorted it out so now I'm learning more about the dangers of what would seem a safe input level. It seems the compressor before the amp was the issue. Even though the signal was not overdriven at the comp output the amps went straight in to overdrive.
That's a bit odd. I would have thought a digital signal input would be more of a standardised thing. When experimenting with input are you just talking about input monitoring to keep levels around -12 or for clarity. Part of my issue may be that I have been going in around -6 even on desktop and don't often use a clean sound so possibly don't pick up on the overdriven plugin inputs. I suppose if there is no clipping I can just turn the level down pre plugin?
Maybe one day I'll remember or get it reprogrammed that noise level is less important now that peaking. Basically the opposite of how I started recording. Damn this old brain.
The compressor pre amp sim was the problem in this case. Even though it wasn't outputting a clipping signal it was too high for everything. So for example the level coming out of Push FX Comp must have been way above -6 so it's overdriving the input. Same with everything else I tried to a lesser degree. I have made some adjustments and now it's cleaned things up.
I probably should start going through every plugin and making sure it is not above -6 at the output before hitting the next plugin. Is -6 about right?
Bass Deluxe $1.99
@Ailerom : there is no standardization with amp sims in terms of how they respond to different signal levels. I don’t find it surprising. I think people have difficulty getting away from analog gain-stage conventional wisdom,
With each amp sim, it is worth spending time to see how they respond to different signal levels.
The message metering in AUM is fine. As long as your input level to the iPad never ever exceeds 0db, you can do all the input level adjustments on the iPad.
In a way Nembrini is being faithful to how analog amps and pre-amps work. They can be very sensitive to input levels…which is why many use clean boost pedals in front of some amps … because some amps sound very different driven by high input levels.