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Creating a Sampled Instrument Advice
I’m about to try some auto sampling, through audio layer, or synthjacker possibly even sample robot or those apps on windows. I’d like to get some windows vsts as usable soundfonts or even decent sampler packs… and also thinking of autosampling some of the bass sounds and things in sampletank ios so it’s easier to use as an AU in logic.
So a bass guitar would be a good example, where velocity layers are required and being as realistic and humanly playable as possible - for example with pitch bends in velocity kb. I don’t know if round robins are just a drum sample thing.
I’ve tried reading a bit but want to ask here. What do I do at teh basic settings level for things like how many notes I want to use and velocity layers?
I have no idea how sampletank bass instruments -or general decent vsts for instruments rather than synths- are built - I mean do they sample every single note? I don’t want to select a few notes and have it pitch adjust for the others and sound terrible and would rather build a larger more comprehensive instrument with as many velocity layers and notes as would be best, as close to or same as the original instrument.
It might be that I have to think of autosampled instruments as inherently inferior to the original or it might be possible to reproduce them exactly. I’m just so new to it and want to learn
Comments
For auto-sampling on iOS, i think AudioLayer is the best and most comprehensive, even though it can be too deep for some.
Regarding a good bass library playable with Velocity Keyboard, I could not recommend enough to go instead with Nambu which is unbeatable for any kind of plucked stringed instrument.
Here is a demo of 2 bass presets I have made with Nambu, going thru a ToneStack bass amp (I guess a Nembrini one would sound even better), played on Velocity Keyboard.
Contrary to sampled libraries, you can probably hear that glissandos and legatos without retrigger sound quite realistic.
Enjoy !
Hi thanks so much for the response. I did see you on the bass thread I made. I feel a bit mixed about the Nambu example. I actually bought Nambu half on reading but also it’s just a great synth so I was happy to buy it. I disagree somewhat on the video sounding authentically like a bass guitar. I spent the week going through every single bass patch can find on iOS, pretty much, maybe not a few within daws I don’t own, samples online, some east west sounds, listening to Modo bass on YouTube, Pianobook stuff, soundfonts…
I think the best bass sounds on iOS - including available soundfonts - are those in sampletank, and possibly some in pure premium or maybe bassalicious - just a few from each. These are apps I had previously deleted due to how bad their sounds are haha. Orchestral sampletank is unusable and ik pianos were always horrible. I’m really fussy about this stuff I know.
I saw someone among the comments suggesting pure and bassalicious as what he prefers and actually to my surprise on reloading, I found there were a few very authentic ones. One thing I missed elsewhere was occasional fret noises etc - sampletank is best for this. I’m fact the bass packs sound really good compared to Modo and probably most similar to vst expensive basses imo.
My point is just that I really disliked pure bassalicious and sampletank previously but when used just for electric bass I think the sounds are the best on iOS I’ve found. It’s been good opening up a whole new set of samples that I didn’t use .
I tried Nambu. I mean, I don’t have the patches you’re using. There’s one bass patch I think that sounds a little like the ones you play in the video… but not much like a bass guitar. Can I ask what patches you’re using and if it would be possible to share so I can try them? That would be really cool
I actually thought about why I didn’t really find the video authentic. To me they just sound like synth sounds. Is fm often something people talk about as lending itself to a bass guitar sound? Because I’ve seen fm bass patches elsewhere. The attack does sound kind of woody, and similar to a bass guitar, but the rest of the note is just a synth sound to me. It doesn’t die, or fade or vary in a human or musical way like a guitar does. I thought about it actually because I think the first part of the sound sounds kind of like a modelled bass. Then because you were playing with a lot of slides it really emphasised the synthetic sound to me. Even on a fret less bass it doesn’t sound like that at all. It’s very uniform and synth like on the video - the notes don’t even release or fade really. On a bass guitar it’s nit just about the fading of the notes but all kinds of unevenness, as yous s;ide your finger around the sound reverberates and resonates in very organic ways, the volume goes up and down and can be controlled depending on how fast you slide or hard you press or the changes in direction like playing notes purely with a vibrato.
Sorry o don’t mean that as criticism hope it didn’t come across that way - the reason I’m being exhaustive in my comment is purely because it got me thinking about some playability elements that would be really good to see in a controller app. And I very much appreciate your video and help. I’d really like to try with the patches you’re using in Nambu as I like the attack. I also know how impossible ot is to play velocity kb without going a bit mental - it’s just such a playable app it’s too tempting to start shredding and stuff, even if as i do you normally hate shredding haha. One thing I’ve found is it’s absolutely amazing for little ghost touches and things which is my playimg style with bass
velocity kb is part of my top three iOS apps, it’s so incredible. I emailed @bluemangoo earlier about what we’re discussing as I think creating changes in the timbre through sliding would be a very good option for a controller .
Also to mention, the pure premium basses I think it is, have a legato by default - I had to find how to change it. And it sounds really really good if played properly not pushed.
I just re listened to your video and think I was a little hasty, just a little. About halfway through you start playing with less big slides and sustains. Lots of plucky high sounds, I agree these sound superb and very much like a modelled bass, i would really love to try the patches you’ve made if it’s ok with you. I understand if not. Great work though.
My issue I think is with the sustains and slides/legato or the combination. I think like a lot of synthetic instruments it’s about playing it a certain way. Much like the swam instruments sound poor unless played with a feeling for them. The sustain sort of freezes for example
Have you checked out iFretless? If I am too lazy to plug in my bass that’s the app I use to sketch in bass parts.
I just played that agsin, as I used to use it all the time. It’s another really nice option.
iBassist is another bass app that some people like a lot as well. It just recently became a AU too. I have it but haven’t used it extensively.
Forgetting about bass for a minute an just focusing on auto sampling:
The most important consideration is whether or not to include FX and other time-based modulations. Most patches include some kind of FX and that's a huge part of what makes them sound good. But including those limits flexibility and can sound downright bad for time-based effects such as delay and LFO modulations.
If you bake in a reverb, you can't remove it. Adding reverb is weird too because now you have two different reverbs and the second is reverberating the first. Also, the reverb is there separately for every note. Play a chord, and rather than getting a reverberated chord, you get four individually reverberated notes. If you have fewer samples than notes, you get not only a time stretched note, which might be fine, but you also get a time stretched reverb.
It gets worse with time based effects an LFO modulations.
If you bake in an LFO based modulation you can't change its speed. If that speed is synced to a tempo then forget sync unless you always play at the same tempo. Stretch the note because one sample covers a range of notes and you get a different speed LFO for every note. The same is true for any time based FX such as delay and chorus. It can sound really, really bad.
So, while the resulting sampled instrument is going to sound very little like the original, in most cases you want to turn off almost all FX and time based modulations. That means you need to add them back in on the other end. That's unsatisfying and inconvenient, but it's important to think about when sampling.
As for sampling real instruments such as Guitar and Bass - the approach depends on the level of realism you're after. Stringed instruments are hell to try to create something that sounds good to an actual player. As a guitar player, I don't even try. I dislike almost every single sampled guitar I've ever heard ... except Yonac Steel Guitar. But I'm unskilled enough as a bass player that I can live with most Bass sampled instruments as long as they're in a mix. Piano? I can't tell a good one from a great one tbh, because I only plink around and have played the real thing only a handful of times.
There's no forumla for how many velocity layers are needed for an instrument. It comes down to how much real dynamic difference there is in how hard a note is played. It's also tough to really capture velocity variations on a real instrument. Try it on a bass for instance. Without a machine doing the plucking, how do you even consistently get a velocity? How do you do it without introducing some other thing such as a small string buzz that's going to play every single time you play that note/velocity?
Fret noise and stuff can't be done realistically (well maybe some day with AI). All you can do is insert some noises at random times. For instance, you could have one layer that plays clean samples at different velocities and another with noises and silence samples that are played round robin ... or better yet, random robin. Not all samplers are capable of that dual layer setup.
Most samplers aren't equipped to do even a passable job with things like fret noise and all the subtle harmonics, plucking variations, and other articulations. Being an actual player is a curse when one is trying to get by with just sampling. The only answer is to not listen to it too much on its own but buried in a mix.
Good point re reverb baked in effects. I strip out everything as habit whenever I use samples and can. Beathawk reverb and delay, etc… all sound horrendous to me until I clean them up.
Yeah, I play guitar too and feel the same except that I’ve come to regard some guitar stuff as existing in its own right and mpe vel kb makes plucked ethnic instruments a joy. I’m sure if I was a sitar or pipa player I’d feel differently - and there’s the added factor that they would be for textures as opposed to guitar, which is more central in my music. Bass though I don’t feel that way at all. But I do enjoy the noises and when it sounds somewhat modelled due to that.
i had to sell half my guitars but it’s been good
I dunno about you but im kind of like, probably bass players enemy haha in that I just think yeah it’s a bass it’s in the mix, im sensitive to tone timbre but I can live with it as I consider it a rhythm instrument. I just need a good sound What I need more is the ability to play with little ghosted rhythmic bits.
I do actually quite like the sound of ifretless and some sampled classical and occasionally steel stringed acoustic guitars but for the latter I could never use them seriously as strumming etc is AWFUL in software solutions, and the loss of touch.
I feel the same about chord playing apps but that’s a whole other digression…
Piano im obsessed with. It’s my main writing instrument, I play guitar but I love piano. Im really sensitive to them - I hate most sampled pianos, mainly because they’re sparkling grands which sound cold to me. Also the notes start to resonate horribly unnaturally. I remember people talking about Igrand which was one of the worst sampled pianos I’ve ever heard so im obviously .. difficult with this. I didn’t like salamander or any of the ones people suggested. Unusable. Module ivory is HORRENDOUS. The first time usable pianos appeared on iOS for me was ravenscroft, I dial back the tone and its lovely, then pure piano-I can’t really choose between them. But now pianoteq. Those three are the only ones I would use and love.
Actually, little comment on strumming. Why do they keep making fretboard strumming interfaces where the notes aren’t sustained, pretty much every single one mutes the moment you release. It’s so basic and makes all of them unusable and broken
Let's face it, guitar is just such a vastly superior instrument* that it's hopeless to try to get it right. So why even try? 😉
(* and by extension those who play them. 😎)
and regarding the electric bass: a keyboard may translate velocity to loudness, but how about handling mutes, an essential aspect of bass ?
(you do that with both hands, at various positions)
Articulations when plugging strings... finger tip, thumb soft, hard (hitting with flesh and nail in opposed directions, slap&pop, using a pick, various hit points between neck and bridge, etc.
It‘s endless because all these can be combined fluently on a real instrument.
ot: I recently bought a p-bass (from a brand I never tried before). It was fretless, but convincing, so I got the same model fretted. Applied favorite round wound strings. Now considering another one for flatwounds
Hello,
Thanks, no problem.
In fact this is not using FM, just a Nambu factory sample of plucked string going through the resonator operator. No FM. Contrary to what most of people not owning Nambu think, Nambu is about less than 50% of FM 😊.
I will share my presets (as well as others not related to bass) as soon as I can put my hands on my iPad.
My demo is a bit overshowy and with too high velocities but once you will be able to play this for real on velocity keyboard, I think you will be convinced by how playable it is compared to samples. Plus you can choose your own favorite bass amp sim…
Hi, thanks so much for this! Really looking forward to trying them
I have to agree with @wim in that sampling guitar or bass to get a realistic rendering of the instrument when sequenced is a challenging task. So many articulations, dead notes and variations!
Even on desktop, there are only a handful of sampled instruments that I would consider up to the task.
I'd suggest listening to and watching demos of commercial instruments like the ones fromOrange Tree Samples, Native Instruments Session series, Scarbee, AmpleSound, Ilya Efimov and find out first which kind of articulations you want.
On the other hand, do even 1 in 10,000 notice any of those subtleties in a mix. 😉