Scarbee Pre-Bass User`s Manual - AV
Contents
1. l lt x WN o Tr N The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Native Instruments GmbH The software described by this document Is Subject to a License Agreement and may not be copied to other media No part of this publication may be copied reproduced or otherwise transmitted or recorded for any purpose without prior written permission by Native Instruments GmbH hereinafter referred to as Native Instruments All product and company names are or trademarks of their respective owners Manual written by Thomas Hansen Skarbye edited by Patryk Korman Document Version 1 0 08 2009 Product Version 1 0 08 2009 Special thanks to the Beta Test Team who were invaluable not just in tracking down bugs but in making this a better product Germany Native Instruments GmbH schlesische Str 28 D 10997 Berlin Germany info native instruments de www native instruments de USA Native Instruments North America Inc 5631 Hollywood Boulevard Los Angeles CA 90028 USA Sales native instruments com www native instruments com NATIVE INSTRUMENTS Native Instruments GmbH 2009 All rights reserved Table Of Content WICC 10110120 6 C PROC Te 1 ls aane 8 1 2 Thomas Hansen Skarbye The Bassist and Producer cccecseeeeeeeeeeeeeeteeteenees 9 3 NIS SClIDE DEV GIO DCF acc dex teane ci2. To trigger a trill tail press the G O key switch to activate trill mode and then play 8 pull off a half or whole note legato down Please note that the key switch must be pressed just before the pull off note and not earlier or you will get a trill or buzz trill instead of a Sustain on the preceding note Here s an example of how a trill tail can be performed play A3 and hold it pressed play the G O key switch play a legato down to G3 The G3 legato note is played back as a trill tail SCARBEE PRE BASS 6 4 6 Trill Tails Legato down 4 1 Pickup Clap Play A O to get the sound of a pickup clap Please note that A O behaves more like a normal note than a key switch the A O Itself triggers the sound and does not affect other notes As many as 2 different pickup clap samples are included A real bass player typically hits the pick up with his her right hand on snare drum hits 2 4 to keep the beat or as some advanced players hit the pick up as a flaminco guitarist in between notes for a funky unique bass groove 4 8 Automatically Triggered Samples Included in Pre Bass are a number of samples which are automatically played back at cer tain times In the settings you can configure what types of samples you want to use and how often you want them to be played Detailed explanations of how to make these settings can be found later in this manual SCARBEE PRE BASS 17 4 8 1 Release Samples A r
3. even when chord mode Is not active but then a much shorter waiting time is used the default is 0 5 ms so short that one can not hear it It is not possible for a human to play chords that tightly but you align notes in your sequencer and make the first and last note be close enough that will make it possible for the chord to be recognized Hence for live playing you can use D 0 to activate chord mode but you choose to align notes after recording you don t have to use the key switch It s up to you as the user SCARBEE PRE BASS 2 In addition to proper string selection another advantage of having a played chord recognized as a unit as opposed to a series of Individual notes Is that the lowest chord note is automati cally played using index finger samples and higher notes using middle finger samples just like one would play in real life 5 5 Chord Slides Playing a whole chord legato with an earlier chord would be difficult so instead we came up with a single finger technique to make it easier to perform chord slides In order to play a chord slide first play the chord Then press the sustain pedal and play the target note to which you want to slide just as before the velocity of this note determines the slide speed The Pre Bass script will determine the interval between the target note and the note In your chord that is closest to the target note This interval is then used as the slide interval For e
4. of the left hand on the bass neck the playing position When you play a note on the keyboard Pre Bass automatically chooses a String that minimizes the need to move the playing position the left hand similar to a real bass player This way you can get the full sound of the bass with minimum effort l e you play an octave interval the correct strings will automatically be used That s the basic operation but the automatic string selection also takes many other things into account such as when to use open strings and what special rules to use for each articulation SCARBEE PRE BASS 1 Playing position left hand Main menu 3 g 2 vo OL Name of last triggered articulation Markers show the notes being played on which string fret The symbols are specific to each articulation Articulation specific symbols are displayed on the fretboard on the selected string fret as shown above and the text label below the fretboard shows the name of the last used articulation Each string is monophonic so a new note interrupts any earlier one on the same string yust like on a real bass Simply trying out Pre Bass oneself is perhaps the best way to understand how it works 2 2 Manual String Selection It is also possible to control the string selection manually Each string has an associated key switch EO AO DO GO picked to be easy to remember In Pre Bass a key switch affects the following not
5. F0 Index finger F 0 Extended hammer on pull off F 0 Finger picking Buzz trill Trill G 0 eai Sustain A 1 5 Pickup clap A 0 Mutes A 1 ps Reset B 1 41 A string A0 Slap B string BO Fingered C string C0 D string DO only Fingered is available at this point The others represent possible future extensions 1 The bass has no 8 String but for flexibility the notes BO to D 1 have been mapped to a virtual B string These notes use stretched E string samples Only basic articulations like sustain mutes hammer on and pull off are available on the virtual B string SCARBEE PRE BASS 13 4 Articulations 4 1 Sustains Mutes and Harmonics Sustain is the default articulation For velocities below 40 you get mutes instead and for velocities below 15 you get harmonics where available and mutes otherwise Enough veloci ties layers have been recorded to achieve natural transitions from soft to hard playing Please note that harmonics are mapped to the string fret where they are played on a real bass and not to the pitch of the sound you activate the mutes key switch A 1 you will get mutes Irrespectively of the velocity This can be used to make it easier to trigger mutes since you do not need to rely on getting the right velocity when using it 4 2 Hammer on 1 To trigger a hammer on or pull off you simply play a half or whole note either down or up legato overlap
6. between notes gets longer than the Sloppiness value the automatic string selection is performed note by note which in some cases can yield sub optimal results for chords 10 ms By increasing the sloppiness the tolerance for sloppily played chords increases but at the Same time the latency Is increased by the same amount leading to a less responsive instru ment For this reason it is preferable to use a high sloppiness setting only when one Is about to play chords and a low value otherwise in order to minimum latency When chord mode has been activated by the D O key switch the left sloppiness setting Is used And when chord mode Is not active the normal sloppiness setting to the right is used In other words D 0 temporarily activates a higher latency which makes the string selection for chords more reliant and as soon as the key switch is released the low latency Is restored again SCARBEE PRE BASS 32 9 8 Alternation lt lt Alternation Alt Time 1000 Ms When you play notes quickly after each other automatic alternation between index and middle finger samples takes place When you play slower only index finger samples are used You can specify the threshold for what the script should consider fast playing by setting the Alt Time knob When you play a note there will be automatic alternation only if the period of time since the last note is lower than this With the default setting automatic alternation s
7. chance you can here configure a controller with which to automate the Pickup hit ratio knob see the Pickup hit settings above 9 11 Help For quick reference you can find documentation for articulations amp playing techniques set tings and the script UI directly in the performance view Select a help topic from the menu and a help text appears to the left SCARBEE PRE BASS 35 10 Differences between Pre Bass Red Bass and Black Bass Pick up mics split single coil pickup 1 humbucker 1 bridge both and neck 3 ae tight 1 and tight 7 tight 1 and tight 8 a Pickup hit noise hit noise automatic or automatic or manual automatic or automatic or manual manual legato playing with sus tain pedal pressed but for slide intervals greater than two semitones the slide has to be manually ended by playing the tar get note a second time available but middle Index middle available available finger samples have a shorter duration than index finger samples Number of samples 3 766 4 003 6 092 Size of download 12GB 1 2 GB 747 MB compressed The number is lower than the corresponding number for Black Bass since the bass recorded has one less fret Both Black Bass and Pre Bass are sampled in equal detail except for the longer slide range on Pre Bass legato playing with sus legato playing with sus Slide triggering tain pedal pressed tain pedal pressed SCARBEE PRE BASS 36 11 Production Credits a
8. composing producing music on more than 150 commercials for TV and Cinema even work ing with Oscar winning director Bille August began to create Sample Libraries and Virtual Instruments as wanted better sounds to use for my productions These products are used by top artists around the world on albums and live Due to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome weak wrists invented an artificial way of playing bass using software in 1998 and released the Scarbee J Slap amp J Fingered in 2000 Originally planning a fretless bass release instead decided to take a break from the basses and do some easy vintage keyboard sounds to use in my productions Ironically it took me 5 years to complete the Vintage Keyboard Collection and the Vintage Keyboard FX plugin Not exactly an easy job as expected but this is me in a nutshell go into something dig deeper and deeper and slowly revealing the secrets and soul of the instrument and can not Stop until the job is done The Pre Bass project started in late 2007 after the release of Black Bass with the first sound recordings As usual dumped several basses before finally found the right one the right Strings and playing position This time wanted to record a real classic bass sound versatile for almost any type of music I ve always loved this sound a warm woody fat and dirty bass SCARBEE PRE BASS 9 At this point need someone who could turn my ideas into KONTAKT 2 script programm
9. e or remains active for as long as you hold it pressed To return to the normal mode of operation just release the key switch It is possible to combine more than one string key switch For example you can hold AO and DO pressed simultaneously to make A and D be the preferred strings Another way of controlling the string choice is by using key switches F5 B6 to specify which frets you prefer The F5 key corresponds to the first fret F 5 to the second fret and so on To make it easier to learn we made the fret key switches match the corresponding note on the E string of a bass F Is the first fret on this string F the second and so on By pressing and releasing one of these key switches you move the playing position and at the same time trigger a fret noise sample different noises are used depending on how far you move You can also lock the playing position by holding one of these key switch pressed while playing As will be shown later is also possible to use a Midi Controller for fret selection SCARBEE PRE BASS 12 3 Key Layout Here is a schematic of the keys in Pre Bass The red keys are key switches and the blue ones mapped to normal samples This is just an overview Instructions on how to use each key Switch and what it does Is given in the following text sections Playing Position Keyswitches Keyswitches Normal bass F5 TO 86 tret 1 to 20 Chord mode D 0 Middle finger C 0 Pickup hit and tight release toggle
10. elease sample is played whenever a note is released With one exception when a note is played legato overlapping the earlier note a release sample is not played for the earlier note There are three sets of release samples loose 6 tight 1 6 tight 2 The loose samples are noisier and adds character to the sound Tight 1 is a more tightly played type of release which is less promi nent and cleaner And finally tight 2 is similar to tight 1 but even more cleanly played and Is the least noisy of them all In the settings you can setup how often you want to hear each one of the types So which type should one use then Well depends on the style and what kind of bass player one wants to imitate The profes A sional and often hired studio musicians usually have a very fine Toggles loose tight dampening technique so you rarely hear the releases even when they are playing fast These bass players who you hear on so many albums mute the strings with a combination of the left and and right hand to avoid ringing and other noise from the bass However even they sometimes decide to play a bit more relaxed and then you will hear more of the release sound In more rock ori ented songs you will play much more relaxed and even appreciate the raw sound of loose dampening In the settings you can specify whether you want all three types of release or just the tight ones by default The FO key switch can then be used to sw
11. er ee reat re 29 eee ee 30 0 E arra a A E E E peut E A SENES 31 S CAO sise EE 32 ANEA OL eN E extewe aes catete aan caeeeeeaaseneceenaiee 33 0 8 34 A CONTONE aerea E A 34 S Eeen a A N ise E EEEN S T 39 10 Differences between Pre Bass Red Bass and Black BaSS 2426266460 36 11 Production Credits amp Thank VOWS 37 SCARBEE PRE BASS V 1 Introduction 0687066 Pre Bass was recorded with round wound strings to get the fat and dirty sound heard on numerous rock funk pop and country albums and using D I to give maximum flexibility in the sound production It features an extensive set of playing techniques for example e sustains e Mutes e Harmonics e Hammer on amp pull off 6 Fast grace notes e Slides in most any speed you could want e Trills e Buzz trills e Cross hammering e Chords e Chord slides 6 Percussive slides e ndex and middle finger alternation e Multiple sets of release samples loose tighter and tight Pre Bass was designed to make It very easy to use all these while playing live Except for the trills and cross hammering you can trigger all of the articulations and techniques above without the need for any key switches The full strings of the bass have been sampled in order to reproduce the timbre changes that occur when you move between low and high frets on the string of a real bass This results in a very rich sound with all the natural overton
12. er to get the same result each time you play back your song insert a 5 1 key switch note in the beginning of the song The velocity with which this key switch is played determines the random sequence of values which controls release samples fret noises and timing of pickup hits You can use any veloc ity but please note that if you change the velocity of this initial B 1 key switch note you will get a completely different sequence of release samples fret noises and pickup hits SCARBEE PRE BASS 26 9 Main Menu and Instrument Settings 9 1 Player Profile gt gt Player Protile Ces fis Tima Fos P amp Co ntry Here you can specify what type of playing style you want to use This affects the automatic String selection and whether high or low frets are preferred For example when playing rock a bass player would typically not use the lowest fret numbers e Pop amp Country specific preference for low high frets e Soul amp Funk frets above fret 4 are preferred e Rock amp Retro frets above fret 6 are preferred Even with the latter settings it is still possible to use lower frets if you tell the instrument to do so by activating string or playing position key switches SCARBEE PRE BASS 27 9 2 FX Presets Le p 2 a a cy d Standard The instrument comes with a number of factory presets which can be loaded by simply se lecting them from the preset menu See image Be aware tha
13. es should be noted that Pre Bass is much more than just a collection of samples It features a sophisticated script which takes care of many things automatically for you for example SCARBEE PRE BASS 6 string selection A fretboard display updated dynamically as you play Alternation between index and middle finger Chord recognition Random alternation between three different types of release samples Random insertion of pickup hits2 Furthermore the script enables you to configure all settings including EQ load and store FX presets and access documentation covering every aspect of the instrument directly through the instrument performance view 1 Ensures correct string selection even if the chord notes don t arrive at exactly the same time and that the base note of a chord is played with index finger while the other notes are played with middle finger samples 2 Not completely random because It Is intelligent enough to take into account on which strings frets and for which velocities pickup hits are most likely to occur SCARBEE PRE BASS 7 11 About the Bass spent a lot of time on getting the bass In perfect shape driving my luthier half crazy but the result is great and the bass sounds and feels perfect to me To get the sound that was looking for tried almost any string brand both steel and nickel versions and various gauges Then weeks of test on how long should play strings until they sounded r
14. es madera esnie cand es aaadetalawenieeeeeeadaneea eeecads 10 2 Playing Bass Notes on a KeybOard ccsccseccseccescceeeuseeuseeeseeeeueeeuseueeeueeeueeeeesueseuseaeesnes 11 2A ete crenata semnhnein ieee tanantanvianiat 11 2 2 Manual SNE SCIECTION secies EEE EEEE E EEE ARS 12 KOV puniewencenaawensmbeansdaaeesaaseausnaeemunce 13 A 14 4 1 Sustains Mutes and Harmonics ccccccceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetegeeateeeegeeseesenteneanes 14 4 2 Pamo UN ONT ogrene a atria LEE 14 4 5 ASE Gla Ce NOIS UD sie tietoese baneeatanita ee bas dak bee a rA arra 15 BA NAOS ea E E ete lew amena te adayine EOR 15 49 0 vacated 16 AG secur ion tienueeasenepecannietacteee as 16 OY PEKT Oe gt Oe ee 17 4 8 Automatically Triggered Samples ccccccececceeeeeeeeeteeteeeeeeegeegeeeeesateeteeteateaneags 17 4 8 1 0 S 18 2 19 9 TOC MNIGUES an 20 5 1 Index and Middle Finger 60 20 9 2 Extended Hammer on 21 Deo COSS FIMME ei cae ceet acne E tieinet untae e r EN 21 A E N A A E A 22 23 20 euuanteretaaw neues 23 SCARBEE PRE BASS IV O O N O Sustaining 01 nnnm nnmnnn 24 VID AlO arcsin a 25 instrument 6 a a 26 Main Menu and Instrument Settings cccccsscsescssscescceecusseuseeeeeueeeuseeuseneueueseussneeeeseasens 27 PIWNE 0 27 0 28 0 radars cc seer asm E 29 eee mt n
15. f one note before the next starts and without the release samples one looses some of the important variation that increases realism So it s important not to overuse this feature You can in many cases get better results you don t use 1 and instead adjust note lengths in your sequencer making one note end just slightly before the next one starts You may also configure a MIDI CC to use for this purpose instead of the A 1 key see the Controller settings below SCARBEE PRE BASS 24 Vibrato The vibrato characteristics of a real bass was analysed and the results incorporated into Pre Bass Pre Bass Is also capable of mimicing the slight fret noise generated by the finger movements used to create the vibrato Vibrato intensity is controlled by the modulation wheel CC 1 If you select the Vibrato page from the main menu you can configure the vibrato speed vibrato fret noise volume and specify whether you want to use 6671 or Aftertouch to control the intensity see Vibrato settings below SCARBEE PRE BASS 5 8 Instrument Reset Pre Bass randomly chooses between different types of release samples fret noises and when to Insert pickup hits This randomness gives more variation and a more realistic sound However it is also good to be able to predict the behavior to know that your song will sound exactly the same each time you play This is possible by using the B 1 key switch to reset the instrument In ord
16. ight that was time consuming Finally tested different bridges but ended up using the original and at some point even experimented with a replacement pickup but again chose with the original What love about this bass is the fat and dirty sound of it and can t wait to record the Slap version and get the woody hollow sound of that It is so expressive and that is probably why it is the most recorded bass sound in the world Note to Users of Scarbee Black Bass and Scarbee Red Bass Pre Bass shares many features of its siblings Black Bass and Red Bass If you already own and know how to use either of these two other products you may want to skip ahead to the section near the end that explains the various differences between Pre Bass Black Bass and Red Bass SCARBEE PRE BASS 8 1 2 Thomas Hansen Skarbye The Bassist and Producer When was a boy wanted to be a great Magician I wanted to amaze the audience and leave them wondering how did he do that Years later am still very fond of illusions in any media watch almost every movie that raises the bar of Special Effects and share true interest in computer and console games with my sons for the same reason These days my magic wand and top hat are the Scarbee Sample Libraries have played in various funk bands as a bassist during my younger years but started soon to compose music for TV documentaries and aimed for a career as a film composer After
17. ing and met Nils Liberg a brilliant programmer Soon realized that our co work was getting us much further than any of us ever had hoped for Personally prefer to play hard on to get the growl and aggressive tone but can also play gentle and soft The amount of expression is the reason why this sound is one of my favorites As with Black Bass the Pre Bass Is my personal tool that use in my work for other artists and in my own productions so will keep on updating it for the time to come making extra details slapped sounds etc this will definitely benefit you as a user Please enjoy our bass we sure put a lot of love in It now give myself more time to compose and refine my vocal work as well so please keep an eye on www myspace com scarbee where will post some of my songs 1 3 Nils Liberg Script Developer was contacted by Thomas in the autumn of 2006 to create a KONTAKT 2 script for what would later become Black Bass The same technology was then later successfully applied to both Red Bass and now Pre Bass My goal with the script has been to make the instrument so easy to play that the user will never feel it s too much trouble to use any of the articulations It feels doubly rewarding to have been able to put all my creativity into something that know will finally be used as part of and benefit another person s creative expression It is my hope that you will find Pre Bass an Inspiring ins
18. itch from the default mode to the non default mode SCARBEE PRE BASS 18 4 8 2 Pickup hits Pre Bass includes as many as 43 different pick up hit noises These samples simulate a bass player playing the strings hard by banging his her hand on them giving a slight pickup hit noise During the normal course of playing a pickup hit noise sample 5 sometimes randomly played together with the note you played In the settings you can configure what the chance should be for this to happen and whether It should be active by default Having some pickup hit noises now and then can just like loose Toggles loose tight release samples add to the realism Furthermore since both re lease samples and pickup hit noises are randomly selected they add extra variation The human ear is very good at hearing when a sound is repeated so this is an important feature SCARBEE PRE BASS 19 5 Playing Techniques 9 1 Index and Middle Finger Alternation Separate sample sets for right hand index finger and middle finger playing has been recorded for many articulations The alterna tion between these two Is performed automatically When you play Slowly you only get index samples and when you play faster Pre Bass alternates between index and middle finger samples as a real bass player would You can configure the speed threshold for when alternation is to start see Alternation in the settings The alternation can also be controlled manually b
19. mer on Let s say you want to cross hammer E2 on the A string In order to do this hold the EO and F 0 key switches pressed E string ex tended mode and then play E2 on the keyboard SCARBEE PRE BASS 1 5 4 Chords Normally chords work well in the default mode However in some special cases the automatic string selection can fail since the script cannot see into the future The notes of a chord never arrive at exactly the same time but typically some milliseconds after each other and in a more or less random order The string selection is usually performed one note at a time but in unfortunate situations the optimal string for the chord note which comes first can be a suboptimal choice for the chord as a whole might be even better to use that string for a chord note which arrives just milliseconds later 10 ms To solve this problem we provide a chord mode which is activated by key switch D 0 When the chord mode Is active the scripts waits for all the notes in the chord to arrive before It decides on what strings to use Only then is playback started The longer the script is allowed to wait for new notes in a chord the sloppier a user can play them and still have them recognized as a chord But the longer the script waits the longer will also the playback of the notes be delayed So there is a trade off between allowing for Sloppily played chords and latency In fact the script waits for extra notes in the same way
20. mp Thank You s Producer Bass Player amp Programmer Thomas Hansen Skarbye Script Developer amp User Manual Nils Liberg Instrument Graphics Stefan Kengen Thank You s My wite Anne you are truly the bravest and most wonderful woman the world To Nils Liberg you have been fantastic and one of the finest and brightest persons have ever met you should be proud of yourself To Native Instruments for their powerful KONTAKT 3 engine Stefan Kengen for the Pre Bass instrument graphics it looks so fantastic To my great friends from Gaya Musik Kim Steffen and Victor Ann Mincielll who taught me cool tricks with Pro Tools To all Scarbee users thanks for your support Finally to all my brave sons Nikolaj Oscar and Victor I love you so much Copyright Disclaimer All product and company names brands and logos mentioned in this document are exclusive property of the respective owners Some product names descriptions and images are cited for the sole purpose of identifying the specific products that we used to develop Scarbee Pre Bass Scarbee is in no way related to or affiliated to any of the mentioned companies 2009 SCARBEE All rights reserved SCARBEE PRE BASS 37
21. mple 60 to 89 bpm Velocities 31 60 trigger the middle slide sample 90 to 119 bpm Velocities 61 127 trigger the fastest slide sample 120 to 480 bpm The beats per minute bpm tempo numbers above refer to the du ration of a 1 4 note in that tempo To play a 1 8 note slide in tem po 120 you need to use a slide note velocity which corresponds to 240 bpm and to play a 1 16 note slide very fast in tempo 120 you will need a velocity which corresponds to 480 bpm SCARBEE PRE BASS 15 A buzz trill is the sound of a real bass player moving his finger back and forth over a fret quickly A trill on the other hand is a se quence of repeated hammer on and pull offs Buzz trills and trills are activated by pressing the G O key switch Buzz trills are avail able on the D and G string and trills on the G string 6 Velocities 1 59 give trills on G string and long buzz trills on D string 6 Velocities 60 89 give long buzz trills 6 Velocities 90 127 give short buzz trills Note that unlike the other key switches G O only affects the follow ing note even were to be held pressed We made it like this to make it easier to trigger a single trill without accidentally affecting other notes 4 5 Buzz trills Trills Trill tails are based on the same samples as trills except that their attack has been removed in order to make it possible to use them after any other articulation as a tail They are available on the G string
22. n also decide whether to use CC 1 or Aftertouch to control the vibrato intensity SCARBEE PRE BASS 9 9 5 Pickup Hit gt gt Pickup hit DEFAULT MODE ine Picky FP hits For every note you play the script decides whether a pickup hit noise should be played or not Here you can set the chance for it to happen At O you never get a pickup hit and at 100 you always get it The default mode determines whether pickup hit noises should be enabled by default It can be either ot e Pickup hits noises are ON by default Hold the FO key switch to turn them off e No pickup hits noises are OFF by default Hold the FO key switch to turn them on Please note that the default release mode and pickup are coupled 1 6 you select Pickup hits as your default mode the release mode will be set to Random When you load Pre Bass the pickup hit knob is set to 0 so If you want pickup hits you need to increase It It can also be automated using CC 4 or some other controller of your choice SCARBEE PRE BASS 30 96 Release Decay P DEFAULT MODE Fandom mode Tight 1 Tight 2 The Decay knob in the upper right corner controls how much more silent a release sample becomes for each second longer you hold a note pressed The unit is dB second l e If is set to 15 dB s then the volume of a release sample of a 2s long note will be turned down 30 dB There are three types of release samples l
23. oose tight 1 quite tight and tight 2 very tight The tight samples are played more carefully and are less noisy than the loose ones You can set the default release mode to be one of e Random mode use random mix of loose tight 1 and tight 2 samples e Tight mode use random mix of tight 1 and tight 1 samples only By using the FO key switch you can switch to the non default mode at any time Eg let s say the default mode is set to Random mode Then you will sometimes get loose release samples when playing If you want only tight release samples for some passage of a song you can hold FO pressed during that time to temporarily toggle to Tight mode The loose tight knob controls the probability of getting either loose or tight release samples Turn it up to increase the chance of getting tight samples The tight 1 tight 2 knob controls the probability of getting tight 1 versus tight 2 samples Turn it up to increase the chance of getting tight 2 samples SCARBEE PRE BASS 1 9 7 Chords 7 7 Sloppines 3 A mom 0 5 The illustration below shows how the notes of a chord never arrive at exactly the same time there is always a period of time between the first and last last note As long as this period of time is shorter in milliseconds than the Sloppiness knob value shown to the right the chord will be properly recognized and automatic string selection will work optimally on the other hand the period of time
24. ping the earlier note If a hammer on or pull off is not available eg when playing a note le gato downwards from fret 1 you will get a sustain instead Hammer on pull oft for intervals greater than 1 2 semitones may be played by activating the F O key switch See more about this further down SCARBEE PRE BASS 4 4 3 Fast Grace Note Up Fast Legato A fast grace note Is triggered in the same way as a hammer on one needs to play the legato note very quickly after the previous note Eg play a C2 hold it pressed and press a D2 quickly after between 20 and 60 milliseconds The velocity of the lower note the pre hit note is used as the velocity for playing the fast grace note sample This allows you to play the second note at any velocity which can help because one often ends up hitting it a bit harder since it has to be triggered so fast It was an old dream since the year 2000 to be able to trigger fast grace notes in an intuitive way and now It has finally come true no key switches are necessary 4 4 Slides Slides are available in speeds 60 to 480 bpm Play a note legato while holding the sustain pedal pressed to trigger a slide If it s not possible to slide the played interval without going outside of the available frets a sustain will be used instead The velocity of the target note determines the speed of the slide There are three re corded slide tempi Velocities 1 30 trigger the slowest slide sa
25. t whenever you load an effect preset any customization of the Pre Bass insert effect parameters you might have done can be overwritten You can also save your own presets To do this edit the insert effects parameters in KONTAKT to your liking and then choose one of the Save menu items from the preset menu Please note that due to a KONTAKT 2 3 limitation scripts cannot load new effects but only change parameters of already loaded ones This has been worked around by loading all kinds of 61 fects and bypassing the ones which are not necessary The status of the bypass buttons Is Stored in each preset and restored when one is loaded Presets are stored within the KONTAKT instrument file nki file so in case you later download an update to Pre Bass that file will lack any customized presets of yours which is useful to be aware of However you can transfer a preset from one instrument to another by using the native preset feature in KONTAKT and then choose Save from the menu to reintegrate It into the script preset system SCARBEE PRE BASS 28 9 3 EQ Bass O00 ae Middle mjg ge Treble 0 00 ae In this section the Bass Middle and Treble can be adjusted Beware that loading an FX pre set can change the EQ 9 4 Vibrato Here you can specify the vibrato speed and the volume of the fret noises that are automati cally generated in order to mimic the noises generated as the finger move back and forth on a String You ca
26. tarts when notes are played at shorter time intervals than 1 second 1000 ms SCARBEE PRE BASS 3 99 Noise Levels gt gt Moise levels Cc Relegse Cc Fretnoise 0 0 0 0 BA PU hits 7 Me PU clap 4 0 poa Here you can adjust the volume of the various noise samples e Release samples e Fret noise e Pickup hits and e Pickup clap 9 10 Controllers gt Controllers Playing Posion CCHIO Side idode CCHS Rejease CCH Sustain Hone Pickup hi chame 4 In addition to key switches It is also possible to control some parameters using MIDI Controllers Playing position an alternative to the F4 B5 key switches When it is set you can use that controller to move the playing position Unlike the key switches this will not trigger fret noises and one cannot lock the playing position this way since there is no analogue to holding a key pressed Slide mode by default CC 64 sustain pedal is used to activate slide mode but here you can SCARBEE PRE BASS 34 specify another controller to be used If desired Release the CC used to control the balance between Loose and Tight release samples i e the Loose Tight knob on the Release settings page Sustain a CC number used to sustain notes like a sustain pedal sustains notes Please take care not to overuse this feature since some space between notes can be good in order to get a realistic release sound Pickup hit
27. trument to use Nils Liberg is an experienced script developer and is the author of a widely used script de velopment environment for Mac PC SCARBEE PRE BASS 10 2 Playing Bass Notes on a Keyboard With stringed instruments a certain note can often be played on multiple strings and so the player has to choose For example G2 can be played on all four strings of the bass with each string having its own very distinctive sound Many sample libraries and virtual instruments take the simplistic route of recording only one sample per note from the lower playing posi tions which means that the user gets a very limited instrument Pre Bass on the other hand includes samples of all the different strings each note can be played on thus capturing the sound of the whole instrument In our view the samples at higher frets is an integral part of the instrument and adds spice and variation to the sound When a real bass player is about to play a note he she typically chooses the string on which the note can be played with minimum effort That is without moving the left hand too much On a keyboard It s difficult to manually perform this string selection in real time and laborious to do it after recording so we came up with a way to let the Pre Bass script do it for you 2 1 Automatic String Selection The figure below shows the main view of the instrument user Interface Note the white dotted line above the fretboard It represents the position
28. xample let s say you play the chord G1 D2 G2 To slide up a whole note you can press A2 while holding the sustain pedal pressed The chord note nearest A2 Is G2 and the interval is a whole note up which is then used as the slide interval As an alternative to A2 would also be possible to use Al a whole note up from the chord base note or E2 a whole note up from the middle chord note To slide up one octave you would play G3 one octave up from the nearest note G2 Note that a chord slide will only be performed when it is possible to slide the interval for all notes in the chord 5 6 Percussive Slides It s possible to perform percussive slides by playing extra notes on the same string a note 5 being slided on at the same time as the slide is being performed SCARBEE PRE BASS 3 6 Sustaining Notes Since the sustain pedal is already used to trigger slides another way of sustaining notes 5 needed This is what the A 1 note is used for while it is held pressed any released note will be prolonged until the A 1 note is released So this key works just like the pedal does for other instruments It Is sometimes useful to be able to sustain repeated notes in order to get rid of the discon nected feeling that gaps between the notes can give Try for example to play El El El without holding A 1 pressed and then with A 1 pressed However please note that by sustain ing notes there will be no time to play the release sample o
29. y using key switch CO to activate index finger and C O to activate middle finger sam ples Like the other key switches these affect the following note or remain active for as long as they are held pressed Pressing any of these key switches will inhibit the automatic alternation SCARBEE PRE BASS 20 5 2 Extended Hammer on 1 Normally hammer on and pull off are triggered by playing an inter val of one or two notes up or down legato with the previously held note However it is possible to use the same articulations for larger intervals To do this activate Extended Hammer on Pull off mode by pressing the F 0 key switch For example if you play Al hold pressed and then play E2 while holding the F O key switch pressed the E2 will be played as a whole note hammer on on the same string as the Al even though the interval is a fifth Please note that the extended mode affects the automatic string selection the script will try to stay on the same string even if the target note is not near the current playing position The articulations with two alternations are sustains mutes harmonics fast grace notes and release samples 9 3 Cross Hammering You can get cross hammering by combining a string key switch with the extended hammer on pull off mode described above When this key switch combination is activated you no longer have to play legato to trigger a hammer on Instead any note will trigger a whole note ham
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