A call to Extended Range Bass Fretless Players!

VittorioAngelo

VittorioAngelo

Inspired
Hello Folks;

I'm a Fractal Noob, play a 7 string fretless MTD American, and am not a rock player - I'm more of a Weather Report/David Torn/Gyorgy Ligeti hybrid.

Our Fractal community is wonderful, but a little guitar and rock-oriented. So, I'd like to reach out to other fretless players to learn all your secrets!

Here's some of the subjects I've in mind - but let's not be limited by my narrow view of the cosmos:
  1. Compressor settings for maximum mwah
  2. Reverb settings when dealing with very low frequencies
  3. Synth tracking issues with very low frequencies
  4. Chorus or Flanger settings that don't suck out the low and mid frequencies
  5. Mick Karn/Jaco/Tony Levin/Gary Willis/Alain Caron/Tony Franklin/et. al
    I'd love to learn how these folks craft their tone, and how we might be able to reproduce it
  6. Growl
Hope I'm not gonna end up like George Harrison over here....

Vittorio
 
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Sorry not a bass player, but life long Weather Report fan.

I remember when DownBeat Magazine had an article on “black market” and after that, off to record store we went to pick up a copy. :)
 
To add to #3: The harmonizer also seems to have tracking issues with bass, especially below the A of a standard 4 string bass. Maybe Cliff can implement a "bass mode" for those blocks someday. It's been improved for guitar, latency-wise, for the Axe III.
 
I play a fretless 6 string Roscoe Century, a fretless g&l L2000, and a Vigier Surfreter (guitar, not bass). Love the fretlessness :) For point #2 I would recommend putting reverb in parallel and putting a HPF on it.

Otherwise, another trick is that when recording via usb you can use the reamp channel as a dry DI channel. You do however need to turn up the signal, then time align them in your DAW or they you will have phase problems. I use DMG trackcontrol on the reamp track as a quick way to do this.

Another good thing to try is using the amp block without a cab block. I often prefer it this way, depending on what sound you're after.
 
What is "ERB"?

How about Tony Franklin? Monster fretless bassist... Was part of The Firm with Jimmy Page and Blue Murder with John Sykes.
 
unix-guy said:
What is "ERB"?

How about Tony Franklin? Monster fretless bassist... Was part of The Firm with Jimmy Page and Blue Murder with John Sykes.
Click to expand...

Hello Unix-Guy;

"ERB" stands for "Extended Range Bass" - I'll change the post title to make it clear.

As to Tony Franklin, abso-freakin-lutely! My intent in naming bass players is to encourage dialog on reproducing their tones in our beloved labyrinth the AxeFX III.

Vittorio
 
Snedecor said:
To add to #3: The harmonizer also seems to have tracking issues with bass, especially below the A of a standard 4 string bass. Maybe Cliff can implement a "bass mode" for those blocks someday. It's been improved for guitar, latency-wise, for the Axe III.
Click to expand...
I've seen a couple of YouTube videos decrying the same - Seed's was the last one I saw that mentioned the very same thing.

But, to that end, I find using a pitch-tracking Ring Modulator set to an octave below does a nicer job in the lower range of the instrument.
 
antcarrier said:
I play a fretless 6 string Roscoe Century, a fretless g&l L2000, and a Vigier Surfreter (guitar, not bass). Love the fretlessness :) For point #2 I would recommend putting reverb in parallel and putting a HPF on it.

Otherwise, another trick is that when recording via usb you can use the reamp channel as a dry DI channel. You do however need to turn up the signal, then time align them in your DAW or they you will have phase problems. I use DMG trackcontrol on the reamp track as a quick way to do this.

Another good thing to try is using the amp block without a cab block. I often prefer it this way, depending on what sound you're after.
Click to expand...

Hello Antcarrier;

To your points:
  1. Putting the reverb in parallel:
    Does this infer your mix on the reverb is 100% wet?
  2. Reamping with a DAW:
    I've been having difficulty addressing such phasing issues in parallel paths as well, and been wondering how to integrate Ableton into my setup. I've never heard of DMG trackcontrol and will check that out.
  3. Amp without cab block:
    I've been experimenting with this too, and have had some success with eliminating phase issues, but cannot identify what the secret "remove phasing issue in parallel paths" sauce is:
    1. Sometimes summing the Amp block and Non-Amp block parallel paths into a single compressor block works. I find the Multiband compressor is better at eliminating the phasing affect
    2. In another post, Admin M@ offered the tip to use two Amp blocks, the second being set to the "TUBE PRE" model. Whilst it does color the tone of your instrument, it's not drastic, and it does eliminate the phasing issue
    3. Using a Mixer block to balance the parallel paths just below where one hears the phasing affect
    4. Running your non-Amp block path through the Amp path's Cab block and allowing the Non-Amp path to proceed to the output as well. So your non-Amp signal is heard as both processed by the cab and clean
Vittorio
 
Hi Vittorio,

1. Yes this is correct, typically use 100% wet for any fx in parallel.

2. That is a good suggestion by Matt. If you want a completely uncoloured DI signal you will have to time-align it though. I only do this when recording using the usb out, as DMG Trackmeter (free) has a simple delay offset feature that allows you to do this for an entire track. I just go by ear but it should be relatively simple to measure the exact delay required in your DAW by looking at the waveforms. You could then apply this amount of compensation in the axe using a delay block or a null cab with it's built in delay for smaller values.

3 (1) This will be because each block will introduce a certain amount of latency. A compressor on the DI signal will time align them to some extent.

3 (2) Wrote about this in 2. Above haha

3 (3) Shouldn't be necessary. If you time align the signals you won't hear any phasing.

3 (4) No reason why you can't do this, although it won't effect the time misalignment, as this has occurred earlier in the signal chain.
 
Thanks for your input antcarrier!

To our discussion about octavers, I downloaded a bunch of wonderful synth presets from Simeon Harris, and found that a number of his synth presets make wonderful octavers - more like the MXR octavers. He's got alot of wonderful ideas in his presets too!

Please do donate when you download!
 
I don’t play sub bass, but I have used an octave before. Not sure what your looking for when you mention growl, but I would suspect that octave levels would not be choice. Ultra low needs to be ultra tight, otherwise it’s just mud, IMO. Not sure if the compressor works at those levels, so I would be interested in exploring those parameters.
As far as Jaco tone. I would surmise it is mostly all from his guitar, string choice and his acoustic 360 amp and style. I have a Jaco pbase fretless. I run it through an Ampeg b25and that does it for me. However, I choose flat would stings. Absolutely love them. But anyway, it’s all there in the bass for me. Most any bass preset should be close using the bridge pickup.
Tony Franklin is awesome as well, no doubt. It’s all in the attitude. Own it!
 
Intheband said:
I don’t play sub bass, but I have used an octave before. Not sure what your looking for when you mention growl, but I would suspect that octave levels would not be choice. Ultra low needs to be ultra tight, otherwise it’s just mud, IMO. Not sure if the compressor works at those levels, so I would be interested in exploring those parameters.
As far as Jaco tone. I would surmise it is mostly all from his guitar, string choice and his acoustic 360 amp and style. I have a Jaco pbase fretless. I run it through an Ampeg b25and that does it for me. However, I choose flat would stings. Absolutely love them. But anyway, it’s all there in the bass for me. Most any bass preset should be close using the bridge pickup.
Tony Franklin is awesome as well, no doubt. It’s all in the attitude. Own it!
Click to expand...

Hello InTheBand;

I dig your enthusiasm!

As to your question about growl - I'm always tweaking my EQs to accentuate frequencies that cause the lower frequencies to growl like a bear. I've got a couple of presets I'm tweaking now that I'll eventually share once I'm happy with them - it'll be interesting to see if they produce like results for other folks!

As to the compressor, here's what I've found on the AxeFX III:
  1. The two pedal compressors are a bit bright and middy for my ear, but work very nicely
  2. The Studio Compressor is nice and pillowy, but I like more character to my compressors - I'm still working on what exactly that means for this compressor
  3. I can't get my head around the Multiband Compressor's crossover points. No matter what I do, I end up stripping the "meat" out of my tone.
  4. Since all the above compressors are too clean for my taste, I've started experimenting with using the Tube Pre Amp's compressor. It's got a lot more character, and many options.
This thing is quite the labyrinth - but I'm enjoying getting lost!

Vittorio
 
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