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  • November 19, 2010 at 6:12 pm #81013
    nneekolas
    Participant

    Bill, your effectology videos are genius and it seems like with enough time you can come up with anything. Well I have a real world challenge I’m experimenting with that maybe you can help me figure out.

    You’ve already done “Turning a Guitar Into a Bass,” but what about “Turning a Bass into a Guitar”? I keep getting close to that feel, but just never quite getting to a point where you could close your eyes and hear a guitar. With distortion I can get real close to sounding like a distorted guitar, but what about clean?

    November 19, 2010 at 8:28 pm #112662
    TheGhostMachina
    Member

    Interesting.. I am interested:)

    TGM

    November 20, 2010 at 12:02 am #112664
    nneekolas
    Participant

    For fun, I uploaded a couple quick 2880 recordings of my efforts so far. I used a HOG and an Enigma and recorded straight into the 2880. The only instrument used is my Gibson Thunderbird electric bass, played with a pick, and only one track of the 2880 was used for each.

    The HOG settings were like this (Slider values from 0 to 10):

    Quote:
    [size=-1]
    Input Gain: 6
    Dry Output: 0
    Sub Octaves: Both 0
    Original: 0
    +5th: 7
    +1 Oct: 2
    +1 Oct + 5th: 10
    +2 Oct: 2
    +2 Oct + 3rd: 0
    +3 Oct: 3
    Envelope: ON
    Lower: Zero (At the Center Detent)
    Upper: +1 Towards Decay
    Filter Frequency: 5
    Filter Resonance: 0
    [/size]

    The Enigma settings were like this (knob values from 7 o’clock to 5 o’clock)

    Quote:
    [size=-1]
    Blend: 1 o’clock
    Mode: Bandpass
    Attack: 2 o’clock
    Decay: 7 o’clock
    Start: 5 o’clock
    Stop: 1 o’clock
    Q: 9 o’clock
    Sensitivity: 2 o’clock
    [/size]

    Here’s an attempt to sound like a clean guitar:

    http://soundcloud.com/kyonshies/bass-to-guitar-clean

    Here’s an attempt to sound like a dirty guitar. I used the distortion built into the Enigma, and slightly tweaked the Attack to be slower and the Stop Frequency to be lower.

    http://soundcloud.com/kyonshies/bass-to-guitar-dirty

    November 20, 2010 at 12:07 am #112665
    nneekolas
    Participant

    I feel like I’m getting warmer by tweaking how the Enigma filters the mids and letting the HOG’s low pass filter take care of the high frequencies. I think in those quick little demo’s up there I had too much Q and too fast of an attack and was getting too much of that “smuck / quack” autowah response.

    Hmm.

    November 21, 2010 at 4:17 am #112681
    friedjesseradio
    Member

    i wonder how well the octave up on a bass micro synth is? oh and are the micro synths monophonic? im thinkin they are cause its analog right?

    November 22, 2010 at 2:21 pm #112688
    bill ruppert
    Participant

    nneekolas
    Hey your stuff sounds great!
    You certainly are on the right path.
    When I think about it there were several things I would look at when trying to get the bass to sound like a guitar.
    The first thing would be in the pitch shifter. The best pitch shifter to emulate a guitar would be one that preserves the harmonics or keeps them in the same order.
    Normally when one sings into a pitch shifter up one octave the voice will sound like a chipmunk and not like the same person with a woman’s voice. That is due to the way the upper harmonics have been shifted as well as the pitch.
    Pitch shifters that are formant preserving keep the harmonics in order while pitch shifting.
    These are much more natural sounding and preserve the sound while shifting up one octave.
    I believe the ring thing is formant preserving and would help your base sound more like a guitar when shifted up.
    The second thing would be to voicings you play on the bass. Try to play things appropriate for what would be played on an actual guitar. In other words if I was going to do a flute sound I certainly wouldn’t play guitar riffs as that would not sound like a flute.
    I also would probably not use the fifths when pitch shifting. Just stick with the octave and play the fifths by hand
    I have also found that putting a pitch shifter after the distortion sounds more natural.
    Doing this helps mask the sound of the pitch shifter.
    Your stuff sounds great keep going and let us know what you come up with!
    Bill Ruppert

    Quote:
    For fun, I uploaded a couple quick 2880 recordings of my efforts so far. I used a HOG and an Enigma and recorded straight into the 2880. The only instrument used is my Gibson Thunderbird electric bass, played with a pick, and only one track of the 2880 was used for each.

    The HOG settings were like this (Slider values from 0 to 10):

    Quote:
    [size=-1]
    Input Gain: 6
    Dry Output: 0
    Sub Octaves: Both 0
    Original: 0
    +5th: 7
    +1 Oct: 2
    +1 Oct + 5th: 10
    +2 Oct: 2
    +2 Oct + 3rd: 0
    +3 Oct: 3
    Envelope: ON
    Lower: Zero (At the Center Detent)
    Upper: +1 Towards Decay
    Filter Frequency: 5
    Filter Resonance: 0
    [/size]

    The Enigma settings were like this (knob values from 7 o’clock to 5 o’clock)

    Quote:
    [size=-1]
    Blend: 1 o’clock
    Mode: Bandpass
    Attack: 2 o’clock
    Decay: 7 o’clock
    Start: 5 o’clock
    Stop: 1 o’clock
    Q: 9 o’clock
    Sensitivity: 2 o’clock
    [/size]

    Here’s an attempt to sound like a clean guitar:

    http://soundcloud.com/kyonshies/bass-to-guitar-clean

    Here’s an attempt to sound like a dirty guitar. I used the distortion built into the Enigma, and slightly tweaked the Attack to be slower and the Stop Frequency to be lower.

    http://soundcloud.com/kyonshies/bass-to-guitar-dirty

    December 15, 2010 at 7:51 am #113084
    nneekolas
    Participant

    Hey Bill, thanks for the response! Funnily enough I used to have a Ring Thing but sold it to a friend to buy a HOG! I will try out your ideas and see if I can get closer. It’s already helped to remove the 5ths from the HOG voicing and put the distortion before it. One of the best parts of all this tone alchemy is I keep stumbling on great sounds that I can actually use in my music, even if I never get my T-bird to sound like an SG, hah.

    December 15, 2010 at 11:39 am #113087
    KartoonHead
    Member

    In addition to what you’re doing now I’d turn down the neck pickup on your bass, right down, and if you’ve got an EQ unit or pedal I’d roll off some of the low-end before putting it into the HOG, then mix in some of your dry signal, only a little, because you’ll want the sound of your pick attacking the strings to come through un-shifted, this will help to make it sound more natural.

    That’s all I can think of that Bill didn’t mention.

    Hope this helps :)

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