Bass guitar emulation

rawberry2 · May 14, 2015 at 5:12 PM

Hi!

I know the Kemper has some profiles, in which the guitar is pitched down, to sound like a bass guitar.
But it has a little problem: When played fast or a little dirty, it can´t make a difference between the played notes and so it interpretes wrong notes.

When using the normal pitchshifter tuned -12 or -24, it is all okay, but it doesn´t sound like a bass guitar or even similar.

Does anyone have a solution for this?

(No. "buy a bass" is not acceptable But I think it would be the only option)

Lokasenna · May 15, 2015 at 12:15 AM

That's just a side effect of trying to turn your guitar into a bass, unfortunately. If you're recording, record the guitar dry and use your DAW to pitch it down afterward for better results. For playing live, maybe something like this:

A - Green Screamer - gain 0, tone -2ish, volume 0
B - Transpose - try with the Formant and Smooth Chord options on and off, one setting might work better than others
C - Analog Octaver - to try and bring back some of the low end you cut earlier
D - Compressor - smash the hell out of it, so your bass has a fairly consistent level
Amp - Whatever you want, really... I'd probably have Definition low, Pick down a bit, Compressor up to smash it some more, play with Clarity a bit, and fiddle with Direct Mix
X - More EQ - Between this and the amp's EQ, you should be able to come up with a decent bass tone that fits with whatever other instruments are going on.
Mod - A bit of chorus, if you feel like it
Delay and Reverb - On a pretend bass? Probably not.

burningyen · May 15, 2015 at 12:18 AM

Make sure the pitch shifter stomp is before any distorting part of the signal chain (distortion stomp, amp).

Kempermaniac · May 15, 2015 at 9:35 AM

Why Pitch Shifter? For this goal we have Transpose. Set it to -12 and make sure it is first in the signal chain (stomp A).

rawberry2 · May 15, 2015 at 4:05 PM

Thanks for the input.

The sound is not quite the same.
I will buy a bass guitar. That is the only solution, I think

viabcroce · May 16, 2015 at 2:40 AM

Have you used the Transpose stomp (not the Pitch Shifter) in first position, and some bass profiles?

Another interesting option would be to use a compressor stomp with the attack time to 0, in order to emulate a thicker, slower string.

rawberry2 · May 16, 2015 at 6:50 PM

I got myself a Yamaha RBX374 now.
Way better than before.

http://dl.dropbox.com/s/yyqusunl75riy2f/bassig2.mp3?dl=0

Stemast · May 16, 2015 at 8:08 PM

Quote from rawberry2

Thanks for the input.

The sound is not quite the same.
I will buy a bass guitar. That is the only solution, I think

Absolutely

Stemast · May 16, 2015 at 8:09 PM

Quote from rawberry2

I got myself a Yamaha RBX374 now.
Way better than before.

http://dl.dropbox.com/s/yyqusunl75riy2f/bassig2.mp3?dl=0

Well done!