Program a fretless bass sound in Sculpture in MainStage

With the exception of shared playing techniques, the fretless bass differs from a normal bass through its buzzing, singing sound. Because the frets on the fingerboard of a standard bass function as a collection of mini-bridges and allow the string to vibrate in an unobstructed fashion, the direct collision of the string antinode with the fingerboard on a fretless bass is responsible for its typical sound. The string length on a fretless bass is markedly shorter than the string length on an acoustic double bass. The upshot of this is that a controlled buzzing is produced, even when a fretless bass is played with a weak attack. This buzzing can be consistently reproduced in the high register, even on fretless basses that have very short string lengths. The use of the comparatively soft tip of your finger—instead of a hard, metallic fret—to divide or shorten the string also plays a role.

Program a fretless bass in Sculpture

In MainStage, load the E-Bass Fingered Basic EQ1 setting.
Turn off Object 3. You’ll come back to it later.
Choose Disturb from the Object 2 Type pop-up menu.
Tip: In the Disturb model, the Timbre parameter determines how far the string is deflected from its resting position by the obstacle. Positive values precipitate no deflection of the vibration from its resting position. Variation defines the length of the string section that is disturbed—positive values correspond to a longer section of string, negative values to a correspondingly shorter section of string.
Adjust Object 2 parameters to the following values: Strength 0.14, Timbre −0.05, Variation −1.00.
Drag the Object 2 slider, which remains at the far right in the Pickup display, to see its value of 0.99. You’ll note that the range between C2 and C3 already sounds quite acceptable, but the buzzing in the lower notes is still too strong. It is somewhat sitar-like, so keep this disturb model in mind when it comes to creating a home-spun sitar.
Try different settings for the Strength parameter for both the higher and lower playing ranges. You’ll see that, at best, only a compromise is possible. The buzzing is either too loud in the low range or not present enough in the high range.
Obviously, the effect needs to be scaled over the relevant tonal range. Unlike the parameters for the string, Objects 1 to 3 don’t have a directly addressable key scaling function. There’s a clever way around this: Both LFOs offer a key scaling function. As you probably don’t want the buzzing to be modulated by a periodic oscillation, you need to reduce the LFO speed to infinitely slow or 0. In this way, you can deactivate the LFO itself, but still use its modulation matrix.
Activate LFO2 by clicking the LFO2 button at the bottom left, and set the Rate knob to a value of 0.00 Hz.
Click the 1 button (next to the RateMod slider, to the upper right) to activate the first modulation target.
Choose Object2 Strength from the Target pop-up menu.
Choose KeyScale from the via pop-up menu.
Drag the amt slider to the right while you are playing. You can hear that the singing buzzing fades out in the lower range, while gradually being retained as you move toward C3. Drag the slider to a value of 0.15. The buzzing is now far more moderate in the low range.
Switch Object 3 back on. Set Timbre to its minimum value (−1.00) and Variation to its maximum value (1.00). Object 3 should be positioned all the way to the right, at a value of 1.00.
Vary the Object 3 Strength parameter. You’ll discover that the overtone content of the buzzing can be controlled very effectively. A Strength value of 0.25 is recommended here.
Save this setting as Fretless Roundwound#1.

Download the guides:

MainStage User Guide: PDF

MainStage Instruments: PDF

MainStage Effects: PDF

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