Steinberg Virtual Bassist Operation Manual

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Fret Buzz
Depending on the setup of the bass and the playing style, the strings 
might touch the frets causing a buzzing or rattling sound. In Virtual 
Bassist you can adjust the amount of buzz in your bass. The right dose 
of Buzz will enhance the natural feel of your bass tracks.
Fret Noise
When a bassist moves from one hand position to another the hand 
slides over the strings and frets creating a squeaking sound. This fret 
noise is an important part of a natural bass sound...

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The bass sound lock
Activating the bass sound lock (by clicking on the lock symbol at the 
bottom right of the bass) will lock all settings that influence your bass 
sound, e. g. the knobs on the bass guitar and the bass selector. It will 
keep these settings even when you change the Style.
Guitar controls
You will notice that the bass guitar graphic on the left of the Play page 
has four knobs and a slider for varying your bass sound.
Volume
The Volume knob controls the output level...

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Attack
Bass players can change the sound of their playing by choosing to 
play with their fingers or a pick. Playing with the fingers produces a 
softer sound while playing with a pick produces more of an attacking 
sound. The Attack knob in Virtual Bassist adjusts the strength of the 
attack allowing you to seamlessly produce the kind of attack sound 
you want, from fingered to picked or in between.
Damp
Bass players can subtly vary their sound by damping the strings with...

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Pickup position
The sound spectrum a bass guitar produces depends on the position 
of the pick-up. A cool thing about Virtual Bassist is that it allows you 
to adjust the position of the pick-up. Moving the slider downwards 
from the neutral mid position increases the bite, while moving it up 
produces a warmer sound with more bass.
Chord recognition
Virtual Bassist contains an intelligent chord recognition system, it al-
ways plays the correct bassline for the chords it receives from...

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Chord inversions
In most cases, it doesn’t matter what inversion of a chord you play. 
However, there are some exceptions where the bass note has to be 
the root or tonic note:
•m7: For example, in Am7 the A must be the bass note because Virtual Bassist 
would otherwise interpret the chord as a sixth (C6, in this case)—although the 
chord uses the same notes on the keyboard, it should have a different root 
note when played on a bass guitar.
•dim chords (for example, Adim uses...

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The Groove Match page
On this page you can adapt existing grooves and rhythms, edit Parts 
and Fills in the Macro Groove Display and set the overall timing with 
the Micro Groove settings. 
In the Part Browser you can edit the keyboard layout in the Remote 
Range.
To switch to the Groove Match page, click the Groove Match tab at the 
top of Virtual Bassist.  

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The Macro Groove display
The Macro Groove Display shows a timeline of the currently selected 
Part or Fill. Parts can be up to four bars in length. Just like the Piano 
Roll editor in your host application, the red rectangles show the pitch, 
position and length of each note in the Part or Fill. 
Attention! The vertical pitch information does not necessarily represent 
the true pitch of the note, it’s presented this way for easier navigation.
Key Follow
When the Key Follow...

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Modifiers
The Modifiers section on the Groove Match page allows you to create 
variations of Parts and Fills quickly and easily. A Modifier is simply a 
preset which shifts or mutes notes in a selected Part or Fill to change 
its rhythmic structure. 
Each Modifier produces two versions (A & B).
The table below explains how each Modifier will change the selected 
Part or Fill. 
The Macro Groove Display is updated when a Part or Fill is modified.
Modifier preset Variation A Variation B...

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Compare
This button allows you to quickly compare your newly edited Part or 
Fill with the original version.
Reset
Reset restores the Part or Fill to its original rhythmic structure.
OtherThis is a complex variation which 
plays notes on the following 
16ths of the bar: 1, 4, 7, 9, 12 
and 15. For a 16th triplet groove 
every 1st and 3rd triplet is played.Plays only beats 1 and the 8th 
note before beat 4. For a 16th 
Triplet groove the following trip-
lets are played:1, 3, 5,...

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Micro timing settings
The Micro Timing Section of the Groove Match page allows you to 
adjust the timing or feel of Virtual Bassist. The intensity of the timing 
changes is controlled by the Swing knobs. The Swing knob on the 
Groove Match page is connected to the Swing knob found on the 
Virtual Bassist Play page.
Swing
Technically speaking Swing is the process of moving the timing of off-
beats of a bar backward or forward in time, this will change the way 
Virtual Bassist feels...