Steinberg Virtual Bassist Operation Manual
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Virtual Bassist Operation Manual by Wolfram Knelangen
Virtual Bassist 2 The information in this documentation is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. The software described by this document is subject to a License Agreement and may not be copied to other media. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, or otherwise transmit- ted or recorded, for any purpose, without prior written permission by Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. All product and company names are ™ or ® trademarks of their respective owners. © Wizoo Sound Design GmbH & Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, 2005. All rights reserved.
Virtual Bassist 3 ENGLISH Table of contents 4On bass… 5Congratulations! 6What is Virtual Bassist ? 7How does Virtual Bassist work ? 8What you can and can’t do with Virtual Bassist 8Register your software ! 9The Steinberg Key 11System requirements (PC version) 11Installing Virtual Bassist (PC version) 12System requirements (Mac version) 12Installing Virtual Bassist (Mac version) 13Activating the Steinberg Key 14Setting up Virtual Bassist as a VST Instrument in your host application 15Setting up Virtual Bassist as a DXi2 instrument 16Using Virtual Bassist in an AU compatible application 16Virtual Bassist stand-alone and ReWire 17Latency 17Using a single button mouse (Mac) 18The first test 19Playing Virtual Bassist 19Using a MIDI keyboard 21Virtual Bassist terminology 23The Play page 24Loading and saving Styles 25Auditioning styles 26Play page controls 32Guitar controls 34Chord recognition 36The Groove Match page 37The Macro Groove display 40Micro timing settings 42The Part Browser 44The Amp & FX page 45The Amp section 47FX section… 49The effects 56Effect routing 57The output section 60Effect management 62Bonus feature: Creating your own phrasings 63Plug-in version of the effect board 64MIDI Controller assignments 65Assigning MIDI controllers in Virtual Bassist 66The Settings page 70Credits
Virtual Bassist 4 On bass… The Virtual Guitarist product line has changed the way many people produce their music – or talk to guitarists. Because of the success and positive recognition of Virtual Guitarist from hobby to high-profile users, Virtual Bassist has been an obvious item on the to-do list for a long time. In the end, it took three years for it to finally hit the shelves. As a Virtual Guitarist user, you will notice that the long wait brought im- provements as well. The engine we now use as a foundation is much more flexible and intelligent. That said, the heart of Virtual Bassist is de- liberately not rocket science or artificial intelligence – it’s real record- ings. Whatever you create with it is based on real performances by a real musician, with real feel, real skills and real meaning. We’ve just added flexibility, control and intelligence to allow you to tell the bassist what to play and how to sound. To some of you, that may be the most important innovation. To cut a long story short: We love the sound of Virtual Bassist, we love how easy it is to work with. We are very proud of the innovative Groove Match feature that allows possibilities we haven’t even thought of. We love the great amp and the FX and we know that Virtual Bassist always does for you what we trained it to do. Yours sincerely, Peter Gorges Executive Producer
Virtual Bassist 5 ENGLISH Congratulations! Virtual Bassist is your own personal bass player, allowing you to choose between 30 fulfilling styles with perfect sound, perfect timing, and the ability to flexibly adapt the playing to suit most musical needs. Virtual Bassist will easily add professional-sounding bass guitar tracks to your projects, without the need for a real bass player, and you get a perfect take every time. Even if you use real bassists in your music as well, Virtual Bassist has the big advantage of enabling you to experi- ment with and alter your bass parts at any time, in any place, without the need for special recording equipment. You can even lay down tracks on your laptop computer while sitting in the park or use the Virtual Bassist effects to process your own bass recordings.
Virtual Bassist 6 What is Virtual Bassist ? Technically speaking, Virtual Bassist is a software instrument that can be used stand-alone or in any VST, DXi, AU or ReWire compatible host application under Windows or Mac OS X. Virtual Bassist comes with a variety of electric bass guitar Styles, each fitting a certain musi- cal style and is ready-to-go with the correct sound and phrases as well as a selection of Fills and controls. Musically speaking, Virtual Bassist plays itself, all you have to do is se- lect the chords or root notes via a MIDI keyboard. You can control the phrasing and many other play parameters in real time, using either the mouse or a MIDI controller.You can adapt licks to your projects seam- lessly via the Groove Match function and customize the sound using the comprehensive selection of bass effects.
Virtual Bassist 7 ENGLISH How does Virtual Bassist work ? Virtual Bassist doesn’t use single-note samples or synthesis to imitate reality. The result would be extremely artificial, if you’ve ever tried to simulate bass playing on a MIDI keyboard you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about. Perhaps surprisingly, the Virtual Bassist concept is much simpler. It is based on a huge library of audio tracks recorded by real living bass players. This means the results are genuine bass recordings—and not some MIDI trickery. Virtual Bassist’s approach makes it possible to choose from these re- cordings in real-time when you change a chord or any other parame- ter. Tempo changes are no problem as the bass recordings have been processed in such a way that enables them to be played at any tempo. In addition, you can manually manipulate Parts to create your own or adapt them to fit your music using the Groove Match function. The 13 Parts and 6 Fills available in each Style are all examples of what’s pos- sible, we’ll take a closer look later. Just like in real life, Virtual Bassist has its own amplifier and FX pedals to beef up your sound and at the end of the signal chain is a selection of speaker cabinets in all popular configurations. The state-of-the-art Virtual Bassist technology even allows you to select the type and the position of the microphone in front of your cabinet.
Virtual Bassist 8 What you can and can’t do with Virtual Bassist Virtual Bassist has many advantages when compared with a real player: •Virtual Bassist is convenient and available at any time. •Virtual Bassist is cheap and easy and you won’t need a studio to record in. •You can save time because there’s no setup, tuning, preparation, microphone positioning, or audio recording. •Virtual Bassist doesn’t play wrong notes and there aren’t any timing problems. •You can work with several bass players simultaneously. •You can control the sound and phrasing of the bass. •Virtual Bassist supports your creativity, allowing you to experiment as much as you want, and gives you the possibility to create tracks that couldn’t be played on a real bass guitar. •It’s possible to make alterations at any stage, even after recording or during the mixing process. You can change the instrument, phrasing and sound with- out having to recreate a recording from scratch. Despite all of these advantages, it’s important to remember that Virtual Bassist is a computer program and will inevitably have some disadvan- tages when compared to a real player. It would be impossible for Vir- tual Bassist to provide everything a real musician might theoretically be able to offer, although the included Styles cover a broad range and will be capable of suiting most needs. Register your software ! Before getting carried away with the software, which we’re sure you will do, please take a moment to complete and return the registration card enclosed with Virtual Bassist. This will entitle you to technical support, and we’ll also keep you up to date with the latest news and updates.
Virtual Bassist 9 ENGLISH The Steinberg Key Please read the following section before installing the Virtual Bassist software. Included with the Virtual Bassist package, you will find an activation code for the Steinberg Key (sometimes referred to as a “dongle”), a hardware copy protection device that is part of the Virtual Bassist copy protection scheme. Virtual Bassist will not run if there is no Steinberg Key present or if this key has not been properly activated. You can ei- ther separately purchase a new Steinberg Key for use with Virtual Bass- ist, or use a key previously bought for use with a Steinberg application. If you have a Windows PC and have never used a dongle on your com- puter before, the installation routine may initiate a restart of Windows after installation of the key drivers. After the restart, the key must be plugged into the USB port for the installation routine to continue. If you already own software that requires a Steinberg Key, it should be plugged into the computer’s USB port after installing Virtual Bassist and restarting the computer! When the key is plugged into the USB port, Win- dows will automatically recognize it as a new hardware device and will attempt to find drivers for it – these necessary drivers won’t be present until Virtual Bassist has been installed and the computer restarted. The Steinberg Key The Steinberg Key is, in fact, a little computer on which your Steinberg software licenses are stored. All hardware-protected Steinberg prod- ucts use the same type of key and you can store more than one license on a key. Licenses can also (within certain limits) be transferred be- tween keys – which is helpful, e.g. if you want to sell a piece of software.
Virtual Bassist 10 If you already own a Steinberg Key (e.g. for Cubase or Nuendo), you can load your Virtual Bassist license onto that, using the activation code supplied with Virtual Bassist. This way you need only one USB key for both your host and Virtual Bassist (see below). The Steinberg Key must not be plugged in before or during the installa- tion of Virtual Bassist if this is the first time you use such a key. In this case Windows will register it as new USB hardware and try to find driv- ers that won’t be present before Virtual Bassist installation.