Keyboard with best bass sounds

[SymzTux]

I’ve been searching through threads for days and haven’t really found a suitable up to date answer.

I play some gigs where I’m playing left hand bass - I’m currently using trillian as a virtual instrument within mainstage. More specifically the musician 5 string studio bass which sounds amazing!

I’d ultimately rather buy a new keyboard with a great bass sound, as I often run multitrack backing tracks and also multitrack record gigs on the same laptop. I’d like to keep all the keyboard sounds hardware based.

Does anyone know of a current keyboard, ideally with an 88 key weighted option, that has a realistic 5 string electric bass sound as good as trillian? Ie, all the subtle sounds in there as well such as fingers moving on the string etc.

My current keyboard is a fantom x8 which has a usable sound but it’s not a patch on trillian.

Any suggestions would be greatly received,

Thanks,

Simon

 

[happyrat1]

Perhaps you should pick up a Novation Bass Station 2 and tweak the analog sounds to your liking?

Not as pricey as buying a new Montage or Kurzweil or Roland and you'd be free to split your main keyboard any other way that you'd need to.

Gary

 

[SymzTux]

Thing is Gary, I want something that sounds like a real bass - the trillian bass is bang on. Surely a workstation must have something similar these days? Ideally want an 88 key workstation that I can layer everything on the one keyboard. The bass station doesn’t look like it’s trying to sound like a real electric bass.

Thanks for your input though.

 

[happyrat1]

It would help if you put up an MP3 sample of the Trillian Bass on Soundcloud so that we'd all know what you're looking for.

Honestly nobody knows what it sounds like as well as what every other workstation/ROMpler sounds like as well.

Pretty much any top of the line Workstation can tweak a sound to match another ROMpler's sound as closely as possible but searching for a particular clone of a sound straight out of the box is a needle in a haystack.

So it really would help if we heard for ourselves what this sounds like.

It may be as simple as adding a few insert FX on your Fantom to achieve a credible sound.

Or simply adding a sampler module to your current rig and sampling the Trillian sound into the hardware.

Or buying a modern workstation with Sampling capability. Which includes anything from a Juno DS to a FA-08 to a Korg Kronos to a Kurzweil PC4.

With the right sampling gear if you can hear it, then it can play it.

Gary

 

[SymzTux]

Ok here's a rough mix from a gig last Saturday - it's only drums, the bass sound (louder than it should be) and a bit of keyboards. As you can hear there are all sorts of nuances that just sampling won't pickup as a lot of the bits that make it sound so authentic are created within the virtual instrument.

I keep spelling it wrong, it's Trilian with one l.

I'm beginning to expect that there isn't a keyboard that has a bass sound that is as good as this as it requires too much space and processing power - I was just hoping that there might have been someone out there who might have come across a really good bass sound in a modern synth.

https://soundcloud.com/superstition-ultimatepartyband%2Ftriliandemo

 

[Biggles]

A bit of listening for you.

This guy has put together a series of videos, there are six not the five it says in the title, and he just goes through each of the Bass sounds installed in a Korg Kross 2.

Some seem to be close to what you seek and if that is the case the Kross 2 in 61 key version is small, light and less than 9 lbs in weight

 

[SymzTux]

Thanks Biggles.

None of those sounds are a patch on Trilian. It seems that standard bass sounds within workstations just aren't going to be as good as a dedicated $300 bass VST which is insanely good. Guess I'll have to stick with the MacBook Pro and MainStage!

Thanks anyway everyone.

 

[CowboyNQ]

It seems that standard bass sounds within workstations just aren't going to be as good as a dedicated $300 bass VST which is insanely good.

Yep.

 

[SymzTux]

Yep.

Haha!

I'd hoped that something in a workstation might get close, as I certainly don't need all the bells and whistles that Trilian provides but it seems that from listening to MANY samples of keyboard bass sounds nothing even starts to get close. A shame really.

 

[happyrat1]

This is a tune of mine called "The Ugly Stick"

The bass is a layering of two synths. An M-Audio Venom and a Novation Ultranova.

https://soundcloud.com/happyrat1%2Fthe-ugly-stick
It just goes to show that if you get creative you can create a funky bass with hardware.

Gary

 

[Biggles]

Haha!

I'd hoped that something in a workstation might get close, as I certainly don't need all the bells and whistles that Trilian provides but it seems that from listening to MANY samples of keyboard bass sounds nothing even starts to get close. A shame really.

AND

Nothing comes close to a proper Bass player.

Join forces with a Bassist.

 

[Mighty Motif Max]

I’ve been searching through threads for days and haven’t really found a suitable up to date answer.

I play some gigs where I’m playing left hand bass - I’m currently using trillian as a virtual instrument within mainstage. More specifically the musician 5 string studio bass which sounds amazing!

I’d ultimately rather buy a new keyboard with a great bass sound, as I often run multitrack backing tracks and also multitrack record gigs on the same laptop. I’d like to keep all the keyboard sounds hardware based.

Does anyone know of a current keyboard, ideally with an 88 key weighted option, that has a realistic 5 string electric bass sound as good as trillian? Ie, all the subtle sounds in there as well such as fingers moving on the string etc.

My current keyboard is a fantom x8 which has a usable sound but it’s not a patch on trillian.

Any suggestions would be greatly received,

Thanks,

Simon

Sounds like you’ve decided to stick with Mainstage, but I thought I’d chime in anyways.

I’ve had good luck with the Yamaha Motif XF series, which I’m sure is also in the Montage. The key is to use a function called “random cycle” for certain waveforms (slide, fret noise, etc) plus having your standard bass velocity layers etc. That way you can be playing and certain sounds will play randomly while you play the bass line. Maybe not 100% according to playing style like Trillian, but closer than just a sampled bass sound alone. It means you have to edit presets or make your own bass patches from scratch, but it’s better than what can be found stock. Which isn’t bad to begin with - I find the basic sounds are more realistic than either Roland or Korg’s offerings by a long ways.

 

[Depo1964]

....................................................................................
I play some gigs where I’m playing left hand bass - I’m currently using trillian as a virtual instrument within mainstage. More specifically the musician 5 string studio bass which sounds amazing!

I’d ultimately rather buy a new keyboard with a great bass sound, as I often run multitrack backing tracks and also multitrack record gigs on the same laptop. I’d like to keep all the keyboard sounds hardware based.

Does anyone know of a current keyboard, ideally with an 88 key weighted option, that has a realistic 5 string electric bass sound as good as trillian? Ie, all the subtle sounds in there as well such as fingers moving on the string etc.

......................................................

Thanks,

Simon

Hi Simon,
Well, if money is no object, the Yamaha Genos has bass sounds just as good as Trillian, plus it has many other sounds that's, imho,
really hard to tell whether or not they are from real instruments or from software.
While it's only 76 keys, it is semi-weighted and you can define several different (7) Touch Response settings.

While I'm not playing out Live anymore, I got tired of having to keep updating VSTi software and had been looking around for a new keyboard for a while.... Finally, the Genos, was hitting all of the buttons..... pardon the pun

So the first five videos on my Youtube page were created with all of the sounds coming from my Genos.

Dan Depolito

www.youtube.com

 

[ptooner]

We are sort of on a fools errand here. You aren't looking for a "good sounding" bass patch, you are looking for a particular bass patch that you like. I listened to your clip and frankly liked it quite a bit as a keyboard player. Not so much in my other hat as a bass player. Here is what that tune sounds like with an actual bass.

I think you can tell the difference. Again, I like what you did - but it doesn't sound like a bass

 

[Harry Levinson]

I recently made a recording with an Akai mini MIDI keyboard, USB into MacBook.

The bass guitar voice in Logic Pro was so good it fooled the bass player in my band!

In Logic, the patch/voice is:

Bass > Fingerstyle Bass

... which shows a picture of a Fender P-bass (without the word Fender)

If you want to lug a laptop, the sound is great!

 

[Gus Fields]

I’ve been searching through threads for days and haven’t really found a suitable up to date answer.

I play some gigs where I’m playing left hand bass - I’m currently using trillian as a virtual instrument within mainstage. More specifically the musician 5 string studio bass which sounds amazing!

I’d ultimately rather buy a new keyboard with a great bass sound, as I often run multitrack backing tracks and also multitrack record gigs on the same laptop. I’d like to keep all the keyboard sounds hardware based.

Does anyone know of a current keyboard, ideally with an 88 key weighted option, that has a realistic 5 string electric bass sound as good as trillian? Ie, all the subtle sounds in there as well such as fingers moving on the string etc.

My current keyboard is a fantom x8 which has a usable sound but it’s not a patch on trillian.

Any suggestions would be greatly received,

Thanks,

Simon

I’ve been searching through threads for days and haven’t really found a suitable up to date answer.

I play some gigs where I’m playing left hand bass - I’m currently using trillian as a virtual instrument within mainstage. More specifically the musician 5 string studio bass which sounds amazing!

I’d ultimately rather buy a new keyboard with a great bass sound, as I often run multitrack backing tracks and also multitrack record gigs on the same laptop. I’d like to keep all the keyboard sounds hardware based.

Does anyone know of a current keyboard, ideally with an 88 key weighted option, that has a realistic 5 string electric bass sound as good as trillian? Ie, all the subtle sounds in there as well such as fingers moving on the string etc.

My current keyboard is a fantom x8 which has a usable sound but it’s not a patch on trillian.

Any suggestions would be greatly received,

Thanks,

Simon

 

[Gus Fields]

Hello Simon. I've been playing without a bass player for over 40 years and at the moment I use a Yamaha DGX 660, without a doubt the best bass sound ever, like you I play bass with my left hand. I've found to get the best bass sound you must use a separate amp and speakers. my set up is a Hiwatt and two 15" speaker cabs but I would think any valve amp (E34) would do the trick. The DGX 660 is a superb keyboard,
Good luck & Keep rockin' Gus.

 

[Duffman]

Have you tried a Roland FA-06 or the 88 weighted key FA-08 ? a ton of Bass sounds

 

[ptooner]

I use an FA08 but not so much for the bass.

 

[Duggan]

Roland Junostage finger bass good sound..I ve used it with a good while now