Scarbee Bass - slides intermittantly not working

OK so I'm trying to get slides working on Scarbee Pre Bass. Have managed to get these to work, however, they randomly stop working.

For example, I continually repeat a slide down then on the fifth time for example it just stops doing the slide. It's so erratic and driving me nuts. Can anyone offer a solution please?

Thanks
Al

 

Hi Al,

it should behave just like on a real bass, i.e. when you reach the end of the string you cannot continue to slide outside of the string. If you want to make a long down-slide then make sure that you are starting at a high enough fret. You can do this by inserting a position keyswitch corresponding to a high fret number before you trigger the source note of the slide. Alternatively you can select a certain string by using a string keyswitch - a string where the source note of the slide will be on a high fret number.

Please have a look at the fretboard display while you play and make sure that you are not trying to slide outside of the string range and I think you'll be fine. Good luck!

 

Hey! thanks so much for that quick reply, I appreciate it!

Your answer doesn't really solve my problem unfortunately. To give you an example, say I hold a low G, then sustain while holding G octave higher. I hear that slide perfectly and I can repeat this time and time again, every time I hear the slide.

Now, on the exact same down slide the story is different. Again from high G to Octave below G the down slide happens just once (sometimes randonly twice), but then stops sliding. It' just plain stops! I'm using the same velocity as I am when the slide works so can't figure out why the down slides are erratically just failing.

I can't think I am the only one with this problem?

does that explain my situ any better that you may be able to see another solution?

Thanks so much, hope to hear back.

Cheers
Al

 

Please have a look at the virtual fretboard in the user-interface. When you play the source/attack note of the slide (i.e. before you start to actually slide) there'll be a marker indicating what string and fret is used. If you are planning on sliding down say 12 semitones, then please ensure that there actually are 12 frets available on that string in the direction you want to slide. Your reply didn't contain any confirmation of whether you had checked this.

On a real bass if you play a note on fret number 4 on some string it is not possible to slide down an octave since you would reach the end of the string before reaching the imagined slide end note. On Pre Bass it's just the same.

Please note that when you perform a long slide the hand position (shown as a little horizontal bar above the fretboard display) is automatically moved - just like a real bass player's hand would move. The hand position determines the range of frets preferred for the next note you trigger. This simulates how a real bass player normally chooses frets that are within a comfortable distance from the current hand position along the neck.

Now and then a real bass player will choose to move the hand a longer distance than is strictly needed in order to get the desired sound (high or low frets) or make certain slide/pull-off/hammer-on articulations possible. In these cases you will need to mimic these decisions by taking manual control over the hand position. You can do this by either controlling the hand position directly using keyswitches or a MIDI controller, or you can control the hand position indirectly by using a string keyswitch that forces a note to be played on a certain string (or strings if you combine multiple string keyswitches). I hope this helps.

 

Thanks Kotori.

I think you've maybe misunderstood my last post. I've taken some video which should explain the erratic problem I'm having.

Please see here [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVLESiKPzsc"]Scarbee pre bass down slide problem - YouTube[/ame]

Hope you can understand my frustration, and hope you can help.

Thanks
Al

 

I'm sorry, but you have still not reported what the hand position is when you start that down-slide and whether there is enough space left on the bass string to perform an octave slide. Without that information I'm inclined to believe that there is not enough space, i.e. you're starting from a fret number that is too low for a downwards octave slide.

Please note that one and the same note may be played on multiple strings. Which string is selected depends on the hand position. If you start from a high fret number and slide a long way down it means that the hand will move to low fret numbers (i.e. to the left in the user-interface). If you intend to make a new long down-slide there is no way for the script to know your intentions, so you have to indicate that you want the next note (the start note of the slide) to be played at a high fret number (see my post above for different ways of doing this).

Edit: in case you wonder about the difference between up- and down-slides it might be explained by the fact that notes near the bottom or top range of the instrument may only be possible to play on one specific string. For example, the lowest F can only be played on fret 1 of the E string, so playing it will force the hand position to move there. For notes in the middle of the playable range there are more choices.

 

Hi. There's definately enough space on the fret. Can't you hear the first down slide working perfectly in my youtube clip? And subsequent down slides not working?

It makes zero difference if I do just a third down slide, the problem is the same. I'm not making this up honest, and I know about the limits of the fret etc..

 

Please specify the fret number and string used for playing the top note (source note) of the slides that you cannot get to work (not for the first slide). You can see this on the fretboard display in the instrument user-interface after playing the note (or you can just play the note and make a screenshot while the marker on the fretboard is still displayed).

The start note of the second down-slide attempt in your video sounds like it's played on a different string and on a lower fret number than the first, which would be consistent with my analysis above. Are you really sure that the fret number is high enough to allow for an octave slide down?

 

Do you manage to trigger the slides now? Did things become clearer?

 

I’ve been following this and others threads about Scarbee Rickembacker trying to learn as much as I can before buying it so let me see if I'm understanding what you’re explaining: no matter if I press exactly the same keys on the keyboard more than once trying to get the same slide two or more times - depending on where the first note are played or triggered in the Scarbee freetboard the slide won’t be possible so I’ll have to somehow force it to play the first note in the same string and fret it used to play the first slide when it worked. Is that correct?

 

Hi,

judging only by the discussion above it may seem more complex than it really is.
The important thing to understand is that the instrument is always in a particular state in terms of the hand position along the neck. For example, this (virtual) hand position may be close to the lowest fret, close to the highest fret or somewhere in the middle. The hand position is displayed as a white horizontal bar above the fretboard display in the user-interface. It mimics the hand of a real bass player and spans the four frets where it at the moment would be possible to comfortably play notes without having to move the hand.

When you play a note on your keyboard it would often be possible to play it on multiple bass strings (since the note ranges of strings overlap), which means a choice has to be made. The Kontakt script in the instrument will look at what articulation the note is, what other notes that are still played (if any), and the hand position and determine which string is most suitable to use for the note. The script automatically analyses this and tries to select a string in a way that mimics what a real bass would choose in that situation and then plays the note on that string for you.

If a hand movement is necessary in order to play a new note, then the virtual hand position displayed in the user-interface moves accordingly (automatically of course). Normally the goal is to minimize hand movements which means that the hand will not move that much. However, if you make a long slide it will make the hand position gradually move towards the target note. The string selection for the next note you play will then be based on that possibly new (and automatically adjusted) hand position.

If you slided up then a high fret number will be used for the next note and vice versa if you slided down. Now, let's say that you made a long slide up and don't want to continue playing on high fret numbers. Since there is no way for the script to read your mind you need to insert some kind of indication that you want to play at low fret numbers again. You can do this by either inserting a keyswitch in order to move the hand position, or you can map MIDI CC to a slider on your keyboard and turn it down in order to shift the hand position.

The posts above may make it seem like some kind of manual restore is always necessary after a slide. That is not the case. For example, you might actually want to continue playing at the frets where the slide ended, and in case the slide is short the hand position might not even move or move a very short distance which means that subsequent notes will be played near the original ones.

It's the combination of your key and the current hand position that determines the outcome, so yes, if the hand position (which is automatically adjusted as you play) is different you may get different results. However, it's never a mystery why you get the result you do because the hand position is clearly displayed in the UI, as are the notes you play. If you play a short slide the (virtual) hand doesn't have to move far and you can get the same result when repeating the same sequence twice without any need for keyswitches. If you play a long slide and want to continue playing a phrase around the target fret of the slide, then the behaviour of the instrument is helpful.

Please also note that the string selection is always predictable. Given the same input and the same initial hand position, you will always hear the same thing.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope this answers your questions. Feel free to ask again otherwise.
Btw. please checkout the ProTools Expert Review.

Nils Liberg - developer of the Scarbee bass scripts

 

Hi,

I'm really really thankfull to you for taking the time to provide such a detailed & informative answer, I don't think I could find the right words to thank you properly.

That will help me a lot and probably many others too.

All the best.

 

Very good explanation Nils! The Scarbee instruments are stellar and are all over my live kit and recordings. Thank you so much.

 

Sorry it's taken me so long to post the info you required.

Here is a new video that hopefully catches all the info on display. Again you hear the downslide works once or twice then fails.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn7EIVOUjAg"]Scarbee video 2. Downside problem. - YouTube[/ame]

Hope you can shed light on this. Thanks

Al

 

Hi Al,

it behaves as it is supposed to.

If you look just above the fretboard you see a horizontal white dotted line that indicates the hand position. The instrument script typically prefers to pick frets within or near that range. As you slide down you can see how the hand moves from the right to the left in the video - down to low fret numbers. Since the hand is now where it is, the next note will be played at a low fret number, or to be more precise in fret 5 on the D string in this case. Like I said above, it is not possible to play an octave-down slide from fret 5 (neither on a real bass nor on this virtual instrument). Since it is impossible to play that slide and it would be unintuitive to just get silence, the script picks the second best option of playing a normal sustain note instead.

In order to slide down an octave you need to make sure that the source note is played at a sufficiently high fret number. In case a jump from the current hand position is necessary in order to get to the right fret (corresponding to a longer movement of the real bass player's hand), you can achieve that in several ways:
1) set the hand position using a fret keyswitch (this has the side effect of generating a fret noise, which can be useful)
2) set the hand position using a midi controller (see the instrument Settings)
3) activate the string you want to use using a string keyswitch

Please note that for shorter slides or when the current hand position is already near the right spot this kind of manual control is normally not needed.

As for the difference between the up-slide and down-slide case it is easily explained. The source note that you use for the up-slide is only available on the E-string and hence the E string will be used, which means that there is always room to slide up.

I hope this clears up things a bit.

Nils

 

I am having a similar problem, though in Scarbee Rickenbacker, with slides only working part of the time.
I am aware of the hand positions etc. and this has happened even as I have watched the graphic interface jump from a low note to a higher note ( or vice versa) on the same string. Sometimes it jumps from the low note to the high note without initiating a slide (No it isn’t crossing strings),and sometimes it does initiate a slide. It happened today when I was using the slide articulation in a scarbee bass clip in my DAW (Sonar 8.5). Sometimes the slide would work, other times not. I checked for pedal up and pedal down inconsistencies in the clip, but the slide failed under exactly the same circumstances as when it worked.
I reiterate, the failed slide note did not cross strings to fail; it was not out of string range (it was actually a D on fret 10 bottom string sliding to a lower A on fret 5 bottom string) and the failure occurred under exactly the same circumstances as when it succeeded.

 

Hi Dilaco,

did you check that the pedal is pressed some time before the slide target note is triggered and released some time after it? If you activate the pedal at the exact same time (a quantized position) in your song, then depending on what host you use you might get a race condition where it is not possible to guarantee that the pedal message always comes before the note.

(I am assuming that you have verified that the source note of the attempted slide is played on the same string and fret every time you test the sequence that you are having problem with)

Nils

 

Like I said, I have actually watched the graphic go to the same string note without initiating the slide. To answer first question, yes, I always draw in the pedal-down sometime before the target note and then after the target note I pedal up. When I noticed it wasn’t always doing the slide I even put in an extra pedal up a few notes before the pedal down to see if that helped (it made no difference). I didn’t mention that I had the “Force E string” keyswitch held down also – way before the 2 notes played (both the slide-from and slide-to notes).
Once when I was manually playing (as distinct from playing back a clip) I couldn’t get it to slide at all. I had to close Scarbee bass in Kontakt and then re-open it. Then it worked.

 

I have the same problem. Sometimes slide works perfectly and suddenly with any fret it stop working completely