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Chapter 24 Sculpture 429
Play some notes in the lower range. you’ll note that the sound is very muffled, hollow,
and distorted. Before we adjust further parameters in Object 1, we need to set the posi-
tion of the Pickup.
This is accomplished in Sculpture’s Pickup window located to the left of the Material
Pad (see the GUI detail above). You’ll find three trapezoidally shaped sliders, represen-
ting Objects 1 to 3. Both of the transparent bell-shaped curves help you to visualize the
position and width of Pickup A and Pickup B.
On electric basses, the pickups are found quite a way off to the side and near the
bridge. We also assume that our bass only has a single pickup.
We can simulate the behavior of a single pickup by placing both Pickups at exactly the
same position.
5 Keep an eye on the Help Tag, and drag Pickup B to the exact position of Pickup A. The
two thin orange lines should overlap perfectly.
Note: Make sure that the Invert switch to the lower left of the Pickup window isn’t
turned on, as this would cause the Pickups to completely cancel each other out.
6 As a suitable value for our example, set both Pickups to 0.10.
It’s now time to determine the playing position:
7 Grab the Object 1 slider in the Pickup window and move it in a horizontal direction.
Play the keyboard while doing so, to hear the changes it makes.
8 You’ll quickly realize that you can only achieve a precise, crisp sound when relatively far
away from the middle of the string. Move Object 1 closer to the Pickup (position 0.15—
see GUI detail below).
9 The low notes are still distorted. You can remedy this by adjusting the Level dial found
to the right of the Amplitude Envelope. Set a value of −10 dB.
Although you can already recognize the sound of an electric bass, it doesn’t sound
“wiry” enough yet. Let us now direct our attention to the bass strings themselves.