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Chapter 13 Sculpture 305
Recreate the sound characteristics of a typical bass instrument
1 Set the Attack value of the amplitude envelope to its minimum value (0.00 ms). The A(ttack)
slider is just to the right of the Material Pad.
2 Shorten the Release time of the amplitude envelope to a value between 4 and 5 ms.
Play a key on your keyboard. The note should stop abruptly when you release the key and should
be free of artifacts (a digital crackle or snap). If you encounter any artifacts, carefully increase the
Release time.
3 Play some sustained notes in the range above E 0. These will die away too quickly. Correct this
quick die-out with the Media Loss parameter by dragging the slider to the left of the Material
Pad almost all the way down to the bottom. Note that the low E string on a high-quality bass can
sound for over a minute.
Your basic bass should simulate a ngered articulation, which means that the sound is created
by striking the strings with ngers.
4 Choose Pick from the Type pop-up menu of Object 1.
Don’t be confused by the name of the object type; despite the name pick, this model is
appropriate for simulating the playing of strings with your ngers.
Play some notes in the lower range. You’ll hear that the sound is very mued, hollow, and
distorted. Before you adjust further parameters in Object 1, you need to set the position of
the pickup.
This is accomplished in Sculpture’s Pickup display located to the left of the Material Pad. You’ll
nd three arrow-shaped sliders, representing Objects 1 to 3. The two 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 o to the side and near the bridge. This
particular bass has only a single pickup.
The behavior of a single pickup is simulated by placing both pickups at exactly the
same position.
5 Drag Pickup B to the exact position of Pickup A while keeping an eye on the help tag. The two
thin orange lines should overlap perfectly. As a suitable value for the example, set both pickups
to 0.10.
Note: Make sure the Invert switch to the lower left of the Pickup display isn’t turned on, because
this would cause the pickups to completely cancel each other out.
It’s now time to determine the playing position.
6 Drag the Object 1 slider in the Pickup display in a horizontal direction. Play the keyboard while
doing so, to hear the changes it makes.