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Chapter 13 Sculpture 313
Emulate bass guitar damping
Playing with a pick is often combined with a damping technique that employs the ball of the
thumb. The right hand, which also holds the pick, should physically lie on top of the strings at
the bridge. This technique results in the sound having less overtone content but becoming
more percussive and punchy at the same time. You can variably control the timbre of the sound
through the angle and pressure of your hand while playing.
Object 3 will be used to emulate the virtual ball of the thumb in this example. The Timbre
parameter determines the kind of damping that occurs, and Variation dictates the length of the
string section that is being dampened.
1 Set the Object 3 type to Damp.
2 Set Object 3’s Strength parameter to 0.50.
3 Move Object 3 a little bit to the right in the Pickup display (to position 0.95) to simulate the
width and position of the ball of the thumb lying on the bridge.
4 Set Timbre to its minimum value (−1.00) to achieve a very soft damping eect.
5 Set the Variation parameter to its maximum value of 1.00.
A metallic ringing occurs during the attack phase and still can be heard in the octave above E0.
6 To suppress the ringing, move the small green diamond on the Material Pad to a position directly
under the ball. In doing so, you’ve just increased the Inner Loss value for the low key range.
Note: To place the diamond exactly under the ball, you can click it while pressing the Option key.
7 Save this setting as Pick Bass Half Muted.
Simulate harmonics created by ngers lightly touching the strings
Harmonics are single partials (overtones) of the overall sound. They can be heard by damping
certain points along the string. This is done by lightly laying the ngers of the left hand
(assuming a right-handed bass player) on the string—not pressing down—before the note is
articulated. The rst overtone, the octave, is achieved by placing your nger at the exact middle
of the string—in eect separating the string into two halves. The next overtone is the fth above
the octave, and the position of your nger should divide the string into a ratio of one-third to
two-thirds. The next overtone separates the string into proportions of one-quarter to three-
quarters, and so on.
1 Object 3 is used as a damper. Choose the Damp type.
2 Adjust Object 3’s Timbre parameter to its maximum value of 1.00.
3 Adjust Variation to its initial value of 0.00 by clicking the Variation slider while holding down the
Option key.
4 Move Object 3 to the exact middle (0.50) of the Pickup display. Play the keyboard, and you’ll hear
the rst overtone as a harmonic.
5 While playing, very slowly move Object 3 toward the left of the Pickup display. In doing this, you
are eectively scrolling through the overtone series, so to speak.
6 Save this setting as Flageolet Xmple.