User Guide

Chapter 28 Sculpture 541
Fretless Bass
With the exception of shared playing techniques, the fretless bass differs from a normal
bass through its buzzing, singing sound. As the frets on the fingerboard of a standard
bass function as a collection of mini-bridges and allow the string to vibrate in an
unobstructed fashion, the direct collision of the string’s antenode with the fingerboard
on a fretless bass is responsible for its typical sound. The string length on a fretless bass
is markedly shorter than that of an acoustic double bass. The upshot of this is that a
controlled buzzing is produced, even when played with a weak attack. This buzzing can
be consistently reproduced in the high register, even on fretless basses that have very
short string lengths. The use of the comparatively soft tip of your finger, instead of a
hard, metallic fret, to divide or shorten the string also plays a role.
This is how you program a fretless bass:
1 Load the E-Bass Fingered Basic EQ1 setting.
2 Turn Object 3 off. You’ll come back to it later.
3 Choose the Object 2 Disturb type menu option.
∏ Tip: The Disturb model functions in the following way: the Timbre parameter
determines how far the string is deflected from its resting position by the obstacle.
Positive values precipitate no deflection of the vibration from its resting position.
Variation defines the length of the string section that is disturbed: positive values
correspond to a longer section of string, negative values to a correspondingly shorter
string section.
4 Adjust Object 2’s parameters to the following values: Strength 0.14, Timbre –0.05,
Variation –1.00.
5 Object 2’s pickup position remains at the far right; please enter a value of 0.99. You’ll
note that the range between C2 and C3 already sounds quite acceptable, but the
buzzing in the lower notes is still too strong. It is somewhat sitar-like, so keep this
disturb model in mind when it comes to creating a home-spun sitar.
6 Try different settings for the Strength parameter for both the higher and lower playing
ranges. You’ll see that, at best, only a compromise is possible. The buzzing is either too
loud in the low range or not present enough in the high range.
Obviously, the effect needs to be scaled over the relevant tonal range. Unlike the
parameters for the string, Objects 1 to 3 don’t have a directly adressable key scaling
function. There’s a clever way around this: Both LFOs offer a key scaling function. As
you probably don’t want the buzzing to be modulated by a periodic oscillation, you
need to reduce the LFO speed to infinitely slow or 0. In this way, you can deactivate the
LFO itself, but still use its modulation matrix.
7 Activate LFO2 by clicking on the LFO2 button at the bottom left, and set the Rate dial
to a value of 0.00 Hz.