The story
This sparkletop Fender Bass has been sitting in the corner of the studio gathering dust for many years.
Being new to KONTAKT sampling, I thought this might be a good place to start.
I’ve recorded 3 layers (p, mf and f) as well as a set of release triggers.
Apologies as I’m still trying to figure out how to incorporate the release triggers into the KONTAKT instrument.
Recorded direct through a UAD 6176. Because it has a smallish range I sampled each note.
I’m enjoying making my own sample sets and would appreciate any suggestions for improvement!
Reviews for Sparkletop Bass
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Tasty and Low
This thing is clean and fun, especially if you give extending the range up into the higher octaves a shot. A few clicks here and there, but the tone is awesome and you can groove with this thing. UI has no knobs but is big and has quite a lovely image so I'm boosting it just like it boosts my confidence.
Nice sampling but some room for improvement
This is an awesome first attempt at sampling and an awesome instrument to sample too. I can't say I'm the biggest fan of the sound personally. Ive never particularly loved the bass on rhodes, I've always been more into the warm mids and sparkly highs. You do get some mids here though which is really nice. The sample maker said that theyre still working on incorporating the release triggers. This is probably my favorite part of the rhodes so i would love to see this implemented. My main thoughts though are, if im playing a rhodes id like to just play a full range rhodes including the bass and highs. It seems kind of un necessary to separate out the bass. I cant imagine a time i would only want to use a rhodes bass but not the higher notes. I see people mentioning how the range on the keyboard is lower than it should be but i don't mind this, you can just hit the octave button on your midi keyboard. I would love to see a full sampling of this instrument. I think it would be a lot more useful
You Take The Low Rhodes
I'm always looking for basses that don't get lost in a mix and this often does the trick. Nicely percussive and good for faster parts.
Great sound that needs some work
This library has an iconic sound which is well recorded -- I love pairing my Rhodes Mark 1 with my 6176! This instrument is super playable and great sounding. There are a couple of small quirks and problems which need to be ironed out, however. First, the whole instrument sits an octave too low on the keyboard. Second, there are intonation problems with some notes. F-1 is a good example. Next, many samples are improperly edited, so they don't begin at a zero crossing. There are audible clicks at the start of many notes because of this. The sample on D#0 is also mapped to the incorrect octave so that it plays back an octave higher than it should. For a first effort, this is great, though. There are just some things that need to be looked at to make this library as great as it could be.
The classic sound, with some issues
This is a pure classic bass patch that unfortunately has some issues that won't let it shine. As Sam put in detail, although it sounds great in general, there is a misplaced D#0 key, and some there are some clicky noises in the attack of a few samples. The range is also very small, and very low placed too. With a tiny small retouch, it will be a very nice patch for many!
