Most Bass Guitar Patches are Way Too Quiet

[ShadowsOfLife]

I'm auditioning the bass sounds that came with the latest version of ST3.x, but most of them are too low in volume to be usable. Is this a known issue? I searched the forum but didn't find anything specific about this.

None of the "release notes" associated with any update offers anything about this.

The "Fretless J Bass" is loud enough to be usable, and the "Produced Upright Bass" will actually peak in the red (in ST3.x's meters) if you hit a key hard enough. Many of the others barely move the meters 1/3 of the way off "silent"; most don't even go half-way into the green area on the levels.

Here's a short list of some of the bass patches/sounds that are nowhere near the same level as the "usable" ones:

The entire 4001 Bass set. Every sound in there.

MM 5-String Bass (Pick)

Hollow Body (Finger and Pick)

J Bass (Pick): Almost every sound in there.

P Bass: Basically everything other than the "Motown" sounds. The "Pick Flat-wound" sets are laughably low, barely lighting the first segment in the meter!

For whatever reason, IKMM has an EQ and compressor on EVERY instrument in ST2.5x and ST3.x sounds. Most of these sounds also have an additional compressor. Why can't the sounds for the bass be more consistent?!?

Turning up the loudspeaker/headphone monitor level or turning up ST3.x's output is NOT a solution here, because the NEXT bass sound you audition could blow your speakers or damage your hearing!

What's going on here, guys? I have all the latest updates installed, and this ONLY happens with certain bass sounds. I really like ST3.x, and I'm trying to incorporate it into my projects more, but things like this (and other stuff I haven't bothered to report) make it unusable.

Thanks.

Steve

[ConfessChrist]

I just checked it out and it appears to be the "SVT Classic" effect on the instruments you listed that gives the volume problem. When I disable that effect the sounds become much louder. Not sure they did that intentionally or not....but I would play with the Gain/Volume setting on that effect to get the level you want....or disable it altogether.

[ShadowsOfLife]

I just checked it out and it appears to be the "SVT Classic" effect on the instruments you listed that gives the volume problem. When I disable that effect the sounds become much louder. Not sure they did that intentionally or not....but I would play with the Gain/Volume setting on that effect to get the level you want....or disable it altogether.

Thanks! Is the "SVT Classic" on most of the ones I mentioned? I'm not at my DAW right now, but I'll check it out ASAP.

Steve

[ConfessChrist]

Hi Steve,
Yes, it's on the ones you mentioned. It's probably worth reporting it to IK Multimedia Support just in case it's something they would want to fix.

[ShadowsOfLife]

Hi Steve,
Yes, it's on the ones you mentioned. It's probably worth reporting it to IK Multimedia Support just in case it's something they would want to fix.

Thanks, but I've already reported the issue itself to them. Their response was, "It goes without saying that the bass guitar is generally quieter...". From there, they basically said everything was fine on their end, and if I wanted some of the bass guitars to be louder, I should modify each individual patch, and turn up the volume or edit the amp envelope.

I checked the "SVT Classic" issue for myself. If you disable it in the effects chain, the volume does improve on those instruments I've mentioned.

What I also found was that the "EQ Comp" was invariably turned down on the affected instruments, from 2.3 to 12 dB! Setting the final "Gain" knob to 0 helped some of the patches quite a bit.

So basically, when creating the preset(s), someone turned the volume down at the beginning of the signal chain and then added a bass amplifier simulation that somehow lowered the output volume further (even though the knobs were not set to lower the volume). And yet, somehow, no one heard or saw this problem when auditioning the patches.

I will submit these finding to IKMM support. I doubt they'll admit there's anything "wrong" with the way the "SVT Classic" was implemented, or that turning down the level at the beginning of the signal chain may also have something to do with it.

Thanks for your help, ConfessChrist!

Steve

[DarkStar]

I tried a couple - they sound OK to me. Can you post the Macro and FX control settings for "J Bass Pick"? Here they are:

>>> http://i.imgur.com/LxXxYqr.png

(But I am using ST3 v3.3 and have not applied the v3.5 Sound Library Update (dated March 2015).

[ConfessChrist]

My settings for "J Bass Pick" are the same as yours DarkStar.

The instruments sound great, the volume is just low compared to other instruments in ST3. Not a big deal if you know that in advance and know how to tweak it. Here's a few images, one comparing drums to the J Bass and a couple in Reaper showing the relative volumes. With the untouched loaded presets playing patterns the J Bass is peaking at -27.4 with the Jazz Drums at -7.5.

http://imgur.com/a/VQSnR

[ShadowsOfLife]

I tried a couple - they sound OK to me. Can you post the Macro and FX control settings for "J Bass Pick"? Here they are:

>>> http://i.imgur.com/LxXxYqr.png

(But I am using ST3 v3.3 and have not applied the v3.5 Sound Library Update (dated March 2015).

My settings for J Bass Pick are the same as yours.

Load J Bass Pick and another instrument (say, Nylon String 2 Fingered), assign them to the same MIDI channel in ST3, and watch your levels and listen for the bass as you hit notes. You will be hard-pressed to hear the bass guitar.

But if you replace J Bass Pick with Produced Upright Bass and hit the same keys, you'll see it is much louder than the nylon string guitar, and you can actually hear it!

The overall sound (not level) of J Bass Pick is okay--for a sampled bass guitar. But if you're scrolling through the patches and auditioning different bass sounds, J Bass Pick is very different in volume/level than the other samples of that (ostensibly) same guitar.

Compare it to any patches in the J Bass Fingered set. Since when is a picked bass guitar quieter than a fingered one?

IKMM's support hasn't responded to me since I asked for a better answer than "you can change the amp envelopes and output levels for all the patches yourself"/"bass guitars are quiet in general" [which they're not, unless you just don't amplify them, and that is not the case for these samples].

As ConfessChrist pointed out, it seems to be the bass amp effect that's creating most of the problem: turning the amp head effect OFF makes the patch considerably louder.

I honestly don't expect any resolution on this, but I hope someone else at least understands there is a problem with the wildly different levels.

Steve

[ShadowsOfLife]

My settings for "J Bass Pick" are the same as yours DarkStar.

The instruments sound great, the volume is just low compared to other instruments in ST3. Not a big deal if you know that in advance and know how to tweak it. Here's a few images, one comparing drums to the J Bass and a couple in Reaper showing the relative volumes. With the untouched loaded presets playing patterns the J Bass is peaking at -27.4 with the Jazz Drums at -7.5.

http://imgur.com/a/VQSnR

And while I know how to tweak the preset, this isn't the only problem. We could tweak all the quiet presets, raise the amp envelope (and probably just make a noisy sample louder) and save the "improved" preset.

We could save each modified bass patch to our own folder (where IK stores user patches). But the original factory patches would still be in ST3, right? We would end up with two versions of many of the bass guitars. And if we wanted to audition them to choose one for a song, we would have to remember to load the ones we've edited (if we knew we had an edited version) instead of the original factory patches.

And what happens when IK releases yet another update to the sound libraries? Will our changes be overwritten with the new (and still bad) patches from IK when ST3 reads the new index? Our files won't be overwritten, but if ST3 only indexes what's in the (official) "Instruments Cache.db", it won't "remember" the ones we stored somewhere else.

Seems like a mess to me.

Steve

[DarkStar]

Sorry, I'm not seeing it here - there must be something different between your install and mine.

Below I have all three instruments loaded, no changes other than output routing, played at a low and a high velocity C1. Alongside are Reaper's Mixer channels.

>>> http://i.imgur.com/cP96slD.png

Ask IK Multimedia Support to try out this same test.

-----------------
As for Sounds Library Updates: yes the factory instrument (or sample) files or both will be overwritten. In fact there have been 2 (3?) sounds updates since the original release. I think that you should be able to save the instrument with a different name and that should not be overwritten. Rebuilding the cache should find your modified saved instrument too. Why not try it out now? You've nothing to lose.

[ConfessChrist]

Sorry, I'm not seeing it here - there must be something different between your install and mine.

Below I have all three instruments loaded, no changes other than output routing, played at a low and a high velocity C1. Alongside are Reaper's Mixer channels.

>>> http://i.imgur.com/cP96slD.png

Ask IK Multimedia Support to try out this same test.

Interesting! Thanks for posting. You don't have any effects on the Master in ST3 do you? I will have to check my other system and see how it behaves.

[DarkStar]

Nope, I just loaded ST3 then the 3 Instruments and set the outputs

[debeerac]

I've been using SampleTank for a number of weeks, but tonight I'm having this same problem. All sounds were acceptable levels, but tonight all the bass sounds, drums, electronic piano and a bunch of others from other categories are ridiculously quiet. Why would that be all of a sudden? How do I fix it?

[Peter_IK]

I've been using SampleTank for a number of weeks, but tonight I'm having this same problem. All sounds were acceptable levels, but tonight all the bass sounds, drums, electronic piano and a bunch of others from other categories are ridiculously quiet. Why would that be all of a sudden? How do I fix it?

Please report this to IK Support as you can see that the issue reported above was not recreatable by our forum moderator. IK Support will dive in and troubleshoot and find out what is causing the issue you are experiencing. They can be reached at http://www.ikmultimedia.com/contact-support/mi/