Notes not hearable on Drop C Electric Bass

• Aug 29, 2020 - 21:21
Reported version
3.5
Priority
P2 - Medium
Type
Functional
Frequency
Once
Severity
S4 - Minor
Reproducibility
Always
Status
active
Regression
No
Workaround
Yes
Project

1) Tune the Strings on Electric Bass (tablature) on Drop C
2) Play any note from 0 to 9 on the 4th string
3) the notes are extremely low on volume
4) from 10 or above the notes are audible
5) repeat as many as you want
6) profit?

Attachment Size
playtesting.mscz 11.7 KB

Comments

Severity S3 - Major S4 - Minor
Workaround No Yes
Priority P2 - Medium

My guess is the default soundfont simply doesn't include sample for these notes, and they drop in vloume as they are scaled down in pitch. In any case, you can get louder notes by finding a soundfont that samples these notes better. Or you can increase their velocity in the Inspector.

Having looked at the Fingered Bass samples, the range of "quiet notes" indicated by felriq are technically just as loud as the samples that come higher, but are very different in their frequency makeup. The fundamental frequency is stronger on these low pitches, but the higher overtones are weaker, which means they will sound quieter on speakers/headphones without strong bass presence. So, it is more an abrupt change of tone than a drop in volume, and can only be truly solved if we get better bass samples. I would consider further boosting the volume of the lowest samples, but this is currently impossible as they are already playing at the maximum volume the SoundFont will allow, and the waveforms are fully normalized. In order to free the dynamic headroom for such an adjustment, I would need to reduce the volume of every other instrument in the SoundFont.

Workaround: Use the "Picked Bass" preset instead, which has stronger overtones on the lowest pitches.