Fluffy Audio / Simple Jazz Bass

[Piet De Ridder]

Based on the demo's, an excellent new sampled upright bass: Simple Jazz Bass] from Fluffly Audio.
(Congratulations, Paoling! I think you just released the first serious contender to my long-standing and thusfar unchallenged favourite, the Premier.)
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Features:
- 1240 Samples
- 370 mb installed (compressed with in NCW format)
- Two Mic Positions
- 24 bit / 48 kHz stereo
- Legato, Glissando and FX
- Additional Noise Sounds
- Realistic Releases
- Neighbour Note RR

The instrument is now on SALE at an introductory price of 34$/€. Then after March 6th, it will go to 49$/€.
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[kpc]

Sounds fantastic and at that price, seems like a really nice deal.

Piet, if this truly is going to supplant your Premiere bass, that is saying something indeed.

Congrats Paoling!

[Ashermusic]

I have it, and at first I did not dig the tone, but I have now gotten used to it and I am liking it.

[Niah]

I am very picky when it comes to samples upright basses, but at first glance this has my vote.

[Jaap]

Sounds very musical and listening to the first demo I really had the feeling that I listened to nicely improvised live session. Great work!

[Piet De Ridder]

Well, it’s not Premier league. That became quickly clear after spending some time with it. But it’s sensationally good, especially considering its ridiculously low price.

The “it’s sensationally good” is also the most frustrating thing about this library, because if only this bass had been sampled a bit more extensively — or ‘deeply’, in developers’ speak — it *would* definitely be Premier league. Everything that’s here is excellent, there’s just not enough of it to make this a top quality instrument.
(But again, with a price like that, there’s obviously no suggestion that this library has any such aspirations. Still, I’d have been happier if the price had been five or even ten times what it is now, with the instrument being sampled and programmed accordingly. That would have made this release immediately an unstoppable contender for the top 3 of sampled upright basses. As it is: not quite.)

But where so many other sampled uprights fail — not finding just the right balance in the attack that makes all the difference between a nice convincing pluck and a distracting, obnoxious thonk — the Fluffy bass does remarkably well. The sustains are nice and juicy too (which is, for example, where the Ample upright disappoints a bit) and the timbre and sound of the instrument allow for a surprisingly large range of articulations and styles.
The scripted cunning which Fluffy Audio has implemented to compensate for the lack of samples, works quite well too. Not always entirely convincing of course, but certainly more than good enough to be of use when you have the bass perform its duties in the nether regions of a mix.

Personally, I would have assigned the modwheel to control some kind of vibrato (LFO-generated, I suppose), rather than have it control the volume of the instrument (which is less useful, I find, with a bass than it is with strings, brass or winds), but that’s just a minor detail. And easily adjustable, if you’re prepared to do some editing inside Kontakt.

In short: an indecently erect thumb’s up for the Fluffy Simple Jazz Bass. Here’s a little run-through.

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[paoling]

Thank you for your kind words!

I need to credit you Piet, for your excellent comparisons, because they were a strong influence when we were working on this instrument.
And yes, I agree the Acoustic Premier 2 is one of the most beautiful basses for Kontakt. So, contrary to what I do usually, I bought it to explore it a bit more further. We liked the fact that you can feel the instrument vibrating, that it's not boomy as many basses and it sounds very natural.
About the quantity of content, while I agree that there could have been some real RRs, if you look at the articulations, the instrument has almost exactly the same amount of content of the Premier: 4 dynamic layers, slide up and down and semitone legato (we have also wholetone legatos). 1400 samples with three mics the Premier, 1200 samples us with 2 mics. The Premier is at 96khz in wav (1.8 gb), we have 300 mb at 48khz, in ncw.

So there is not a big difference is terms of quantity of content. But it's true that there are lots of other Acoustic Basses that have a lot more content. And also stereo micing (which surprisingly I don't love for Bass)

Beside this, we relied on Nicola excellent ears to get the sound right. And we made the instrument to make it easy as possible to understand and play.

We called this instrument "Simple" for three reasons:

1) The amount of content could be more to match other more expensive libraries in this area (not the Premier)
2) We have plans for working more on a specifically jazz oriented project soon in the future, with better gear and a studio technician who recorded some of my favourite jazz albums ever.
3) When working on My Romance demo for our Scoring Piano I was struggling for finding some good and cheap double bass and drums. In the end I used a 10 mb double bass for UVI and Pettinhouse Brush Kit. So there was "a market" for a cheap but good alternatives.

Finally the funny thought was: if this is "Simple" imagine how it would be when they do it "Pro"

Thanks for your suggestions Piet, I will consider the vibrato idea, actually we have a vibrato script ready, but I will add it only if I can make it sounding right for this instrument.

Indecent question: I LOVED your demo! I wouldn't mind at all if you would let us add it to our thin demo list. (let me say I would LOVE to add it to our demo list...)

[Piet De Ridder]

Thanks, Paoling. And that little demo is, of course, all yours.
Looking forward to what you will be pulling next out of the Fluffy pork pie hat!

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[paoling]

Thank you very much Piet.

[Pablo Crespo]

Just bought it, can't stop playing around while I should be working!

Beautiful tone, and playability

I second the idea of a subtle vibrato option with cc1, that could make it even better!
Congrats

[Ashermusic]

Capturing a beautiful tone is what Paolo does so well and since for me, tone is king, I like most of his products.

[paoling]

Thank you guys. This has been one of the most pleasant releases ever.