I am a keyboard player only. My son is learning bass guitar and wants to bring it over to my home studio to jam with me, but would prefer not to have to haul his bass amp along.
Ideally, I would like to be able to connect his bass guitar to my keyboard setup AND have the bass guitar access my variety of bass VST’s which I use in my DAW (Sonar Platinum) and Cantabile. I have been scanning this forum for tips on how to do that but not sure if I have it figured out.
So far, from what I’ve read, I would need a simple audio interface (Behringer UMC22 for $40), and plug the bass output into the Behringer and connect the USB output to my computer (WIN 7).
I believe I can then access the bass in Sonar as an input and assign it a VST and/or an effects path out. Seems like I could also see the bass as an input in Cantabile and also assign a VST/effects path. However… my keyboards are putting out a MIDI stream and the bass guitar is not. SO… do I need some type of guitar-to-MIDI converter in addition to the audio interface to play VST’s??
Since I’ve never tried this, could sure use some help and guidance.
Would like to figure out everything I need to buy to support plugging a bass into my keyboard setup.
Greets!
What you ask for is fairly simple and so far, you have it correctly regarding using a USB audio interface. The UMC22 (available on Amazon for $29.00 at this moment), seems OK with a top resolution of 48KHz. However, a part of the equation is just how well your PC performs so as not to add latency. It should work getting the bass guitar into an input channel of Sonar… And, if NO OTHER audio input is needed, (other than the two inputs you get with the UMC), you’re perfect. About the VST things though… Yes, you can place VST effects in the audio stream, but the bass will not play MIDI VST synths in this configuration. For that, you will need another VST that actually captures the bass notes, and translates them to MIDI. It’s the BOMB-DOT-COM and I use it for both guitar and bass. MIDI Guitar & MIDI Bass are two products from Jam Origin that frankly, are quite incredible!
However, this is where latency issues can really come into play. If you cannot experience less than 9ms of latency, then this instrument is barely playable in real time. You get a free trial to try it out. -> https://www.jamorigin.com/
Also remember, the more vst’s you add, (either effects or instrument plugins), the more latency can become an issue. A PC with plenty of RAM (16GB), and processor power (I7-6G or better), will keep the delay down to minimum along with the power of the USB interface. (I use Focusrite Scarlett products, famous for their speed…).
I hope this has helped!
Note: Remember that either Cantabile or Sonar can use only ONE audio interface at a time.
BrionBell… thanks for the help. I totally forgot about the DAW and Cantabile only using one audio interface at a time. My keyboard rig is somewhat complex and I’m unwilling to mess it up to play around with the use of VST’s with a bass.
Doing this is actually simple enough, but you do need an audio interface with enough inputs - and ideally an input designed for guitar/bass (usually referred to as an ‘instrument’ input). It’s something I do with Cantabile regularly - no problem at all, as long as your interface and computer can give you low enough latency.