Trilian for electric and upright bass?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Post Reply
SvenH
Posts: 205
Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2016 5:40 am
Contact:

Trilian for electric and upright bass?

Post by SvenH » Sat Mar 24, 2018 11:10 am

Spectrasonics Trilian is quite old now. I wonder how it (in the non synth teritory) holds up against alternatives like e.g. Native Instruments, Acoustic Samples, Orange Tree Samples, Ampleosund, etc. I am specifically interested in

Ease of use/playability
Expressiveness
Sound quality

Any issues with Ableton Live 10? (It's a shame that there is no trial available)

Grateful for replies from users with first hand experience. Sven

jlgrimes
Posts: 1773
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2007 1:55 am
Location: Atlanta, Ga

Re: Trilian for electric and upright bass?

Post by jlgrimes » Sat Mar 24, 2018 2:24 pm

SvenH wrote:Spectrasonics Trilian is quite old now. I wonder how it (in the non synth teritory) holds up against alternatives like e.g. Native Instruments, Acoustic Samples, Orange Tree Samples, Ampleosund, etc. I am specifically interested in

Ease of use/playability
Expressiveness
Sound quality

Any issues with Ableton Live 10? (It's a shame that there is no trial available)

Grateful for replies from users with first hand experience. Sven

For electric basses I like the NI Scarbee basses the best.

Trilian has more variety though. I especially love the synth basses of Trilian.


I think Trilian has better acoustic basses but I don’t really have a NI acoustic library to compare with just the factory stuff.

SvenH
Posts: 205
Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2016 5:40 am
Contact:

Re: Trilian for electric and upright bass?

Post by SvenH » Sat Mar 24, 2018 3:17 pm

jlgrimes wrote:For electric basses I like the NI Scarbee basses the best.

Trilian has more variety though. I especially love the synth basses of Trilian.

I think Trilian has better acoustic basses but I don’t really have a NI acoustic library to compare with just the factory stuff.
Why do you prefer Scarbee basses over those in Trilian?

jlgrimes
Posts: 1773
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2007 1:55 am
Location: Atlanta, Ga

Re: Trilian for electric and upright bass?

Post by jlgrimes » Sat Mar 24, 2018 5:15 pm

SvenH wrote:
jlgrimes wrote:For electric basses I like the NI Scarbee basses the best.

Trilian has more variety though. I especially love the synth basses of Trilian.

I think Trilian has better acoustic basses but I don’t really have a NI acoustic library to compare with just the factory stuff.
Why do you prefer Scarbee basses over those in Trilian?

Realism/Expressiveness

The NI basses sound almost like real basses played by great players and makes extensive use of KSP scripting for added realism. Trilian is great as well but sounds more like a keyboardist playing a electric bass Sample. If you are a great keyboardist, you can make Trilian sound real but IMO KSP makes it easier. That said NI instruments have a learning curve and are more like synths and playing a video game with hidden cheat codes. You often have to read the documentation to learn it’s tricks but when you learn them, they add realism like no other sample libraries. The Scarbee basses highlights some of the best uses for NI scripting.


Trilian is nowhere as expressive as Scarbee but it has probably more samples but it feels more like playing a great Sample library on an old Akai, where NI almost takes the Sample library concept and adds the ability to do slides and has a more realistic legato feel to it.

My brother a bass player heard my tracks using Scarbee and thought I hired a great bass player.

Also Trilian is more of a preset machine and will have like hundreds of presets where NI will only give you a few just like a real bass. The idea is more of tweaking the interface as a bass player would probably just bring like one or two basses to a gig but can get an infinite number of sounds depending on how he tweaks pickups, plays strings.
Last edited by jlgrimes on Sat Mar 24, 2018 5:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

SvenH
Posts: 205
Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2016 5:40 am
Contact:

Re: Trilian for electric and upright bass?

Post by SvenH » Sat Mar 24, 2018 5:31 pm

jlgrimes wrote:
SvenH wrote:Why do you prefer Scarbee basses over those in Trilian?
Realism/Expressiveness

The NI basses sound almost like real basses played by great players and makes extensive use of KSP scripting for added realism. Trilian is great as well but sounds more like a keyboardist playing a electric bass Sample. If you are a great keyboardist, you can make Trilian sound real but IMO KSP makes it easier. That said NI instruments have a learning curve and are more like synths and playing a video game with hidden cheat codes. You often have to read the documentation to learn it’s tricks but when you learn them, they add realism like no other sample libraries. The Scarbee basses highlights some of the best uses for NI scripting.

Trilian is nowhere as expressive as Scarbee but it has probably more samples but it feels more like playing a great Sample library on an old Akai, where NI almost takes the Sample library concept and adds the ability to do slides and has a more realistic legato feel to it.

My brother a bass player heard my tracks using Scarbee and thought I hired a great bass player.
Very interesting! I think I have read comments elsewhere that Trilian sounds more realistic! Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts!

jlgrimes
Posts: 1773
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2007 1:55 am
Location: Atlanta, Ga

Re: Trilian for electric and upright bass?

Post by jlgrimes » Sat Mar 24, 2018 5:37 pm

SvenH wrote:
jlgrimes wrote:
SvenH wrote:Why do you prefer Scarbee basses over those in Trilian?
Realism/Expressiveness

The NI basses sound almost like real basses played by great players and makes extensive use of KSP scripting for added realism. Trilian is great as well but sounds more like a keyboardist playing a electric bass Sample. If you are a great keyboardist, you can make Trilian sound real but IMO KSP makes it easier. That said NI instruments have a learning curve and are more like synths and playing a video game with hidden cheat codes. You often have to read the documentation to learn it’s tricks but when you learn them, they add realism like no other sample libraries. The Scarbee basses highlights some of the best uses for NI scripting.

Trilian is nowhere as expressive as Scarbee but it has probably more samples but it feels more like playing a great Sample library on an old Akai, where NI almost takes the Sample library concept and adds the ability to do slides and has a more realistic legato feel to it.

My brother a bass player heard my tracks using Scarbee and thought I hired a great bass player.
Very interesting! I think I have read comments elsewhere that Trilian sounds more realistic! Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts!
Disagree with Trilian sounding better.

I do more Hip Hop/R&B though and Scarbee sounds smoother but that said, I think when I first played it, I didn’t like it but it was more because I didn’t understand the interface or the scripting.

Trilian probably has better acoustic though as the stock NI acoustic is OK.

Some of the Trilian basses can have an edgier quality more suited to Rock but IMO it isn’t as playable as NI.

mholloway
Posts: 1578
Joined: Sat Nov 29, 2008 7:24 pm
Location: Portland, Oregon, USA

Re: Trilian for electric and upright bass?

Post by mholloway » Sat Mar 24, 2018 7:00 pm

IMHO, Trilian blows away all the NI content. I have Komplete Ultimate, so I've tested out all the Scarbee stuff. I use Trilian all the time, and I never touch the Scarbee stuff anymore. It's just not as good!

Trilian also has more flexibility and depth. But the botton line for me is that it just sounds better, both for electric and acoustic bass.

Also, it uses the foot pedal for sustaining notes, but releasing the sustained note automatically before the next note is played (e.g. if you want to play a series of notes without breaks in between but without the notes doubling up over one another). With scarbee, this requires a keyswitch. I *much* prefer the Trilian method of using the foot pedal instead.
my industrial music made with Ableton Live (as DEAD WHEN I FOUND HER): https://deadwhenifoundher.bandcamp.com/
my dark jazz / noir music made with Ableton Live: https://michaelarthurholloway.bandcamp. ... guilt-noir

jestermgee
Posts: 4500
Joined: Mon Apr 26, 2010 6:38 am

Re: Trilian for electric and upright bass?

Post by jestermgee » Sat Mar 24, 2018 10:12 pm

What "sounds better" is mostly subjective and personal.

I own both NI Komplete 10U with the Scarbee Bass and Trilian.

I'm not a professional Bass player or anything but I like Trilian for the fact it has a wide range of bass sounds and built in effects to tune a sound very fast. Both sound great but I also look on the whole at the vendors and I find Spectrasonics pays way more attention to detail with things, NI are focused on releasing as much stuff in every category of software/hardware that they can but seem to have very limited resources to do wo with the slow speed they operate.

Trilian has a simple macro system that has 8 controls for every sound which you can map to a controller and use to quickly adjust the main aspects of each instrument quickly which I find quite useful. The fact it has both electric and acoustic basses covers a lot of ground too.

SvenH
Posts: 205
Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2016 5:40 am
Contact:

Re: Trilian for electric and upright bass?

Post by SvenH » Sun Mar 25, 2018 1:32 pm

Thanks mholloway and jestermgee for your valuable comments!

jlgrimes
Posts: 1773
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2007 1:55 am
Location: Atlanta, Ga

Re: Trilian for electric and upright bass?

Post by jlgrimes » Sun Mar 25, 2018 3:08 pm

SvenH wrote:Spectrasonics Trilian is quite old now. I wonder how it (in the non synth teritory) holds up against alternatives like e.g. Native Instruments, Acoustic Samples, Orange Tree Samples, Ampleosund, etc. I am specifically interested in

Ease of use/playability
Expressiveness
Sound quality

Any issues with Ableton Live 10? (It's a shame that there is no trial available)

Grateful for replies from users with first hand experience. Sven

You really won’t go wrong with either.


I got the Scarbee stuff with Komplete Ultimate and the basses are the main highlight of their sample libraries. Their pianos are great as well.


Trilian with Omnisphere is great as well. That said I rarely use the electric basses as Scarbee fits my style better as it seems smoother, expressive less aggressive. The Trilian basses I’m always trying to smooth out. But I love the acoustic/synth basses. The synth basses give stuff like Diva/Monark a run for their money especially if you just want great presets.


I just made a track with Trilian acoustic bass and it is great but for my mellow or soulful tunes with Electric I go right to Scarbee.


The Sample library has 3rd party help and IMO they put a great deal of time into getting it right with Great samples/scripting. Some of the Kontakt libraries aren’t that great (or at least don’t seem so when first playing) but I do find overall they are like their synths deep with a learning curve and I often find cool tricks I didn’t realize they could do. Even the stock Kontakt Factory library has a lot of tricks to them but usually sounds meh when initially playing. Spectrasonics stuff often sounds great right off bat and even have some great tricks but usually not as deep as NI.

Shift Gorden
Posts: 852
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 8:45 pm
Location: Oklahoma City
Contact:

Re: Trilian for electric and upright bass?

Post by Shift Gorden » Mon Mar 26, 2018 6:42 pm

I've got both Scarbee and Trillian.

Like jlgrimes said, you can't go wrong with either - they both sound great!

Personally, I prefer Trillian for what I do. For some reason, it sounds a little more organic, and the articulations are pretty amazing. That being said, I haven't done a side by side comparison yet....

Either way, you get either and you'll be winning!

amigo
Posts: 992
Joined: Fri Jul 16, 2004 9:39 am
Location: Ireland
Contact:

Re: Trilian for electric and upright bass?

Post by amigo » Tue Mar 27, 2018 1:59 pm

Check out AmpleSound.net for great guitar sounds.

Post Reply