PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums RealBand Tubular Bells

Does anyone know if anything like the bells used in Oldfield's classic is available in Real-Tracks, or if a plug in for these kind of bells could be found, and if it would be compatible with either BIB or RB I’m also looking for a way to use steel drums and/or timpani. Maybe something that could be added to a session with my midi keyboard or perhaps created in RB and exported as a wav file to import as a wave file track into Studio 1-2 Artist

Thanks

You very likely already have the Tubular Bells and Steel Drums already.

Tubular Bells are part of the Standard GM MIDI patch set. Patch number is 15.

Steel Drums Patch number is 115.

Better sounding MIDI synths yield much more realistic sounds and in the case of the Tubular Bells, is very easy for MIDI to duplicate with very good realism.

Steel Drums are also available in various MIDI synth patch sets, especially those synths that include Upper Banks with more sound and instruments in them.

Steel Drum samples also lend themselves to very realistic MIDI usage because they, too, are Percussive in sound with not a terribly long decay.


--Mac

Thanks Mac.

You saved me some dough. I was about to go shopping for plug ins Good to know such percussion is within our arsenal, Maybe a Timpani as well.

When you say: Tubular Bells are part of the Standard GM MIDI patch set. Patch number is 15. Steel Drums Patch number is 115.”

Are you talking RB or BIB or both. I’ve been messing mostly with RB seems more user friendly. I don’t suppose just Right Clicking select and generate Real-Drums and going through the list will find these instruments.

Not sure how to use the GM Midi patch set, yet or where to look for it, but this sounds like exactly what I’m looking for.

GM Patch Set is standard to all of these kind of programs.

Just open the list of possible MIDI instruments for the track and look down that list for them, they are numbered an in order. (In BB32014, click on the area of the Mixer where the instruments are identified in that slot and a popup menu will appear, look thru that menu for the list command to change MIDI instrument.

There are 127 sounds in the GM Bank.


--Mac

I have been looking for and trying to create a satisfactory tubular bell sound for a long time. Nothing that I have found in GM or the samples I have available comes close to the majestic sustain and resonance of the real thing, or the perhaps idealized sound in Mike Oldfield's album Tubular Bells.

One thing about the GM soundbank is that you can get some interesting results if you use patches for other than their intended purposes. I'm thinking that a triangle with a load of compression and some nice reverb, but played down several octaves, might be a good starting place. Layering it with the GM tubular bell sound might add something. (By the same token, a nylon-string guitar sound makes a pretty good orchestral harp when played in lower registers.) Use your imagination and see what happens.

I am still experimenting with various samplers and synths in Propellerhead Reason, but that is an entire program, not just a plugin. Something I have considered but haven't tried yet is a ring modulator, which has been suggested for achieving clangorous sounds. Everything I've heard out of an RM has significant harmonic artifacts, so I don't know.

Interesting post. Let us know what you come up with.

R.

Some of my high end hardware MIDI synth solutions contain some very stellar sounding Tubular Bell patches.

The past few years I've not been too excited over Software-based MIDI sounds, something's not working out along those lines for whatever reason. Was once willing to put up with the foibles of software-based MIDI sounds that work one day and not the next, at a time when the sounds were getting better and the hassle was maybe worth it, but those software solutions, while certainly being less expensive for the most part, have been rather disappointing soundwise, at least when compared to some of these newer high end MIDI synth hardware solutions.

The hardware not only sounds better, there's that zero latency inherent in using them as well.

Spent a lot of money on both hardware and woftware MIDI solutions over the years here, Gigasamples that cost a small fortune and now lay around virtually unused, hardware synths, ditto, simply because there seems to be a limited shelf life of these things and all too soon something newer is released and the scenario repeats itself over and over again.

Out of all of 'em, the Ketron and the Roland hardware stuff has proven to be the better value over time for me, those things are still very viable and still sound good, although I don't recommend trying to mix and match sounds from the two, which can be a very difficult mixfit session that could be avoided. Pick one good MIDI synth solution and spend the time to get to know and use it well seems the better path, at least for me. Each manufacturer has designed and tweaked their sounds to work and blend well together, why fight it?

One rule I use often: If a certain Instrument Patch idea doesn't come together in a reasonable amount of time, I won't waste any time trying to find another patch source for that particular instrument or sound with the idea that the one I happen to have is problematic due to bad sampling or the likes, the problem is usually one of that particular sound not being a good call for that particular set of tracks, which really means that my time is better spent either changing those other tracks to suit that particular sound and showcase it better -- or even faster and often better -- just try dropping an entirely different Instrument Patch on it and keep on trackin'.


--Mac

Mac, you mentioned Roland and Keytron as two hardware solutions that have sounds that hold up well over time.

Do you have any experience with high end Korg or Yamaha equipment? If so I'd like to know your opinion of the sound quality of their products.

In my opinion many companies seem to feature high quality piano or organ tones. Some also put extra effort into one or two brass, woodwind or string instruments but the rest of the midi instrument set seems to be an afterthought. In your experience do you agree?

Freesound.org has some free tubular bell wavs that you may want to check out.

http://www.freesound.org/search/?q=tubular+bells

While I do have some playing experience in studio with offerings from both, I just don't happen to own a Korg right now and my beloved but long in the tooth Yamaha W5 with fully loaded soundbanks (hardware addon boards at considerable cost over ten years ago) is still here, but only gets pulled out for certain tasks and sound effects these days.

Both companies offer "high end" offerings, which is the actual keyword here, not the brand names.

Everybody should make every attempt to AUDITION these things for themselves before paying out the cash, even if that means making a special trip to the big music emporium in another town IMO. They should also research what each major manufacturer's synths are used for, by whom, and for what purposes, styles, genres, and etc. -- a "picture" should start to form then. For example, the Korg sounds enjoy a tremendous following in the Smooth Jazz, Black Gospel and some of the African American Jazz circles. On the other hand, if I had to do me some Stevie, I'd use my Kurzweil as first selection. Etc.

Speaking of Yamaha, for those with the beans, the new Yamaha Tyros 5 is one deep machine. Talk about being able to easily edit, modify, amplify (via digi sim) and otherwise customize some already awesome sounds, this offering should be able to enjoy a long and quite useful shelf life for the MIDIOTs among us. I just wish they'd do a keyboard with those sounds, but without the Auto-Accompaniment stuff that I personally would use very little.


--Mac

Mac,

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question and share your knowledge. Great advice as always. I had not noticed how some brands seem to be used more in some genres than others until you mentioned it but, as soon as I read it, it was obvious. Funny how one can sometimes have blinders on without even knowing it.

Regarding your comment auto-accompaniment, the availability of professionally made aftermarket auto-accompaniment styles is a huge selling point. The feature is a big selling point for people lacking in patience, skill, time or music knowledge. Also, many educators recommend Yamaha products to their students and use their products in educational settings. Perhaps the auto-accompaniment styles are used as examples of various genres.

I know its a selling point.

Just wish that some of the high end manufacturer's would also make some models for pro musicians who have spent the time and effort necessary to be able to play their own accompaniments.

Strip out the autoaccompaniment stuff, leave the great sounds, make them easily accessible in live work (which the Tyros 5 clearly does) and offer a model that does not force a guy like me to have to pay for all those features that he does not want to use anyway.

This is exactly what Ketron did with the SD2 and then the SD4 modules.


That's my wishlist, anyway.


--Mac

Totally agree here. To me all the soft synths sound like a$$. A good synth or sound module will always sound better.




Hey Jim, I use an old Korg Synth and I do like their sounds compared with some of the other manufacturers I've used. One of the reasons I like them is they tend to have a decent balance of instruments that sound good. Yamaha is OK to me just not as good. I've seen several Yamaha users on these forums so maybe they'll be able to provide some feedback.