3.5

522MainStage Instruments
5. Drag PickupB to the exact position of PickupA while keeping an eye on the help tag.
The two thin orange lines should overlap perfectly. As a suitable value for the example,
set both pickups to 0.10.
Note: Make sure the Invert switch to the lower left of the Pickup display isn’t turned on,
because this would cause the pickups to completely cancel each other out.
It’s now time to determine the playing position.
6. Drag the Object1 slider in the Pickup display in a horizontal direction. Play the keyboard
while doing so, to hear the changes it makes.
7. You’ll quickly realize that you can achieve a precise, crisp sound only when you drag
the slider relatively far away from the middle of the string. Move Object1 closer to the
pickup (position 0.15 in the figure below).
8. The low notes are still distorted. You can remedy this by adjusting the Level knob to the
right of the amplitude envelope. Set a value of −10dB.
Recreate the material properties of a set of round wound strings in Sculpture
Although you can already recognize the sound of an electric bass, it doesn’t sound wiry
enough yet. Now it’s time to focus on the bass strings themselves.
1. In MainStage, drag the ball in the Material Pad up and down at the left edge. Pay
attention to how the overtones react.
Drag the ball to the lower-left corner. The sound should vaguely remind you of the
sound of a low piano string. Because the overtones sustain too long, the tone sounds
somewhat unnatural.