SumOne

I found the issue - it was the cable from GX-10 to my amp. So no problems with GX-10 reliability. I transport it along with my amp and shoddy cables in a large DJ bag designed for records. They don't make it anymore, but it's this sort of thing: DJ bag. I find it good as a headphone amp (large headphone connector type), but usually use Spark Neo for headphone practice.

I've found it very good (and as you know - I'm fussy with these things!), not perfect - but for the price and the build quality and general sound quality I think it is hard to beat. It is the only pedal I've been using for quite a while now. I think the compressor is the same as the Core and BC-1X, and a drive sounds a lot like the BB-1X, tuner is good, lots of EQ options. If it only did those things it'd still be quite good value. I basically have it set up with the foot pedal to engage the tuner when volume is muted, 'up/down' footswitches to go through a list of three presets (clean, dub, punk), and the other footswitch is set depending on the preset (e.g. on 'clean' it is a boost, on punk it is to engage more distortion, on dub it is to add reverb). I have the dials set to change compression and EQ. That's all I need for gigs - although I do sometimes feel I'd like some extra footswitches to do stuff like engage a chorus, and an analogue envelope filter would be nice, but it is compact and basically does the job for most stuff. Edit: GX-10 is reliable, I had an issue with a cable.

I suppose it just comes down to semantics but it is the amount of 'craft' or technical knowledge/training that many 'artists' have to have that got me thinking that it is often more about learning and applying a craft than being artistic. e.g. a Ballerina, no doubt it is a highly skilled thing to do and takes years of technical training, but when it comes down to it - how much is actual artistic expression, and how much is by applying what has been taught and doing as instructed? Me playing a cover version of a song on the Bass? I think that is almost entirely down to having spent the time to learn the craft of playing, I don't think I'm really adding anything particularly artistic. And even when I make up an original bassline - I think I'm just applying knowledge of all the other basslines I've heard and played and applying some music theory and technical playing skill, but art - from the soul communicating my inner emotions?!?...I'm not so sure! It's more 'minor key = sad' 'major key = happy' 'phrygian = exotic'!

The general consensus/cliche is that musicians are artists - creative, expressing themselves, communicating emotions n'all that. But is that what you think of yourself? Seems a bit pretentious to me! Perhaps I've got no soul or artistry, but the more I play music and learn about it the more I think of it as a process, a technical skill. Is being in an orchestra and sight reading artistic? Is playing a cover version with some embellishments? Is even playing some sort of free-form Jazz? After all, even that is mostly about applying technical skill and music theory. Is making original music? Usually that seems to very heavily rely of pre-existing musical formulas. I think there are some musicians that are genuine 'artists', people that really do something original that transcends technical skill and know how, that's only a small % of musicians though.

Now I think of it, the list is probably quite long! I started the list with Boss but will need to get back to it for all the others when I get time/memory! Boss AW-3 Auto Wah Boss BB-1X Bass Driver Boss BF-3 Flanger Boss CEB-3 Bass Chorus Boss GEB-7 Bass Equaliser Boss GT-1000 Core Boss GX-10 Boss GX-100 Boss LMB-3 Limiter Enhancer Boss LS-2 Line Selector Boss OC-5 Octave Boss ODB-3 Bass Overdrive Boss RC-5 Loop Station Boss RE-20 Space Echo Boss RE-202 Space Echo Boss SYB-5 Bass Synthesizer Boss TU-3 Tuner

Yeah, there is that added issue with keys being a new instrument to play. Luckily I have some basic piano skills from a couple of years playing as a kid and occasional noodling about on the piano as an adult, and generally the synth basslines that I want to play are pretty basic (in fact, most of the bast synth basslines seem quite basic e.g. the ones mentioned above 'Thriller' and 'I just can't get enough'). There is also some demand in the band for offbeat chord stabs in our Reggae tunes which is partly encouraging me to get an MPC Key 37 (for those organ and piano sounds as well as synth bass). I'm a bit cautious about going too far down that route though as it means handing over Bass duties to another bandmate for those songs and I do still find bass guitar the most fun instrument to play (especially for Reggae), I wouldn't want to turn into a keyboard player!

I like playing Bass synth on a bass guitar and can certainly see the attraction to pedals like this and am tempted - but the more tempted I got the more I've look into it and am finding it difficult to look past the advantages to a small synth keyboard, something like the Korg Monologue, Novation Bass Station, Yamaha Reface CS, Behringer MS-1. I know it's an extra thing to take to a gig and probably needs a stand and the faff of wiring up to the PA etc. so there are definitely downsides, but on the other hand the upsides are they're just so much better at playing synth sounds (physically with the keys - playing chords etc and having on-hand parameter editing, and also sounds available etc), and most are a similar sort of price to the MXR (especially second hand). So I think personally, I'm going to go for the classic envelope filter + octaver + distortion + modulation pedal combinations for my synthy sounding bass guitar, and a small synth keyboard for pure synth sounds. (Then it has got me considering the MPC Keys 37 to also have drum loops and production stuff....but that's a whole different story!)

I had been considering getting the MXR Bass synth pedal, and recently thought a a small drum machine will be good to have, and my stage piano doesn't get bought along to gigs as it's too much faff/too big for the limited parts I'd use it for....so in a round-about way that has put a MPC Keys 37 right to the top of my wishlist!

New Chronixx album 'Exile' is worth a listen. One of my favourites from it:

When Italo Disco was good, it could be really good :

The rules are: 1. Say a pedal is great while you own it (knowing you might someday want to sell it) 2. Continue to say it is great while you try to sell it (say something like 'best pedal ever, but doesn't fit with my current projects') 3. Out of politeness to the new buyer don't publicly disrespect the pedal for a while. 4. Move on to hype of a shiny new thing being announced, openly criticise the old pedal. I think we're still only up to stage 3!

I might have it wrong, but I think the chorus sort of effect (a detune/doubling effect +/- 20 cents) was via the pedal. Ah yeah, my semitone maths wansn't on point! So in that case he has basically dropped down the low E to a C and that sounded okay to me, hopefully one more semitone would be okay. I guess it is the sort of thing you might feel when playing (perhaps a bit of latency) more than being an issue in how it sounds in a recording. Although come to think of it, I don't think I ever play a low B in my current 90min set, the lowest is a D a few times. So getting used to just dropping down to that is probably better than dropping all to BEAD. I'll add it to my expanding wishlist of pedals! (along with MXR Bass synth, Boss RE-2, and some sort of analogue envelope filter).

Sounds good. Could replace an Octaver, Chorus, and a hipshot drop tuner, and things like the Digitech Drop as I'd find it useful for stuff like blending in a shifted up 5th into a fuzz. It could even convert me from a 5 to a 4. He goes 2 steps down in the video but I wonder how good it'd sound switching 4 steps down (EADG to BEAD), there are a couple of songs I'd find that useful for with a 4 string and mentally that just feels like it'd keep things simpler than mucking about with different semitone settings for different songs or different parts of songs. One problem I have with pitch shifting is potential for getting confused (I was in a band with a guitarist that kept getting caught out by his pitch shifter being set to the wrong amount, or engaged/disengaged at the wrong time - it wasn't technically the fault of the pedal but I think they can easily lead to confusion if the player hasn't really mastered it).