bass synth

[patrickpz]

Hi everyone!! I'm new here, I'm a bass player, but I'd like to start playing synth as nowadays a lot of gigs require bass lines played on synth.

My problem is that I don't have much knowledge about this instrument, so I'm looking for help here =)

What would you recommend?

Thanks a lot!!


Pat

[Green Alsatian]

I'll go from most expensive to cheapest, new. I haven't taken second-hand prices into account. I'll just mention a few, as I'll be here all night if I go through every synth I've owned in the past!

It all depends on your budget - if you can afford one, a Moog Little Phatty will fit the bill perfectly. I owned one several years ago (among many other synths) and for bass, it's difficult to beat it really (well, my Minimoog did, but they're silly money now!). It's monophonic, so you can only play one note at a time. They're around £1000.

Just beneath the Little Phatty is the Dave Smith Instruments Mopho Keyboard. I've owned the DSI Evolver Keyboard and it was excellent at bass - not perhaps as rich as the Moog, but still full-bodied. The Mopho features sub-oscillators to thicken up the bottom-end further and like the Moog, is monophonic. They're around £550.

The Novation Ultranova is polyphonic and a 'virtual analogue' which uses modelling to recreate the synths of yesteryear. I miss mine somewhat and it was very versatile - excellent at bass. Around £450.

The MicroKorg/MicroKorg XL are both cheap 'virtual analogue' synths which are cheap and great-sounding. The XL has double the polyphony of the original and an updated sound engine, but some prefer the sound of the original. Both can do bass sounds very well. They both around £250-£275 new.

However, if you're really restricted by budget, you can't really go wrong with an M-Audio Venom for £154 (+ £10 shipping) from Thomann. The power supply has a UK plug attachment. A lot of the demos are brash, aggressive-sounding affairs, but it's capable of so much more. There are plenty of excellent bass sounds on-board and you can easily tweak them. It links up to your PC effortlessly, where you can program sounds from scratch and download other sounds from the net. Unlike the above synths, the sounds are based upon samples of vintage synths but they are still capable of delivering significant bass. I had to sell mine recently to pay a plumbing bill, but I found it a lot of fun and sounded great.

[url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/news_msg_m_audio_venom_synthesizer_zum_plug_in_preis.html?sid=030ad01aaba7e6736148e57b1c9596d5"]http://www.thomann.de/gb/news_msg_m_audio_venom_synthesizer_zum_plug_in_preis.html?sid=030ad01aaba7e6736148e57b1c9596d5[/url]

Check out demos of the above synths on YouTube to get an idea of how they all sound.

[BigRedX]

Nord Lead

[Panamonte]

Would just like to say that Green Alsatian's detailed response is a great example of why BC is a uniquely brilliant website.

Other than that I don't have much useful to add. In the studio I use my Yamaha Motif XS and Korg Electribe for any bass synth parts I need.

Mainly wanted to give a big thumbs up to GA.

[Green Alsatian]

Awfully kind of you to say so, sir! Just glad to offer any advice which might be useful to someone.

Right then, I knew I'd end up coming back, as I missed off a few obvious ones and I might as well add a few bargains that can be had second-hand!

I'll start with a wild card - another new all-analogue monophonic synth has been released - the Arturia MiniBrute, which sells new for just under £390. Unlike the other suggestions in the thread, it has no memories and you can't store sounds other than writing down the settings, like on the monosynths of the 70s and early 80s. This means that you have to create the sounds yourself from all the knobs and sliders. I wouldn't recommend it if you just want to start playing straight away, but if you want to learn about programming 'subtractive' synthesis, it's an ideal platform. (now this is something I could prattle on about!) I believe it comes with 10 overlay cards, which you put over the keyboard to and it indicates the settings for a few sample sounds, which is great for learning. I want one, that's for certain!

As BigRedX has mentioned, the Nord Lead is still one of the better 'virtual analogues' - I picked up a Nord Lead 2 for a little over £500 a couple of years ago and while it handles bass excellently with just one 'patch', you can layer up to four to create something truly monstrous! It was succeeded by the Nord Lead 2x, which increased its polyphony and memories. If you decide to go down the programming route, every parameter is catered for with an individual control. There is the now-discontinued Nord Lead 3, but a different development team put that one together. It has the best interface of any synth I've owned, but I found it lacking in bottom-end 'oomph', but it did sounds that the 2 couldn't. I still think the 2 is the best of the series.

The Alesis Micron was a rival for the MicroKorg (and sparked many discussions/arguments on the synth forum I used to moderate!) is an extremely powerful synth and out of the box, you have instant access to reproductions of many classic synths, including some fantastic bass sounds - there's a very passable Moog Taurus patch on there. Programming it is fiddly as you use the keys itself as shortcuts - I found it time-consuming but not impossible. Its bigger brother, the Ion, I got on much better with as it has a control for nearly all parameters. It can be had for around £280 new, but I've seen plenty going second hand on ebay for around £120, which is a bargain.

On the subject of the the Micron, the Akai MiniAK (the parent company of Alesis also acquired Akai) is essentially a repackaged version of the Micron, using the same engine and is £229 new, but I've seen them as low as £100 second hand. I haven't owned one of these with it basically being the Micron.

Another second-hand cheapie is the Roland SH-201 (now discontinued), which can be had for around £200 second-hand. It was seen as a replacement for the excellent (and superior) JP-8000 (which now fetches around £400+, I grabbed one at an insane bargain of £240 a few years ago!) and while the sound engine isn't as refined - the SH was designed as a budget synth, where the JP was £1500 new - it's still capable of putting out thick bottom end and has an onboard EQ to enhance it. Interface-wise, it has a control-per-parameter, which is great for tweaking existing sounds or creating your own. A friend, who wanted to get into synths bought one and I sat down with him and showed him how to program a few sounds into it and explained what each section of the controls did (it also gave me a chance to get to grips with it and I got a few beers for my trouble!). The synth-heads at the time of its release, gave it a rough ride, but I didn't think it was bad at all for what you paid.

Again, there are many demos of these on YouTube.

Apologies for the waffling and hope this helps! Just watch out for the synth bug - I caught it in the mid-late 90s and having bass AND synth GAS proved very expensive!!

[xgsjx]

Cheers GA, makes a thought provoking read for me.

I managed to shake the "Synth bug" in the early 90s (91 to be exact) but recently found myself getting drawn back towards them.
Been looking a bit more towards the workstation/multi-timbral type things from Korg & Roland, but also looking at the route of a few "smaller" synths & racks.
Another couple of synths that looks interesting and might fit the OP's bill are the Roland SH-01 Gaia & the Moog Minotaur (remote keys needed for the Minotaur, though I'd go with the Little Phatty if budget allows).

Mod, I think you moved this to the wrong place. Bass guitar is more appropriate for the subject, but I would have thought "Other Instruments" probably suits better?

[patrickpz]

Hey Green thank you so much!! this is probably the most useful answer I've ever got on an online forum!! It really helped me to get a good idea of the synth world!!
I should have specified my budget is between 200 and 300 ishhhh and also I'm looking to use it mainly in a live contest, a friend of mine told me that the microkorg is a very good one but the keys are a bit too small to be used confortably live =(

[Green Alsatian]

No probs - any excuse for me to waffle about synths!

One of the things that I didn't like about the MicroKorg was its small keys, especially with having large hands. I got used to them after a while, but I did make more mistakes on minikeys than on full-sized ones. I preferred the Korg MS2000, which is the same synth engine, but with full-sized keys, more controls and a step sequencer, which was great for programming repetitive basslines into.

Nearer the £200-£300 mark, the Alesis Micron could suit you as that has 37 full-sized keys and is pretty compact. It's metal casing is pretty sturdy too. The M-Audio Venom's still new for £156 on Thomann with 49 full-sized keys - a bargain. Its casing is entirely plastic, so I don't know how it would stand up to repeated gigging/accidental knocks etc.

Between those two, the Micron is more geared towards recreating vintage synth sounds and has a more complex synth engine than the Venom. The Venom can handle these sounds just as well but can be easily goaded into sounding distorted and aggressive easier, due to its sound engine.

Would you be looking towards programming your own sounds - the Venom is the easier to program thanks to the editor/librarian software, but programming the Micron is like trying to knit through a letterbox - fiddly, time consuming but somewhat rewarding in spite of it!