Oscillator/Synth/VCO pedals (analogue)

[Quatschmacher]

2 hours ago, dodge_bass said:

I love the idea of the Sonic Smith stuff but it’s not cheap and the Squaver gets absolutely destroyed over on Talkbass....I’m not prepared to risk wasting that much money.

The Red Witch Zeus (which I see you’re looking for) was, IMO, ok but nothing special but the synthotron looks interesting (have you got one?). 

I hadn’t read the stuff about the Squaver on Talkbass. I bought one back in February. It was pretty cool but there were a few issues with the noise gate. Quite a few customers had the same issue, particularly on bass and guitar. The guys at SonicSmith were great and offered to carry out the modification to fix it (which has now also been done to all remaining stocks) free of charge. In the end, I didn’t end up taking them up on the offer as there were other limitations that made me feel I ought to keep searching. (Ultimately I’d like to get an Industrial Radio MIDI bass and use that with my synths.)

I honestly wouldn’t worry about wasting your money. If you buy it, you have the right to return it under the distance selling regulations if you don’t like it. The guys at that company are really great, friendly, helpful and care deeply about their products and their customers.

I’m actually looking forward to seeing what they’ve done to improve the new versions which will be out soon (this month hopefully).A few of my gripes will be addressed in the new version (100% duty cycle on the square wave PWM, more gain for the downward envelope sweep and the noise gate threshold). The latency at the low end of the bass will always be a problem due to physics (but this was about as good as it gets). Playing up an octave and pitching the unit down an octave halves the latency and was pretty usable.

Did you own the Zeus or try it out somewhere? If so, where? I’d like to try one. 

Edited April 14, 2018 by Quatschmacher

[dodge_bass]

10 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

I hadn’t read the stuff about the Squaver on Talkbass. I bought one back in February. It was pretty cool but there were a few issues with the noise gate. Quite a few customers had the same issue, particularly on bass and guitar. The guys at SonicSmith were great and offered to carry out the modification to fix it (which has now also been done to all remaining stocks) free of charge. In the end, I didn’t end up taking them up on the offer as there were other limitations that made me feel I ought to keep searching. (Ultimately I’d like to get an Industrial Radio MIDI bass and use that with my synths.)

I honestly wouldn’t worry about wasting your money. If you buy it, you have the right to return it under the distance selling regulations if you don’t like it. The guys at that company are really great, friendly, helpful and care deeply about their products and their customers.

I’m actually looking forward to seeing what they’ve done to improve the new versions which will be out soon (this month hopefully).A few of my gripes will be addressed in the new version (100% duty cycle on the square wave PWM, more gain for the downward envelope sweep and the noise gate threshold). The latency at the low end of the bass will always be a problem due to physics (but this was about as good as it gets). Playing up an octave and pitching the unit down an octave halves the latency and was pretty usable.

Did you own the Zeus or try it out somewhere? If so, where? I’d like to try one. 

Nice one - do you think it’s with hanging on for the new verisons then? Though presumably they will have a serious price tag attached to them?

I did have a Red Witch - taken in a trade I think - but I moved it on quite quickly. As I recall it didn’t do anything that any other octave pedal with a bit of grit would do....if it had I would have kept it. The synthotron looks great but not easy to come by?

Whats currently on you board for generating synth tones? 

[Quatschmacher]

1 hour ago, dodge_bass said:

Nice one - do you think it’s with hanging on for the new verisons then? Though presumably they will have a serious price tag attached to them?

I did have a Red Witch - taken in a trade I think - but I moved it on quite quickly. As I recall it didn’t do anything that any other octave pedal with a bit of grit would do....if it had I would have kept it. The synthotron looks great but not easy to come by?

Whats currently on you board for generating synth tones? 

Choosing to hang on for the new versions depends on what you plan to use it for. If you plan to use it to control an external synth via CV then the current Convertor is pretty good. If, on the other hand, you want it as a stand-alone synth then the Squaver does more (2 oscillators, pulse width modulation, ring modulation, variable state filter). Personally if going for the Squaver I’d wait for the new version for the improvements to the filter envelope response. It was a really nice-sounding filter on the original but the envelope control didn’t give much in the way of shaping options so it wasn’t possible to get a really fast sweep.

Currently I’m using either my Doom+Octabvre or my Octo-Nøjs into the Wonderlove. Or the EHX Bass Microsynth. That’s giving quite pleasing results but I really want to get a dedicated 4-pole lowpass filter so will be checking out a Xerograph Deluxe this week. If that doesn’t do it, my remaining option is to get the Moog MF-101 again but get a CP-251 to go with it to have finer control over the sweep. It’s a bit of a big and cumbersome setup though.

The best thing I’ve encountered for synth bass sounds though is…

synths, unsurprisingly. I recently acquired a Behringer Model D which gives exactly the sounds I wanted, hence my desire to pickup a midi bass and simply hook the two up.

 

Edited April 15, 2018 by Quatschmacher

[dodge_bass]

36 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

Choosing to hang in for the new versions depends on what you plan to use it for. If you plan to use it to control an external synth via CV then the current Convertor is pretty good. If, on the other hand, you want it as a stand-alone synth then the Squaver does more (2 oscillators, pulse width modulation, ring modulation, variable state filter). Personally if going for the Squaver I’d wait for the new version for the improvements to the filter envelope response. It was a really nice-sounding filter on the original but the envelope control didn’t give much in the way of shaping options so it wasn’t possible to get a really fast sweep.

Currently I’m using either my Doom+Octabvre or my Octo-Nøjs into the Wonderlove. Or the EHX Bass Microsynth. That’s giving quite pleasing results but I really want to get a dedicated 4-pole lowpass filter so will be checking out a Xerograph Deluxe this week. If that doesn’t do it, my remaining option is to get the Moog MF-101 again but get a CP-251 to go with it to have finer control over the sweep. It’s a bit of a big and cumbersome setup though.

The best thing I’ve encountered for synth bass sounds though is…

synths, unsurprisingly. I recently acquired a Behringer Model D which gives exactly the sounds I wanted, hence my desire to pickup a midi bass and simply hook the two up.

 

Cool - not a disimilar setup to me so far (8vr pedals - boss / EHX / T16) into squelch pedals (3 leaf groove regulator or EHX W balls) or distortion / bit crusher. But the new Squaver looks great...any idea of cost? Yes you’re right about actual synths but I’m decided I’m not going that route so just going to have to work hard to get the best sounds I can from my electric....

[Quatschmacher]

15 minutes ago, dodge_bass said:

Cool - not a disimilar setup to me so far (8vr pedals - boss / EHX / T16) into squelch pedals (3 leaf groove regulator or EHX W balls) or distortion / bit crusher. But the new Squaver looks great...any idea of cost? Yes you’re right about actual synths but I’m decided I’m not going that route so just going to have to work hard to get the best sounds I can from my electric....

I’m guessing the new ones will be at the non-discounted price so around £650 for the Squaver and £330 for the Convertor.

Getting an actual synth has been a great way for me to learn more about sound design. I’d seriously recommend getting a Behringer Model D (£299) and hook it up to any MIDI keyboard it’s totally worth it.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Quatschmacher

[0175westwood29]

20 hours ago, GisserD said:

Someone on here has/had one. I just can't remember who.... 

Edit. 

It was Andy!! 

@0175westwood29

 

yeh still have it! 

its a bit of a beast to tame! and the input trimmer being on the inside is a bit of a pain, but i love how the pedal sounds so will def be keeping it! 

[prowla]

I've just acquired a Markbass Super Synth pedal - it seems to work really well!

It doubles up as an octave pedal too.

[Al Krow]

13 minutes ago, prowla said:

I've just acquired a Markbass Super Synth pedal - it seems to work really well!

It doubles up as an octave pedal too.

Good stuff! I'm not convinced that the octaver on the MB SS stacks up against some of the best dedicated octave pedals competition though - it certainly hasn't pushed my COG T16 off my board; so the focus for me with my SS is very much on it's ability to deliver an excellent bass synth sound.

I'm still on the look out for a synth that is both better / more versatile and also more compact than the SS, but not sure I've spotted anything that bests it yet on those criteria.  I was hoping that the Pigtronix PM2 might deliver but it's had pretty middling reviews on TB, so I'm still very much open to suggestions!

[pete.young]

I've tried most of them, except for the Deep Impact, and the only one I miss is the Korg G5, which is less versatile and less compact than pretty well anything else on the market, but was the only one with really useable sounds. How I wish I hadn't got rid of mine!

[Al Krow]

1 minute ago, pete.young said:

I've tried most of them, except for the Deep Impact, and the only one I miss is the Korg G5, which is less versatile and less compact than pretty well anything else on the market, but was the only one with really useable sounds. How I wish I hadn't got rid of mine!

You didn't particularly like the Markbass SS then?

[pete.young]

9 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

You didn't particularly like the Markbass SS then?

Nope - couldn't get on with it. The Octaver was the best bit. Chris Graham summed up my experience pretty well : http://www.cgraham.com/chris/music/bass/super_synth/

Much as it pains me to agree with BigRedX, he's right about one thing: if you want synth bass, play a synth.

[Al Krow]

Thanks for that - definitely always good to hear the 'unvarnished truth' about pedals on this forum rather than our sometimes honeymoon-coloured posts, which are subsequently followed by "decided to sell 'cos it wasn't quite what I was after" 

Chris Graham's review is very thorough - I'll certainly be interested in his other reviews, too, following his 'open and honest' comments on this one. He is certainly not all negative, though, and I agree with him when he concludes:

"For the sounds it can do, it sounds really good."

For me there's enough usable good sounds in there for use on the few tracks where a synth bass is warranted in our live sets, so I'm not abandoning my SS just yet; certainly not until I come across something better, more versatile and more compact  

 

Edited April 15, 2018 by Al Krow

[prowla]

The Octaver on the SS seems pretty good and doesn't run out of steam when you get down to A.

I do think the number of presets could be a limitation, but I don't know how many different sounds I really want, so it may not be a practical issue. At the moment it's sitting next to an EH Synth 9, which has 9 presets you have to select by turning a knob, so the SS is more usable in that way at least.

The SS seems to track very well, which is its key feature.

I'll be trying its programmability at some point.

The link also complained about the dry sound leaking through; actually I like to run to two amps, one dry, so that's not particularly an issue.

Mine is the Mk.II/facelift one - I don't know if there is any difference with the Mk.I, apart from the styling.

 

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, prowla said:

The Octaver on the SS seems pretty good and doesn't run out of steam when you get down to A.

I do think the number of presets could be a limitation, but I don't know how many different sounds I really want, so it may not be a practical issue. At the moment it's sitting next to an EH Synth 9, which has 9 presets you have to select by turning a knob, so the SS is more usable in that way at least.

The SS seems to track very well, which is its key feature.

I'll be trying its programmability at some point.

The link also complained about the dry sound leaking through; actually I like to run to two amps, one dry, so that's not particularly an issue.

Mine is the Mk.II/facelift one - I don't know if there is any difference with the Mk.I, apart from the styling.

 

Agree with all of the above. I don't think there is any difference apart from styling between the Mk1 and Mk2 models - Markbass missed a trick there methinks - given that the tech is 7+ years old now...

[GisserD]

There's a red witch Synthotron on ebay currently if anybody is interested.... 

[dodge_bass]

7 hours ago, GisserD said:

There's a red witch Synthotron on ebay currently if anybody is interested.... 

Can’t see it....any chance of a link?

[GisserD]

26 minutes ago, dodge_bass said:

Can’t see it....any chance of a link?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Red-Witch-Synthotron-Synth-pedal-in-a-box/202288826251?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D50981%26meid%3D2184a86fa6d949ce9fe3fc344607899c%26pid%3D100675%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D15%26sd%3D192499661088%26itm%3D202288826251&_trksid=p2481888.c100675.m4236&_trkparms=pageci%3Aa91e1098-4240-11e8-b72e-74dbd180db83|parentrq%3Ad3ba19ed1620abd8d48a6ddbffff97fd|iid%3A1

[GisserD]

On 4/17/2018 at 14:10, GisserD said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Red-Witch-Synthotron-Synth-pedal-in-a-box/202288826251?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D50981%26meid%3D2184a86fa6d949ce9fe3fc344607899c%26pid%3D100675%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D15%26sd%3D192499661088%26itm%3D202288826251&_trksid=p2481888.c100675.m4236&_trkparms=pageci%3Aa91e1098-4240-11e8-b72e-74dbd180db83|parentrq%3Ad3ba19ed1620abd8d48a6ddbffff97fd|iid%3A1

its now reduced to a more palatable £164.99

[Quatschmacher]

Zach has finally got hold of a Squaver P1+. 

I tried it at Superbooth yesterday and it is a definite improvement on the original.

 

[Al Krow]

Some cool features on the Squaver P1+ and another good review by Zach.

Has way more than I'm ever likely to need - wonder if they will consider bringing out a 'mini' version that is going to be more pedal board (and pocket) friendly?

[Quatschmacher]

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

Some cool features on the Squaver P1+ and another good review by Zach.

Has way more than I'm ever likely to need - wonder if they will consider bringing out a 'mini' version that is going to be more pedal board (and pocket) friendly?

Check out their Convertor. 

[Al Krow]

On 06/05/2018 at 15:06, Quatschmacher said:

Check out their Convertor. 

Much more compact. This has got to be one of the least good adverts for it, though!! Put me right off! 

 

[Al Krow]

This little baby, however, has got my attention! Check it out  

 

[dannybuoy]

Another pedal that some of you synth crowd will be into:

https://malekkoheavyindustry.com/product/downer/

[Quatschmacher]

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Much more compact. This has got to be one of the least good adverts for it, though!! Put me right off! 

 

It is the same as the Squaver though without PWM and sub octave and a lesser-featured filter. If you like the basic sound that Zach got it his video then you’ll probably like it. There are some not-so-great “demo” videos of it floating around.