BASS SYNTH

[BigRedX]

6 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

I meant deep programming via the editor. There are plenty of synth players who simply pay others to do the programming (including Herbie Hancock).

But most of us can't afford to pay someone to the the programming for us, so unless you get lucky and find a pre-set that is exactly right for your needs (and lets face it nearly all of them won't be 100% perfect) you are going to have to do some programming.

[BigRedX]

6 hours ago, GisserD said:

agreed. until you start playing more than one note at a time.

I don't understand. It's far easier to play more than one note simultaneously on a keyboard (even with my very limited technique) then it is on the bass guitar.

[The GroovyPlucker]

well, I've gone and done it, got the EHX Mono Bass Pedal, along with an EHX Bass Soul & Boss TU-3 Tuner, just looking at a power supply for em all together, have seen the T-Rex but they're dear, plus the Mono Synth uses 125 milliamps, so not sure. What way would you daisy chain them? Tuner 1st from amp, then Bass Soul/Overdrive, then Mono Synth last, this is the pedal I reckon I'd use the most,

Cheers

Mark

[Al Krow]

Good man! - let us know how you get on.

I think you're amongst the first of synth loving BCer's to get the EHX MonoSynth - so I suspect we all look forward to getting your thoughts, warts and all(!), particularly about how well it tracks when playing 80's songs at original tempo.

[The GroovyPlucker]

Jeez, I hope there's no drag or drop out, the video demo seem to suggest not, it might be a while tho as I need them all to arrive, and get a decent power supply for them all, the ehx has it's own, 9.6v/125ma, it's the milliamps I'm struggling with as most 9v multi power adaptors only go as far as 120ma, not sure if the ehx would tip it over the edge.

[Quatschmacher]

38 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

But most of us can't afford to pay someone to the the programming for us, so unless you get lucky and find a pre-set that is exactly right for your needs (and lets face it nearly all of them won't be 100% perfect) you are going to have to do some programming.

There are plenty of free presets. I’ve shared all the ones I’ve made so far as have others. You can still tweak those on the pedal and get them to sound quite different. 

There are also purchasable sound packs which don’t cost the earth. 

Edited March 1, 2019 by Quatschmacher

[Cato]

26 minutes ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

well, I've gone and done it, got the EHX Mono Bass Pedal, along with an EHX Bass Soul & Boss TU-3 Tuner, just looking at a power supply for em all together, have seen the T-Rex but they're dear, plus the Mono Synth uses 125 milliamps, so not sure. What way would you daisy chain them? Tuner 1st from amp, then Bass Soul/Overdrive, then Mono Synth last, this is the pedal I reckon I'd use the most,

Cheers

Mark

I think there's going to be a fair few of us waiting for your thoughts on the Mono Bass.

The demo videos sound fantastic but they're obviously not going to mention any problems with tracking or latency.

Edited March 1, 2019 by Cato

[The GroovyPlucker]

sweating now, better not be any latency, otherwise you'll see it in the relevant for sale section, I'll then be selling a kidney to fund the F1 thing

[Quatschmacher]

6 minutes ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

Jeez, I hope there's no drag or drop out, the video demo seem to suggest not, it might be a while tho as I need them all to arrive, and get a decent power supply for them all, the ehx has it's own, 9.6v/125ma, it's the milliamps I'm struggling with as most 9v multi power adaptors only go as far as 120ma, not sure if the ehx would tip it over the edge.

Don’t skimp on powering it. If it requires 120mA then make sure it gets it or you’ll have all sorts of weirdness happen (the presets are digitally controlled and will likely fail to work if underpowered). See if the One Spot powers enough. If not, a dedicated power box is a great thing. I waited far too long before getting one. 

By “daisy chaining” do you mean the power or do you mean audio signal order? If the latter, put the synth before the distortion as post filter distortion sounds cool and you could likely use it in conjunction with the synth. The other way round probably won’t be as useful as running the drive into the synth (if both are engaged) might mess up the tracking. 

[Quatschmacher]

3 minutes ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

sweating now, better not be any latency, otherwise you'll see it in the relevant for sale section, I'll then be selling a kidney to fund the F1 thing

There will be latency at the low end. It’s simple physics as it takes about 12ms to read half a waveform of a low E. Even the FI, brilliant as it is, can’t overcome that. The trick I use on the FI is to pitch it down an octave and play higher up, this halving the latency. 

[The GroovyPlucker]

4 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

Don’t skimp on powering it. If it requires 120mA then make sure it gets it or you’ll have all sorts of weirdness happen (the presets are digitally controlled and will likely fail to work if underpowered). See if the One Spot powers enough. If not, a dedicated power box is a great thing. I waited far too long before getting one. 

By “daisy chaining” do you mean the power or do you mean audio signal order? If the latter, put the synth before the distortion as post filter distortion sounds cool and you could likely use it in conjunction with the synth. The other way round probably won’t be as useful as running the drive into the synth (if both are engaged) might mess up the tracking. 

it's actually 125ma, most 9v seem to go to 120ma, not sure it'd do in a 18v slot, would that be shoving too much voltage in it? the ma setting for 18v is higher than the 9v

[The GroovyPlucker]

3 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

There will be latency at the low end. It’s simple physics as it takes about 12ms to read half a waveform of a low E. Even the FI, brilliant as it is, can’t overcome that. The trick I use on the FI is to pitch it down an octave and play higher up, this halving the latency. 

bugger, I play whitney on a 5 string down a step too, see how we get on, might get an octave pedal as well, thanks for the info 

[Al Krow]

13 minutes ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

sweating now, better not be any latency, otherwise you'll see it in the relevant for sale section, I'll then be selling a kidney to fund the F1 thing

You'll probably get change from a kidney. So at least that's one good bit of news.

More seriously, if you're buying new then you'll have 14 to 30 days to return it for a full refund if it's not up to the mark.

[The GroovyPlucker]

that's true, still might invest on an octave pedal and do what yer man said there, or maybe the kidney, make pre gig drinks a bit diff tho...

[Al Krow]

Octave pedals have their own latency and glitching issues and will not necessarily improve things on that score. 

If you're after something that comes as close to getting you where you want to be, then you'd better put an ad up for your kindney - my guitarist was massively impressed with the 🐼 FI.

And FWIW he also plays keyboard synth. 

Edited March 1, 2019 by Al Krow

[The GroovyPlucker]

Ah well, I'll give the EHX a run out and see where it goes, you guys have been a real source of info and inspiration, btw, does anyone where you can get the F1 cheaper than ebay, only one i can find is £350 in Canada, few in the states about the same, also can you run the octaver and effect at the same time in the F1? guess so as yer man just said he did...

[Quatschmacher]

3 hours ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

Ah well, I'll give the EHX a run out and see where it goes, you guys have been a real source of info and inspiration, btw, does anyone where you can get the F1 cheaper than ebay, only one i can find is £350 in Canada, few in the states about the same, also can you run the octaver and effect at the same time in the F1? guess so as yer man just said he did...

You could buy it direct from Panda in Hungary if all else fails. Thomann had them in but seem to not stock them at present.

 

[The GroovyPlucker]

22 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

You could buy it direct from Panda in Hungary if all else fails. Thomann had them in but seem to not stock them at present.

 

Cheers Quatschmacher, i'll have to come back to you on tips for set up if i do..........

[Quatschmacher]

11 hours ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

can you run the octaver and effect at the same time in the F1?

Yes, but I don’t see why you’d want to.

6 hours ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

Cheers Quatschmacher, i'll have to come back to you on tips for set up if i do..........

You’re welcome. Have you seen my Future Impact resources page? It has some tips and all my patches.

If you get one to trial, make sure you have a USB-MIDI interface or audio interface with midi ports so that you can hook it up to your computer, create some sounds in the editor and put some other patches on the pedal. There are some good stock patches on the pedal but I only liked about a third of them. This pedal’s real power lies in being able to create your own patches. When I rented one, I only used the pedal and kind of wrote it off. It was only when I bought one and hooked up the editor that I really saw what it was capable of. 

[Bassplucker2]

I too am interested in bass synth sounds. I have a Roland V-Bass pedal with the GK 3B pickup on my Yamaha 5 string.

I can't fault the tracking. Biggest problems are, a, the physical size of the pedal board and b, the limited sounds available. I have been looking at the Roland GR series to use the GK 3B pickup with but only the (hideously expensive, for what I want it for) GR55 accepts the GK 3B pickup. (I could be wrong here...)

Any one know of a compact pedal that will accept the GK 3B signal? I don't need all the bells and whistles, just useable sounds I can mix with the bass signal.

[GisserD]

6 minutes ago, Bassplucker2 said:

 

Any one know of a compact pedal that will accept the GK 3B signal? I don't need all the bells and whistles, just useable sounds I can mix with the bass signal.

Ive had the GR-20 and the GR-55 in the past. Tracking was very similar on both units. The sounds more versatile on the 55 of course as its 2 decades newer. However, if i was to consider another, i would give the 20 some serious thought as they can be picked up for much less.

[ped]

20 minutes ago, Bassplucker2 said:

I too am interested in bass synth sounds. I have a Roland V-Bass pedal with the GK 3B pickup on my Yamaha 5 string.

I can't fault the tracking. Biggest problems are, a, the physical size of the pedal board and b, the limited sounds available. I have been looking at the Roland GR series to use the GK 3B pickup with but only the (hideously expensive, for what I want it for) GR55 accepts the GK 3B pickup. (I could be wrong here...)

Any one know of a compact pedal that will accept the GK 3B signal? I don't need all the bells and whistles, just useable sounds I can mix with the bass signal.

Only Roland GK products will take the GK3B signal and process each string individually with no latency. You can use it to trigger MIDI synths but there will be latency. My advice - upgrade to a VB99. It's much smaller, physically it's a different form factor and the sounds and settings are vastly enhanced from the V-bass (I had mine for about 10 years, I've had the VB99 for about another ten). One big advantage is that for each patch you have two signal routes which you can blent and independently control, including a dynamics induced setting where for example you can play clean bass which turns to a synth when you dig in hard. In the past I've used it in the opposite way, playing a synth which lets a clean bass 'pop' on the G string through to accent the groove.

It's a highly specialised piece of kit and you have to be prepared to tweak no end (I'm still finding things I can do with mine) but if you enjoy that, you'll like it. The VB99 isn't easy to find now so you CAN get the GR55 but this ONLY accepts the 13 pin input; one thing I like about the VB99 is that it accepts a standard 1/4" input too so I use it with my normal basses as a brilliant (IMO) multi effects/preamp/interface. Having said that I think there's a mod you can do to add a 1/4" to a GR55 but probably a bit of a faff. Also there is zero latency on the VB99 as it's a different animal to the GR series, using COSM processing for each string as opposed to pitch detection/latency

If you're anywhere near York you can come and try mine - I was sceptical when I decided to upgrade (I mainly did it because I prefer the form factor for ease of use at eye level) but I have been, and still am, blown away by it!

[The GroovyPlucker]

1 hour ago, Bassplucker2 said:

I too am interested in bass synth sounds. I have a Roland V-Bass pedal with the GK 3B pickup on my Yamaha 5 string.

I can't fault the tracking. Biggest problems are, a, the physical size of the pedal board and b, the limited sounds available. I have been looking at the Roland GR series to use the GK 3B pickup with but only the (hideously expensive, for what I want it for) GR55 accepts the GK 3B pickup. (I could be wrong here...)

Any one know of a compact pedal that will accept the GK 3B signal? I don't need all the bells and whistles, just useable sounds I can mix with the bass signal.

there's the boss sy-300 I was looking at, not sure if anyone's had any experience with this unit, no latency apparently....

[ped]

1 minute ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

there's the boss sy-300 I was looking at, not sure if anyone's had any experience with this unit, no latency apparently....

Yep zero latency. Only thing is it doesn’t work polyphonically so you have to be quite accurate to avoid glitching, though it’s very impressive and glitches can sound cool

[Quatschmacher]

8 hours ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

there's the boss sy-300 I was looking at, not sure if anyone's had any experience with this unit, no latency apparently....

I play-tested one in an isolated booth in a shop for an hour or so and didn’t care for it. Editing on that tiny screen was a pain and I thought the raw oscillators didn’t sound particularly pleasing to my ears. Others seem to like it and it does a ton of interesting stuff but it wasn’t for me.