Boss DD-7 and a decent Synth pedal?!

[PunkRockBass]

Hey,

I don't have many pedals, just a Boss ODB-3, Boss BF-3, Artec Big Dots Tuner and a Morley Classic Wah (which I want to sell).
I'm thinking about getting a delay pedal (Boss DD-7), but I also want a Synth pedal.
I've heard bad things about the Boss one, some good points about the Ibanez one, but I'm very confused.
I don't want a pedal that's just makes over the top sounds that don't fit into any type of music, I want a pedal that can do subtle synth, and also extreme synth (for a muck about).

Any suggestions?

Cheers

[BTGAndy]

I never found the Boss SYB-5 to track too well, I sold mine a few weeks after getting it. If you're looking for a delay, the Line6 echo park is worth trying.

[EskimoBassist]

Hey well I was in your very position about two months ago, as I too bought a nice Delay and a Synth.

For the Delay, I settled on a good deal on a new DD-6, great Delay, it was that or the DD-5 for the same price, and to be honest I don't really need the Tap Tempo and the fact that the DD-5 can't oscillate kind of killed it for me! Go for the DD-7, it sounds like a great pedal, though I have no experience of it. For me I thought it a little too pricey, cause for the price of that you could get yourself a used DL4 or DD-20, which have all the functions that the DD-7 have including tap tempo and much, much more, although they are larger. If I hadn't bought a DD-6, I would've bought a Line 6 Echo Park, that gets A LOT of love around these parts, as the analogue is very convincing, and doesn't have to sound so metallic and digital like the DD-3 or the DD-6.

For the Synth I spent a very long time searching around. I ended up buying a used, but mint condition, Korg G5 and I haven't looked back synth. Many may say it is just as good as the Akai Deep Impact (aka the holy grail of all Bass Synth pedals, glamourised by Muse fans emulating Chris Wolstenholme ) although it does not carry the same extortionate price tag (i.e. £140 not £340!!!). It does everything from subtle to extreme, has a very good clean blend and a whole host of different wave forms and sounds, 11 in total! Yes the Bypass is naff, though thats not an issue as I have it in a true bypass loop anyway, but the swathes of sounds and the extra un you can achieve using an external expression pedal, much the same way as the SYB-5, sold it to me. And yes, it does track well! Even on some chords, suprisingly, although this is not what the manual says!

I did consider instead buying a decent filter to instead make my own DIY syths sounds with my compressor, octaver and overdrive pedal, but I thought I'd just bite the bullet anyway, as I had a fair amount of spare cash. Having said that, that is what I'm doing right now! I've got a Digitech Bass Synth Wah, and perhaps also an old DOD Filter too, so I'll see how it compares to my G5, running them with an OC-3, ODB-3 (with the highs rolled off) and my MultiComp. Even so, I really don't think I'm gonna be getting rid of my G5, I just love it too much!

So yeah hope that is some help, Rich

[PunkRockBass]

I'm still not sure what to get, especially Delay wise, DD-7 is a bit too expensive for my likings..
And as for Synth, the Digitech Bass Synth Wah sounds pretty decent.

[thisnameistaken]

I had an Echo Park last year. It's very good and gives you tonnes of features for your money, but needs a good isolated power supply or it gets noisy. The main reason I sold mine was because I didn't like the ToneCore dock it slots into - the footswitch felt bad, like I was going to break it. Never did of course, but still.

I don't currently have a delay because I want something compact with tap tempo - I don't want to have to plug another switch in, and that means boutique, which gets too expensive. I'm probably going to wait until the Malekko 919 is out and see what that looks like.

As for "synth": It's a bit like asking what house you should buy. All the pedals that call themselves "synth" have different sets of features and it really depends which ones you want. The sort of options you can expect are: Waveform synthesis, octave doubling, distortion, low/band-pass filter, and/or some sort of modulation.

There's [url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=520711"]a thread on TB[/url] at the moment which is trying to list all the features of each synth pedal, so you might want to look over the first post there.

I'd say the EHX Bass Micro Synth is a really good choice if you want old '70s mono synth sounds. The Korg G5 or Akai SB-1 are better choices if you want more '80s soft-around-the-edges type sounds. The sawtooth octave down on the G5 is also great for early '90s hip hop stuff. The Chunk Systems unit has tonnes of potential, but the software is still catching up - it needs to mature a bit before it's a serious prospect, and it's expensive.

Or you could buy a Boss OC-2, a decent gated fuzz and a filter (pref. with an expression pedal input) and see where that gets you.

Edited February 25, 2009 by thisnameistaken

[harvey1-8]

I don't have a synth pedal but I do use an MXR Carbon Copy analog delay, it works very well with bass. I'd like to get a synth pedal myself so it will be interesting to see what else in mentioned.

[PunkRockBass]

[quote name='alexharvay' post='420003' date='Feb 26 2009, 12:27 PM']I don't have a synth pedal but I do use an MXR Carbon Copy analog delay, it works very well with bass. I'd like to get a synth pedal myself so it will be interesting to see what else in mentioned.[/quote]

yeah i checked out the Carbon Copy. Didn't know if it would work well with bass though

[harvey1-8]

[quote name='PunkRockBass' post='420168' date='Feb 26 2009, 03:58 PM']yeah i checked out the Carbon Copy. Didn't know if it would work well with bass though[/quote]

I like it! I use it quite sparsely with a phase 90 next in the line, at home I play around with it a lot more to get some nice swells out of it. Be careful with oscillating any delay as I've been told it can ruin your speakers on both guitar and bass amps.