Boss SY-1 Synth Pedal

[The GroovyPlucker]

Well, I decided to take the plunge and get this....and.....it's f****n great.

I love Boss pedals, always have, love their little footprint & design.

I've been after a decent Synth pedal for a good while. Had a dalliance with the Future Impact & the EHX Bass Mono Synth and for me this SY-1 pisses over both of them. Don't want to diss the F1, will diss that heap of junk which is the EHX, but this thing tracks better than any I've ever used.

The downside is the limitation of sounds over the F1, if the F1 tracked anywhere near as good as this then that would be the obvious choice, it of course may be down to the sounds that the F1 has over the SY-1 that may be the tracking situ, don't know, but the SY-1 has some very, very workable sounds.

For me, my target sounds have always been 80's pop, think of all the great synth bass sounds their have been Whitney Houston, Gary Numan, Chaka Khan to name countless others, I haven't delved into emulating Night Shift by The Commodores yet but that's up soon.

This wee boyo can handle your Muse type indulgences too, along with more modernistic & experimental tones.

So I'd recommend it for those who are looking at this avenue, I'd guess that if it sells well then in a couple of years you'll see a new stomp box with a few more varied sounds and that all important 5-10 preset scenario.

[Rollin Thunder]

9 hours ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

Well, I decided to take the plunge and get this....and.....it's f****n great.

I love Boss pedals, always have, love their little footprint & design.

I've been after a decent Synth pedal for a good while. Had a dalliance with the Future Impact & the EHX Bass Mono Synth and for me this SY-1 pisses over both of them. Don't want to diss the F1, will diss that heap of junk which is the EHX, but this thing tracks better than any I've ever used.

The downside is the limitation of sounds over the F1, if the F1 tracked anywhere near as good as this then that would be the obvious choice, it of course may be down to the sounds that the F1 has over the SY-1 that may be the tracking situ, don't know, but the SY-1 has some very, very workable sounds.

For me, my target sounds have always been 80's pop, think of all the great synth bass sounds their have been Whitney Houston, Gary Numan, Chaka Khan to name countless others, I haven't delved into emulating Night Shift by The Commodores yet but that's up soon.

This wee boyo can handle your Muse type indulgences too, along with more modernistic & experimental tones.

So I'd recommend it for those who are looking at this avenue, I'd guess that if it sells well then in a couple of years you'll see a new stomp box with a few more varied sounds and that all important 5-10 preset scenario.

Looking at one if these myself, but also git my eye in the Future impact v3 the presets sounds on there sound awesome, but its a fair bit more money. But i do like the very simple organ sound  and simple controls on the boss. 
 

[The GroovyPlucker]

As mentioned Rollin Thunder it is awesome, but so is the F1, the boss is a neat, smaller unit which fits on your pedal board well. There's a couple of you tube videos that go through each individual sound so you know what it can offer, each variation can be tweaked further with the tone & depth dial, although many are very similar variations of the rest, it's the tracking that's killer on this, even my sloppy play is forgiven whereas on the F1 it wasn't......

[0175westwood29]

On 22/04/2020 at 01:48, The GroovyPlucker said:

Well, I decided to take the plunge and get this....and.....it's f****n great.

I love Boss pedals, always have, love their little footprint & design.

I've been after a decent Synth pedal for a good while. Had a dalliance with the Future Impact & the EHX Bass Mono Synth and for me this SY-1 pisses over both of them. Don't want to diss the F1, will diss that heap of junk which is the EHX, but this thing tracks better than any I've ever used.

The downside is the limitation of sounds over the F1, if the F1 tracked anywhere near as good as this then that would be the obvious choice, it of course may be down to the sounds that the F1 has over the SY-1 that may be the tracking situ, don't know, but the SY-1 has some very, very workable sounds.

For me, my target sounds have always been 80's pop, think of all the great synth bass sounds their have been Whitney Houston, Gary Numan, Chaka Khan to name countless others, I haven't delved into emulating Night Shift by The Commodores yet but that's up soon.

This wee boyo can handle your Muse type indulgences too, along with more modernistic & experimental tones.

So I'd recommend it for those who are looking at this avenue, I'd guess that if it sells well then in a couple of years you'll see a new stomp box with a few more varied sounds and that all important 5-10 preset scenario.

Got to agree love mine!

 

 

[The GroovyPlucker]

tis a thing of beauty, wonder how it compares to the older boss silver box synth, that didn't get great reviews if I remember rightly, hence why I never indulged

[Quatschmacher]

Was the FI you used updated to v3? It makes a fair bit of difference to the tracking.

The FI can be made smaller by using one of @GisserD‘s custom housings. 

Edited April 25, 2020 by Quatschmacher

[Quatschmacher]

On 22/04/2020 at 11:45, Rollin Thunder said:

But i do like the very simple organ sound

You can get organ sounds on FI. Here’s one I made:

 

[0175westwood29]

9 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

Was the FI you used updated to v3? It makes a fair bit of difference to the tracking.

The FI can be made smaller by using one of @GisserD‘s custom housings. 

why buy a pedal with the view to re house?

[Quatschmacher]

Just now, 0175westwood29 said:

why buy a pedal with the view to re house?

Because it’s way smaller and fits into smaller pedal boards more easily. There’s a lot of empty space inside the stock FI housing and @GisserD has made an incredibly high quality new housing by precision laser scanning the original, removing any verbiage and 3D printing a new one. 

Personally I like the original bit for many people board space is at a premium so it’s a neat solution for plenty of people, as evidenced by the relatively high number of users who’ve bought one from him.

I had a big box QTron and, had I kept it, I would have got Darren to make a custom housing as it was also mostly dead space.  

[Al Krow]

But a rehoused FI plus a decent midi cable (the latter is pretty essential right?), does start to add up. I'm guessing you're not going to get much change out of £350 all in, new? So it's really playing at quite a different price point to something like the SY-1. 

But on the other hand I guess it's relatively easy to get a used FI, which has been out since 2016, whereas the SY-1 has only been out since last July and folk just don't seem to be moving them on, so buying new is still very much the only way to get your hands on one of these.

Edited April 25, 2020 by Al Krow

[Quatschmacher]

50 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

But a rehoused FI plus a decent midi cable (the latter is pretty essential right?), does start to add up. I'm guessing you're not going to get much change out of £350 all in, new? So it's really playing at quite a different price point to something like the SY-1. 

But on the other hand I guess it's relatively easy to get a used FI, which has been out since 2016, whereas the SY-1 has only been out since last July and folk just don't seem to be moving them on, so buying new is still very much the only way to get your hands on one of these.

No one mentioned price until now, just price and performance considerations. Obviously price will play into it for some of us but neither pedal is overpriced. 

[0175westwood29]

4 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

Because it’s way smaller and fits into smaller pedal boards more easily. There’s a lot of empty space inside the stock FI housing and @GisserD has made an incredibly high quality new housing by precision laser scanning the original, removing any verbiage and 3D printing a new one. 

Personally I like the original bit for many people board space is at a premium so it’s a neat solution for plenty of people, as evidenced by the relatively high number of users who’ve bought one from him.

I had a big box QTron and, had I kept it, I would have got Darren to make a custom housing as it was also mostly dead space.  

Yeh i know what you mean and was in now way meant to be an insult, just sadly even if a pedal is great sometimes its just to big and that puts it out of the running for me.

[Quatschmacher]

2 hours ago, 0175westwood29 said:

just sadly even if a pedal is great sometimes its just to big and that puts it out of the running for me.

Which is where re-housing can save the day for you.

No insult taken, by the way.