Boss GM-800 Synth launched

[Woodinblack]

25 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

 

Of course it does have 96K gold plugs.

 

Must be better. And I guess they assume that after paying £700 for the unit and £250 for the pickup, you aren't going to notice paying £60 for a TRS cable.

[Al Krow]

Watching Nate is never going to be good for taming GAS. 

 

[BigRedX]

Very impressive until you get to the last minute and a half when the reviewer explains that there is still a quite serious problem with tracking and latency on the lower notes and that many of the impressive pieces earlier in the review needed to be played multiple times in order to get a decent glitch-free take. Still not ready for live performance IMO.

Edited December 5, 2023 by BigRedX

[Owen]

It is difficult to fight the Physics. I guess that the answer is to be happy to play up an octave or more for when we want the synthy goodness. Obvioulsy this is sub-optimal, but physics is physics, and the reality is that a sound that is not bass guitar needs to be played differently anyway. I would be happy to play a normal guitar in some situations if there was a patch on there that "just" did a good, solid, believable bass guitar sound.

 

Classic self-inducing GAS post from me here. On another note, I think they might have used the synth to pitch Nate's voice down a bit

Edited December 5, 2023 by Owen

[BigRedX]

You are never going to be able to defeat the laws of physics. Even on the guitar there is still going to be pitch detection latency with the open E string being at the very best 18ms.

 

I'm surprised that Roland appear to have abandoned the far more usable and guitar-technique-friendly wave-shaping and modelling of the V-System for a return to pitch detection.

[Woodinblack]

26 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I'm surprised that Roland appear to have abandoned the far more usable and guitar-technique-friendly wave-shaping and modelling of the V-System for a return to pitch detection.

 

They haven't abandoned it, it is still in the Sy synths, although in the SY1-300 it is the whole instrument. Does the SY1000 not do the individual notes that way, or is that why they are boss rather than roland?

[SumOne]

It looks great with the GK-5 (does then cost about £1k though!). Assigning different sounds to each string  (and each range of notes on a string) is a great party piece - especially to turn your Bass into a drum kit. And being able to trigger other synths opens it up to make just about any sound. 

 

.....but yeah, latency/tracking low is an issue. If Nate's playing (with a mute) can get 'a little inaccurate' and needed 'many performance takes to get the tracking just right' then there isn't much hope for me!

 

I kind of feel that £1k and perfecting a different playing technique could be better money/time spent by playing a keyboard (you can get a great synth keyboard for £1k). Also, tracking aside, a keyboard is always going to also be a more practical way of playing in a piano/synth style of playing multiple notes at the same time with both hands, having things like pitch wheel, accessible controls to change parameters etc. I love the idea of playing synth via Bass, and love synth Bass sounds, but I dunno - I think it's something that a keyboard is always going to be better at, in the same way that playing a keyboard to sound like a Bass guitar is never quite as good as playing a Bass guitar.

Edited December 5, 2023 by SumOne

[BigRedX]

6 minutes ago, SumOne said:

I kind of feel that £1k and perfecting a different playing technique could be better money/time spent by playing a keyboard (you can get a great synth keyboard for £1k). Also, tracking aside, a keyboard is always going to also be a more practical way of playing in a piano/synth style of playing multiple notes at the same time with both hands, having things like pitch wheel, accessible controls to change parameters etc. I love the idea of playing synth via Bass, and love synth Bass sounds, but I dunno - I think it's something that a keyboard is always going to be better at, in the same way that playing a keyboard to sound like a Bass guitar is never quite as good as playing a Bass guitar.

 

This is the problem for me. Playing the guitar or bass opens up a completely different type of expression from playing on a keyboard, but using pitch detection most of that expression either gets lost or has to be filtered out of your technique to get decent results.

 

One of the other things I'd like be able to using a bass guitar is fast sequencer type synth bass lines, but latency, tracking and glitch notes all conspire to make that nearly impossible, or at least never sound as good as an actual sequencer driven line.

[ped]

I'm a bit confused, because the GK system, using the pickup and COSM processing, has zero tracking issues or latency because there's no pitch to midi or anything going on. I guess this system is different, in which case why change it? 

 

As for the performance aspect, although I never felt I needed to alter my playing on the GK system, using a Future Impact or some such means altering my style a bit but I rather enjoy that aspect of it. It makes it satisfying when you play clean.

[BigRedX]

15 minutes ago, ped said:

I'm a bit confused, because the GK system, using the pickup and COSM processing, has zero tracking issues or latency because there's no pitch to midi or anything going on. I guess this system is different, in which case why change it? 

 

As for the performance aspect, although I never felt I needed to alter my playing on the GK system, using a Future Impact or some such means altering my style a bit but I rather enjoy that aspect of it. It makes it satisfying when you play clean.

 

GK system just refers to the multi-way pickup being used. Technically the new pickup should be better as it uses a far more robust 3 conductor cable with jack leads instead of the fiddly 13 Pin DIN leads of the previous versions. However the sound generation unit is IMO a step backwards because we return to pitch detection and all the issues associated with it.

 

Hopefully there will be a new version of the SY series of "guitar synths" which will offer modelling and signal processing options, that uses this new pickup and then maybe there will be system that I can actually use.

[Woodinblack]

28 minutes ago, ped said:

I'm a bit confused, because the GK system, using the pickup and COSM processing, has zero tracking issues or latency because there's no pitch to midi or anything going on. I guess this system is different, in which case why change it? 

 

The Guitar synths always did, just the VG system used cosm processing, the GR system used pitch to note, and that always is going to have a delay.

Not so bad on a guitar, always a bit slower on a bass (in fact, twice as slow on the e vs e on guitar). Not so bad for synth swells and stuff, but for staccato notes, you have to predict that delay and play early, which is easy enough to do but does require a change in technique.

Or just play it higher, in which case, use a guitar, then you can do the bass on it with the synth

[Al Krow]

5 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

The Guitar synths always did, just the VG system used cosm processing, the GR system used pitch to note, and that always is going to have a delay.

Not so bad on a guitar, always a bit slower on a bass (in fact, twice as slow on the e vs e on guitar). Not so bad for synth swells and stuff, but for staccato notes, you have to predict that delay and play early, which is easy enough to do but does require a change in technique.

Or just play it higher, in which case, use a guitar, then you can do the bass on it with the synth

Sounds like it could work decently on a Bass VI? 

[ped]

Ah that makes sense. I tried a GR20 and found it worked OK but certainly not as immediate and seamless as the GK. 

[Woodinblack]

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Sounds like it could work decently on a Bass VI? 

 

Not really, they don't work well on those, specifically the spacing is a bit of an issue (less than bass, more than guitar) but also the same reason as a bass. Purely down to frequency. THe roland GK systems have the best tracking you can get, they have researched it more than anyone else and they cheat a bit to get the frequency, but ultimately you don't know what frequency something is until you have seen enough of its wave to work out its time. For a bass note, low E is 41Hz, so one wave every  1 whole wave every 24ms or so. Roland do faster than that which is impressive, but even then there are other frequencies as well to cloud the issue so they pick the note they think it is and then bend like mad to get it to be right on subsequent data (which is why the GKs always sound better than anything fed from their midi ports).

Obviously going to the low note of a guitar, the low E is 12ms so way better, and an octave about that, 6ms, you kind of got rid of the issue.

 

I have played the GKs on bass and guitar and frankly it is just better on the guitar.

 

The SY / VG system gets round that by not even trying, it just uses the wave coming in and modifies it. So no lag or anything.

[Al Krow]

8 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Not really, they don't work well on those, specifically the spacing is a bit of an issue (less than bass, more than guitar) but also the same reason as a bass. Purely down to frequency. The roland GK systems have the best tracking you can get, they have researched it more than anyone else and they cheat a bit to get the frequency, but ultimately you don't know what frequency something is until you have seen enough of its wave to work out its time. For a bass note, low E is 41Hz, so one wave every  1 whole wave every 24ms or so. Roland do faster than that which is impressive, but even then there are other frequencies as well to cloud the issue so they pick the note they think it is and then bend like mad to get it to be right on subsequent data (which is why the GKs always sound better than anything fed from their midi ports).

Obviously going to the low note of a guitar, the low E is 12ms so way better, and an octave about that, 6ms, you kind of got rid of the issue.

 

I have played the GKs on bass and guitar and frankly it is just better on the guitar.

 

The SY / VG system gets round that by not even trying, it just uses the wave coming in and modifies it. So no lag or anything.

 

Thanks for that Woody. Coming back to @BigRedX's point, the sequencer on the SY 200 (and I'm assuming therefore on the SY 300 and 1000) is pretty good in terms of low latency for the reasons Woody has set out. Dunno if it would get 90% of the way there for what you're wanting BRX, though?

[BigRedX]

The latency figures are still wrong. The very best pitch detection systems require AT LEAST one and half cycles to accurately track a note which adds a minimum of 50% onto your delay time. 

 

And there are loads of things that guitarists and bass players do (a lot of the time unconsciously) which simply don't translate when doing pitch detection. If you are going to have to play a different instrument (guitar) or play and octave higher or modify your technique, then IMO you are better off investing your time in learning how to play a bit of keyboards where you'll almost definitely be able to do the same thing with far more accuracy and repeatability. For me the whole point of using a guitar or bass to produce synth sounds is that I can can use all of my guitar or bass playing techniques and apply the expressiveness I get from these techniques to synthesised sounds.

 

@Al Krow One of things that is important to me is the ability to assign different synth sounds to different strings which rules out the SY200 and SY300 and that currently leaves just the SY1000 which requires the now outdated 13-pin connector cable system. Plus I'd need a custom 6 way pickup to cope with the string spacing of the Eastwood Hooky being much wider than a guitar and other Bass VIs but narrower than a 6-string bass. From what I've seen the new bass version of the pickup will accommodate my needs. I'll just have to wait until Boss/Roland release a new version of the SY1000 that works directly with the GK5B pickup.

[tauzero]

4 hours ago, ped said:

Ah that makes sense. I tried a GR20 and found it worked OK but certainly not as immediate and seamless as the GK. 

 

The GR-55 uses an amalgam of pitch detection and COSM - a patch can be made up of some, all, or none of two PCM sounds (pitch detected), one COSM sound, and the instrument pickup. Another thing I need to spend some time on.

[Woodinblack]

19 minutes ago, tauzero said:

 

The GR-55 uses an amalgam of pitch detection and COSM - a patch can be made up of some, all, or none of two PCM sounds (pitch detected), one COSM sound, and the instrument pickup. Another thing I need to spend some time on.

 

Similar to the SY1000

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

These  synth boxes seem to have improved a hell of a lot over the years . 
Having said that , they still have the usual off-putting traits to them with the GK Pickup and latency on lower notes.

I often thought of ways to get a fairly good selection of synth noises for bass that don't  cost the earth . Electroharmonix  released the synth9 among others for example . 
 

At the end of the day since getting into synths a few years back  ( moogs and Waldorf  with more to be added) , I think that it's best to keep polyphonic synth sounds away from the bass guitar. It is obviously ok for guitarists though . I found the synth 9 limiting , so I sold it . I love the Digitech Bass Syth Wah, and the Bass Whammy , although the latter is too big for my liking .

I have a boss Me-8b , and Zoom B3 which which are ok in moderation . 

 

Not sure if the GK pickup damges the bass or guitar you may be using . 🤔 If so, then a back up should you have one would seem to be the way to go imho. 
 

What about menu diving ? It was bad enough trying to understand the Boss Me-8b when that came out 

 

I'll not invest . Times are hard , but it does seem you do get a lot for the money 

[gumtown]

Hey ya's 
Forgot about this site for a few years, so I'm back !!

The SY-1000 is still one of my fav bits of gear, now paired up with the GM-800,

a great bit of kit, the SY-1000 bass models and amps are super good !!

The GM-800 has some insane tones, especially once you star loading the wave expansion packs.

 

  Here is my latest killer pedal board incarnation, 

GK 13 pin 1:2 splitter (top right)

SY-1000 with a couple of power supplies hidden under.

new Boss GM-800 PCM Zencore synth with GKC-AD converter under it

Tech21 VtBass analog preamp/dirt

Boss VE-500 vocal processor, pitch harmonies controlled by the GM-800 bass to midi output.

EV-5 expression pedal into the SY-1000, then midi to the GM-800.

DIY midi note foot pedal to GM-800 via SY-1000 midi thru, plays the parts 3 &4 of the GM-800 synth, some serious bass synths happening.

Output is stereo to desk with a passive mixer, and mono mix to stage amp.