Synth bass pedal order

[SimonK]

Hi all,

 

Been experimenting with synth bass sounds, but the aim is to use my current pedals rather than buy a specific synth pedal (thank the 2025 gear abstinence thread for that!). So far I have:

 

Octave -> Chorus/Flanger/Filter -> Fuzz

 

My thinking is that the Octave needs the cleanest signal to track properly, and the fuzz goes last as it, well, fuzzes everything, meaning the modulation pedals work best in the middle?

[jimbobothy]

... I've seen a few YT vids where the order is comp - octave -  fuzz/dirt - modulation. That seems to work for me when I have a synth bass inclination.

 

 

 

Edited January 5 by jimbobothy

[Boodang]

1 hour ago, SimonK said:

Hi all,

 

Been experimenting with synth bass sounds, but the aim is to use my current pedals rather than buy a specific synth pedal (thank the 2025 gear abstinence thread for that!). So far I have:

 

Octave -> Chorus/Flanger/Filter -> Fuzz

 

My thinking is that the Octave needs the cleanest signal to track properly, and the fuzz goes last as it, well, fuzzes everything, meaning the modulation pedals work best in the middle?

Octave not only needs the cleanest signal but also least amount of harmonics. So playing nearer the neck will give a better result than playing near the bridge. 

[SimonK]

I was inspired by 16:15 from the following, especially as I have exactly the same octave and chorus pedals, but annoyingly the camera glare makes it really hard to see the setings!

 

 

[Richard R]

2 hours ago, SimonK said:

 the camera glare makes it really hard to see the setings!

 

 

 

Ask the question in the YT comments of the video. 

[spyder]

I use octave / fuzz / chorus / reverb / comp. 

[SimonK]

So this is what I've been experimenting with this afternoon. I've put the Octave and the envelope filter first in the chain as they were both struggling to track after the compressor, then fuzz, then chorus is last in the chain (but before the EQ & preamp). I'm not totally convinced I have found a sweet spot RE setting so if anyone has experience in these things and fancies a comment. The decay setting on the filter seems to make a massive difference to the sound albeit loses some of the low end and hence the EQ setting.

 

[paul_5]

I use compressor > octave > fuzz/drive > envelope filter > chorus for some Stevie Wonder-esque squelchy synth tones.

[bassbora]

When I am modern type synth in a band I go oct=>fuzz=>filter but I don’t always use the fuzz. I have found the Iron Ether XD give me the best synth sound. It has that 4 pole switch and just works differently than other filters I find. 
 

For Stevie Wonder type of thing I just use a filter (Wonderlove) and might add an oct occasionally. 
 

I have just found this works best for my setup and bands but there is no wrong or right you just have to experiment. 

[dannybuoy]

I prefer fuzz before octave. Then the fuzz doesn’t get bogged down with too much low end and you end up with clean sub bass underneath the dirt. Hardly makes any difference to tracking in my experience, if anything it tracked better!

Filter after fuzz for synth, filter before dirt is more for classic rock tones.

Chorus generally at the end, but whatever sounds best.

Edited January 5 by dannybuoy

[Richard R]

I watched the Ian King video at lunch. Really nice to see what's important to someone playing for a living and why.

At nearly $1000 that Caveman pre-amp and DI is well out of my price range, but it's just the right tool for the job in his case.

[pantherairsoft]

There is obviously no 'right' answer, but for classic squelchy synth tones, the most common order is Octave > Dirt > Filter > (Modulation), with Modulation being optional.

 

Depending on your particular fuzz and filter, you might need to mix things up, and depending on the output of your bass, you might find fuzz before octave works better, but as a 'go to', the chain above is usually the place to start. The true sweet spot tends to come from tweaking the cutoff of your filter according to whatever your fuzz is pushing into it. 

[SimonK]

Right so a few weeks of trying to actually use a synth bass sound live and things haven't been going great.

 

Picture of the board is above - I've found the main part of the synth tone comes from the octamizer & big muff, with the chorus adding a bit of icing on top (but not being that noticable especially live) and the decay control on the envelope filter really changing the sound but not in a great way. Was irritating hitting four pedals when I wanted the synth sound so ended up just using the octave & fuzz.

 

BUT, and it's a big one, the tracking on the Octamizer even when it was the very first pedal in the chain wasn't great. Not too bad for quarter notes or less above the third fret or so, but any attempt to sustain a note - which is kind of what I was wanting with the synth sound - just kept dropping out/changing.

 

So my conclusion is maybe I need a new everything in one synth pedal - any recommendations?

[pete.young]

2 hours ago, SimonK said:

Right so a few weeks of trying to actually use a synth bass sound live and things haven't been going great.

 

Picture of the board is above - I've found the main part of the synth tone comes from the octamizer & big muff, with the chorus adding a bit of icing on top (but not being that noticable especially live) and the decay control on the envelope filter really changing the sound but not in a great way. Was irritating hitting four pedals when I wanted the synth sound so ended up just using the octave & fuzz.

 

BUT, and it's a big one, the tracking on the Octamizer even when it was the very first pedal in the chain wasn't great. Not too bad for quarter notes or less above the third fret or so, but any attempt to sustain a note - which is kind of what I was wanting with the synth sound - just kept dropping out/changing.

 

So my conclusion is maybe I need a new everything in one synth pedal - any recommendations?

 One way to reduce the amount of tap dancing is to put all the pedals you're going to use in a loop, such as a Boss LS-2, then you can leave them all on and just hit the loop to turn them all on at once. If you use the pedals individually as well, that's less helpful.

 

Not sure what kind of synthy sounds you're using, but the Boss SY1 has some very useable sounds even though it's an emulator not a proper synth.

 

Also, I've just spotted that you have a compressor in the chain. I found that the MXR Envelope Filter wasn't very happy with a compressed signal, and worked very much better with the compressor downstream of it.

Edited Sunday at 17:13 by pete.young

[SimonK]

13 minutes ago, pete.young said:

 One way to reduce the amount of tap dancing is to put all the pedals you're going to use in a loop, such as a Boss LS-2, then you can leave them all on and just hit the loop to turn them all on at once. If you use the pedals individually as well, that's less helpful.

 

Not sure what kind of synthy sounds you're using, but the Boss SY1 has some very useable sounds even though it's an emulator not a proper synth.

 

Also, I've just spotted that you have a compressor in the chain. I found that the MXR Envelope Filter wasn't very happy with a compressed signal, and worked very much better with the compressor downstream of it.

 

RE compressor, the signal goes Octamizer -> Filter -> compressor for exactly the reason you stated.

 

RE LS-2, I could but that would be an extra pedal, and if I am putting something new on the board a standalone synth pedal is probably easier - also I use the fuzz on it's own so it would get complicated if it was in a loop.

 

Some of the EHX synth pedals have been catching my eye - does anyone use a POG on bass?

[Quatschmacher]

5 hours ago, SimonK said:

 

RE compressor, the signal goes Octamizer -> Filter -> compressor for exactly the reason you stated.

 

RE LS-2, I could but that would be an extra pedal, and if I am putting something new on the board a standalone synth pedal is probably easier - also I use the fuzz on it's own so it would get complicated if it was in a loop.

 

Some of the EHX synth pedals have been catching my eye - does anyone use a POG on bass?

Really recommend the FI and there’s a cheap one on here at the moment (and housed in the smaller box that @GisserD made:

 

 

Edited Sunday at 23:09 by Quatschmacher

[SumOne]

On 02/02/2025 at 14:30, SimonK said:

 

 

BUT, and it's a big one, the tracking on the Octamizer even when it was the very first pedal in the chain wasn't great. Not too bad for quarter notes or less above the third fret or so, but any attempt to sustain a note - which is kind of what I was wanting with the synth sound - just kept dropping out/changing.

 

So my conclusion is maybe I need a new everything in one synth pedal - any recommendations?

 

The Octamizer and other analogue octavers I've used (MXR, Markbass) do all tend to do that 'warble' thing with sustained notes. You can limit that a bit with playing style - clean/muting, pickup selection, dial back the tone, quite high string action to get rid of as much buzz as possible, and string choice - trying to reduce harmonics and focus on the fundamental. Certain strings often seem better than others, and not playing notes below about low A on a 4 string.  Although that is a lot of things, I'm yet to find a digital octaver that sounds quite as good as the Octamizer when it's working well. The OC5 did track and sustain notes much better though.

 

Some of those same tracking problems are similar for synth pedals but generally I found the C4 to work well on sustained notes.

 

 

Edited 10 hours ago by SumOne

[Bigwan]

The MXR Bass Envelope Filter is a band-pass filter, I think most bass synth sounds are based around a low-pass filter.

 

In my limited experience you have to play an octave pedal a bit. Requires a technique adjustment. Ian Martin Alison has done an excellent video on this.