Bass Synth problems...
 

I just purchased a Boss Bass Synthesizer (SYB-5)- I'm also new to bass playing (have played guitar for a while). Anyways... I'm not getting the best sound out of my pedal as I've hoped. I'm not sure if its my set up thats limiting my sound. The problem I'm having is that the effect isn't sustaining that long regardless of decay rate that I have it on.It's almost like the effect sound farts out quick and my bass still rings true. I even have an expression pedal (Roland EV5) and for some reason it doesn't seem to do much regardless of setting I have it on. When I keep plucking strings the pedal is fine, but when I try to hold a synth sound it fizzles out really quick (again, I've tried playing around with the settings and it doesn't seem to help). I will note that I have both my guitar and bass plugged into a loop pedal so I don't know if thats effecting it. Any thoughts from anyone that used that pedal before would be much appreciated.

Welcome to Talkbass!

Unfortunately, that's one of the inherent problems with analog synth and octave pedals. Here's some things that you can try that might help:

• Use just the neck pickup on your bass (if you have one) - the fundamental pitch of the note is stronger than with the bridge pickup EDIT - I can see the front humbucker on your nice looking bass - is that a Blacktop Precision?
• Turn down the tone control on your bass, to reduce the higher frequencies that may be confusing the pedal
• Play with your right hand fingers (or pick) near the end of the neck - again, gives a stronger fundamental
• Play higher up the neck, ie. around the 12th fret - might not help the sustain problem, but often produces better tracking
• Use a compressor pedal before the synth - to increase the sustain of your notes

At the end of the day, most of us adapt the parts we play so that we don't rely on a synth or octave pedal holding long notes - I often switch a synth/oct pedal off for long notes then back on for the shorter stuff.

What you describe is normal for that pedal. It "tracks" the notes you play, and as your bass notes decay, the SYB-5 has nothing left to track, so it fizzles out. If you use a booster pedal in front of it, it will sustain longer, but not indefinitely.

thanks man, much appreciated. Yes it is a blacktop precision- thanks for the kind words.

I hate to say this but I don't know exactly what you mean by neck pick up. Does that mean the pick up closest to the neck?

The tone control? I'm pretty sure one of the knobs controls the pick up closest to neck and the other controls the pickup closest to the bridge (I know its pathetic that I don't exactly know). then theres a small one which I 'heard' blends the two.
^^sorry for the dumb questions but you only learn by asking questions!

Also, I have thought about getting a compressor pedal. I've been told a MXR Dyna Comp is a good one. I heard that you get a compressor to make the notes (low and high) pitch wise sound the same. So low lows wont out ring the high's? I'm kinda confused as to what this pedal does. If you don't mind sharing some knowledge I would greatly appreciate.

Thanks for bearing with me with all these noob questions!!!

If the first two control the volume of the two pickups, the third is probably a tone knob.

No problem at all, we were all noobs once! Yes the neck pickup is the one closest to the neck.

Adamixoye is right - according to the Fender website, the first knob is for the volume of the neck pickup, the second for the bridge pickup, and the small knob is the tone control.

You blend the two pickups by turning the first two knobs up or down. When the two knobs are the same level, the pickups are blended 50%-50%. Your overall volume is the combination of the two knobs.

That's the standard Fender Jazz style of controls. On other basses, it's done with a volume knob and a blend knob that sweeps between the two pickups.

A compressor reduces the volume of your bass's output once it goes over a certain level. It effectively reduces the difference between the loud notes and quiet notes. It might balance the low notes with the high ones - if the high ones are quieter, for instance.

I haven't tried the Dynacomp. I have an EBS Multicomp which is great. This website is written by a Talkbasser who has tried them all and is very informative:

http://www.ovnilab.com/

Check out the Compression FAQ and maybe the top picks links near the top of the page.

Feel free to ask lots of questions here - everyone is happy to help! Also if you use the Search box at the top you'll find people have talked about most topics in the past.

WOW awesome thanks so much for all this- much appreciated!

I'm essentially a born again guitar player. I started when I was young, had great rhythm and could play any song I wanted (chords, not lead). I'd bring in a song to my guitar teacher and have him teach it to me- bc at the time that was fun; I wanted to learn nirvana, STP, and whatever else was my favorite jam. I had no intersest in learning scales, music theory, knowledge of different guitars, amps, pick ups, strings (hell, I played GHS guitar boomers for over 10 years).

I started playing again in august and i want to aquire all the knowledge that most of you have and not be one dimensional like i used to.

I appreciate the knowledge shared on my bass's knobs with respects to the pickups and such. I think I'm going to buy the compressor pedal this weekend- I've heard it actually helps when playing with bass synth pedals (have any of yall heard this to be true)? I'm assuming my pedal configuration would be something like this:Amp>compressor>bass synth>over drive> bass guitar? if it should be the other way around let me know... I tried putting the overdrive in front of the bass synth and it caused my amp to spit out feedback even when the overdrive pedal wasnt pressed.

If by "X>Y" you mean "X goes into Y" then I'm assuming you have the amp and guitar backwards?

Assuming that you have those two backward, this is probably right. You can always try it different ways. The only rule is there are no rules. But there are guidelines that lead to "typical" orders of effects. In your case, the synth should be as early as possible except for possibly the compressor---with the right compressor settings evening out your input level, you might get better tracking and response from the synth. Putting the drive before the synth will probably do the opposite, and if you put it after, you will be able to get a crazier, distorted synth sound, but if it's before, you'll just get the synth sound out of it (if your synth is set to 100% wet mix).

As I've said I wish I spoke better guitar language lol. What I ment was a cable will go from my amp to my compressor pedal, then another cable will go from compressor to synth pedal, another cable will go to overdrive and then finnally to my bass. Does that sound better? So the compressor is the first in the chain (closest to amp). the overdrive at the end so i can get some distorted effects to the synth tone.

"First in the chain" means closest to the bass, that is where the signal is coming from. So your bass needs to be going into your compressor to even your signal, then compressor into your synth for the cleanest tracking and response, then into overdrive so you're distorting that (rather than the other way around, giving your synth a distorted signal it will be confused by), then out through the amp.

Adamixoye, I would hug you if you weren't just an internet poster i didn't know on a bass forum (#nohomo)! Seriously, I'm going to go home and rearange all my pedals. If you don't mind, (cuz I've purchased a few new pedals since I started this thread). I'm going to take a pic of my set up this weekend and post it on monday. I'll list my pedals in case you can't tell from the pic. If you have any input please let me know. Thanks man!!!!
I'm also using my Boss OD3 Overdrive (for guitar) on my bass (I know the lows aren't good bc its a guitar overdrive). Will this suffice or should I buy a bass overdrive instead? I know boss doesn't have one in their current line up and I'm a boss addict.

Ha ha, you're welcome, I'll try not to be creeped out!

I'll add that you could experiment switching the compressor and synth. Depending on the settings you might WANT the synth to respond to your playing dynamics and then compress that. Your settings on both will also factor in. But I would definitely put your synth closer to your bass than the overdrive.

on the bright side my bass playing is getting a lot better (new to the bass). bad news is the pedal is starting to pis* me off... Certain modes on the Boss SYB-5 produce next to no synth tone no matter how hard i strike the string, where as other modes produce good sounds... I understand now from above about tracking and maybe certain modes require that I adjust some of the other knobs to get a halfway "audible" sound. Worse so, is that when I use the compressor pedal I picked up (MXR dyna comp) it cuts out the lows to where I almost have to turn it off the get sound out of my bass synth pedal. I end up getting frustrated, stomping the synth pedal off and get back to improving my bass playing skills (which is more important anyway I know), but I'm trying to decide if I wasted $180 on an average analog synth pedal. Would it have been a smarter decision to of gone digital? I'm assuming I have to plug it into a computer in a DAW for that to happen? Sorry for the loaded question!

Sorry to hear about your frustrations. I have to say, synth pedals are difficult for pedal builders to get right. Like a lot of other guys on here, I've tried quite a few and none are perfect.

There are certainly lots of players out there, including some session guys, that are using the SYB-5. Have you compared your results to others' on Youtube? There are some videos where you can see the knob settings while they are playing.

With your SYB-5, if you are getting no synth sound quite a lot, then it might be that your bass's volume is not loud enough to trigger the synth. How much have you turned up the two pickup knobs on your bass? If not much, I would try turning them up fully, then turning the volume/gain on your bass amp down.

As I mentioned before, sometimes synth pedal play no note or the wrong note. The SYB-5 can let you mix in your normal bass sound, so that if the synth freaks out, your bass sound is still there to carry the bass line. You can do that by turning up the Direct control (outside part of the first knob).

According to the manual, modes 1-9 are synth modes, where an oscillator produces the synth effect. Try modes 10 & 11 instead which are waveshaper modes - they change the sound of your bass instead of creating an entirely new oscillator sound, so they might track better.

There are lots of alternative synth pedals out there. A fun one is the ElectroHarmonix Bass Micro Synth, which has lots of sliders to play with. I have this and it's great for 70s Bootsy/Moog type synth sounds.

I also have a Markbass Super Synth which is digital and can store different presets - it's good and sounds fat, but is difficult to edit on a gig. If you are just working at home or in a studio, then you can use a computer & USB cable to edit the sounds. I'm now looking for an Akai Deep Impact - discontinued but still popular and goes for $600 on Ebay!

Don't be disheartened about your SYB-5. Even if you decide to sell it, you'll find the second hand market is good for pedals in good condition (with box, manual etc). One reason why this forum is so active is that we can buy and sell lots of pedals and find ones that work for us, without breaking the bank. Good luck!

I would be curious to know how you're using the compressor, too? Though I recommended compressor before the synth, with the wrong settings, the compressor will make things worse, not better.

This is a possibility. For some reason 9pm is my bass jam time and I try to not play to loud to bother my neighbors (i'm a nice guy i know...). I will certainly turn both knobs up all the way and turn the amp volume/gain down- thats a good suggestion.

Funny you should say this... I actually have been turning the direct control down so I would only get synth! Great suggestion, I'll play around with that later and I'm sure it will help when the synth farts out on me.

Again, funny you should say this bc modes 10 & 11 are my favorite. It produces kind of a wah/wobble sound thats clear and easy to control especially with my expression pedal. 10&11 have been the modes of choice so far.

mostly the dyna comp with both knobs at around 2 o'clock. I've messed around with them some. I thought about returning it but I actually like using it when playing late at night to avoid the volume spikes and loud ringing lows.

theres times when at certain modes on the synth nothing rings then i turn the dyna comp off and i get a little more sound. I may try moving it out of first in the chain to see if it helps.

returning it
 

I'm going to return the SYB-5- Not bc of the issues as listed above. I play a lot of boss pedals and noticed that it didn't turn on and off with ease- sometimes I'd have to tap the pedal twice or really stomp on it to turn it off.

I think before I pick up another synth pedal I'm going to try a few different brands first. It was recommended to try a Markbass Super Synth, which I guess is digital? (should analog synths be avoided all together?)