Bought the Boss PS6 Harmonizer

Winnb · #1 11-26-2010, 04:49 PM

First, I'm not a pedal guru, I just needed a pedal that could do 1 octave up or down (or both!) and this one does it. The harmony stuff would be a plus if it worked right.

Got it at GC for $149 this morning on black Friday. Ouch. Not cheap. But **** it, that's why I work, so I can buy stuff. Got there at 8:30 and the place was already packed.

Researched it online and here, then fooled around with it in the store for about 10 minutes. Sales rep was helpful. It did pretty much exactly what I needed it to do. Rep said I had 15 days to bring it back. So okay...

I've been playing with it all day and I gotta say it works pretty well. It can do one octave up, one octave down, and one octave up and down simultaneously. Nice.

The harmonies work great also, but they don't sound too hot on bass in the low register. Too muddy or not audible. EQ'ing doesn't help that. Keep in mind this is a pedal for guitar.

Using the harmony control is fun, but man you really gotta be careful. If you forget to choose the right key and you kick that puppy in later in the middle of a song and everything's a half step (or whatever) off... whew.

I don't have much use for the pitch shifter and the detuner controls. The pitch shifter works almost like the harmonizer effect and the detuner just sounds like a chorus pedal. Maybe I just haven't gotten the hang of that yet.

The S Bend thing is fun to play around with, but I'm probably never gonna use that. I don't need a whammy/tremolo pedal that can jump 3 octaves and sound like somebody stuck their dick in a blender.

The tracking on the octaves sounds fine to me. I played a lot of fast licks and several lines from songs that we do and it doubles the parts perfectly. Again the octave down feature doesn't sound good to me in the low registers. Just too low, too muddy, or doesn't track at all. But it works fine in the higher registers. The octave up feature kicks ass.

PDGood · #2 11-26-2010, 05:07 PM

Thanks for posting this. I've been looking for something that does an octave up. Does this one play the octave above clean? The knock on so many pedals is that the octave up is a distorted sound. It would be great to find one that tracks well and is clean.

Winnb · #3 11-26-2010, 05:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PDGood

Thanks for posting this. I've been looking for something that does an octave up. Does this one play the octave above clean? The knock on so many pedals is that the octave up is a distorted sound. It would be great to find one that tracks well and is clean.

Yep, it sounds clean to me. I play through an EQ pedal, a chorus (sometimes) and a compressor (all the time), and the octave up comes out just find.

I originally wanted the pedal for a song called Cissy Strut. We do the Matt Schofield Trio version. Lots of licks there where the guitar and bass double parts. We're a tri too so I want to triple up some licks. But now that I've been playing with the pedal and going over our song list I'm seeing lots of places I can use it.

We play Jazz and Blues only. So I don't want or need distortion on the pedal either.

speedbump · #4 11-26-2010, 05:19 PM

The easy way to raise everything up one octave is to use a guitar

bobbass4k · #5 11-26-2010, 05:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by speedbump

The easy way to raise everything up one octave is to use a guitar

Helpfulness: E-
Sarcasm: F

If you're going to troll at least do it well.

Kwin Smith · #6 11-26-2010, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobbass4k

Helpfulness: E-
Sarcasm: F

If you're going to troll at least do it well.

Well said.

OP. Please continue to post your thoughts on the pedal as you use it more. I'm interested in one of these, too. Thank you for taking the time to review it.

Winnb · #7 11-26-2010, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by speedbump

The easy way to raise everything up one octave is to use a guitar

LOL! I think you missed the point there my man. Unless you were just being funny.

Winnb · #8 11-26-2010, 05:52 PM

Oh one more thought. The instruction manual seems to be suggesting that this pedal works even better with 2 cabs running in stereo. Which makes sense to me. For example, with 2 cabs in stereo the pedal will send a +1 octave signal to one cab and then send the -1 octave signal to the other. That probably sounds pretty good. Unfortunately I'm at home playing this thing through a 10 watt Acoustic amp. Great for practice, but not exactly a wall of sound. Sounded great though the headphones though.

Unwound · #9 11-26-2010, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by speedbump

The easy way to raise everything up one octave is to use a guitar

seriously, its getting old. some people would like to move past the sixties when it comes to bass sounds.

SactoBass · #10 11-26-2010, 06:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by speedbump

The easy way to raise everything up one octave is to use a guitar

I tried that, and I found that it was actually easier to use an octave up pedal rather than trying to play my bass and a guitar at the same time. Also, the weight of the bass plus the guitar was a bit much for my shoulder.

rekesbass · #11 11-27-2010, 07:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SactoBass

I tried that, and I found that it was actually easier to use an octave up pedal rather than trying to play my bass and a guitar at the same time. Also, the weight of the bass plus the guitar was a bit much for my shoulder.

I don't even want to know how you pluck the bass or strum the guitar with your hands full and all..

Winnb · #12 11-27-2010, 07:34 AM

Played around with the pedal some more this morning. I still don't get the "detune" feature. Sounds just like a chorus pedal to me. They just added some chorus features to give the pedal more bells and whistles I guess.

Winnb · #13 11-27-2010, 07:53 AM

More details about the pedal and more noodling:

These are the harmonies you can use. You can only use one selection at a time and you have to choose the correct key, major or minor and set it.

Turning the "shift" knob clockwise:
+3rd
+5th (pretty good everywhere except down low where it gets muddy)
+6th
+1 oct. (rocks!)
+3rd and +5th (a little muddy everywhere except higher registers)
+3rd and -4th (doesn't sound good anywhere, just my opinion)

-3rd (didn't like it except in higher registers)
-6th (didn't like it except in higher registers)
-1 oct. (loved it!)
-4th and -6th (didn't like it)
+1 oct. and -1 oct. (Rocks!)

WARNING: This function only works for single notes. If you start playing double stops/power chords/any chordal stuff you're boned.

Second WARNING: Using the +1 and -1 octave feature at the same time gets a little freaky up high. You're playing three octaves at once and in the really high registers the high tone is really bright. I toned it down by using the balance knob to turn down the level of the pedal signal. That helps.

Third WARNING: Woe unto thee who chooseth the wrong key.

Good NEWS! If you just use the + octave and - octave features you don't have to worry about the key.

DerHoggz · #14 11-27-2010, 08:57 AM

The detune is meant to be like when a synth's oscillators are out of tune by a small amount, which causes the "fatness". Sounds very cool with waveforms with lots of harmonics.

Winnb · #15 11-27-2010, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DerHoggz

The detune is meant to be like when a synth's oscillators are out of tune by a small amount, which causes the "fatness". Sounds very cool with waveforms with lots of harmonics.

Ah. Okay that makes sense. I can definitely hear the "warble", that's the only way I can describe it. Just sounded like a weird chorus to me. But your explanation makes way more sense.

Robertron · #16 11-27-2010, 02:14 PM

Bass soundclips please!

Winnb · #17 11-27-2010, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robertron

Bass soundclips please!

Sorry dude. I wish I could, but I have no idea how to record my bass, then post it online. But hey if it's not too complicated I'll do it!

Billy Low · #18 01-13-2011, 05:11 PM

Two questions:

1. Have you tried it with distortion?
2. is there any way to isolate the octave +1, as to not get any of the dry signal out?

MonsterBass101 · #19 01-13-2011, 05:20 PM

Ill try to get some sound clips up. I love this thing. The Octave Up, Down and all of the harmonies are awesome.

Happynoj · #20 01-13-2011, 06:18 PM

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that a chorus pedal doubled what you were playing and detuned one signal, which is the warbley sound (the same thing you hear if you ever tune using harmonics). So the detune mode IS a chorus sound, where you can control how much it is detuned with an expression pedal.