EHX micro bass synth popping issue.

terreseco · #1 01-27-2011, 12:53 PM

Greetings fellow BMS users. I just recieved mine today and it makes a popping noise when the note goes off. The same kind off noise you get when turning on a stompbox or amp. Is this normal? I've done a search on this and I cant find anything. One of my friends brought it for me from Canada to South Africa. If this is normal I dont think I would've bought the pedal. Allas. Another thing, my open e till the f# dont track as well as the other notes from the low g upwards, especially when I put the trigger above half. It sounds like it gets stuck. I would really appreciate some input as I dont know of anyone or any shop in my area that has one of these. Thank you.

terreseco · #2 01-27-2011, 01:40 PM

terreseco · #3 01-27-2011, 01:41 PM

warwick.hoy · #4 01-27-2011, 02:01 PM

I've never played the BMS,..but my understanding is that it is basically a Fuzz/Octaver/Envelope filter rolled into one. If it is an analog monophonic octaver as I think it is; it's not going to track well on low notes, which is par for the course for any other analog monophonic octaver.

As far as the popping? I couldn't tell you.

kevteop · #5 01-27-2011, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by terreseco

Greetings fellow BMS users. I just recieved mine today and it makes a popping noise when the note goes off. The same kind off noise you get when turning on a stompbox or amp. Is this normal?

No. You might want to send that back to EHX. Ah I see you're in South Africa... that makes it more difficult.

Quote:

Originally Posted by terreseco

Another thing, my open e till the f# dont track as well as the other notes from the low g upwards, especially when I put the trigger above half. It sounds like it gets stuck.

If you turn off the -1 Octave slider does this problem go away? It sounds like a note-tracking glitch; the -1 Octave voice is an analogue octaver and they simply don't work very well in the first octave of a bass guitar's range. There are various things you can do to improve the tracking (simplifying your input signal, using tone controls and playing more cleanly) but you will never get that low F# to work!

Eric! · #6 01-27-2011, 02:43 PM

Along the vein of kevteop's idea, turn all your controls to zero and one at a time, see if the popping affects any of the voices or frequency controls. That should help hone in on the exact problem, hopefully.

cheapbasslovin · #7 01-27-2011, 02:45 PM

I had some problem with the tracking of the unit on low notes that wasn't related to the octave. I think that it was trying to trigger over and over again, but I couldn't be sure. Low E is for chumps anyway

.

terreseco · #8 01-27-2011, 03:29 PM

Thank you all for your help. I love TB. Concerning the low note tracking, that I can live with, I mean with the sub octave on you dont really need to go lower then A anyway. The popping. It seems to have different intensities. When the note ends really loud on a low stop freq it's really loud. When I only have the guitar slider up it sounds more like a crackel. I'll email EHX. Hopefully they know the problem and I can have a techie here check it out. Peace all!

kevteop · #9 01-27-2011, 03:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cheapbasslovin

I had some problem with the tracking of the unit on low notes that wasn't related to the octave. I think that it was trying to trigger over and over again, but I couldn't be sure. Low E is for chumps anyway

.

Was this on the newer BMS or the old one? The old one does seem to handle low notes better I don't know if that's relevant to how the envelope-triggered filter works though.

If you turn off the -1 octave the pedal is no longer "tracking" anything, it's just an octave fuzz pedal with a (rather unique and nice - I don't mean to belittle it!) triggered filter sweep bolted on the end.

cheapbasslovin · #10 01-27-2011, 08:04 PM

It was the older one. If I cranked the gain trimmer to distortion I could get it to hold really low (down below E even with the octave down engaged). I tested it with and without the octave and for me the tracking was remarkably similar. I never did do a proper test of whether or not it was a filter triggering issue. I just posed the theory that 50Hz may be slow enough for the unit to try to retrigger every pass of the wave.

I should have dropped the trigger down where it never started the filter then tested it, but I never did that with a triggering test in mind. I wish I was using it more because it was a super rocking pedal

. Alas, now it is gone

.

kevteop · #11 01-27-2011, 08:49 PM

Yeah I've gone through four of them and if I hadn't cut down to a smaller board I'd still have one. I have other synth-type pedals that cover the same ground but the BMS just works excellently and (the 24v model) sounds amazing.

markjazzbassist · #12 01-28-2011, 12:43 PM

try adjusting the preamp gain trim. it's on the back, you can fit a little screwdriver and twist it to adjust, you might have the gain to high and it's peaking out.

Sidveloper · #13 01-31-2011, 10:21 AM

I had this issue with the newer BMS. Are you using a generic 9v adapter? I was going to return it when I noticed I was using a generic adapter, it worked perfectly once I switched to a Ibanez/Boss replacement one (this make is recommended by EHX).