A good durable synth pedal?

[RocktimusBass]

Hey everyone, I am new to the forum. I play in a local cover band in Louisville called Rocktimus Prime. We are mainly rock covers but lately we are getting in to more rap tunes. I had a Digitech Bass Synth pedal that I was using on some of the rap tunes to give us a better feel on them, well, it died a horrible death at our last show and now does not turn on. I really dig the EH Micro Synth for bass. I want to avoid Digitech again and I am not a fan of BOSS pedals either. My concerns about the EH are that it's kinda pricey and how much real estate it will take up on my tiny pedal board... we don't have much space at most of the bars we play. Any and all advice is much appreciated!

Chad

[Kuchar1992]

Look up the Behringer BSY600. There should be demos for this on youtube.

[Floyd Eye]

Really? You just recommended a Behringer pedal to a guy asking about durable pedals?

[sillyfabe]

get the EHX XO BMS. one of my pedals I would never get rid off. sounds sooo FAT!

[1kinal]

The digitech bass synth wah is actually one of the good cheap pedals to get into synthy sounds. Another one I could recommend would be the ibanez sb-7. A bit harder to find because I think it's discontinued but It has a few good sounds in it. It's actually the only cheap pedal on my board.

If you want to add some cash, other alternatives could be:

- markbass synth pedal
- get real synth like the Korg microkorg. That's what I did and it definately add something onstage. And it's about the same price as an expensive synth pedal.

[mcbassburger]

I would go for the MB Super Synth. Extremely durable. Next, 9 different presets can be saved in the pedal which almost is a requirement when you use different sounds on stage.
Next, as I once again noticed last night in live situation, the synth is extremely fat! It may even scare your audience... Sounds are precisely engineered on PC or laptop and stored in the pedal. I had to choose between a Nord Lead 2x and the MB SS, now I'm convinced that the latter will do the job the coming time while it is much cheaper.

Still, 3 drawbacks for me: First, the pedal requires 12VDC/550 mA min. This means that my Voodoo Lab is not able to feed it (60 mA max...), and I have to use an extra adapter (although supplied with the pedal). Second, presets can only be choosen by scrolling. This means that it is impossible to switch from one to another preset very rapidly (except for the following preset in the row). Last, the 9 presets provided by Markbass were rather useless for me. Also in their software and on the internet, no extra presets are available as a starting point. Thus, you need to learn about analog synthesis and start from scratch with your desired synth sound.

[Jumbotron]

I second the idea for an Ibanez SB7. They sound very cool, they're cheap, and they don't take up much space. There are some issues with the switches on that series of pedals, but mine has been quite reliable.

[Meddle]

I third the Ibanex SB-7 motion. Its a sturdy pedal with good tracking and mine has not come back with any problems ever. I picked mine up for 70 Euros in France.

[RocktimusBass]

Thanks for all the advice! I really dig the idea of the Markbass Super Synth, mainly because I was thinking about getting an octave pedal at some point too. The Ibanez Sb-7 looks pretty nice but I am afraid it would end up breaking down on me the way the Digitech pedal did.