Moogerfooger Bass MURF

[Outlaw_son]

Okay so I just found out about this pedal. It looks friggin sweet. I was looking into the chunk systems octavius squeezer and hear a soundclip I wanted in my setup. After seeing what the going price was, my hopes of experimenting with this pedal flew out the window. I saw a post on moog products and that led me to the bass murf.

Can anyone with this Bass murf tell me if it has something called portamento? I believe thats the sound im searching for. Maybe a combination of sounds?In the link below the soundclip im talking about is called Harry Highpants. Also is there another pedal that can pull off that sound that costs under $600?

http://chunksystems.com/os.htm#sounds

Any help is appreciated. Thanks

[JanusZarate]

Uh... did you actually read the description of what the Bass MuRF does? Because it doesn't do anything like what's in that clip.

The definition of portamento, from Wikipedia:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Portamento is a musical term primarily denoting a vocal slide between two pitches and its emulation by instruments such as the violin, and in 16th century polyphonic writing refers to an ornamental figure. It is also applied to one type of glissando as well as to the "slide" or "bend" functions of synthesizers.

So portamento is basically akin to a pitch shift.

Regarding that clip... the description tells you the most important part:

Originally Posted by Chunk Systems

Harry Highpants is a pulse synth two octaves above the pitch of the instrument

That's not even in the same ball park as the Bass MuRF, which is really a unique spin on resonant filters.

One way to do it "on the cheap" would be to use a pedal that can generate a note two octaves above the note you play (i.e., Digitech Whammy, Boss PS-3, EHX POG, etc.), and combine it with something that sounds like a pulse synth. Maybe a fuzz pedal... hmm. I'll mess with my Whammy and Blowtorch tonight to see what I get.

[Outlaw_son]

Okay.........so is there anything in the same "ball park" with the octavius squeezer that could get me what im lookin for for cheaper?

[bigchiefbc]

The EHX HOG can do two octaves up, and has a glissando mode, using an expression pedal. Its not gonna get the pulse-synth sound though. You'd have to put another pedal afterwards to get you the synth-y sound.

The Moog Freqbox can do a pulse synth, but the portamento would require the Moog CP251. Those two together will run you almost 600, so that's not any cheaper. Sorry, no idea on any others

[JanusZarate]

Yeah, the reality is that nailing that sound requires a lot of money.

Besides, with all that the Octavius Squeezer is supposed to be able to do... $600 doesn't seem that bad after all, now does it - especially when the alternatives for just a few of its tones would cost you just as much?

Still, I'd suggest playing with the Digitech Whammy and EHX HOG, if you can find a shop that has them. You might find some alternative solutions or even other tones you'd rather have.

[Jared Lash]

+1 to MysticBoo's whole post.

I loved my Bass MuRF (just sold it to my guitarist), it's a very unique pedal, but miles away from the Octavius Squeezer.

At it's heart, the OS is a fuzz, octaver, filter, ASDR and waveform generator. So it's sounds "could" be approximated by combinations of pedals. But how effectively and cheaper, I don't know.

BTW, a new Bass MuRF is $400 so it's not as if it's an inexpensive pedal itself.

[Outlaw_son]

Im just now getting into using effects and to me $600 is waaaaaaaaaaay to much money to spend on an effects pedal. Now i suppose this squeezer is capable of alot and since i dont know much about effects it probably does alot more than i think it does. All I know is I wanna produce that sound with my bass! Unfortunately im not familiar with sound effect terminology so Its hard for me to understand fully what I need/want from an effect pedal. I have a feeling Ill probably end up blowing the $600 to get it anyways. I dont have a envelope filter or a fuzz and from what Ive heard, Chunk does those pretty well.
BTW what the hell is a ASDR and a waveform generator?

[cnltb]

Originally Posted by Outlaw_son

Okay.........so is there anything in the same "ball park" with the octavius squeezer that could get me what im lookin for for cheaper?

Ebay.

[bigchiefbc]

Originally Posted by Outlaw_son

Im just now getting into using effects and to me $600 is waaaaaaaaaaay to much money to spend on an effects pedal. Now i suppose this squeezer is capable of alot and since i dont know much about effects it probably does alot more than i think it does. All I know is I wanna produce that sound with my bass! Unfortunately im not familiar with sound effect terminology so Its hard for me to understand fully what I need/want from an effect pedal. I have a feeling Ill probably end up blowing the $600 to get it anyways. I dont have a envelope filter or a fuzz and from what Ive heard, Chunk does those pretty well.
BTW what the hell is a ASDR and a waveform generator?

ADSR is a term often used on synthesizers to reflect the pattern that the volume of a played note follows. It stands for Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release. A waveform generator is what a synthesizer actually is. The sound you hear is not your bass signal at all; it is a generated note, in different selectable waveforms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSR

[Outlaw_son]

thanks bigchief

[RickenBoogie]

Fwiw, I had a bass MuRF a while back, and while it has some great features, in the end, it's just a fancified version of a resonant filter. Admittedly, it has sliders to control different frequency points individually, but among it's 22 preset animations, only a small handful are actually useable. I bought it thinking "bass synth", but it's really only one component in a modular synth. Cool, to be sure, but certainly not the end all be all, and for the price, not a bargain.