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CEB-3 used as a "UNIBOSS"!

J

Joe P

Jul 15, 2004
2,649
16
65
Milwaukee, WI
#1
Oh-hooo, baby; do I like my Boss CEB-3 now!

I haven't seen any discussion about using the CEB-3's dual output "stereo" (not) feature, but man-oh-man do I have a killer tone available now!

I grabbed a little guitar amp that was lying around the studio, and plugged the effected-side output to it, and I'm tellin' you; any of you who thought that maybe you could use an Akai Unibass, try this - it's cheap and simple, and sounds SO much like a guitar playing along -- any of you guys in a rock band with only guitar, bass and drums (or D&B, of course) may find this very interesting.

The trick is that filter control. It provides a low-cut at the output (the "A"-output, that is - the 'straight' output to your main bass amp is completely un-effected), so you don't have to send low-end to the guitar amp; because of this you don't need much POWER from the guitar amp in order to match-up volume-wise to a whole bunch'a main bass amp power. This little 'Roland Blue Cube' amp hardly had to be putting out much volume at all to REALLY fatten-up the harmonics in my bass sound. Also, if you want more distortion (or a different flavor) than what the amp will do (the little Roland I used had a good-sounding distortion channel), you can use GUITAR pedals on the way to the guitar amp, because you don't put any lows through it!

When I crank-up this little amp, and play with my 3-piece power trio, it very-much sounds like there's two guitars for a lot of songs.

So this thing doesn't have to even be thought of as a 'chorus pedal'; it can be thought of as a.. A UNI-BOSS - yeah, that's it! But the little pitch-shift that's available really makes it sound all-the-more like a seperate instrument. I know that Akai's box has octaving and fifths and all, but the high-pass filtered output alone - when guitar-distorted - majorly SOUNDS like an octave-up; between that and the pitch-shifting, it sounds great, and from Unibass clips I've heard, some might say that this "UniBoss method" sounds 'less cheesy', while still really 'getting the job done'.

And like I said: You dont need much power when it's just high-freqs like this, so it's not like you'd have to carry around a fender twin or something.

I found the best filter setting to be between 8:00 and about 9:30. If you don't want any 'chorusing' to speak of (it really doesn't sound like chorus per-se anyway when used this way), then it sounds just fine to run the depth control down all the way - but I was doing something like 10:00 and 2:00 on the speed and depth, respectively.

I even tried putting my ODB-3 in the line to the guitar amp. It was noisy, but Man!.. I'm talkin' singing feedback and rawcous fret noise (remember: NONE of this at all from the main bass amp; just straight, un-effected signal there) - and well, just a real head-turning, aggressive sound, to say the least!

The only thing that I wish were different is that when you step on the pedal to bypass it, it sends straight, un-effected bass to the guitar amp. It would be much better for this purpose, of course, if it were to MUTE all output to the guitar amp. I'd like to know if that would be a simple mod - I bet there's half-a-chance that it would involve just disconnecting ONE wire (?).

Oh Baby -

Joe
 
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#3
Joe P said:
The only thing that I wish were different is that when you step on the pedal to bypass it, it sends straight, un-effected bass to the guitar amp. It would be much better for this purpose, of course, if it were to MUTE all output to the guitar amp. I'd like to know if that would be a simple mod - I bet there's half-a-chance that it would involve just disconnecting ONE wire (?).
Click to expand...

Sounds awesome Joe... i've gotta try this if i can grab a CEB-3 cheap somewhere. As for muting the signal, i would suggest using an A/B/Y switch to send the signal thru the "Uniboss" when wanted. Or maybe a Boss Line Selector, without running back into the "return" of the loop... just engaging the "send" to send the signal into the Uniboss rig. Lots of fun options!
 
#4
The only thing that I wish were different is ...
Click to expand...


How 'bout just a simple Loooper? Run the uneffected signal back to the return side of the loooper, and the effected "guitar" signal to the guitar amp. When the looop is off there's no signal going to the CEB.
Might still be noisy w/ the ODB, even when off, but this sounds fr!ggin awesome! I can stop stressing about paying far too much for a UnibAss on eBay!
Got any other cool tricks?
 
#5
Joe P said:
This little 'Roland Blue Cube' amp hardly had to be putting out much volume at all to REALLY fatten-up the harmonics in my bass sound. Also, if you want more distortion (or a different flavor) than what the amp will do (the little Roland I used had a good-sounding distortion channel), you can use GUITAR pedals on the way to the guitar amp, because you don't put any lows through it!

When I crank-up this little amp, and play with my 3-piece power trio, it very-much sounds like there's two guitars for a lot of songs.
Click to expand...
Cool idea :cool:

Is this the 30W Roland Cube? Do you think a 15W amp would work for a classic rock trio? I have no idea how much power I would need for a guitar :confused:

But I would love to try this out. I'll see if the guitar player has a small practice amp I could borrow.
 
#6
seanm said:
Cool idea :cool:

Is this the 30W Roland Cube? Do you think a 15W amp would work for a classic rock trio? I have no idea how much power I would need for a guitar :confused:...
Click to expand...
I'll bet it is; it IS a something-something-thirty, I remember. I don't have to turn it up very far to match-up with pretty hefty main amp volume!

I was once again just amazed last night at how much it sounds like two SEPERATE instruments! Dang. Because of the little pitch shifts from the chorusing (which, like I said, does NOT sound like 'chorus effect' when used like this), I could hear harmonics that sounded like freaky harmonies - especially on tapped patterns; these fantom harmonies were especially-speschly prominent when I used the bridge pup with the tone rolled-off all the way. It was really synth-ish.

I spent way too much time playing with it last night. It makes me want to TAP; tapping aounds SO cool through it!! ...but I'm suppose to be nailing Cold Sweat (J. Brown) for tomorrow's funk band rehearsal. I'd best not even turn on the Roland tonight, if I want to keep my mind on what I need to be.

Seeya -

Joe
 
#7
I wonder how this would sound with a Boss harmonist or super pitch shifter instead, maybe adding an octave plus a fifth above the root bass note... could be cool too!

Now i'm thinking of all the cool FX i could run on the "Uniboss" send... :hyper:
 
#9
I tried this with my CEB-3 and am a bit confused... with the setup as you reccomended, the "A (MONO)" input going to the main bass amp:

Strangely enough, when I play with my chorus normally, I use the A output to get an effected signal, which is the opposite of your synopsis. Is this what you mean by "straight output completely uneffected" or am I misinterpreting?

Also, when I set it up with my little 15W Frontman amp on the B channel and my bigger amp on the A (Mono) Channel, if the effect is turned on, it seems to send ALL the signal to the little amp! Again, a bit backwards.

Something's funky, I know it... and not in the good sense. any help? (i'm probably just doing some simple foolish thing). This does sound like a fantastic idea though.
 
#11
bass_drum said:
How exactly do you get it to send a high octave tot he guitar amp? Does it automatically make a octave higher or is there a setting you need on there?
Click to expand...
The sound right from the bass has a whole 'harmonic series' to it. when you chop-out the lows, it's the harmonics that are left - then when you distort (known also as "harmonic distortion") it, it adds even more harmonics to the harmonics, so you get this big'ol enriched harmonic series.

Of course you could just split the signal to get an effect something like this, but the CEB does the low-cut AND, importantly, does the little pitch shift and delay that really - for practical purposes - 'makes it a seperate instrument'.

Joe
 
#14
Let me see if i have this straight. 1) You run a chord from the bass to the input of the pedal. 2) You run one chord from the "A" (mono) output directly to a bass amp. 3) You run another chord fron the "B" output to a second amp and that's it!, other than maybe some distortion from the second amp.
 
#16
thunder-pick said:
Let me see if i have this straight. 1) You run a chord from the bass to the input of the pedal. 2) You run one chord from the "A" (mono) output directly to a bass amp. 3) You run another chord fron the "B" output to a second amp and that's it!, other than maybe some distortion from the second amp.
Click to expand...
Nope. The 'A' output becomes the EFFECT output when you're using both jacks. 'B' becomes the striaght, dry output.

I'd say you pretty much need some distortion on the extra amp to hear this sound very dramatically, else it's fairly subtle. The distortion is what really builds up that upper harmonic series. It sounds great running to a clean amp too, but it won't provide the wow-factor that I'm talking about.

Like I said - when you run enough crunch and volume on the second amp, a three-piece rock band can have the bass really fill-in the part of the spectrum that the guitarist looses when he goes to a lead.

Joe
 

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