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Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

#7,561
ugly_bassplayer said:
Yeah....that otto bit and polymoon sound incredible.

Does the polymoon lend itself easily to "on the spot" knob tweaking for sound manipulation???

Meris have very top shelf stuff. Very innovative and very musical.
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Meris is NOT friendly for knob tweaking at all. I have a Hedra and an Ottobit Jr...Meris pedals have these annoying secondary fucntions that aren't even labeled on the pedals and accessing those functions will overwrite a preset if you are on a preset. Meris pedals are incredible, but if you aren't using MIDI (or at the very least presets built with an editor) with them, it is a waste in my opinion.
 
#7,562
steubig said:
congrats. i hope you (think you will) like it.

when you get it, make sure it has the most recent firmware.

https://www.ashunsoundmachines.com/downloads

it’s pretty simple, but you do need to follow instructions and make sure you do the keys version (i assume you got the keys version).

also, if you’re on facebook, there’s a good hydrasynth group that has people
who were involved in its development, so it’s an excellent resource.

pm me if you have any questions.

not bad for selling beer glasses.
Click to expand...

Thanks a ton!!! I'm really excited about the synth. This thread made me aware of it and I fell in love instantly with the demos, can't wait to get hands on keys!
 
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#7,563
cosmicevan said:
Meris is NOT friendly for knob tweaking at all. I have a Hedra and an Ottobit Jr...Meris pedals have these annoying secondary fucntions that aren't even labeled on the pedals and accessing those functions will overwrite a preset if you are on a preset. Meris pedals are incredible, but if you aren't using MIDI (or at the very least presets built with an editor) with them, it is a waste in my opinion.
Click to expand...
Actually, they fixed that with a firmware update (the overwrite the preset thing). They will upgrade free of charge, if you contact them - I don't think they publicized it too much, so they wouldn't get deluged. I found out about it as I was a beta tester on those editors, and was chatting with Angelo at Meris about how annoying it was that one couldn't tweak without overwriting. If you hold the right button instead of the left, it doesn't overwrite.
THey did that for all three of mine, as it pissed me off, to no end, and I think a lot of people complained about it. i don't even think they charged to ship them back to me. I just put little labels on them so I can clearly see all of the secondary functions. With those two things in place, they're wicked good for knob tweaking.
 
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#7,564
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#7,565
steubig said:
my thing about the ct5 looper is using it in the transcendence (i think it is) mode, so i can do the stuttery loop thing or go the the 3-head operation.

i put it before a mangling block (charlie foxtrot, scrutator, sneak attack et al.) and before my volume pedal and the chain after it (including the main looper, which is the boomerang3). this allows me to play little snippets that are not audible (before the vol pedal, remember?) and then bring them in and mess around with them; using the back-and-forth between 1- and 3-head operation can set up interesting patterns/mini-grooves/little bursts of mayhem. i can loop that later on (and sometimes i'll resample that loop with another looper.)
Click to expand...
Ooh..great idea!
 
#7,566
lordradish said:
I certainly do. It's the last thing on my chain, after the H9. It just has plate and cathedral. I use the plate for conventional stuff, and then tweak the hell out of it and the cathedral. The stereo on this sounds soooooooooo good and big. Has pitch variations, swells, hi and lo pass. I got this because I wanted the filtering options, because bass can sound like crap in verb if you don't filter the lows out.
Click to expand...
If it had reverse I wouldn't be hesitating...as it is is really cool, though.
 
#7,568
monsterthompson said:
I'm listening to a minimal techno compilation and there's a bird outside with a weird chirp which sounds a lot like a stutter percussion part in the current track. I keep pausing it to figure out if it is the music or the bird, and it is driving me insane.
Click to expand...
Happens to me 100% of the time when I listen to cuban linx by Raekwon in the car and the Police siren goes off.

Is it the album or am I getting pulled over?!?!?!
 
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#7,570
emjazz said:
I need to try that one eventually.
Click to expand...
46vdaz.jpg
 
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#7,573
So I listened to some demos and read up and there is a dark horse candidate. Boss RV-500. Bread and butter delay and reverb, tons of modulation, bass cut right on the front, full size MIDI port to control with my mastermind and expression pedal, and easy interface for lots of programmability. It would also free up my H9 for more wild stuff. I suspect the basic reverb sounds are pretty different too.

So, what are the downsides?
 
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#7,574
JES said:
So I listened to some demos and read up and there is a dark horse candidate. Boss RV-500. Bread and butter delay and reverb, tons of modulation, bass cut right on the front, full size MIDI port to control with my mastermind and expression pedal, and easy interface for lots of programmability. It would also free up my H9 for more wild stuff. I suspect the basic reverb sounds are pretty different too.

So, what are the downsides?
Click to expand...
I have the Modulation version, the MD 500. Only downside is, it's big. In hindsight, I should have gotten the MD 200, as I find I'm not really doing the two-effects at once thing. Sounds great, though.

Although, I must admit to being confused, you have an H9, that has every kind of reverb imaginable, and some are the best out there. You'd probably get more sounds putting something in front of the h9 instead of after it... like a Polymoon. If the RV could do what the H9 can't, I'd say you had a point, but I don't think there's anything the RV can do better than the H9.
 
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#7,575
Good point. I was sort of put off by the 1/4” midi on the Polymoon (costs extra to hook it up that way) but maybe I can handle preset switching another way?

I’m also wondering whether I can do a lot of the Polymoon stuff with the H9. I realize it’s not exactly the same in that there isn’t a single algorithm with the exact combination of features but it has many of the same capabilities.
 
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#7,576
i have the three boss 500 pedals. i quite like them. i use each of them with an expression pedal for various possibilities. they are biggish. i wish they did an od and their pitch algorithms with the same architecture (the od-200 doesn't have a feature i would need).

but, like he said, you have an h9 . . .
 
#7,577
this is what i've been working on for a while (somewhat concurrently with that all-hydrasynth thing i did).

went from liking it to hating it to working out some of the things i disliked—we'll see how i feel tomorrow. it is a bit long . . . maybe listen to it when you're washing dishes! (headphones could be cool.)

16 tracks of 12-string basses (8 each fretted/fretless); 14 tracks of hydrasynth.

90% of the effects are live, either from the boss 500 pedals or my dr. scientist the elements; the hydra has its own effects. the non-live stuff is an ableton reverb and delay, and a few tracks that are put into reverse. tmi?

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

it's kind of odd?
 
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#7,578
steubig said:
this is what i've been working on for a while (somewhat concurrently with that all-hydrasynth thing i did).

went from liking it to hating it to working out some of the things i disliked—we'll see how i feel tomorrow. it is a bit long . . . maybe listen to it when you're washing dishes! (headphones could be cool.)

16 tracks of 12-string basses (8 each fretted/fretless); 14 tracks of hydrasynth.

90% of the effects are live, either from the boss 500 pedals or my dr. scientist the elements; the hydra has its own effects. the non-live stuff is an ableton reverb and delay, and a few tracks that are put into reverse. tmi?

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

it's kind of odd?
Click to expand...
ONLY 16? Pfft. Amateur.

Nice job.
 
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#7,580
Trying to make an ambient feeling track for my non ambient project. I was feeling pretty bad about preliminary drafts. I decided to start getting weird with software instrument selections and trying Ableton automations. I even looked at layering Cuban and African percussion patterns. In the end, I didn’t use a lot of what I tried, but I moved along to something I liked. Now to listen tomorrow to see how I feel with fresh ears. I’ll probably hate it tomorrow :)
 
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