Boss LS-2 how to's, do's and don'ts....

[Bassmike62]

Posted this in a thread, but seemed to have been the wrong one, so I'll start a dedicated Boss LS-2 thread, I haven't seen one around. Why not use this thread to discuss anything related to this pedal ?

I'll start with my problem .

I recently got one for my small board and this is how I use it: I'm looping the 60B to keep it out of the chain and have a better dry/wet control on my signal.

The LS-2 is set on A-bypass mode and I have the 60B through the A loop, while the main signal (bass > tuner > limiter > VT) goes through the LS-2's input/output to the preamp and then the amp. It all sounds good, but I can only control the 60Bs volume, whereas I would like to control the fx and dry volumes.

This is not an easy question to formulate, but here goes.... Is there any way I can use this pedal, as to have control on both the dry and wet signal, without having to deal with a third (non VT Bass signal) ? That's what I got when using both loops, one for the 60B and one for the main signal: using both loops AND the input/output seems to create a 3rd signal (LS-2 was set on the A-B mix bypass mode).

EDIT: my original post doesn't specify this (sorry about that). My LS-2 has two functions: (1) blending wet/dry, as mentionned above (2) add whatever 60B effect is on. This way, I can browse through the patches at will when the LS-2 is off.

Here's the current set-up, which basically looks like a wiring mess. Should be way better the MXR IsoBrick comes in. My chain is sigged.

 

[crguti]

select A+B Mix / Bypass. Connect your 60B in loop A and don't connect anything in loop B bcs that will be your dry signal. Change the gain of A & B loop as you like.

 

[Downunderwonder]

Don't shoot me if I am wrong but I think I read the VT is one that responds badly to external blending. It probably has custom phase correction of its internal blend.

Some blenders have a simple 180° phase flip but ls2 isn't one of them. Clean blending distortions often falls over without phase control.

 

[Downunderwonder]

In other words, if I am correct, you would need the VT after everything else, or before the looper,

and no phase issues with anything else that gets wet plus dry blended.

 

[LSMFT6]

I have no issues with blending my VT v2

 

[Nephilymbass]

select A+B Mix / Bypass. Connect your 60B in loop A and don't connect anything in loop B bcs that will be your dry signal. Change the gain of A & B loop as you like.

my boards at the rehearsal space but I'm pretty sure that's the setting I use. Nano pog and tech 21 gt2 in loop A. Nothing in loop b. Let's me blend dirt from the gt2 and for certain parts I kick the dirty sound up an octave using the nano pog for sort of a Royal blood type of vibe to fill out the sound of the band when our one guitar player wants to play harmonies or lead type of stuff. I like to set up the combination between the pog and the gt2 with the ls2 off, then between the pog and the gt2 I'll turn on one or the other or both. Then I engage it with the Ls-2.

So between these three pedals I get a combination of sounds. The pog on with the gt2 off is kind of like a clean fake 8 string octave up type of vibe, all 3 pedals on is like a royal blood type of vibe, pog off with gt2 on drops the dirty signal back down for more of a meshuggah (nothing album) guitar and bass at the same time type of vibe with the mix of the gt2 and my "clean" tone in the same octave. It was a bit wierd getting them dialed on. Because I'm blending my dry tone in with the ls2 the pog is actually set with the upper octave cranked and the Dry and octave down at like 8 oclock( nearly all the way off)

I want to get a killswitch to put in loop b so I can mute the clean bass part of the sound for intros and stuff. But my pedaltrain mini is extremely packed and I dont want a bigger board again. I may try to have saturnworks or someone build me a simple killswitch in a 1590a size box with both jacks on the same side to pull that off. I think if I move my Shure glxd and compressor up a a couple inches I'll have enough space below them to put the killswitch sideways if the input and output were both on the same side.

 

[Bassmike62]

Don't shoot me if I am wrong but I think I read the VT is one that responds badly to external blending. It probably has custom phase correction of its internal blend.

Some blenders have a simple 180° phase flip but ls2 isn't one of them. Clean blending distortions often falls over without phase control.

VT ain't blended with the LS-2 in my chain . I tried it, it did sounded OK, but I prefer it full on instead of blended.

 

[Bassmike62]

my boards at the rehearsal space but I'm pretty sure that's the setting I use. Nano pog and tech 21 gt2 in loop A. Nothing in loop b.

If I'm understanding correctly how this mode works, when you kick the pedal on, you can mix the pog and gt's signal between them. You also have the dry signal coming in (via the input/output jack) which can't be blended, right ?

 

[Nephilymbass]

If I'm understanding correctly how this mode works, when you kick the pedal on, you can mix the pog and gt's signal between them. You also have the dry signal coming in (via the input/output jack) which can't be blended, right ?

Here's a video that shows how the combo of the ls2, POG, and the gt2 work together. I got the nano pog instead of the micro pog because my pedaltrain mini didn't have enough room for the micro and I didn't want to remove remove pedals but it's the same concept.

 

[Bassmike62]

Here's a video that shows how the combo of the ls2, POG, and the gt2 work together. I got the nano pog instead of the micro pog because my pedaltrain mini didn't have enough room for the micro and I didn't want to remove remove pedals but it's the same concept.

Interesting video.

I'm intriged by what he has going by having the tuner after the LS-2 and it seems to be triggering something, but I couldn't hear the difference. Or is it the LS-2's loop ? What gives ?

 

[LSMFT6]

Not going to lie, I'm scared to watch that video. I never turned the High or Drive knobs on my old GT2 past 10 o'clock because it was just too much treble, so after seeing the thumbnail of his settings and the fact that he's goosing it with an octave . . . Pretty sure it's a trap to burn my ears off.

 

[Nephilymbass]

Interesting video.

I'm intriged by what he has going by having the tuner after the LS-2 and it seems to be triggering something, but I couldn't hear the difference. Or is it the LS-2's loop ? What gives ?

He's just using the tuner as a killswitch. The pog and gt2 on one loop of the ls2 and the tuner in the other loop. So to break it down the royal blood type of vibe is basically bass with a fake guitar an octave up. By turning off the ls2 it's just normal bass by itself, with the ls2 on and the tuner on (so its muting) it's just the guitar by itself.

 

[adamaarts]

I'll add an interesting quandary to this thread since I can't find a specific application similar to mine.

My board so far has been straight forward. I made good effort to always have blend option available to my effects, mostly fuzzes and overdrives, so that the low end stays intact when switching dirts throughout a set. I play direct with No amp so all tone shaping and everything is done with the bass and board.

Up until recently my signal has been one chain. Since I utilized blend I always thought it was perfect. Last week our tech lead opted to have me split my signal before my dirt to get a clean signal and dirty signal so he could have a better low end for the FOH mix. Since I wasn't doing anything too fancy that week I went along with it. To my surprise it actually sounded leaps and bounds better. I felt the subs much tighter and more solid. So now going forward I'll be splitting my signal.

Ok so to the point! At church I could easily run a DI and through anywhere, but I'd like to set up my board so its split already so I can be consistent wherever I use it. I figured the LS-2 would be an asset here so I could just use 2 outputs and be done.

The only problem comes with my volume pedal situation. I have the Source Audio OFD with a preset set to use it as a volume pedal with the expression pedal I have. I would need the OFD after the ls2 since its dirt and would be split off, but I'd need a way to mute the dry signal while I do this. The only thing I could think of is having the LS 2 in say A -> Bypass mode, making all the effects after in the Output chain. Then use the A send as my dry chain. Is that going to work? Or will it cut off the other chain?

Any other way to set this up?

 

[adamaarts]

So this is about the only solution I can come up with without just getting an ABY box instead.

If I use A+B mode, run B straight to DI for dry tone, then use A and OUT into a Y split cable to combine them into a mono cable to the rest of my effects for dirty channel. The idea is that I could cut off the dry if I am doing something in the effects like volume swells or certain effects that don't need dry signal.

Would the mono to mono Y cable work, or would there be any signal or noise issues involved with that?

Again my problem could easily be solver with either an ABY box or the One series pedals with stereo ins and outs and dry signal routing. Sort on a spending freeze so hoping to use what I have for now.

EDIT: OK I feel dumb now, I knew there was something I was missing. It just dawned on me that DI's have a through/output, so the missing part was just run that output back into the LS-2. So now B channel will run through the Clean DI, back into the LS-2, through effects, then to the dirty DI. Bypass B chain, just straight into effects only! Moving on........

 

[RobinC]

I have a question for all you boss ls-2 experts out there:

How would you use this pedal to select between an upright bass, a bass guitar, and a tuner? For doubling gigs I want to be able to select one instrument while muting the other, or mute both to tune. I'm thinking that the upright will go through a Radial Pz-Pre first and DI to the house, no need to send this signal through the output of the boss. The electric will go through the boss and on to an amp and DI to the house from the amp's built in DI (or eventually from a Sansamp).

Would it work if the Boss was set to A > B > Bypass and I had upright into Return A, electric into Input, Send B into tuner, and Output into the amp? What would that do to the functionality of the knobs?



Thanks!

 

[LSMFT6]

It might be easier to just put the tuner in front of the Boss and not have to worry about routing it with the basses, if you're using a pedal tuner

 

[Feral Feline]

@RobinC Here's a workflow that does what you want:

Since you've got a PZed-Pre, run the tuner from the PZ-Pre's tuner out;

Run the the upright directly into channel "1" of the PZed-Pre;

Run the electric bass geetar into the LS-2 set to two channels:

A) Goes to channel "2" of the PZed-pre
B) Goes to Bass Geetar Amp/DI​

It's a one stomp switch-and-tune, since you'll mute the Radial when you're switching from upright to the EBG, and "unmute" the bass guitar at the LS2. Switching back to upright you'll mute the Bass guitar at the LS2 and the upright is waiting ready to be tuned or hit PZ-Pre's unmute to play. The tuner is on at all times, of course, although it won't "see" the EBG while you're playing that instrument.

I've got the PZ-Pre, but don't double so I don't know if you need to set it to channels A&B on at the same time for the tuner to work in the above signal-flow, but you should because the LS2 will be muting the EBG signal to the Radial when you're on upright anyway. Otherwise you'd have to hit the LS2 AND the channel switch on the Radial, two buttons to stomp at every tune/switch.


You could do something similar with your just your Amp if it's got a mute footswitch and get rid of the LS2 altogether and just switch channels on the Radial and mute the amp when playing the upright. Here, again, though, you'd be hitting two buttons at a time whenever swapping instruments/tuning.

 

[gupjek]

Just got a 2nd hand LS-2. Can't wait to take to the rehearsal room.
But does anyone know where I can download a pdf of the sample settings? I only found dead links and it seems that the official websites (us and europe) only provide the manual.

 

[CHILDISHGAMBINO]

Just got a 2nd hand LS-2. Can't wait to take to the rehearsal room.
But does anyone know where I can download a pdf of the sample settings? I only found dead links and it seems that the official websites (us and europe) only provide the manual.

Settings for what? It's a blender. Blend to your tastes.

 

[gupjek]

I read in a review that the sample settings show some creative applications of the pedal. So I'm curious what I might be missing.