A great report, IronL. Thanks much for that. I drove down to GC last week cuz online it said in stock, but when I got there they said new ship date is sometime December.
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Boss SY-1 Synth
- Thread starter Phagor
- Start date
I got mine today from Japan. The sequencer effects are addictive! It's like Skinny Puppy is coming out of my bass!
Mine now set up on a little gigging board:
I ordered one from Sweetwater two months ago and nothing! This is the first time I've ordered a "hot" item before it's widely available. I wonder if it will arrive before next year.
I have to agree with those who say the tracking really shines on this pedal. Chords are wonkier on some sounds than others. Response is WAY better than the EHX pedals I've had (and sold). The sequencers and lead synths are worth the money alone. I had no problem ordering one from Japan.
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OK...
I got it, did an extended test drive and sold it to a guitar player...
GREAT TRACKING!
However, it shines for guitar, not Bass, IMHO...not that many usefully tones for the cost benefit analysis, for me.
Your results may differ...
I got it, did an extended test drive and sold it to a guitar player...
GREAT TRACKING!
However, it shines for guitar, not Bass, IMHO...not that many usefully tones for the cost benefit analysis, for me.
Your results may differ...
Yeah the pads are pretty useless. I was hoping those would be better. I'm keeping it just for the sequencers.
EDIT: I'll bet running an octave up before it would help a lot.
EDIT: I'll bet running an octave up before it would help a lot.
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Try putting the Tone knob around 9:00 or less and the Depth at max. It cuts the note off quicker and feels more under control. A lot of the sounds become a lot more usable when set this way.
It is limited in use, for me, not that mixing with two knobs is hard to figure out...its a guitar synth that is not a total tu*d on a Bass...I hope that helps!
Yea I've had one for a few weeks. At first I found it hard to use on bass but the more I mess with the tone and depth, as well as just the levels, the more I find stuff that legitimately works and sounds good. The controls are sensitive, so even a slight turn can make the difference between perfect and not quite right. I'm just now getting to a point where I'm clicking with the pedal. A lot of it is getting the touch sensitivity "calibrated" for your hands.
I think it's also worth completely turning off the dry signal and role-playing as a pure synth player while the SY-1 is on. The pedal can whisk you off to synth land and an entirely different mentality, but if you keep the normal bass guitar sound blended in you'll be kind of stuck with one foot in a much more conventional place. There are a lot of suboctave sounds in the pedal that allow you to fill the low end, but in a different way than bass guitar normally does. Similarly, a lot of the higher octave sounds are better used without the dry signal, during parts that don't require any low end. Sometimes when you have the dry blended in it's awesome, and other times it's a suboptimal compromise and you'd be better off just committing to the synth sound 100%.
Does 100% wet lose volume? It’s how I’d like to run it but then my dirty robot is like that, run wet and there’s a massive volume loss so can only really run it blended with bass.
No there's plenty of volume available. And the dry and effect levels are independent of each other. If you have the dry all the way down, I'd say the effect level's at unity between 12 and 1:00 for most of the sounds. Beyond that it can be boosted way beyond unity.
I ordered one of these from my local shop back in the summer and it finally arrived the other day when I got home from work. When I took it out of the box I immediately plugged it in and started playing with it of course, forgetting that it was in guitar mode. Even then I was impressed with it's tracking and the immense variety of sounds I could get from it, then I finally took off my coat from work, cleaned up, ate some dinner, and then went to town on this thing for a couple of hours.
I don't have much to add beyond what has already been said the last few pages; Boss seems to have carefully studied what EHX and others have been doing and decided to take their time in the lab to step up their game. Synth pedals are weird things; some people hate them, others lose interest in them after a brief time, etc., but the technology has taken a few steps forward in the last few years, that's for certain.
I posted this over in the ambient bass thread, something I threw together after playing with it for half a day:
Everything here comes from a Rickenbacker 4003. The SY-1 is used for the swooshy thunder sounds in the intro and outro, for the looped figured that runs the whole track, and for the improvised nonsense melody I play over top of that, so three sounds. Lots of delay and reverb, and the sample and hold sound from a Bananana Matryoshka. It's longer than it should and not well thought out; maybe I'll redo it some time and make it into a more listenable piece.
I don't have much to add beyond what has already been said the last few pages; Boss seems to have carefully studied what EHX and others have been doing and decided to take their time in the lab to step up their game. Synth pedals are weird things; some people hate them, others lose interest in them after a brief time, etc., but the technology has taken a few steps forward in the last few years, that's for certain.
I posted this over in the ambient bass thread, something I threw together after playing with it for half a day:
Everything here comes from a Rickenbacker 4003. The SY-1 is used for the swooshy thunder sounds in the intro and outro, for the looped figured that runs the whole track, and for the improvised nonsense melody I play over top of that, so three sounds. Lots of delay and reverb, and the sample and hold sound from a Bananana Matryoshka. It's longer than it should and not well thought out; maybe I'll redo it some time and make it into a more listenable piece.
Sorry if this video is a repost. I just saw this review/demo of the Boss SY-1. It starts off sounding cheesy but man at the 30 second mark it really takes off. I think the video really shows how this peddle can be used. Not like the other review videos where guys are playing distinctive guitar/bass parts but you're hear organ or something.
Mine finally arrived last night. It only took 5 months...lol. Will be doing a 'First Impression' video in the next day or two. So far, mostly positive feelings about this pedal.
I posted a new thread for my review...but for those subscribed to this thread and still curious...
I have a few more clips since I last came to this thread. Got mine back in August and still loving it
Thanks for posting I'm going to watch later even though I've had the pedal a while now.. I feel there is always something new to learn and ideas to explore. I think they priced it very fairly I'm always annoyed about the price point for many pedals but you can tell they really put the work into this little beast!!
