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Boss SY-1 Synth
- Thread starter Phagor
- Start date
Hi, I use the pedal for gigs. I'm the bass player for a four piece function band, we don't have a keyboard player. I use a beefy bass patch for "don't you want me baby" by human league. And also the synth bit in "I want to Break free" by Queen. I blend in the normal bass tone with the synth tone 50/50. I've also used the pad patches when I'm playing Spanish guitar, but only very subtly on slower arpeggios
Apologies for thread side track - but the VTDI is the most recent addition to my board and it's taken me no time at all to dial in a setting I like. Wasn't expecting to be bowled over quite so quickly by it!
Right, as you were, back to synths!
Found a setting that works quite well for the synth intro of Seven Wonders by Fleetwood Mac.
Won't let me upload picture but I use number 3 on the bass selection. Blend is 50 clean and 50 synth. Tone and depth about 1/2 o'clock
I got one Tuesday, have been able to mess with it a bit. Its a cool color box, great sounds on guitar and bass. You NEED full range speakers to get the most out of this thing, plugged into recording monitors its amazing, into guitar amp sim into monitors? loses a lot. Gonna have the chance to run it through a bass rig and PA this weekend. One thing I found was if you put the switch on BASS, it drops the octave down off the signal, someone probably already pointed this out. But for those super low moog and taurus sounds, leave the switch on guitar, it may get closer. I have a bunch of time based effects after it, right now the Boss MD500 and the slicer/pattern trem effect are winning the "most useful" award. Also step phase/flangers.
I haven’t read this previously. Did not know this. Much thanks.
Heres a recording I did last night just for fun... I used a drum machine and put reverb on my vocals.. otherwise the guitar and bass parts are going through the Boss-SY-1 (and some delay and reverb in the chain for some of the parts)
I was asked recently on another thread to give some pointers to someone starting out with the SY-1. I've included my post on this main SY-1 thread, in case it's of wider interest / use.
Patch ideas for the Boss SY-1: getting started
Basic set up
Recommend having the SY-1 at the start or close to the start of your signal chain - by all means after your HPF and / or compressor if you are using these. This is to give the synth the cleanest possible signal to latch on to. And, of course, make sure to switch the pedal to bass mode on the rear.
I like to set the balance at wet 6/10 and dry 2/10 to keep a touch of clean blend to fatten up the tone, without dominating the synth output.
Auditioning the various sound types
A good place to start is with the inner (tone) and outer (depth) filters both set at 5/10 i.e. noon and then systematically run through the 9 core sounds with each of the 11 settings to find a few that grab you as being decent / usable. Many of them likely won’t and a fair few will sound quite “samey”– but that’s fine, at the end of the day if we’re planning to use this synth live, we probably only need to get 2 or 3 really good sounds for live use; and the ability of this pedal to track like a deer hunter makes it a killer app for that!
So that’s 99 sounds to have a bit of fun working through.
The magic sauce is in the filters!
When you’ve got a few favourite basic sounds, the magic ingredient is adjusting the filters to open and close these to improve on the base sound. This can massively change the output sound to give you multiple variations for each of the basic 99 settings you’ve just auditioned. Ok you’re starting to get a feel for the versatility of this thing!
For example: I quite like the Bass-6 setting. Dialling back the outer filter to 2/10 gives me a really good Bootsy squelchy filter down-sweep and dialling up the inner filter to 7/10 brightens up the tone. I now have something quite different to the base sound with both filters set at 5/10 and certainly, to my ears anyway, a big improvement and a synthy tone that I would be happy using live.
![Boss SY-1 III [Bass6].jpg](https://www.talkbass.com/attachments/boss-sy-1-iii-bass6-jpg.3802891/ "Boss SY-1 III [Bass6].jpg")
But there’s more
I’ve left out mention of the two SEQ settings for now, which add a whole further dimension to this pedal. They give us a further 22 settings to take the total initial settings to 121. Then there is the ability to hook this thing up to an expression pedal with a TRS cable.
The SY-1 also allows you to include other fx in a parallel loop, to blend in without garbling the synth tone itself. I’ve got a Tech21 Red Ripper fuzz in my SY-1’s loop to thicken up the sound and might then choose to feed into a short delay which can add a cool dynamic to the sound.
Patch ideas for the Boss SY-1: getting started
Basic set up
Recommend having the SY-1 at the start or close to the start of your signal chain - by all means after your HPF and / or compressor if you are using these. This is to give the synth the cleanest possible signal to latch on to. And, of course, make sure to switch the pedal to bass mode on the rear.
I like to set the balance at wet 6/10 and dry 2/10 to keep a touch of clean blend to fatten up the tone, without dominating the synth output.
Auditioning the various sound types
A good place to start is with the inner (tone) and outer (depth) filters both set at 5/10 i.e. noon and then systematically run through the 9 core sounds with each of the 11 settings to find a few that grab you as being decent / usable. Many of them likely won’t and a fair few will sound quite “samey”– but that’s fine, at the end of the day if we’re planning to use this synth live, we probably only need to get 2 or 3 really good sounds for live use; and the ability of this pedal to track like a deer hunter makes it a killer app for that!
So that’s 99 sounds to have a bit of fun working through.
The magic sauce is in the filters!
When you’ve got a few favourite basic sounds, the magic ingredient is adjusting the filters to open and close these to improve on the base sound. This can massively change the output sound to give you multiple variations for each of the basic 99 settings you’ve just auditioned. Ok you’re starting to get a feel for the versatility of this thing!
For example: I quite like the Bass-6 setting. Dialling back the outer filter to 2/10 gives me a really good Bootsy squelchy filter down-sweep and dialling up the inner filter to 7/10 brightens up the tone. I now have something quite different to the base sound with both filters set at 5/10 and certainly, to my ears anyway, a big improvement and a synthy tone that I would be happy using live.
But there’s more
I’ve left out mention of the two SEQ settings for now, which add a whole further dimension to this pedal. They give us a further 22 settings to take the total initial settings to 121. Then there is the ability to hook this thing up to an expression pedal with a TRS cable.
The SY-1 also allows you to include other fx in a parallel loop, to blend in without garbling the synth tone itself. I’ve got a Tech21 Red Ripper fuzz in my SY-1’s loop to thicken up the sound and might then choose to feed into a short delay which can add a cool dynamic to the sound.
Last edited:
Can confirm.
Finally got around to trying this on guitar mode, gets closer than anything else I’ve tried.
For Moog sounds (for playing along to The Police):
Type: bass
Variation 6
Depth 9:00
Tone 2:00
Effect 12:00
Direct 11:00
If anyone finds a setting closer to a Moog Taurus let us know!
Hey that's really interesting as that's pretty much the exact setting I was describing in my pic / post above! (With only a variation between dry and wet mix which is the most 'cosmetic' bit of the settings).
The other key difference is mine is set on the bass mode whereas yours is on guitar mode, but we both really like our respective settings!
Well it's going to be really straightforward to audition that patch in both bass mode and guitar mode and hear what that does to the sound - and I'm looking forward to doing exactly that
Hey that's really interesting as that's pretty much the exact setting I was describing in my pic / post above! (With only a variation between dry and wet mix which is the most 'cosmetic' bit of the settings).
The other key difference is mine is set on the bass mode whereas yours is on guitar mode, but we both really like our respective settings!
Well it's going to be really straightforward to audition that patch in both bass mode and guitar mode and hear what that does to the sound - and I'm looking forward to doing exactly that
Update - now had a chance to check the impact of guitar mode out. As commented earlier: when the variation dial is set to 'bass', sliding the switch at the back from bass mode --> guitar mode alters the pitch by an octave i.e. from root + octave up --> octave down + root.
I just took delivery of an SY-1. This pedal is very, very cool. It can do - a lot! I have only had a few minutes with it so far, but wow.. living room tones are killer. Possibilities!!! What's the preference here, you guys prefer guitar or bass mode? Guitar sounded pretty heavy, I only tried a few settings before switching to Bass.
Gonna try the SY-1 at "normal" volume at my jam later today, see how long it takes my BL to give me stinkeye... lolol!
Gonna try the SY-1 at "normal" volume at my jam later today, see how long it takes my BL to give me stinkeye... lolol!
This pedal is definitely a keeper. There is so much going on. I've already incorporated one of the Sequencers into an intro/outro for a new tune - the BL loved it. Just need an expression pedal to further control the rate.
One thing that does annoy me - no way to recall settings.. Solution? A small, blank, 4 knob diagram to pencil in the settings next to each tune on the setlist. Or just create one in Affinity Designer (similar to Adobe Illustrator) that I can cut/paste next to each song on the setlist. Would be tough on the fly, but if I have time to prepare the set, I think it would be worth it.
One thing that does annoy me - no way to recall settings.. Solution? A small, blank, 4 knob diagram to pencil in the settings next to each tune on the setlist. Or just create one in Affinity Designer (similar to Adobe Illustrator) that I can cut/paste next to each song on the setlist. Would be tough on the fly, but if I have time to prepare the set, I think it would be worth it.
Just added the Boss EV-30 expression pedal to the SY-1... The pedal was a lot of fun before, but now - it's a new beast. I really like the ability set the range of the rate - toe down set max, toe up dial up the "minimum" on the EV-30.
So say I want to use the tone/rate sound from 12:00-3:00. I set the tone/rate at 3:00 with toe down, toe up and dial the "minimum" knob to noon. Voila.. just that tonal portion is now controlled by the EV-30. Makes for killer swells, or dialing up speeds on the sequencers. I've just scratched the surface but this will keep me busy for a while!
So say I want to use the tone/rate sound from 12:00-3:00. I set the tone/rate at 3:00 with toe down, toe up and dial the "minimum" knob to noon. Voila.. just that tonal portion is now controlled by the EV-30. Makes for killer swells, or dialing up speeds on the sequencers. I've just scratched the surface but this will keep me busy for a while!
Just picked one of these up from a good deal through Prymaxe, and what a super FUN pedal! I have yet to own any of the programmable synths out there, but I have had (and sold) a Bananananananana and an EHX Bass Mono Synth. The Boss SY-1 knocks the socks off of both of them. The fact that I can dial up a tone I want quickly, even though it can't be saved, is more than enough for me. Tracking is an absolute dream and I don't think I heard it glitch out even once from playing on it the last couple days. Being polyphonic makes for a huge difference in how it responds. I hooked up my Hotone Bass Press in expression mode and it took it to a whole different level. Two thumbs up from me! I don't think this is a pedal I'd ever want to get rid of unless I need one I can program.
