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Boss SY-1000!

#142
How are all the SY-1000 users going ?
Still have love for the SY-1000 ?

I have a question regarding the SY alternate tuning,
the tuning has worked great upwards of +5, +7, and +12 semitones,
but having an issue tuning down to E flat (-1 semi) with a strange sound like a double note or echo, which increases in time the lower note you play.

Anyone else with this problem ?
 
#145
bassjamn said:
I have not updated yet.
Do you guys have the problem with the editor software where it glitches out and does not save your changes constantly when selecting any part of the effects chain, like clicking delay etc.
Click to expand...

I did have that problem with one of the Tone Studio editors (either SY-1000 or GM-800) on Windows 11, when sometimes I could not get a selection combobox to recognize a mouse click on it, took several goes.
The SY-1000 editor is very slow to load up SY-1000 data when a patch is changed (like about 10 seconds) so you have to make sure you have waited for all the patch data to load in first.
It is also slow if there are a lot of automated Assigns using 'wave pedal', with constant data to & fro from the SY-1000 to the editor.
 
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#146
gumtown said:
How are all the SY-1000 users going ?
Still have love for the SY-1000 ?

I have a question regarding the SY alternate tuning,
the tuning has worked great upwards of +5, +7, and +12 semitones,
but having an issue tuning down to E flat (-1 semi) with a strange sound like a double note or echo, which increases in time the lower note you play.

Anyone else with this problem ?
Click to expand...

I can't answer to your specific question, as I don't use any alternate tuning in my rig. However, I have had some instances when I hear a second attack of the note - only on an open string - only on low E or low A. The weird thing I found was that I could prevent this from happening if I held the headstock in my left hand when playing the note. My best solution is to avoid playing open strings ;-}

My bass is a Willcox Saber SL HexFX - Lightwave optical pickups.

I am a big fan of the SY-1000!
 
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#149
bass.slinger said:
Still no fix for OSC tracking?
Click to expand...
I don't have any basis for comparison-- neither from other GK bass products or from earlier SY-1000 firmware versions.

I just tried the OSC synt with firmware 1.10; and, in short, it's got fairly high latency, and the tracking is unforgiving.

All the other INST types track very fast, and work fine. OSC seems to use a different process for tracking, such that the latency is noticeable. I'd say for slow & medium speed stuff it's ok, but not great for fast or complex parts.

Given that there are two other synthy options that have faster response, those are a better choice for that kind of material.

As for OSC's tracking, I have to play very cleanly and make sure that only one note is sounding, that adjacent strings are kept quiet-- and that I damp the old note as I play the new note-- i.e., overlapping notes and slides are not well tolerated. I wouldn't be surprised if some other GK product tracked better. As I said, the SY-1000 offers 3 synths, with OSC having fairly limited usefulness.

It's possible if I sat down and did some experimentation with the GK settings for my bass, I might be able to improve the pitch tracking for OSC, I expect the latency is just the nature of the beast.

Fortunately for me, I can get the tones I need. But yea, if you rely on OSC, I can imagine it's not very usable, and pretty disappointing. I put it in the same "bin" with pitch to MIDI for bass-- unusable, so I won't try.
 
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#151
fokof said:
OSC doesn't get better with 1.10 neither does PTM

I kinda forgot about trying to use it and concentrate on it's Forte: All the other stuff !
Click to expand...

Thanks. Still on the fence about diving back into this - had a Roland GR77B and V-Bass years ago. My decision is between just using my current synths (real and soft synths) versus “bass synth” for performing. I already have a Future Impact, Korg G5, etc.
 
#154
bass.slinger said:
Thanks. Still on the fence about diving back into this - had a Roland GR77B and V-Bass years ago. My decision is between just using my current synths (real and soft synths) versus “bass synth” for performing. I already have a Future Impact, Korg G5, etc.
Click to expand...
OSC synth in the SY-1000 requires pitch-tracking just like their pitch-to-MIDI, and I don't think Roland have updated that algorithm for decades so the main improvement over the years is probably more to do with increased processing power of newer units than any sort of update with the tracking algorithm- in other words, its still takes a full waveform of a fundamental note + processing time to pop out a note, which for bass is pretty slow unless you play everything an octave or two up the neck! I suspect with the release of the Boss GM-800 as their new flagship for pitch-tracking that the OSC synth in the SY-1000 will pretty much be forgotten tech and unlikely to receive any improvements at this point. Maybe if we're lucky they'll eventually invest time into a new algorithm and release some new "do it all" with the best of the SY and GM units but I am not holding my breath for that.
The Roland V-Bass and SY-1000 Dynamic Synth (and other non-OSC sounds in the SY-1000) modify your input signal into the final sound and so don't rely on pitch-tracking to initiate the attack of the sound and so they have little to no latency, but also are relatively limited at recreating actual synth waveforms (they are just an approximation using compression, distortion, filtering, etc) and you also can't get full ADSR control as the envelope of the notes always follows your playing (though you can get attack delay). I still love the SY-1000 with bass though, and even successfully use OSC sounds in it, sometimes by playing up the neck, dialing in slow attack, or blending with Dynamic Synth to get around the latency.

The Future Impact v4 (new release) has the fastest bass pitch-tracking I've used yet (significantly faster than Future Impact v3 and in a different league to the Roland pitch-tracking), not surprising as the guy behind it has been behind most of the Roland-killer pitch-to-MIDI tech for the last couple decades. The Second Sound Unisyn is also supposed to have very fast tracking with bass. Unfortunately both of these are monophonic, though with bass synth sounds that isn't really a deal-breaker for me. Future Impact v4 also offers CV and MIDI (as of a brand new update) outputs for triggering external gear, which is worth the admission price even without the killer internal synth.
 
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#158
sunbeast said:
I still love the SY-1000 with bass though, and even successfully use OSC sounds in it, sometimes by playing up the neck, dialing in slow attack, or blending with Dynamic Synth to get around the latency.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that's a useful tip. The Dynamic Synth and or Analog GR are nice for fast response and dynamic playing, where they OSC is better for sounds that kind of ignore the bass's natural decay. Mixing and crossfading seems like a very reasonable (and sonically interesting) workaround.

The SY-1000 does pitch shift really well, and the other modeling is pretty amazing. While I'm not crazy about the reverbs-- they can be used sparingly.
 
#159
stubbsonic said:
Thanks, that's a useful tip. The Dynamic Synth and or Analog GR are nice for fast response and dynamic playing, where they OSC is better for sounds that kind of ignore the bass's natural decay. Mixing and crossfading seems like a very reasonable (and sonically interesting) workaround.

The SY-1000 does pitch shift really well, and the other modeling is pretty amazing. While I'm not crazy about the reverbs-- they can be used sparingly.
Click to expand...
The OSC sounds can get a lot fatter than the Dynamic and GR synths, so finding ways to blend those in for the "fat" is usually what I am doing.

I feel kinda silly to have not made much use of the FX blocks or amp sims, etc in my SY1000, mostly just because I find the UI a pain setting them up on the pedal itself and am usually running the SY into an HX Stomp and other FX (Strymon Timeline and Meris Mercury 7 mostly). Most of the the FX I have tried in the SY actually sound pretty good.
 
#160
I get it. The key for me has been to make a few default/starting-point patches-- so I have all the blocks I need ready to enable & tweak.

I was just waxing nostalgic about the death of the cursor diamond with an enter in the center. I miss that. Using a knob to move around the 2D effects path is weird even after you get used to it.
 

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