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EHX Bass Mono Synth

#161
ChubbyJerk said:
Spent a little more time with it last night. I would revise my earlier statement a bit. I think it tracks the pitch really well. I think the attack triggering can get glitchy on quick runs. Whether or not that matters depends on the synth type. Some laser-beamy type synth sounds, you really need that attack to trigger when you hit the note.

I do still think it's related to holding a note and hitting a new one. It doesn't seem to happen when there's clear clean separation between the notes. It actually sounds kinda like an real monosynth if you hold the last note when you hit the next one. But...it doesn't behave consistently...or maybe it's more fair to say that it behaves consistently, but I don't play consistently? A compressor might even it out, dunno. Sometimes it will retrigger the attack and sometimes it won't. And I think it has to do with whether the last note is still ringing louder than the sensitivity? Or maybe whether or not your new attack is louder than the last one? I don't know exactly.
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That sounds exactly like how the synth effects work for me on the Zoom MS60B. Which IMO makes them unusable and turns me off from the BMS.

Compressor never helped my Zoom and I play very consistently, I think effects just struggle to track a bass, it's almost like the notes are harder for digital devices to catch.

I'm still gonna wait to hear more things but in general I hate effects that are inconsistent, same with basses. I've sold plenty of both based entirely on their unpredictability.
 
#162
mine's supposed to arrive tomorrow now so i'll be able to see if it has tracking issues with my basses. IMO, it sounds great in the demo clips though. i already have all of their 9 series pedals (B9, C9, Key9, Synth9 & Mel9) and i dig them for a lot of their sounds.
 
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#163
I was very surprised to get mine today. I pre-ordered about 3 weeks ago and didn‘t get a shipping notice and yet there it was when I came home from work today...

I only played around a little with it yet but I can already say that I quite like it. Imho for a pitch tracking synth pedal the tracking on this thing is AMAZING! You can get it to glitch if you want but with clean note separation it plays absolutely great. As with any synth pedal, using a pick is helping a great deal. I learned that a long time ago.
I can play pretty fast runs with the pedal tracking every note perfectly right down to the low E (I haven‘t tried it on my 6-string yet, so I can‘t say anything about getting lower for now).
It is true however that the tracking varies a little bit with the chosen sound but there is no sound that I would consider to track badly.
What is really great is that there is absolutely no perceivable delay.

As expected the Bass Mono Synth is not really super versatile and you can‘t get every synth sound known to mankind out of it. To use it to its full potential you absolutely need to connect an expression pedal to it.
What bugs me just a little is that the amount of control differs very much with the chosen sound. For some sounds turning the Ctrl knob or the expression pedal hardly changes the sound at all and for some others the slightest movement makes a big difference.

I think this pedal would have been mind blowing if EHX would have decided to allow more control over filter frequency and resonance as well as ADSR but I can understand why they didn‘t for a pedal that is geared towards string players, that are mostly no synth programmers and are looking to get fast results in getting a good sound.

I just realized that I already wrote quite a lot without mentioning what‘s most important: the sound ☺️

I think the pedal sounds really good. Much better than the EHX Synth9, which isn‘t a bad sounding pedal either but has a few artifacts to the sound that I didn’t like. I see the Bass Mono Synth as competition to something like the Boss SYB-5 compared to which it wins in every aspect. The EHX just sounds AND plays so much better than the Boss. Although I just got it today I can already say that I even like it better than the Meris Enzo that I also have and was disappointed with from day one (probably because my expectations were too high...).

One last thing before I stop my endless ramblings: I did get some GREAT sounds by playing the Bass MONO Synth through the filter of the Bass MICRO Synth, although that combination seems like overkill both financial and pedal board space wise...
 
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#165
mine finally arrived and i really dig it. for me it has zero tracking issues (playing fast or slow). IMO, it has a lot of great synth tones and is very simple to use. i actually like it better than my EHX syth9 and my Pigtronix mothership 2.
 
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#167
When I first heard of this I thought it might be the Stevie Wonder Innervisions machine I've been waiting for, but the demos I've heard so far make it seem it's not, so looking forward to trying one in a music store. Until then, my glitchy SYB-3 will have to do.
 
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#168
Mine arrived today and I'm happy enough with it that it is firmly affixed to my board :) Some caveats that most would have already realized ... 1) it's a fun effect pedal, not a replacement for an actual keyboard player. 2) it's ability to track well, and the settings to get there, depends heavily on the output of the bass you're using. Be patient, twist some knobs, and have fun with it. Right out of the box, I was like "huh???", but after an evening of tweaking, I really like it. It's fun. Just be prepared to put some time into it at the beginning. Once I switch basses, I expect to be tweaking again. Just the way these things work!

I'm not going to prepare clips since I feel the official EHX video is an accurate representation of what the pedal is. Some great tones (I mainly bought it for "Unison" and I am not disappointed), some horrible ones, and easy to figure most things out without referring to the manual.

I wish I could identify one common thing to dial in the best tracking for all settings, but I found I had to tweak each setting individually (with a passive Fender PJ). Thank God for the ability to save pre-sets :)

That said, once I placed it after my compressor, the really good tracking became great. Coupled with my delay, it sounds amazing. Technique is key though. The pedal is not at all forgiving of sloppiness ... any extra string noise often leads to unintentional comic results!

I still need to play around with it a lot more to get the most of it, but first night impressions are positive. The end-all and be-all for bass synths? No. I don't think EHX is saying it's that. A lot of cool and usable sounds that you can have fun with in a creative way without breaking the bank? Definitely 100% in my opinion.

Edit: Almost forgot one thing I did find annoying. Activated, the light is red. It turns the brighest orange ever when a note is effected. Now, if you're like me, the sensitivity is set so that all notes are effected. In that case, it's a very distracting light show coming from the pedal. On stage, it would draw audience attention. Not sure what the practical of purpose of the orange light is, since your ears are all you need to realize where the sensitivity is set.
20190211_223503.jpg
 
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#170
Nighttrain1127 said:
Finally got mine yesterday and mostly it sounds great but I must be doing something wrong because every note below c# on the A string sounds the same. I have read the manual and there is nothing in there about this. So what am I doing wrong any guesses
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Is this the case for all of the 11 sounds? I finally got around to try it with my six string and it tracks pretty good down to the low B. But on some of the sounds (the ones that already are pretty low voiced) the very low notes do not sound really good.

Unfortunately for us bass players it is in the nature of things that the lower the note, the more difficult the tracking gets. Clean technique is mandatory and it is important to have a strong fundamental in the sound. So the usual things apply:
- use the neck pickup
- pluck close to the neck and far away from the bridge
- roll down the tone control
- use a pick for a sharper attack
 
#173
It seems to me that in terms of tracking and sound some people here have said that they like this pedal over the Synth9-pedal! I'm interested in this as I'm thinking of getting a Synth9, due to what I've read and the videos I've seen it is more tweakable and is polyphonic, compared to the more limited Bass mono synth. I think both sound really great though when I've heard videos of them. What are your opinions, who have played both?

I'm mostly concerned with tracking and the ability to change the sound and leave it there, as I probably will not change to a drastically different sound during a song or even in between songs. Memorizing how the knobs are instead of having presets isn't a big deal either as that is what I'm used to.

Looking forward to hear what you have experienced!
 
#174
Stranger Danger said:
Does it play well with active basses? Would you put it before or after an envelope filter? Thanks!
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My main bass is a 1995 Musicman USA Sterling Bass, which is active. The Bass Mono Synth plays great with it. Though I have to say it works best with my passive Epiphone EB-3 but that is probably due to the EB-3s tremendously bassy neck humbucker that is super close to the neck.

I have tried an envelope filter after the Synth as well as the Bass Micro Synth filter (which is not an envelope filter). That gives great results. I did not try the filter before the synth but my guess is that this will not work well because the synth needs the cleanest possible signal for the pitch detection.
 
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#175
Levin said:
What are your opinions, who have played both?
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IMHO they are different animals. Opposed to the Bass Mono Synth the Synth9 does NOT do pitch tracking, so the ‚tracking‘ is even better. As you already said the Synth9 is polyphonic and the Bass Mono Synth is not. These are strong advantages on paper but I think the Bass Mono Synth sounds a lot better on bass. The Synth9 has some artifacts to the sound due to its method of sound creation. The best way to describe these artifacts would be some sort of metallic overtones. If you ever played a POG with a soloed upper octave on bass, there are similar artifacts. I personally really did not like that.
One big advantage that the Bass Mono Synth has over the Synth9 is the ability to save presets.
 
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#177
PaleRider said:
My main bass is a 1995 Musicman USA Sterling Bass, which is active. The Bass Mono Synth plays great with it. Though I have to say it works best with my passive Epiphone EB-3 but that is probably due to the EB-3s tremendously bassy neck humbucker that is super close to the neck.

I have tried an envelope filter after the Synth as well as the Bass Micro Synth filter (which is not an envelope filter). That gives great results. I did not try the filter before the synth but my guess is that this will not work well because the synth needs the cleanest possible signal for the pitch detection.
Click to expand...
Well I have a Stingray HH so I can use the neck pickup. So put the mono synth after a compressor but before everything else? I think in the demo video he put a muff in front of the synth which I thought was an interesting choice
 
#178
Stranger Danger said:
I think in the demo video he put a muff in front of the synth which I thought was an interesting choice
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I just re-checked the demo video. I think the Muff Fuzz is wired after the synth. You can see the short cable from the synth out to the muff in. But just because I‘m curious and did not try this yet I will check out how it works with a dirt pedal in front of the synth...
 
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#179
PaleRider said:
I just re-checked the demo video. I think the Muff Fuzz is wired after the synth. You can see the short cable from the synth out to the muff in. But just because I‘m curious and did not try this yet I will check out how it works with a dirt pedal in front of the synth...
Click to expand...

I didn’t want to wait on the new SA synth so i ordered one of these. So my reworked board is going to look like this:

TC Electronic SpectraComp
Source Audio Manta Bass Filter
Source Audio Aftershock
Electro-Harmonix Mono Synth
TC Electronic Helix Phaser
Electro-Harmonix Canyon

So I’m trying to figure out what will work best.
 

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