Future Impact now available!! WAS: deep impact reissue!!! interested?

[sunbeast]

Hey all, I’m thinking about getting an FI v4 vip. Is the panda audio website the best/only place to buy it? And do they have them in stock for quick shipment?

There are few places that sell them retail that I've seen, it's mostly a direct sales model. I would email him before paying to make sure they are in stock as he isn't the greatest as communicating such things IME- I suspect they are stocked though at this point. Its a tiny company (just a few guys), reliable but not necessarily super fast or communicative depending on what they have going on. Not sure how/if he is affected by current US tariff situations (I know a lot of European countries cut off local PO shipping with the US for awhile, I can't recall how mine was shipped). If you think you might want to trigger an external hardware synth with CV at some point, grab the necessary cable dongle from him too while you're at it!

 

[Quatschmacher]

Hey all, I’m thinking about getting an FI v4 vip. Is the panda audio website the best/only place to buy it? And do they have them in stock for quick shipment?

Yes there’s stock and they ship quickly.

There are dealers too in various territories. Where are you based?

If you’re in the USA, I’m not sure of Jake new tarries are affecting things.

 

[smeet]

Yes there’s stock and they ship quickly.

There are dealers too in various territories. Where are you based?

If you’re in the USA, I’m not sure of Jake new tarries are affecting things.

I’m in the US. On the panda audio website it’s $319, and on Alto Music (the only dealer I found) it is $449. Usually dealers are cheaper than the manufacturer so I thought that was strange.

I think I’ll get it from Panda, sounds safer and cheaper.

 

[Quatschmacher]

I’m in the US. On the panda audio website it’s $319, and on Alto Music (the only dealer I found) it is $449. Usually dealers are cheaper than the manufacturer so I thought that was strange.

I think I’ll get it from Panda, sounds safer and cheaper.

Be aware of potential import duties though.

 

[Bassheart365]

has anyone a/b with the mxr bass synth? anyone made any of the patches on the mxr for the FI>?

Yes I have both. I’ve had a couple gigs with the MXR and I’m extremely impressed. I’m in a R&B/funk cover band and I can cover synth bass tunes with one of the first 4 presets out of the box. Much lower learning curve than the FI and the tracking is excellent. What has always disappointed me with the FI are the presets and the steep learning curve.

 

[bassbrad]

Yes I have both. I’ve had a couple gigs with the MXR and I’m extremely impressed. I’m in a R&B/funk cover band and I can cover synth bass tunes with one of the first 4 presets out of the box. Much lower learning curve than the FI and the tracking is excellent. What has always disappointed me with the FI are the presets and the steep learning curve.

The MXR was designed from the ground up as a tool for gigging bassists with useful presets but minimum potential for creativity and texturing since most of those popular sounds are somewhat simple but challenging to replicate unless you are skilled at synth sounds. That easy solution is the beauty of any synth pedal that is primarily preset based including the EHX Bass Mono Synth and Boss synth pedals.

OTOH FI and C4 were designed for much more flexibility to cover basic sounds and the ability to be far more creative with many more options offering the potential for a more complete synthesizer experience some may seek.

 

[Quatschmacher]

Yes I have both. I’ve had a couple gigs with the MXR and I’m extremely impressed. I’m in a R&B/funk cover band and I can cover synth bass tunes with one of the first 4 presets out of the box. Much lower learning curve than the FI and the tracking is excellent. What has always disappointed me with the FI are the presets and the steep learning curve.

There are a few FI factory presets that are comparable to the ones in the MXR. Eg patch 86 covers lots of classic territory and can be tweaked to taste in the panel. Granted, the presets are a bit more spread out across the pedal.

Sure, the editor has a lot to learn but working with just the pedal interface, you can achieve a lot.

That the presets aren’t to taste is a fairly easy-to-remedy problem. I’m hoping to refresh the factory presets a bit to account for similar comments though. In fact, I’ve already programmed and shared a fair amount of classic patches. Perhaps just making those part of the factory sound set would address some of these perceived shortcomings.

 

[sunbeast]

The MXR was designed from the ground up as a tool for gigging bassists with useful presets but minimum potential for creativity and texturing since most of those popular sounds are somewhat simple but challenging to replicate unless you are skilled at synth sounds. That easy solution is the beauty of any synth pedal that is primarily preset based including the EHX Bass Mono Synth and Boss synth pedals.

OTOH FI and C4 were designed for much more flexibility to cover basic sounds and the ability to be far more creative with many more options offering the potential for a more complete synthesizer experience some may seek.

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I think this sells short the MXR to a degree. Unlike the EHX Bass Mono Synth, the MXR offers you some control of all the basic synth parameters (waveforms, filter and envelope parameters, modulation parameters, etc) that you need to make your own sounds using basic subtractive synth architecture. You can easily start from scratch with the MXR and make sounds that are nothing like the presets, something not really possible with the Bass Mono Synth or the smaller Boss SY pedals (which offer very little tweakability of sounds until you get to the SY-300/SY-1000). Yes the Future Impact has a much more complex synth engine- more voices with more individual control of voices (tuning, different waveforms possible per voice, etc), more fine control of basically all parameters, more modulation options and other additional sound texture options, etc. To me it would make more sense to compare the MXR to a very basic mono synth like a Moog Minotaur while the Future Impact would be like a more full-featured monosynth option like a Moog Minimoog/Voyager or similar (but with added FX).

I think the MXR did a great job with the presets they chose, which do sample some very popular sounds and offer a good representation of many of the specific strengths of the limited MXR palette, but it isn't really a "preset-based" pedal like the EHX Bass Mono Synth or Boss SY-1/200.

 

[sunbeast]

There are a few FI factory presets that are comparable to the ones in the MXR. Eg patch 86 covers lots of classic territory and can be tweaked to taste in the panel. Granted, the presets are a bit more spread out across the pedal.

Sure, the editor has a lot to learn but working with just the pedal interface, you can achieve a lot.

That the presets aren’t to taste is a fairly easy-to-remedy problem. I’m hoping to refresh the factory presets a bit to account for similar comments though. In fact, I’ve already programmed and shared a fair amount of classic patches. Perhaps just making those part of the factory sound set would address some of these perceived shortcomings.

Making factory presets for a product like this has to be really tough, because what people want is very subjective and of course the amount of time needed to tweak them- I really like a lot of the Future Impact factory presets and understand the reason for others to exist (showing off certain features that might otherwise get overlooked). I think the MXR nailed a few sounds in their presets that have very wide-appeal combined with a larger marketing push to show them off, while something like the Future Impact has a ton of presets to dig through to find the specific gems (one downside of having so many more presets on tap!) and mostly just user-generated advertising of the sound capabilities at this point. I've had some powerful instruments/ pedals with absolutely terrible stock presets (like the Boss SY-1000, which seems to mostly focus on ridiculous space noises and has very few useful "standard" synth presets despite having very capable synth engines in it), so I appreciate the time invested to make the Future Impact presets which are for the most part far more useful!

 

[smeet]

I'm starting to feel like so much of what is discussed on threads like this is how to overcome the fact that we are playing a bass through a pedal and not a keyboard synth.

Maybe I would be better served by getting a Bass Station or similar synth. Less mental gymnastics, no tracking issues.

 

[Quatschmacher]

I'm starting to feel like so much of what is discussed on threads like this is how to overcome the fact that we are playing a bass through a pedal and not a keyboard synth.

Maybe I would be better served by getting a Bass Station or similar synth. Less mental gymnastics, no tracking issues.

The FI can also be triggered from a keyboard, which eliminates tracking issues.

 

[Bassheart365]

There are a few FI factory presets that are comparable to the ones in the MXR. Eg patch 86 covers lots of classic territory and can be tweaked to taste in the panel. Granted, the presets are a bit more spread out across the pedal.

Sure, the editor has a lot to learn but working with just the pedal interface, you can achieve a lot.

That the presets aren’t to taste is a fairly easy-to-remedy problem. I’m hoping to refresh the factory presets a bit to account for similar comments though. In fact, I’ve already programmed and shared a fair amount of classic patches. Perhaps just making those part of the factory sound set would address some of these perceived shortcomings.

Yes replacing some of those factory presets with more usable ones that replicate classic bass synth lines like the first 4 on the MXR would be awesome.

 

[sunbeast]

I'm starting to feel like so much of what is discussed on threads like this is how to overcome the fact that we are playing a bass through a pedal and not a keyboard synth.

Maybe I would be better served by getting a Bass Station or similar synth. Less mental gymnastics, no tracking issues.

Yes if you really want to “sound like a synth” then you obviously really can’t beat an actual keyboard synth since that is how most great synth lines were created (then a lot of modern stuff was probably made using a MIDI sequencer with little keyboard involved). Personally though I love the creative potential of triggering synth-like timbres with a bass as there are cool aspects about it that make it unique to our instrument (like dynamics and note choices and values, etc), particularly if mixing clean bass back in- it does require some compromise and careful “playing to the pedal” though, things that a keyboard synth will require much less of.

 

[jbybj]

it does require some compromise and careful “playing to the pedal” though, things that a keyboard synth will require much less of.

In my case, I have 50 years of muscle memory on a bass. I play keys like a Border Collie. So your assumption doesn’t hold true for me.

 

[Quatschmacher]

In my case, I have 50 years of muscle memory on a bass. I play keys like a Border Collie. So your assumption doesn’t hold true for me.

 

[sunbeast]

In my case, I have 50 years of muscle memory on a bass. I play keys like a Border Collie. So your assumption doesn’t hold true for me.

Even if that’s the case, you’ll probably still need to adjust your technique to some degree to cleanly trigger a pitch-tracking device like the Future Impact- even sometimes for sounds that would be very basic beginner-level stuff on a keyboard. Most synth bass stuff is not super hard to play on a keyboard (most of the guys playing that stuff on records were not Bernie Worrell!), but playing those simple keyboard lines on a bass guitar in a way that they will be tracked cleanly by a pitch-detecting pedal can be a lot harder in some cases. That was my point!

 

[smeet]

I play bass like a French bulldog and keyboards like a meth-addled ball python.

I've decided that the solution for me (thanks @silky smoove!) is the FI plus a small keyboard, which will live on my pedalboard, so I can play it either with the bass or with the keyboard.

 

[silky smoove]

I play bass like a French bulldog and keyboards like a meth-addled ball python.

There has to be a market for this specific type of event

 

[smeet]

Hey I just noticed the FI outputs midi. Is this a new feature? Has anybody used it to input midi tracks into a DAW?

 

[sunbeast]

Hey I just noticed the FI outputs midi. Is this a new feature? Has anybody used it to input midi tracks into a DAW?

It is new as of the v4, which also outputs CV using the special cable Panda MIDI sells for it (which is even faster than the MIDI). I haven't personally used my FI to record MIDI to a DAW as I have Roland products that do this per string (so polyphonically), but sure it works well (just have to be careful to keep your playing monophonic!).