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Getting that early 70s Stevie Wonder sound

Btbp

Btbp

Mar 2, 2008
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3,566
US, Japan, Singapore, US
#1
My Boss SYB-3 just doesn't cut it for that Living For The City kind of sound and track well, or at least I don't have a good setting for it that does.

That pedal is pretty old, surely the technology has improved since then. Any suggestions?

If there is a thread on this please post it here.
 
#2
Btbp said:
My Boss SYB-3 just doesn't cut it for that Living For The City kind of sound and track well, or at least I don't have a good setting for it that does.

That pedal is pretty old, surely the technology has improved since then. Any suggestions?

If there is a thread on this please post it here.
Click to expand...

Is that a similar sound to "Boogie on Reggae woman"?? If so, the EH Bass Microsynth can nail this tone, same with the SA multiwave bass distortion and the manta if you spend enough time tweaking it...

I too have the SYB-3 and found that a slightly boosted signal tracks better for this sound, that and my right hand dynamics..... The one thing I dont like is the slight delay of the synth sound from clean, but its close enough for me;)
 
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#3
I too have an big issue with that gap between the effect and dry, makes it more of a fad sound than anything usable.

Boogie on Reggae Woman is a different sound, and I can actually kinda of get that on the Boss. I can get the more bassy Living For The City sound but not to my liking and doesn't track well.

Am wondering if a midi solution is the only answer here, but that would prove expensive.

A simple Google search of my thread title came up with a few TB and other threads on this, but still looking for a good guide, and there's one on YT but not usable sounds.
 
#4
Mutron III, TruTron 3x, Wonderlove or Future Impact if you are trying to cop Stevie's tone.

If it's Michael Henderson or Alfonso Johnson, then a Cali comp will do you fine with a pbass and flats.
 
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#6
I've gotten pretty close to a lot of those old 70's synth bass tones with the classic octave - fuzz - filter setups. For me its a Boss OC-2 > Source Audio OFD > Source Audio Manta. Here's a demo vid of some of those sounds. These might have a little too much bite, but if you ran a lower gain fuzz or overdrive into the filter it would soften the upper harmonics a bit. Not going to match a real Moog or Arp, but it gets pretty close!

 
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#7
SubPhatty-large.jpg
 
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#10
Zach - thanks for the link, great sounds in there, I especially like the lead sound with the Eventides. I am going to check out your other clips, very well done and easy to follow.

Do you have any Midi setup clips? Am wondering it there is a way to have a Midi pickup and A/D converter or some way into an old Arp or Moog, if that even makes sense.

Surely I am not the only one to want to do this, I've thought about it since the 70s, surely by now some have succeeded.
 
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#12
Btbp said:
Zach - thanks for the link, great sounds in there, I especially like the lead sound with the Eventides. I am going to check out your other clips, very well done and easy to follow.

Do you have any Midi setup clips? Am wondering it there is a way to have a Midi pickup and A/D converter or some way into an old Arp or Moog, if that even makes sense.

Surely I am not the only one to want to do this, I've thought about it since the 70s, surely by now some have succeeded.
Click to expand...

This setup is totally doable. Just like you said, use a midi pickup, a pitch to MIDI converter, and then use your bass as the controller for the synth. I have never done this personally, but it is totally doable. Although for me, that's a lot of gear when the synth already has a keyboard on it as a controller. So I just prefer to play simple synth bass lines on the keyboard, or use my pedals to do a pseudo synth bass line.
 
#14
PJSim said:
I get close with my ehx bms , favouring p pup on my pj . I roll of the tone pot on the bass some and turn down the resonance on the bms.
Any octave/filter combo gets you close , just roll of some tone and resonance/Q
Click to expand...
I have an OC-2 and SYB-3 and they don't quite get what I want. My previous post is much closer, not sure I believe the commenter's claim of it being of Akai Deep Impact.
 

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