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Gigging with the MXR Bass Synth
- Thread starter Fleece3
- Start date
True. They both can do that but it is still fiddly and takes a while.
Comparing the FI and the MXR they both track well but i have an easier time with the MXR.
I have not. Been an FI user since V1.
As far as the fiddly comments go... folks, it's an actual synth. 4 oscillators. 1 more than a Mini Moog... Not a toy... there is a learning curve - as with all synths, keyboard or otherwise. Synthesis in general requires work / knowledge beyond just knob twiddling. There are some popular fakers..oh, i mean ..influencers.. that string together a dirt box, an evelope, maybe a flanger and a sub octave and call it a synth... ah... not so much.
As someone who happily plays all of these types of "synths", including the FI, C4, MXR Bass Synth, Boss SY1000, and various combinations of octave-distortion-fiter-modulation chains I don't really see what you're on about. People have used the analog octaver thing with bass to make a bass guitar sit with or stand-in for a synthesizer on several MASSIVE hit pop recordings since the 80s (Madonna, Michael Jackson, Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, Paul Young, etc), while a Deep Impact synth sound may have made it onto a single radio-level Muse song at one point. What the Future Impact does is no doubt impressive and I love the heck out of mine, but the approach of triggering actual synth sounds with a bass is a massive compromise in feel compared to just playing a keyboard (which is why most of the pros that record actual synth record it with a keyboard even if they might fiddle with these pedals occasionally live)- the immediate response of an analog octaver IMO is far more reactive to actual bass playing (there are no missed beats or double beats with an analog octaver, maybe just unintentional octave hops occasionally) with less compromises and can serve similar timbral functions in a mix. I think both approaches have their place, but an audience isn't going to care about the authenticity of the tones ultimately if the player doesn't feel good playing them (which will inevitably make the performance tweaky as well).
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@sunbeast Is your FI a V4? I'm not getting the artifacts that I did with a V3... my experience with the FI3 was way better than the other's Imessed with. C4, etc... I'll grant that keyboard synth is by far the most recorded but for bass guitar triggered, the FI V4 is a huge step ahead IMO. I've been chasing bass guitar synth since Chameleon ... while I didn't try the Sy-1000 I did Roland GR and Godin A4/SA.
and yeah, early 2000's I did the string of pedals thing. I predate IMA by decades...
FWIW - I generally develop my patches using an Akai MPK225. It is a ton easier to program with a keyboardand no bass in my lap. I don't carry it for live. I have enough stuff between PA and rig already...
and yeah, early 2000's I did the string of pedals thing. I predate IMA by decades...
FWIW - I generally develop my patches using an Akai MPK225. It is a ton easier to program with a keyboardand no bass in my lap. I don't carry it for live. I have enough stuff between PA and rig already...
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Yes I have an FI v4. I love it for creating new bass guitar driven textures, but acknowledge that at the end of the day if I was trying to play lines that were originally played on keyboard I could do it FAR better with a keyboard without much practice- the tracking of the FI v4 is maybe the best that there is for bass on such a device, but for example a bass doesn't play like an arpeggiated keyboard line (the easiest thing to do on a keyboard synth) without ridiculous clean tight technique nor can it do the cool subtle portamento tricks in many classic bass synth lines without quite subtle cajoling (stuff that again is elementary on a typical keyboard synth). In that sense I don’t think the analog octaver approach is really a good direct comparison, because an analog octaver is just processing what you feed it so follows your playing to a T as long as you are within the gate threshold and playing monophonically. It a way to make "playing basslines like an electric bass guitar player" sound synth rather than trying to reinvent the wheel but making it an octagon rather than a circle just for fun. That’s why pros like Tony Levin, Pino Palladino, Guy Pratt, Tim Lefebvre, and countless others have chosen to use analog octaver with bass guitar to get “synthy” on massive gigs since the 80s (not just some online bass “influencer”) and not a pedal that will sound like a drunk keyboard player unless 9and sometimes even if) your technique is impeccable.
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I use green 4 preset on the MXR to get convincingly close to that sound when we play that song.
I’ve been gigging the MXR Bass Synth successfully since August. I did buy a separate tap/switch pedal to cycle presets and a volume pedal to fade out of long held notes that I don’t want to just immediately go from 100 to 0. Each preset needs a different touch for tracking, but so do all my other effects pedals. I use mostly passive basses, although the MXR works equally well with my active Stingray Special. I’ve gone in and selected the 4-string setting and adjusted the global sensitivity and it tracks fine for me. I plan to eventually go in and tweak each presets’ individual output volume, but it hasn’t been super necessary yet since I have a limiter at the end of my pedal chain to catch any volume spikes.
Here’s a video of my band where I go through three MXR Bass Synth presets in one song. I’m playing my active Stingray Special. As always, headphones/speakers to hear the bass. To avoid making you watch the whole 6 minute song just to hear the MXR in a live setting, here’s the time stamps (once the reds come in I continue switch back and forth between them):
0:36 - green 4
2:45 - red 2
3:15 - red 1
Edit to add: I still use an analog OC-2 and envelope filter, both together and separately, as the MXR doesn’t quite do those things as well. Or at least I haven’t tweaked the MXR settings hard enough to figure it out.
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At the end of this song (and intro and re-intro) I use preset red 3, and it can be tricky to get it to track 1/8th notes at this tempo (which is why the first bar when the effect turns on isn’t total pocket) but it’s doable with a little adjustment to your technique. Anyways it’s an example of the pedal working in real life with decent tracking at a relatively fast tempo. It works for me as advertised. Using my passive Joe Dart 1 for this one.
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I dig your clips- really cool band! And great way to use the strengths of the MXR from what I heard.
Indeed one of the trickiest things with these kinds of pedals across the board IMO is playing faster sustained lines as you need to reliably trigger a new note attack at every hit without completely deadening the note before each time so the note doesn't just stop sustain or just not trigger new attacks. I personally find palm-muting pretty effective to help tracking (both dulling some of the harmonics that might glitch things and to more tightly control note "on" messages). That's a great example of something that is easy as could be using a keyboard and a synth setting with set sequenced/arp'ed hits clocked to an internal tempo, but very hard to cleanly emulate using a pitch-tracking guitar synth (and something an OC-2 or similar does with relative ease since it doesn't need to track note on/off or even pitch before each note sounds).
The MXR doesn't have true "analog octaver" type sounds, its going at it kinda backwards from how many people utilize an OC-2 (synth emulator) as the "octaver" tone in the MXR is triggering an actual synth waveform an octave down rather than the unique vibe of an analog octaver that instead manipulates your input tone into something resembling a square-waved synth tone an octave down. The MXR sub-octave sounds are nice timbrally IMO, but don't respond like an octaver- You'll never get the same kind of smooth tracking from the MXR that you can from a good analog octaver and you'll also have other byproducts like that funky decay envelope you mentioned (an OC-2 can kinda do that too depending on what you are feeding it, but its more dynamic overall IMO).
I think the MXR can do great clean envelope filter sounds though- definitely worth spending some time trying those out! It is only capable of a 4-pole low-pass filter though (like the Moog MF101), whereas most envelope filter pedals are using a 2-pole filter (like Mutron and all of its clones- Mutron is also state-variable, so can switch between lowpass/bandpass/highpass) which can be more open and present, so you might not be able to exactly emulate some other classic quacky bright envelope filter sounds. I find it does faster/snappier envelopes the best personally (which is what most of the more popular presets are utilizing).
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Thanks for the feedback.
I use the Aguilar Filter Twin for my main envelope and love it. I use both the up and down sweep simultaneously, and I don’t think the MXR can do that. I love the MXR’s “Chameleon” green 3 preset for another envelope filter flavor in my arsenal.
I honestly got the MXR just for its presets and don’t care much to dive into the create-your-own sounds portion of the pedal. Would love to see other live clips of the MXR in action!
Yeah the Aguilar filter is definitely a different character and with different sound functionality including the dual parallel filter topology- the MXR only has a single filter, and though it can be adjusted pretty dramatically it is definitely more on the synthy side of things (understandably!) while the Aguilar can get funkier from what I've heard. The Chameleon preset is definitely a good example of what the MXR's filter seems to excel at.
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Used mine in a Bee Gees Tribute the other week. Went pretty well. Used the first preset for Nights on Broadway, and a custom preset for Warm Ride. (Graham Bonnet written by the BGs). Tried it with Jive talking but preferred octave and wah for that.
I have 3dB of boost available on my HX Stomp early in the chain if needed and also some after if needed depending on where I need to be in the mix.
I have 3dB of boost available on my HX Stomp early in the chain if needed and also some after if needed depending on where I need to be in the mix.
@SLO Surfer @sunbeast Have you guys messed with the PastFx Px-101. I really like it a lot as my dedicated envelope. Obviously based on the MF-101. I find it much more stable than my old MF-101. I'm thinking of adding his chorus to my small analog board.
No I've never heard of that one, but it looks cool! I used to be interested in getting a MF-101. But I'm honestly not interested in looking at other envelope filters anymore, the Aguilar cured that GAS for me.
holy lord jesus I don't think I would ever attempt such a feat even if I did have the external Tap preset advance switch! Hats off to you, my good man!
Awesome band! Love it.
I too think a Stingray tracks great through a Bass Synth, tried it, loved it, gigged it the other week. It's been a long time between gigs for SR 5H.
Yeah I have one, great pedal and particular for “synthy” sounds given the 4-pole ladder filter topology. I also still have an MF101, should probably sell it! It is just missing a downward envelope option and for me a little more envelope speed control (the envelope is also not as “characterful” as something like a Mutron/Qtron/etc for funkier things). Hard to choose just one filter pedal IMO
