What I mean is...are the "issues" people are running into just technique related? Or are there quirks to this particular pedal? My BSW gets alot of cool tones that are useful for when i dont want to switch to keys but no presets.
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Yes and no.
Yes, in that you have to use a very deliberate technique when playing an analog synth pedal being trigger by a bass guitar. You need to send it as monophonic of a signal as you can manage via judicious muting technique. Both the MXR and the FI pedals tend to favor a pretty hot signal in my experience. Removing as many overtones from your tone on the way in also helps tremendously with tracking. For my part I also found that palm muting, using flatwound strings, using a bridge mute, or any combination of the above would also greatly improve tracking.
No, in that beyond the playing technique aspect of getting these pedals to work well, there's also a stylistic difference. What I mean is that you effectively stop playing a bass guitar and start playing the pedal. It's an entirely different user experience. For my part, I found this difference quite unpleasant even if I was getting acceptable tracking. In the end I sold my MXR and I sold my FI as resigned myself to the fact that I either want to play an actual bass guitar, or an actual keyboard bass synth. Getting one to do the job of the other, for me, was a significantly unpleasant experience and I've dropped my pursuit of that effort.
Thank you to all for your help and suggestions! I have been playing bass professionally since 1984 and made many records. I trust my technique and was aware that I would have to play to the pedal. It's not in my board yet and I'm using the power they provided. I play a standard American PBass no active pickups. I've tried fingers, pick and palm muting… no difference. I can't wait another 5 months to exchange it if it's faulty and at $400+ CDN it's an expensive pedal to use if it only works on one song. If I could trust the tracking I would put the time into programming but I'm afraid I'm still trying to figure out how to get the tracking right. I've got 30 days to return it so I will keep trying and researching. Any more suggestions are very welcome thank you!
Really the only settings that should affect tracking are the 4-string/5-string/guitar one, the Gate, and the Compressor (which I understand to come before the tracking circuit, though not 100% sure on that).
The only basses I have that I've had particular issues with tracking-wise are a particularly resonant 6-string bass (tends to have a lot of sympathetic ringing of open notes and other parts if I'm not careful with muting) or a very bright active bass I have. Both of these instruments I pretty much have to play in a palm-muted style (either plucked or picked) and adjust so the Gate is much less sensitive or the tracking gets very glitchy.
I agree with @silky smoove that the MXR does seem to react best with a pretty strong and clean input signal, for me meaning digging in pretty hard, so that the signal to noise ratio is as clean as possible. I could imagine for a lot of players that playing with a pick and palm-muting might give the best possible input for this pedal and many other monophonic pitch-trackers.
The only consideration I've found vital with my particular 4-string passive instruments is favoring the neck pickup in most cases. With rounds you might also benefit from rolling the Tone down, though I get mostly the same effect via palm-muting.
With the Gate set right I don't think that single-coil hum should cause issues, but I did have a bum MXR Bass Octave Deluxe years ago that would try to track hum when playing with single coils (that pedal had a fixed gate that was apparently faulty in my unit). If your bass has single coils then you'll definitely want to mess with the Gate so that the pedal is only tracking your playing instead of the noise!
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An option I considered, but never put into practice, was to put the MXR (or the FI) in a switchable effects loop. In the loop you'd place a low pass filter first to remove as many overtones as possible while retaining as much fundamental as possible. You'd follow that with the cleanest compressor you have available to limit the dynamic range, going as far as intentionally squashing the note and then bringing up the level with makeup gain. I suspect that would yield results that these types of devices would like to see at input. You could then leave everything engaged and switch the effects loop in and out of the circuit. It's just an idea since, as stated, I never got around to trying it before I sold both my MXR and my FI.
As mentioned previously, it came down more to my dislike of using a bass guitar to trigger an analog synthesizer as compared to playing a keyboard-controlled analog bass synth. The playing experience lands in an uncanny valley between playing bass and playing a synth that I've decided isn't for me. I want my bass to be a bass, and I want my keyboard bass synth to be a keyboard bass synth, and the two don't need to attempt to do the job of the other. Again, just a me thing. The FI definitely did it's job and for my tastes I thought it FAR exceeded the capabilities and sonic quality of the MXR. The FI felt and sounded like a high end pedal whereas the MXR, while seemingly well built, sounded comparatively bad to my ears. In general I find most MXR pedals sound somewhere between decent at their best, "just okay" in most cases, and pretty bad at their worst, so it's entirely possible that my comparison comes down to me just being a snob
Yeah ultimately the guitar synth thing is destined to always be a niche for that reason- it can be cool as heck IMO when you approach it as its own 3rd thing distinct from a guitar or a synth, but if you want to just play your bass as normal and get cool synth sounds that are like the records you like then it will always fail (unless you have very low standards and/or impeccable technique to begin with), and even if you are willing to adjust your technique to the specific pedal (as I know you are!) it will also still always be a compromise in feel and/or tone vs even some of the most basic keyboard synths. So I try to always approach these pedals from the perspective of "what can this weird device do that is new to me" rather than trying to compare it to something else, if that makes sense. I also only really play original music, so fortunately I don't ever find myself needing to cop specific synth sounds in a live environment (and would just use soft synths played by a MIDI keyboard in a recorded environment most of the time). I feel that way even when comparing the MXR and Future Impact, where I like different aspects of both and can find useful applications for both. Maybe I'm just too diplomatic though (and who likes a diplomat?)As mentioned previously, it came down more to my dislike of using a bass guitar to trigger an analog synthesizer as compared to playing a keyboard-controlled analog bass synth. The playing experience lands in an uncanny valley between playing bass and playing a synth that I've decided isn't for me. I want my bass to be a bass, and I want my keyboard bass synth to be a keyboard bass synth, and the two don't need to attempt to do the job of the other. Again, just a me thing. The FI definitely did it's job and for my tastes I thought it FAR exceeded the capabilities and sonic quality of the MXR. The FI felt and sounded like a high end pedal whereas the MXR, while seemingly well built, sounded comparatively bad to my ears. In general I find most MXR pedals sound somewhere between decent at their best, "just okay" in most cases, and pretty bad at their worst, so it's entirely possible that my comparison comes down to me just being a snob
Just like midi synth compatible instruments, you have to approach and play clean much like a keyboard player would. These things sense string movement and vibration, so if your creating extra noise by hanging over notes to long from one note to the next, and if your fingers thump or come to a rest hitting unused strings, you're gonna get bad tracking and weird triggers.
You have to play cleanly, and likely work on your muting. Anyone that has used bass to midi also ran into this years ago.
I had no issues with default tracking (since I usually play a 5), my testing was all done with my 4 string.
While its tracking isn't perfect, you should be able to get it to track Thriller (and all the other preset licks) easy enough just like Ian Martin Allison does in the demo video. Something is probably wrong with your pedal, signal chain (I don't think you have mentioned anything else in your chain?), or technique.
Interesting points on placement in the chain. I have it third but could swap it with the fuzz… I use one or the other, never at the same time, into one or both delays. If you don't have some delay after the Bass Synth, you're missing out. So evil sounding. 
I think you'll find placing the MXR Bass Pedal first is the best location.Interesting points on placement in the chain. I have it third but could swap it with the fuzz… I use one or the other, never at the same time, into one or both delays. If you don't have some delay after the Bass Synth, you're missing out. So evil sounding.
The presets are so good on this thing. The Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock patches are brilliant. Totally nails some early 80's Hip Hop basslines.... like "Jam On It" by Newcleus and "Bassline" by Mantronix. Freakin' hilarious. The Nine Inch Nails patch is great, too. Bjork bassline/patch took some practice.... it's in a weird key, but it's awesome too. The Michael Jackson/Quincy Jones patch is excellent.
Well…. I spent almost a month with the MXR synth pedal and I just couldn't get it to work for me. Tracking is a huge issue. I tried to play with the pedal but no go… besides, I'm not really interested in relearning how to play for this pedal. The technology is getting closer but not quite there yet. YouTube videos, as usual, are deceiving. I returned the pedal and will keep my eyes open in the future.
Sorry it didn't work for you. I wonder if something was wrong with yours. As mentioned, I can easily get mine to track/sound exactly like Ian Allison's demo as well as every other YouTube video I've seen, so to me those videos are not deceiving at all but rather fair representations. Just wanted to share that it does work as advertised for me and many others here, while you are also not alone with some bassists having tracking issues. I am left wondering what the difference is…
I have seen lots of videos of the pedal working fine, but unfortunately nobody has shared videos of them playing it with tracking issues. That might shed some light.
I don't think the videos are deceiving (deception implies that the videos were either manipulated somehow or that they were using a different product than was offered to the public), they are just made by people with experiencing adjusting their playing to pedals that require a different touch! Unless there was something specifically wrong with your example of course, which does happen.
I got mine a few days ago and have been working on sounds. The first couple of presets are good and the "sledgehammer-ish" one is decent too. I will take it to band practice this weekend and see how it goes. Ive been trying to create sounds on my own with very limited success. Ive been playing since the 80s and have a Digitech bass synth wah (and had other octave/envelope pedals in the past) so im very aware of having to adjust technique. I also play keys so I understand the concepts pretty well. That said, so far im underwhelmed. For just an octave-with-a-little-funk-edge, the Digitech sounds better IMO. Im just exploring the additional settings so i hope to unlock some stuff, but, unless it gets alot better, ill probably send it back. Keeping my fingers crossed.
The only downfall I see to the MXR Bass Synth is you need to play clean for it to track accurately. It has improved my playing and in my opinion, the presets alone are worth the price. With all of it's capabilities I've been able to create patches for octave, chorus/flange, and envelope filter so it what's freed up some space on my pedalboard.
I would probably start by learning the filter using clean bass, seeing how all the controls function/interact. I assume that's where you will find the "little funk edge". The MXR doesn't have an octaver on hand per se, just synth waveforms playing an octave below your bass, so if you are looking for analog octaver tones it might not suit you that well (yes the Sledgehammer preset does a decent job emulating a sound that was originally created by an OC-2, but the feel and tone are both pretty distinct IMO). The Digitech utilizes a pitchshifter engine to do its sub-octave sounds, and so the voice and responsiveness of the octaver are different than what you will find in the MXR
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