Live Bass Synth Advice

[ryanowens]

I need your help....

I need to be able to play moog type bass synth parts and pads live with a foot pedal. Most likely the Roland PK7???? midi foot controler.

I'll need to be able to play simple pads and moog tones while playing the electric bass. I currently have a new MacBook.

I need somthing fairly simple as I will only need a few good sounds..... I don't need an endless choice of sounds.

Should I get the midi foot contoler and a soft synth? if so which soft synth should I get?

What else will I need to run these live? I'd like to run them out of my computer into a DI and send it to the front of house.

let me know!

Thanks

Ryan
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[brianrost]

I need to be able to play moog type bass synth parts and pads live with a foot pedal. Most likely the Roland PK7???? midi foot controler.

I'll need to be able to play simple pads and moog tones while playing the electric bass. I currently have a new MacBook.

I need somthing fairly simple as I will only need a few good sounds..... I don't need an endless choice of sounds.

Should I get the midi foot contoler and a soft synth? if so which soft synth should I get?

What else will I need to run these live? I'd like to run them out of my computer into a DI and send it to the front of house.

OK, to use the laptop you will need a MIDI interface to hook up the Roland pedals. You will also need an audio interface of some sort. There are boxes that do both, some USB keyboard controllers have them built in, too. As far as softsynths you could use the ones in Garageband that came with your Macbook.

I will say though that buying a hardware synth would be a better idea...less stuff to bring to the gig, less to hook up, more reliable: hook the pedals into the synth and you're done.

The Alesis Ion or Korg MicroKorg for $399 new would be great choices for your application as they are very compact. You could also buy many other synths used for even less, under $100 for many rackmount synths with no keyboard.