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Markbass Super Synth: My review and experience.

#21
Personally I see nothing wrong with the switches on the MarkBass gear. I can see your point on the power supply though. I tried the SuperSynth but didn't care for the octave sounds. The real deal breaker for me is that you have to program it through a laptop.
 
#22
Love my Super Synth. It tracks very well.
Don't care for the Oct up so I programmed it with various Oct downs and play the notes higher when engaged.

+1 Synth pedal to fill space in a punk rock band? I think the OP would've been better served by a Digitech BSW in Octave mode.
 
#24
Jared Lash said:
I can understand that you had a bad experience with the Super Synth, but to me it sounds like choosing the wrong tool for the job and then being upset that it doesn't do exactly what you want.
Click to expand...

I agree. The Markbass Synth is a really good thing. For my taste, it has intersting pressets and sounds really good.

Parsons, I think that in a punk trio and during the guitar´s solos, maybe using a synth isn´t the better choice. Even with an octaver up pedal I don´t know if it fits well in that music style. Probably for a musical context of punk/rock I think that an overdrive will help you better that an octaver or synth.;)

If you really wanna fill that hollow, the drummer and you, both should play of another way: more rythm, some musical accents,...Listen some good bassist that they play/played in a 3 piece band, and listen how they fill the song during the guitar´s solos.

Don´t get me wrong folks, but it´s how I feel it.:thumbsup:
 
#25
I am looking at buying the Mark Bass, for snyth and octaves, I have the MXR octave pedal, only 1 octave, with a mid switch, I think limited, adn I have the Boss SYB5, which doesn't track well, and alot of the sounds, sound "hokey". On the few videos out there, where you can hear the pedal, it sounds much better to me, and out of all the reviews, MOST people say it tracks great. So my thoughts are, it probabably is a much better product, then the Boss, and MXR? Any takers?
 
#26
It's a very good pedal, especially because any better option is also considerably more expensive. Also, the tracking depends a lot on the way you play, I found that synth pedals need you to adapt to them, rather than the opposite.
The super synth has an incredible range of sounds, but bear in mind that you need to create presets using your PC, otherwise you'll be very very limited. I found this to be quite a big issue, as I have no way to bring a computer to the rehearsal space: it took me a long time to fine tune the sounds I created because I played with the band, thought "This needs more bass\This needs more filter\Whatever", went home, changed the sound with the pc software, than had to wait a week to test it again with the band...
 
#27
paranoid30 said:
It's a very good pedal, especially because any better option is also considerably more expensive. Also, the tracking depends a lot on the way you play, I found that synth pedals need you to adapt to them, rather than the opposite.
The super synth has an incredible range of sounds, but bear in mind that you need to create presets using your PC, otherwise you'll be very very limited. I found this to be quite a big issue, as I have no way to bring a computer to the rehearsal space: it took me a long time to fine tune the sounds I created because I played with the band, thought "This needs more bass\This needs more filter\Whatever", went home, changed the sound with the pc software, than had to wait a week to test it again with the band...
Click to expand...

You can get low-spec Windows tablets ridiculously cheap these days (under €50), just a thought. They even come with a year's free subscription to Office 365 which is worth more than the device itself!
 
#29
Hand slap said:
Ty, I did buy the Mark Bass, pretty cool, will take time incorporating into a gig. Needless to say, I will be selling the Boss synth, and the MXR. Thanks for the reply.
Click to expand...
I own a MB SuperSynth too.
I think there might be a lot of potential in this pedal if the system, pedal - software would work correct.
I have a hard time storing the presets i made, to the pedal.
Obviously the pedal doesn't remember the dry/wet settings on the octaver, nor does it remember the cutoff, tone and level settings of the presets i made.
At least i have to readjust them after changing presets or powering down the pedal. User Sounds are stored on the Synth presets, the octave adjusments are stored, that's all.
Does anybody know how this thing works? I'm kind of lost, the manual doesn't help either.
Markbass doesn't respond to my inquirys, which i find rather irritating as well.
I don't want to have a computer on stage just for the MarkBass. I'm about to dump it because it's of no use for me that way.
I use a Mac by the way.

Thanks for any help.
 
#30
You missed out big time by not taking 5 minutes of your time to explore the software, or at least go watch a video of the software like here:



That's the ONLY way you can get any real control over the pedal as the hardware knobs don't cover diddly.

As far as the footswitches, non-clicky switches are fairly common now with the superior relay-based true bypass switches being used. However, the Markbass has an odd implementation where the switch doesn't actuate until you press-THEN-RELEASE the footswitch. Pretty non-standard.
 

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