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New bass microsynth problems

D

DoubleD

Jul 23, 2009
79
0
Southern Indiana
#1
I purchased a used EHX BMS and received it today. I've been excited to try it out, but I'm having some serious problems even getting it to work. I wanted to see if you all thought it's a bad unit, or if I'm just missing something obvious.

The unit did not come with a power supply (though it did come with box, manual, registration, etc.) so I'm using my onespot to power it. If that's a problem, let me know, but I don't see why it would be.

My main issues are:

1) The unit is barely 1/2 the volume of my normal bass signal. I can not, regardless of what settings I adjust, get a reasonable volume from the pedal. My tone is sucked away too and seems "distant" for lack of a better word. If I run my dry guitar slider all the way to the top, my volume is barely half of my volume when the pedal is off.

2) There is no sustain. When running through a compressor first, the unit stops outputting sound mid-ring. It's almost like there's a gate threshold I'm falling below and stopping the sound. If I remove the compressor before the unit and run just into the BMS and then to my amp, I don't get sound playing normally. I have to pluck the strings so hard to get sound that I can't play. The notes only ring for a second or so and then they stop. This is extremely frustrating.

3) When I slide the octave slider up, when I get to about 3/4 of the way up it starts giving me a distorted sound. It sounds very similar to the square wave slider does (almost like it's wired funny). Is this normal?

I've tried different cables, a dedicated power supply, running it through my pedal board chain, tried it by itself. Nothing seems to change the results. It is completely useless to me if this is how it's supposed to behave.

Just looking for some help before returning it, in case it's something obvious I'm missing.

Thanks
 
#3
The old ones are 24v I think. The new ones are 9v but I'm not sure the ma requirements on either. If you have an old one and it looks like this:

EHX-BMS.jpg


Then you won't be able to power it with a OneSpot.
 
#4
I tried to post an update last night but my browser kept crashing.

I should have clarified. I have the new, XO version.

I had missed in the manual where it talks about the trimpot for input gain. It was set extremely low. I fixed that.

I am still having the sustain problem, but it's better now than it was and using a compressor before it helps some, but not entirely. I don't like how it just drops the sound as a note is ringing out.

I am also still getting a distortion sound when turning the high-octave up. It's fine up until about 3/4 of the way, and then it sounds like it turns on the square wave. It distorts.

Square wave also seems odd - up to about 10% it seems to do nothing. Once it comes on, it's pretty much full distortion all the way up (that is, from 11% to 100% it sounds the same, either nothing or full square.) Is that normal?
 
#7
There is a gate on the BMS. IIRC there is a second trimmer in the unit that controls the threshold on the gate (or perhaps the decay speed after the signal drops below the signal, I can't recall for certain); adjusting that could let the pedal ring out a little more. Distortion on the upper octave is normal, but it should be more overdrivey and the square wave more fuzzy.
 
#8
Thanks for the help guys.

The second trimpot for gate control is actually a myth (I read an email from EHX about that). There is only the input gain adjustment.

Jonathan1990: yes, other pedals are daisy chaned on the onespot, but I tested the unit by itself as well and no difference in tone or volume. I added up my amps and I'm good.

I'm still figuring out the trigger. It seems to have a pretty tight usable range. Not sure why they didn't just take that small portion where it is usable, and make the slider just operate within that range. I need to play more with it.

I will play with it more and see what I sounds I can get. Thanks all.
 
#11
DoubleD said:
I'm still figuring out the trigger. It seems to have a pretty tight usable range. Not sure why they didn't just take that small portion where it is usable, and make the slider just operate within that range. I need to play more with it.
Click to expand...

TBH that's pretty typical given one bass guitar. How many different things can the trigger slider realistically do?

The problem slider on the 9v BMS (IMHO) is the Rate slider, which seems to have most of the interesting range in a tiny length of the slider. The older BMS was much better in this regard.
 
#15
DoubleD said:
I am still having the sustain problem, but it's better now than it was and using a compressor before it helps some, but not entirely. I don't like how it just drops the sound as a note is ringing out.
Click to expand...

The sustain problem should be solveable by turning the input gain further up. You will want this as far up as possible without distorting the suboctave. But be realistic and use the low A but not too much lower to check this, and don't slap it hard unless you would really play like that with a suboctave on (I wouldn't!). That way you'll be able to turn the input gain further up, getting the most out of the tracking.
With my XO, I get unity gain at around 7 of the "guitar" slider.

It is normal for the BMS to cut a note before it completely decays. That is a limitation of the pedal, but a necessary side-effect because of the presence of the gate, and the gate is really great for cleaning up the sound when playing busier lines. I would also like to be able to have complete decays, but I prefer to have the gate though.

But the note should have at least quite some seconds of sustain though, and decayed to really soft before that happens, at least if you play up the neck.

DoubleD said:
I am also still getting a distortion sound when turning the high-octave up. It's fine up until about 3/4 of the way, and then it sounds like it turns on the square wave. It distorts.
Click to expand...

Mmm, I don't know about this, as I usually have it only at around 5, so I would have to check this out. It is always distorted, but I didn't notice yet that it distorts more when turned up as opposed to only increase in volume. But again, I have to check this out to see if mine acts the same.

DoubleD said:
Square wave also seems odd - up to about 10% it seems to do nothing. Once it comes on, it's pretty much full distortion all the way up (that is, from 11% to 100% it sounds the same, either nothing or full square.) Is that normal?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you mean. Does the volume stay the same once it is on or not? The distortion level of the square wave is the same with mine over the entire range of the slider, it only increases in volume. So also at lower volumes, it produces all-out fuzz.

Don't give up on the pedal yet. It takes a lot of time to get used to it and make it work optimally, but it's really worth it IMHO.
 

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