Okay..I need some help from effects nerds...

[kevteop]

TBH as far as filters + fuzzes joining to make great synth noises go, you will be hard pressed to find a better combo than what you've already got in the Octavius Squeezer. The fuzz and filter in that box are designed to go together for exactly this purpose, and they work very well.

So if you do go shopping for a filter like the 3Leaf Groove Regulator and a Woolly Mammoth, bear in mind that in essence you're just duplicating sounds you've already got available in the Squeezer.

If you were after another filter for treadle use, you could look at the Moog MF-101, the Robot Factory Meatwad, the Barge Concepts Grinder (both of those are Meatball clones), something like those. They would give you something the Octavius Squeezer doesn't - foot control over the cut-off frequency.

Octavers: I personally really like the OC-2 but I've never tried the Octabass. The MXR Bass Octave Deluxe looks like a good option too. Certainly a PitchFactor wouldn't be the way to go here, if it's that analogue octave divider sound you want.

 

[Marlat]

Thanks again guys for the excellent advice. Although, my wallet hurts just a little bit more with every post in this thread!

FWIW the bass I use mostly with the effects and looping is the Ritter which is passive only. I could also use the Sadowsky in passive mode as I know a lot of effects prefer passive basses, but pretty much the Ritter gets most of the time going into the effects.

 

[MakiSupaStar]

Well Mark, I've been where you are, minus having the option to play with the OS. Someday, I'll have one. Someday....

Still this is what I've learned. I'm a synthaholic, and being slightly brain damaged (perhaps from too much synth), I've kind of figured a way to create synth sounds.
In basic sound terms a synth is a combo of some kind of fuzz and an envelope filter. There are other things that you can do to help flavor this soup up. You can add octaves into the mix, flanges, and even different options for trigger sensitivity and gates for when the sounds shuts off. There are some all in one boxes that do a GREAT job at this. One is your OS, others are the Akai Deep Impact, the Korg G5, and many others that aren't quite as good as that. I've recently been dabbling with the Copilot Orbit and that's an impressive little pedal too. Still, with all that said, you can have an infinite amount of possibilities if you start buying pedals with the thought in mind that if you get a pedal for each of the elements of a synth, you're going to have more options for creating synthy sounds. This is what I do.

First let's talk a little about my set up. I run my basses (mostly a Warwick Corvette $$ 5vr) into a BOSS DD-3 delay -> BOSS BF-1 flange -> Ampeg SVP-BSP -> 1000W Carver Power Amp modded to Mono -> Cabs.

The SVP-BSP is a split channel pre-amp with one channel being "clean" and other channel being "dirty" and you can run them individually or as a blend. Each one of those channels also has the option for running a FX-Loop. Since some pedals might have a cool sound but crappy tracking, I ALWAYS run my clean sound in the mix while my FX-Loop resides on my dirty channel. Some effects work better globally (DELAY, and FLANGE) so I run them in front of the preamp because it sounds crappy when one channel is flanging or delaying while the other channel is unaffected.

Here's my FX-Loop running through the dirty channel.
Here's a picture of my board.

On the top right of the photo, you'll see my Boss DD3 and BF-1, those as I mentioned are not part of the loop. The rest of the mess runs like this. It starts with the EHX-Bass Micro Synth -> MoogerFooger LPF101 -> Boss OC-2 -> Boss GE7 -> EHX Q-Tron -> Digitech Bass Synth Wah -> Boss SYB-5. Of course, I don't run them all the time but I've found that there are some cool synth "sections" in my board that I like to run.

The first synth section is my EHX-BMS->MoogerFooger LPF101. I basically run the BMS as a fuzzy octave that feeds into the MoogerFooger envelope filter. There are literally hundreds of options within these two pedals. It's all analogue, if I recall, and I can always quickly twist and tweak into something really interesting here. The BMS is kind of a synth in itself, but I'm not totally stoked on the sound by itself, unless I play in the higher parts of my bass. I find that I use it more as a fuzz, octave combo. Once I set the octave with the amount of attack that I like, I set the fuzz (square wave) with the amount of delay and release that I like. Then it's off to the MoogerFooger which can be real fun when I run an expression pedal attached to the cutoff and resonance knobs (recently I have not been doing this though). Here is a link to one flavor this sound.
http://soundcloud.com/downanddirty/niney-dub-down-and-dirty
I kick it in at the 3:12 mark.

Next is a fairly new little synth section, but it's showing a lot of promise. It's my OC-2->GE7->EHX Qtron. The OC-2 is the old classic octave pedal. The 'fuzz" or dirty sound is simply the distortion/overdrive of my Ampeg SVP-BSP, blended with the OC-2 pedal. The GE7 is a new addition. Funny, because I was thinking about dumping this pedal, but I noticed that other guys around here were using it as a kind sound shaper, so that's how I have it functioning right now, and I'm digging it. It was the missing piece to this section. I use to create a smoother sound feeding into the Q-tron which is an envelope filter. I'll have clips of this soon, in fact I might need to start a thread because I'm torn between two different ideas for an intro on a song I working on. Sometimes to make things real crazy, I turn on the MoogerFooger to feed into this synth section.

I have the Digitech Bass Synth Wah, which has all these components built into it, and has some great little sounds, but it can be a bit quirky. I generally use only a couple of settings on it. Sometimes I feed the OC-2 into it.

Finally, I have the infamous Boss SYB-5. This pedal is a surprising little box. Many people hate it because of the tracking on it (which is generally bad) but because I always have my clean blended into the sound, I never lose low end or miss a hit because of wonky processor. This synth has some nice little gritty sine wave sounds, as well as a nice hold feature. I use it as a standalone, but recently I've added it to other synths to create a nice gritty flange effect atop my BMS-LPF101 section. I like how it's turned out. Here's a sample of what that sounds like. At 3:02 I kick in the BMS-LPF101 section, and then at 3:19 I add the SYB-5 to the blend.

http://soundcloud.com/downanddirty/come-clean-sunsetsoundsystem-remix

Hope this helps. My name is Maki, and I'm a synthaholic.

 

[cheapbasslovin]

When I suggested the Enigma, it was because it has so many control options. You can hear exactly the difference between a start freq that is really low versus one that is moderately low. Same with the stop frequency, and all the other controls for that matter. Unfortunately, I can't speak for the Moog or 3leaf, those may be better filters for your situation.

The common problem tends to be too many choices for every musical solution.
Sounds like Maki knows something, though.

EDIT::: Warwick.Hoy said that the Enigma is a Bassballs on steroids, but that's not exactly true. A Bassballs has 2 filters working at the same time with a distortion circuit. The Enigma is just a single filter with a heapload of adjustment parameters and a distortion circuit.

EDIT2::: The Wooly Mammoth will work well after your passive bass, but not if you try to engage it after any of your other effects. Food for thought.

 

[kevteop]

The Wooly Mammoth will work well after your passive bass, but not if you try to engage it after any of your other effects. Food for thought.

That sort-of depends what you want from it. I've had good results from my Woolly Mammoth used with my old Stingray fretless and also my Thumb bass, and it's spent most of its time following other buffered effects in my chain so it's rarely seen a low-impedance input, and I've usually been happy with the sounds I get from it. It's a pretty gnarly pedal.

But for synth uses, I definitely prefer the Brown Dog circuit in my O.S. It seems tighter and more predictable somehow. I think the Mammoth has much higher gain, it gets more... harmonicky, than the Brown Dog.

 

[Marlat]

Just a question on the fuzz with filter thing. My Polish Ass (or whatever Bogdan is calling the Brassmaster clone) just arrived today. Would that be a suitable fuzz to use with a GrooveRegulator or should I just set up one of my OS patches as a pure gated fuzz?

 

[JMDT]

Just a question on the fuzz with filter thing. My Polish Ass (or whatever Bogdan is calling the Brassmaster clone) just arrived today. Would that be a suitable fuzz to use with a GrooveRegulator or should I just set up one of my OS patches as a pure gated fuzz?

Try it and see if you like it. The brass master has a very synthy texture, but is not gated. If you run in the effects loop of the 3Leaf the gate isn't as important as the clean tone will effect the envelope and the fuzz will not. The gate is good for forcing the envelope to close, but an effects loop is a way around this. Just don't put a compressor before the filter and you will be fine.

 

[addylewis]

Personally if I were you I'd try the DHA last so the D.I. on it will give your sound to the FOH...and give the impression of a valve amp being used

 

[MakiSupaStar]

Gates are cool for creating sharp snap-offs on the decay (think about the old synthy Roland 303 sound). It allows you to play more aggressive, snappier basslines with more notes, where as without it, you're inclination would be to let things sustain out a little more to let the effects take place.

Mark, the only way to see if that fuzz works is to try it out. If you're running it into the envelope try simplifying the output of your fuzz so you have more to shape with your envelope. Then try tweaking the fuzz and seeing the results. With those two pedals you should have a lot of sound options, that are totally uniquely yours. Your own personal synth madness.

 

[kevteop]

(Re: The O.S.

It's a pretty amazing little box really. I just wish they'd sort out the tracking on the VCO, but there's been no firmware updates for the best part of a year now.

FWIW I poked Richard Cartwright about what's happening with future firmware updates and here's his reply:

Yes we are most certainly working on a new firmware release. There have been a number of things that have caused this to take longer than expected. The main one is that we're not talking about a few tweaks to the tracking algorithm here. We've come up with an entirely new algorithm. The other one is that the tools that are available for writing code for the microcontroller in the OS are a bit substandard so we have to write it mainly by hand in assembly - which is really time consuming.

Still no mention of a date for the update (probably wise!) but it's good to know they're still working on it.

Funnily enough all this talk got me sitting down with the OSC bits of the O.S. tonight and it performed better than I remembered. I'd forgotten how sweet the square/pulse tones are.

 

[smo]

When I was first starting out with effects - I bought a True Bypass twin looper, with a switch that enabled me to switch the order of the loops.
Then I went through every effect I had, with a notepad, and took note of the order I preferred.

Re: the fuzz - filter, that'll depend in what order sounds best to you. But I usually get a bit of a gated sound by just decreasing the bias/battery voltage down to seriously starved levels. But it'll depend on the fuzz as to how it might sound.....

 

[Marlat]

Just an update on where things are at:

1. I purchased an OC-2 off eBay and enjoy its synthy character, but in terms of bringing the "funk" to regular playing it can't touch the Octobass (so the Octobass is staying);

2. I purchased a Groove Regulator and have been using the OC-2 in front of the Groove Regulator with a Polish Ass in the effects loop of the Groove Regulator and so far am really liking this option. So much so that...

3. I have lent the Octavius Squeezer out to a TBer for a few months so he can check one out. I am getting a much better feel for the way synths / filters work with the knobs in front of me ratehr than the presets in the OS.

4. I bought a Pitchfactor which I am digging. I really enjoy the ability to harmoize my playing and play with the various delays for different textures. The Pitchfactor may well be the most useful pedal I have come across for solo / loop playing.

I think I am going to put up for sale my Flltone Bassdrive Mosfet (the Polish Love covers this well enough for my liking and I have a DHA-VT1-EQ pedal that does warm tube so well), the EHX Dr Q Nano (the Groove Regulator has this covered) and my Line 6 JM4 (I also ahve a Rang Plus and a EHX2880 and prefer them both although the Line 6 does have the cool beats / rythms built into it).

So far its all going well on the effects front. I know just need to work out a way to get this all nicely on my board with the flexibility to play through my rig or through my Mac.