source audio c4

[Monks]

Yeah listening to what @Monks posted, i hear no bass at all, just keys.

And wow, I had forgotten, dude can sing.

I'm well aware the original bass is keys. Just wondered if I could get a sound like this with bass and C4 pedal.

And yes, Al Jarreau was one of the greatest.

 

[bholder]

I'm well aware the original bass is keys. Just wondered if I could get a sound like this with bass and C4 pedal.

And yes, Al Jarreau was one of the greatest.

ah, yeah, ok gotcha. that's just particularly "keyish" to my ear. Usually synth bass parts try to hide the more "keyish" aspects, but this setup seems to emphasize them instead. (Making it that much harder to emulate with a bass and a box).

 

[sunbeast]

Hi there. Just bought this pedal. I'm searching for a synthbass-sound, sounding like the intro of Al Jarreau 'Boogie Down'. The synth presets I have found, seem to be more for a drone-like 'vibe' sounds. I need a quick and precise responce, and short decay. Some presets on the pedal have this, but those are octave sounds, not synth.
Hopefully, what I'm trying to say makes sence
Is this sound possible with the C4 pedal (suggestion to a preset, or how to make one?)
Or is there another pedal that does this better?

I’ve made sounds in that ballpark with my Future Impact pedal, which I generally have found easier to dial in snappy triggered envelope sounds like that due to having full ADSR envelopes available. Still I bet something close enough could be done with the C4- just have to send the voices to one of the envelope sections (not via the filter, but the amplifier envelope) and play around with the different envelope shapes available

 

[bassbrad]

I’ve made sounds in that ballpark with my Future Impact pedal, which I generally have found easier to dial in snappy triggered envelope sounds like that due to having full ADSR envelopes available. Still I bet something close enough could be done with the C4- just have to send the voices to one of the envelope sections (not via the filter, but the amplifier envelope) and play around with the different envelope shapes available

I used the 'snappy' envelope for the sound I fudged and it is as close as I could get. It was easy to dial up that sound on my soft synth and used that as a template, not perfect but perhaps a candy cigar since I don't smoke.

 

[HorseRider]

Hi @rsmith601 - Question for you. I was having a discussion about the FM synth capabilities of the C4 on a facebook users' page a while back. Understood that the C4 is limited to two FM operators as described in [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]. Also understood that the Yamaha DX7 had six.

I have played around with programming DX7 bass sounds a lot in the Dexed VST emulator. Since it has a GUI, it's easy. It seems to me that in terms of bass sounds, even four is enough to get a lot more of that very rich, complex transient attack. This is the thing that seems missing, and I don't think I'm alone in this observation. The sharp attack of bass tones (think: every top 40 song from 1986) is what a lot of people want. They're still in use.

If a future version of the C4 was even to get to 4-6 operators, I would be the first to smash the BUY IT NOW button. What is the bottleneck to that? Is it more hardware processing power, or is it the memory limitation of code? The full variability of the envelopes for each operator of the DX7 would be nice, but even a few preset options would be good.

It's 2023. Can we have the amount of hardware and software that was available in 1986 for $2000, with our bass as the initial carrier oscillator, at the price of a pedal yet? How about 4/6 of it? If not, why? Is this in the works, or is someone else going to do it? I'm just curious, this is just an observation and market feedback, not a complaint.

Bonus question: what is the latency of the C4 exactly, in milliseconds? If it depends and varies by setting, data on that would be welcome. Can never have too much information.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Quatschmacher]

Hi @rsmith601 - Question for you. I was having a discussion about the FM synth capabilities of the C4 on a facebook users' page a while back. Understood that the C4 is limited to two FM operators as described in [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]. Also understood that the Yamaha DX7 had six.

I have played around with programming DX7 bass sounds a lot in the Dexed VST emulator. Since it has a GUI, it's easy. It seems to me that in terms of bass sounds, even four is enough to get a lot more of that very rich, complex transient attack. This is the thing that seems missing, and I don't think I'm alone in this observation. The sharp attack of bass tones (think: every top 40 song from 1986) is what a lot of people want. They're still in use.

If a future version of the C4 was even to get to 4-6 operators, I would be the first to smash the BUY IT NOW button. What is the bottleneck to that? Is it more hardware processing power, or is it the memory limitation of code? The full variability of the envelopes for each operator of the DX7 would be nice, but even a few preset options would be good.

It's 2023. Can we have the amount of hardware and software that was available in 1986 for $2000, with our bass as the initial carrier oscillator, at the price of a pedal yet? How about 4/6 of it? If not, why? Is this in the works, or is someone else going to do it? I'm just curious, this is just an observation and market feedback, not a complaint.

Bonus question: what is the latency of the C4 exactly, in milliseconds? If it depends and varies by setting, data on that would be welcome. Can never have too much information.

Thanks in advance.

I also floated the idea of a dedicated FM synth pedal a while back to Roger and Jesse, I think around the time I got a DX7 at the start of the year.

Some of the issues of transients seem to be to an issue of pitch-detection speed. I’ve programmed patches on the Future Impact which are super punchy and snappy when triggered via a MIDI keyboard but which don’t sound as good when using bass as the input trigger.

 

[rsmith601]

Hi @rsmith601 - Question for you. I was having a discussion about the FM synth capabilities of the C4 on a facebook users' page a while back. Understood that the C4 is limited to two FM operators as described in [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]. Also understood that the Yamaha DX7 had six.

I have played around with programming DX7 bass sounds a lot in the Dexed VST emulator. Since it has a GUI, it's easy. It seems to me that in terms of bass sounds, even four is enough to get a lot more of that very rich, complex transient attack. This is the thing that seems missing, and I don't think I'm alone in this observation. The sharp attack of bass tones (think: every top 40 song from 1986) is what a lot of people want. They're still in use.

If a future version of the C4 was even to get to 4-6 operators, I would be the first to smash the BUY IT NOW button. What is the bottleneck to that? Is it more hardware processing power, or is it the memory limitation of code? The full variability of the envelopes for each operator of the DX7 would be nice, but even a few preset options would be good.

It's 2023. Can we have the amount of hardware and software that was available in 1986 for $2000, with our bass as the initial carrier oscillator, at the price of a pedal yet? How about 4/6 of it? If not, why? Is this in the works, or is someone else going to do it? I'm just curious, this is just an observation and market feedback, not a complaint.

Bonus question: what is the latency of the C4 exactly, in milliseconds? If it depends and varies by setting, data on that would be welcome. Can never have too much information.

Thanks in advance.

Latency is 0.6ms or so. Depends on the unit, but that is the order of magnitude.
The C4 is maxed out currently. 3500 hand crafted DSP instructions running at 200 Mhz.

 

[HorseRider]

Latency is 0.6ms or so. Depends on the unit, but that is the order of magnitude.
The C4 is maxed out currently. 3500 hand crafted DSP instructions running at 200 Mhz.

Okay. Is that really the latency of between the note input and the note generated? At what frequency?

Maxed out in terms of what? The hardware capability of the chip? Again, just curious. There are other features of the C4 I'd give away for two more FM operators.

It sounds like you are not interested in developing a synth pedal with more FM operators. Maybe the chip makes it prohibitively expensive? If we were in a situation where, if we failed to develop this device, aliens would annihilate our planet, what would it take to make it happen?

Maybe I will post a poll to see if I'm alone in my interest in this. It's certainly an opening (that has been there for many years) for some manufacturer to take my money.

I also floated the idea of a dedicated FM synth pedal a while back to Roger and Jesse, I think around the time I got a DX7 at the start of the year.

Some of the issues of transients seem to be to an issue of pitch-detection speed. I’ve programmed patches on the Future Impact which are super punchy and snappy when triggered via a MIDI keyboard but which don’t sound as good when using bass as the input trigger.

Yep many of us have dreamed of basically controlling a DX7 with a bass for decades. Wired-fret midi seems to be the best bet but expensive.

I agree about the problem of pitch detection. If can only make that hard transient when it "decides" what the fundamental is. I don't think it's 0.6ms. Still, many 4-operator bass tones in the DX7 (when I disable two, experimentally) sound damn good and rich. In those cases, one or two are just the fundamental operator detuned a bit, but similar envelope.

 

[Quatschmacher]

Okay. Is that really the latency of between the note input and the note generated? At what frequency?

Maxed out in terms of what? The hardware capability of the chip? Again, just curious. There are other features of the C4 I'd give away for two more FM operators.

It sounds like you are not interested in developing a synth pedal with more FM operators. Maybe the chip makes it prohibitively expensive? Maybe I will post a poll to see if I'm alone in my interest in this. It's certainly an opening (that has been there for many years) for some manufacturer to take my money.



Yep many of us have dreamed of basically controlling a DX7 with a bass for decades. Wired-fret midi seems to be the best bet but expensive.

I agree about the problem of pitch detection. If can only make that hard transient when it "decides" what the fundamental is. I don't think it's 0.6ms. Still, many 4-operator bass tones in the DX7 (when I disable two, experimentally) sound damn good and rich. In those cases, one or two are just the fundamental operator detuned a bit, but similar envelope.

System latency is probably what Roger has quoted. Maximum latency for pitch detection will be whatever time it takes the lowest detectable note to complete a period, so around 24ms for a low E, presuming the pitch detection takes a full cycle to read a waveform.

I don’t necessarily agree that they are not interested in developing an FM pedal per se. The C4 really is maxed and still needs some bugs ironing out, which takes resources. Also, SA are obviously way deep into designing and developing other things that are already in the pipeline and these processes do take a fair amount of gestation time. There is also the consideration of how successful a proposed product might be (they need to stay in business). C4 was a big success, as far as I can tell. I don’t know about other ambitious stuff. Ultrawave for instance is a really deep and csisble pedal but I don’t think it has been adopted as widely as C4 as it is a lot to get one’s head around.

But I’ll let @rsmith601 speak for himself.

 

[HorseRider]

whatever time it takes the lowest detectable note to complete a period, so around 24ms for a low E, presuming the pitch detection takes a full cycle to read a waveform.

Yeah thanks - I was asking whether this has been measured by the manufacturer. Because does it take a full cycle to read a waveform, or does it just take an educated guess on what the "wave" form is every Xms, and then correct when amplitude is above a threshold for Xms, or what? Like if you sampled a quarter of a 48hz waveform, well, you know what it AIN'T in less than 24ms... I don't know.

I really want to like the C4 pedal but none of the patches sound good. None of it sounds like post-1970s synth bass. It all sounds like an effect, not a useable, modern synth bass instrument. It's not at all like the tones heard in modern (post 1984) dance music. I guess the latency is still the 'real' issue.

 

[rsmith601]

Yeah thanks - I was asking whether this has been measured by the manufacturer. Because does it take a full cycle to read a waveform, or does it just take an educated guess on what the "wave" form is every Xms, and then correct when amplitude is above a threshold for Xms, or what? Like if you sampled a quarter of a 48hz waveform, well, you know what it AIN'T in less than 24ms... I don't know.

I really want to like the C4 pedal but none of the patches sound good. None of it sounds like post-1970s synth bass. It all sounds like an effect, not a useable, modern synth bass instrument. It's not at all like the tones heard in modern (post 1984) dance music. I guess the latency is still the 'real' issue.

"none of the patches sound good"
You are in the minority. This is our second biggest product of all time, and it's still selling well. There are thousands of users who have created over 2000 community presets (easily browsed and accessed). If the C4 was bad, it would not be one of the most successful synth pedals of all time. Bass players make up at least half of the community. It is a sound development tool intended to create a huge range of synth sounds, and it does not really have its own sound like some other pedals do. To make this comment you must have listened to over 2000 patches. Impressive work.

The architecture follows Bob Chidlaw's passion for modular synth (his background is noteworthy). The blocks inside the C4 are modular synth blocks, and that is exactly what they sound like (C=Chidlaw, 4= four voices). This video gives a very clear sense of building sounds using the C4. Tone Matching the C4 Synth with an Analog Modular Synthesizer - YouTube

Latency depends on what you are doing. I have quoted the most measurable number: how fast does a signal go through the signal path when there is nothing in the way that is intended to slow it down. We have measured this many times across many pedals, and this is what you should expect. If you are using the C4 for filtering and distortion, this is what you can expect. Filtering is one of the most important uses of this pedal and one of the top community presets, so this number is indeed meaningful and important. It is not frequency dependent. Let's look at 2 other important latency issues. Octave: As I recall, this takes something like 1 or 2 cycles, so it's very fast and frequency dependent. Pitch detection: this is the process we use to determine the frequency to drive the oscillators. We use 100% TIME DOMAIN processing in this section, because it is inherently fast. I can't tell you how we do it. That was the most difficult aspect of creating the pedal. Yes, using FREQUENCY DOMAIN processing (FFT) would have some advantages, but it adds latency. So, one key thing you should know is that the process we use to determine the pitch for the oscillators is inherently fast. How fast? It takes a few cycles to ensure that we are locked on to the fundamental and not a harmonic. Obviously, this is frequency dependent. I don't know if there is a faster way to do it theoretically. This is why we focused on monophonic pitch detection. Its fast. I have looked at the wave forms on some competitive pedals that are polyphonic and fast (those that do not use FFT) and the initial waveforms on the oscillators are not clean. Its almost as if they cannot initially separate the fundamental from the harmonics, so the harmonics drive the oscillators too until the circuit determines that its a single not and harmonic and not a chord. This is something we did not want to live with. Fast and off the mark makes for a sloppy oscillator sound.

AI holds promise for a new generation of pitch tracking that learns about each player. Thats not going to be in a pedal any time soon.

Nathan Navarro worked for us during the development of the C4. He is a very accomplished bass player and was the most important tester of the latency performance at every step of the C4 development. If you have requirements that exceed his, that would also be impressive. In this video he demonstrates the pitch tracking at 2:30. This could not be done with lots of latency. Mind-Blowing Synthesizer Pedal | Source Audio C4 Synth - YouTube

My comment on the future relates to modifying the current C4. We have used every bit of processing power and that is a powerful DSP chip we are using. We have investigated running the C4 on a 32 bit ARM RISC processor, and it can't be done. However, the new generation of 64 bit RISC processors are promising. We will certainly create a next gen C4 at some point and of course we can add more of many things.

Some people don't want a modular synth pedal and would rather have more of a "black box" with a limited range of sounds. This may well be what you are looking for?

 

[HorseRider]

My comment on the future relates to modifying the current C4. We have used every bit of processing power and that is a powerful DSP chip we are using. We have investigated running the C4 on a 32 bit ARM RISC processor, and it can't be done. However, the new generation of 64 bit RISC processors are promising. We will certainly create a next gen C4 at some point and of course we can add more of many things.

Some people don't want a modular synth pedal and would rather have more of a "black box" with a limited range of sounds. This may well be what you are looking for?

Thanks very much for your detailed comments. I'm glad you are selling a lot of C4s, because you will undoubtedly reinvest in developing future products.. and I'm very likely to buy one of them. I think a lot of C4s sell, but they also re-sell. I recognize that your product has probably the fastest latency among synth pedals - I have also used the Boss SY-1 & SY-3 and yours is indisputably faster. I don't expect you to spill your trade secrets about how you do it - I want you to make money, not some Chinese copycats.

It's a question of whether pitch to synthesis will ever be fast enough to do the FM synthesis type of sound, with its characteristic sharp attack, as described above. I'm aware that the C4 sounds like a modular synth and I have watched that video - but that's a 70s synth sound. When I say I don't like the C4 sounds, I'm saying I don't like Moog, I like FM. It's that simple. Envelope filters are not what I'm here for.

Believe me, I have watched all the youtube videos of C4 patches. I think Mark Neary comes the closest to having great, useful bass tones, but it's a 1970s Moog kind of sound, not something modern. I think he sells a lot of C4s.

Navarro's playing is not at all characteristic of bass you hear in recorded music, although it may be what drives sales of pedals. It's noodling. My personal requirement is just that I have to be banging 16th notes in some pretty fast dance music sometimes. Sometimes a song has like four notes - but the demand for accuracy in meter is ridiculous, and that's where the latency matters when there is a very fast transient attack. The pitch detection accuracy in Navarro's video is superb, but I can absolutely hear the latency - you can almost see it.

The "limited range of sounds" is not at all what I'm looking for. Ideally, I want your pitch detection as the front end to the Dexed VST (a processor-light plugin DX7 emulator) as the synthesizer. No re-invention of the wheel. That VST allows you to tweak all the parameters of each of the six operators. I have downloaded over 10,000 DX7 patches, including dozens of great basses. There are of course also great modern FM soft-synths. I could do that with a pitch-to-midi pickup into a laptop, but it's way too much latency. I need only monophonic, and I'm willing to tune the bass up an octave (piccolo) and detune on the synth side. I'm only 24 milliseconds away from the dream. It may be unrealistic to ever see that work well enough - maybe asking too much of physics.

But I sincerely wish you the Godspeed in your product development. I give you full credit for what you have and will be looking out for what you develop next. The C4 with its programmability is a great development, but it's not the droid I'm looking for.

 

[Quatschmacher]

Thanks very much for your detailed comments. I'm glad you are selling a lot of C4s, because you will undoubtedly reinvest in developing future products.. and I'm very likely to buy one of them. I think a lot of C4s sell, but they also re-sell. I recognize that your product has probably the fastest latency among synth pedals - I have also used the Boss SY-1 & SY-3 and yours is indisputably faster. I don't expect you to spill your trade secrets about how you do it - I want you to make money, not some Chinese copycats.

It's a question of whether pitch to synthesis will ever be fast enough to do the FM synthesis type of sound, with its characteristic sharp attack, as described above. I'm aware that the C4 sounds like a modular synth and I have watched that video - but that's a 70s synth sound. When I say I don't like the C4 sounds, I'm saying I don't like Moog, I like FM. It's that simple. Envelope filters are not what I'm here for.

Believe me, I have watched all the youtube videos of C4 patches. I think Mark Neary comes the closest to having great, useful bass tones, but it's a 1970s Moog kind of sound, not something modern. I think he sells a lot more C4s than Navarro.

Navarro's playing is not at all characteristic of bass you hear in recorded music, although it may be what drives sales of pedals. It's noodling. My personal requirement is just that I have to be banging 16th notes in some pretty fast dance music sometimes. Sometimes a song has like four notes - but the demand for accuracy in meter is ridiculous, and that's where the latency matters when there is a very fast transient attack. The pitch detection accuracy in Navarro's video is superb, but I can absolutely hear the latency - you can almost see it.

The "limited range of sounds" is not at all what I'm looking for. Ideally, I want your pitch detection as the front end to the Dexed VST (a processor-light plugin DX7 emulator) as the synthesizer. No re-invention of the wheel. That VST allows you to tweak all the parameters of each of the six operators. I have downloaded over 10,000 DX7 patches, including dozens of great basses. There are of course also great modern FM soft-synths. I could do that with a pitch-to-midi pickup into a laptop, but it's way too much latency. I need only monophonic, and I'm willing to tune the bass up an octave (piccolo) and detune on the synth side. I'm only 24 milliseconds away from the dream. It may be unrealistic to ever see that work well enough - maybe asking too much of physics.

But I sincerely wish you the Godspeed in your product development. I give you full credit for what you have and will be looking out for what you develop next. The C4 with its programmability is a great development, but it's not the droid I'm looking for.

Perhaps your bass via a Sonuus G2M triggering a Korg Volca FM could give you what you need right now.

Pitch to MIDI mode is also on the cards for a hardware revision to the Future Impact. It has a 5-pin midi out port. However, I guess you might not be so interested in that as its main function is as a virtual analogue pedal.

 

[HorseRider]

Perhaps your bass via a Sonuus G2M triggering a Korg Volca FM could give you what you need right now.

Pitch to MIDI mode is also on the cards for a hardware revision to the Future Impact. It has a 5-pin midi out port. However, I guess you might not be so interested in that as its main function is as a virtual analogue pedal.

Yeah I have almost bought the Sonuus G2M many times... it's cheap enough to experiment with, but I looked at the math and figured it would disappoint because the laptop interface adds another 5ms or so. Maybe I'll try using a guitar for this, and play fully two octaves up or something.

Wasn't familiar with the Korg Volca - thanks, that looks cool.

 

[Quatschmacher]

Yeah I have almost bought the Sonuus G2M many times... it's cheap enough to experiment with, but I looked at the math and figured it would disappoint because the laptop interface adds another 5ms or so. Maybe I'll try using a guitar for this, and play fully two octaves up or something.

Wasn't familiar with the Korg Volca - thanks, that looks cool.

Get the version 2 Volca.

Also, there are some MIDI controllers which have a guitar layout but with instant note-on switches like a keyboard.

 

[Quatschmacher]

This too:
https://youtube.com/shorts/nF_OKrVmQM0?si=y6zarzTu0tEcOcJA

 

[rsmith601]

Thanks very much for your detailed comments. I'm glad you are selling a lot of C4s, because you will undoubtedly reinvest in developing future products.. and I'm very likely to buy one of them. I think a lot of C4s sell, but they also re-sell. I recognize that your product has probably the fastest latency among synth pedals - I have also used the Boss SY-1 & SY-3 and yours is indisputably faster. I don't expect you to spill your trade secrets about how you do it - I want you to make money, not some Chinese copycats.

It's a question of whether pitch to synthesis will ever be fast enough to do the FM synthesis type of sound, with its characteristic sharp attack, as described above. I'm aware that the C4 sounds like a modular synth and I have watched that video - but that's a 70s synth sound. When I say I don't like the C4 sounds, I'm saying I don't like Moog, I like FM. It's that simple. Envelope filters are not what I'm here for.

Believe me, I have watched all the youtube videos of C4 patches. I think Mark Neary comes the closest to having great, useful bass tones, but it's a 1970s Moog kind of sound, not something modern. I think he sells a lot of C4s.

Navarro's playing is not at all characteristic of bass you hear in recorded music, although it may be what drives sales of pedals. It's noodling. My personal requirement is just that I have to be banging 16th notes in some pretty fast dance music sometimes. Sometimes a song has like four notes - but the demand for accuracy in meter is ridiculous, and that's where the latency matters when there is a very fast transient attack. The pitch detection accuracy in Navarro's video is superb, but I can absolutely hear the latency - you can almost see it.

The "limited range of sounds" is not at all what I'm looking for. Ideally, I want your pitch detection as the front end to the Dexed VST (a processor-light plugin DX7 emulator) as the synthesizer. No re-invention of the wheel. That VST allows you to tweak all the parameters of each of the six operators. I have downloaded over 10,000 DX7 patches, including dozens of great basses. There are of course also great modern FM soft-synths. I could do that with a pitch-to-midi pickup into a laptop, but it's way too much latency. I need only monophonic, and I'm willing to tune the bass up an octave (piccolo) and detune on the synth side. I'm only 24 milliseconds away from the dream. It may be unrealistic to ever see that work well enough - maybe asking too much of physics.

But I sincerely wish you the Godspeed in your product development. I give you full credit for what you have and will be looking out for what you develop next. The C4 with its programmability is a great development, but it's not the droid I'm looking for.

Got it. Thanks for the detail. I was going to say that plugins would be the way to go to get the synth sounds, but the latency in and out of a computer is a major problem. Who knows, maybe the future C4 will have more FM. The original almost had no FM, but Bob insisted!

 

[sunbeast]

Thanks very much for your detailed comments. I'm glad you are selling a lot of C4s, because you will undoubtedly reinvest in developing future products.. and I'm very likely to buy one of them. I think a lot of C4s sell, but they also re-sell. I recognize that your product has probably the fastest latency among synth pedals - I have also used the Boss SY-1 & SY-3 and yours is indisputably faster. I don't expect you to spill your trade secrets about how you do it - I want you to make money, not some Chinese copycats.

It's a question of whether pitch to synthesis will ever be fast enough to do the FM synthesis type of sound, with its characteristic sharp attack, as described above. I'm aware that the C4 sounds like a modular synth and I have watched that video - but that's a 70s synth sound. When I say I don't like the C4 sounds, I'm saying I don't like Moog, I like FM. It's that simple. Envelope filters are not what I'm here for.

Believe me, I have watched all the youtube videos of C4 patches. I think Mark Neary comes the closest to having great, useful bass tones, but it's a 1970s Moog kind of sound, not something modern. I think he sells a lot of C4s.

Navarro's playing is not at all characteristic of bass you hear in recorded music, although it may be what drives sales of pedals. It's noodling. My personal requirement is just that I have to be banging 16th notes in some pretty fast dance music sometimes. Sometimes a song has like four notes - but the demand for accuracy in meter is ridiculous, and that's where the latency matters when there is a very fast transient attack. The pitch detection accuracy in Navarro's video is superb, but I can absolutely hear the latency - you can almost see it.

The "limited range of sounds" is not at all what I'm looking for. Ideally, I want your pitch detection as the front end to the Dexed VST (a processor-light plugin DX7 emulator) as the synthesizer. No re-invention of the wheel. That VST allows you to tweak all the parameters of each of the six operators. I have downloaded over 10,000 DX7 patches, including dozens of great basses. There are of course also great modern FM soft-synths. I could do that with a pitch-to-midi pickup into a laptop, but it's way too much latency. I need only monophonic, and I'm willing to tune the bass up an octave (piccolo) and detune on the synth side. I'm only 24 milliseconds away from the dream. It may be unrealistic to ever see that work well enough - maybe asking too much of physics.

But I sincerely wish you the Godspeed in your product development. I give you full credit for what you have and will be looking out for what you develop next. The C4 with its programmability is a great development, but it's not the droid I'm looking for.

I think your best bet for an affordable option at the moment is a piccolo tuned bass or just straight guitar using a Fishman Triple Play pickup and interface (unfortunately the Triple Play pickup is only available in a guitar-compatible package at the moment, so may prove troublesome aligning correctly with bass string spacing without modification since it uses separate pickups per string), run into your computer or even better run straight into a hardware FM synth for lowest latency. Latency is unavoidable with any pitch-detection approach, added on to the latency of MIDI itself (and computer interfacing if you go that route), which makes the low register of a bass always disappointing IME on any of these solutions. Using a guitar register and pitching down makes latency far less problematic IME and I’ve even played around with this kind of thing using a guitar with a Roland GK-3 pickup system into a GR-55 for MIDI output reasonably enough for my needs (and the GR-55 tracking is much slower than the Fishman units from my understanding).

The fret-sensing approach would of course be the ideal, but as you know these options are rare and expensive. Ultimately for me I’d probably sooner invest time into learning to enjoy playing keys before spending upwards of $3000 to make keyboard sounds with a bass that will always be a compromise when trying to sound like a keyboard.

 

[HorseRider]

I think your best bet for an affordable option at the moment is a piccolo tuned bass or just straight guitar using a Fishman Triple Play pickup and interface (unfortunately the Triple Play pickup is only available in a guitar-compatible package at the moment, so may prove troublesome aligning correctly with bass string spacing without modification since it uses separate pickups per string), run into your computer or even better run straight into a hardware FM synth for lowest latency. Latency is unavoidable with any pitch-detection approach, added on to the latency of MIDI itself (and computer interfacing if you go that route), which makes the low register of a bass always disappointing IME on any of these solutions. Using a guitar register and pitching down makes latency far less problematic IME and I’ve even played around with this kind of thing using a guitar with a Roland GK-3 pickup system into a GR-55 for MIDI output reasonably enough for my needs (and the GR-55 tracking is much slower than the Fishman units from my understanding).

The fret-sensing approach would of course be the ideal, but as you know these options are rare and expensive. Ultimately for me I’d probably sooner invest time into learning to enjoy playing keys before spending upwards of $3000 to make keyboard sounds with a bass that will always be a compromise when trying to sound like a keyboard.

Yeah I have been looking at the Fishman thing as well, and agree with your summary of where it all stands. I think I gotta try one. I have a really narrow frame of what I want a synth to do.

For me it's about the enjoyment of playing and performing this kind of music on bass, not getting it on tape. I enjoy the hell out of playing challenging dance music on bass, even straight, or with the very vanilla ho-hum sine wave generating synth tone of the Boss SY-3/OC-2, but that's too much latency for them 16th notes. That said, C4 users are making keyboard sounds, and I would probably buy one if it had the richer FM sound, latency aside, and go piccolo, even if it's not the ultimate solution.

I'm gonna play with one of those cheap & cheesy button type guitar type instruments and see how it goes. I guess I'm in the niche that would have the most use for a real $3k wired-fret midi bass. That, into hardware like the Korg mentioned by @Quatschmacher above through the bass rig at volume sounds absolutely monster.

 

[HorseRider]

Got it. Thanks for the detail. I was going to say that plugins would be the way to go to get the synth sounds, but the latency in and out of a computer is a major problem. Who knows, maybe the future C4 will have more FM. The original almost had no FM, but Bob insisted!

Bob was right! Give us six operators and take our money, it will be thousands of us. And when you do, send me one to demo on YouTube. I'm lobbying hard over here. And I will know exactly what to do with it!