Worship Bass Pedalboards

[Blille]

Are you familiar with Particle Physics, or any of the conspiracy theories surrounding CERN and the Large Hadron Collider?

I'm familiar with all of those. But the Collider is from Source Audio, not Hadron.

(I apologize for the terrible joke, I just had to, it was too easy)

 

[MikoFX]

I'm familiar with all of those. But the Collider is from Source Audio, not Hadron.

View attachment 5476683 View attachment 5476688 View attachment 5476686

(I apologize for the terrible joke, I just had to, it was too easy)

All good. I have a feeling my humor is lost on all but the most niche of audiences... At least most folks will understand yours is a joke

 

[MikoFX]

What do you even do with all of that?!

This board primarily gets used for my Post Rock/Prog projects that utilize lots of Synth Bass, Cinematic Soundscapes, and Live Looping.

I have a separate board with two loopers and a handful of expression pedals that get patched into this board.

 

[Johno Dunn]

Are you familiar with Particle Physics, or any of the conspiracy theories surrounding CERN and the Large Hadron Collider?

Uh….who?

 

[IanA]

Do any of you have any experience of whether the Bass micro synth tracks better with a Jazz vs a precision?
My P doesn't seem to gel with the pedal and I noticed that the Bethel guys all use jazz basses… I wonder whether the pedal tracks better with a deeper low end from a jazz bass?

 

[NickyBass]

I'm familiar with all of those. But the Collider is from Source Audio, not Hadron.

View attachment 5476683 View attachment 5476688 View attachment 5476686

(I apologize for the terrible joke, I just had to, it was too easy)

As I was reading Miko's post, I was thinking that those sounded like pedal names. I guess some of them are. Haha.

 

[NickyBass]

Oh man, the FFXL is amazing! It's the Blue box right under the Element on the left side of the board. It lets you apply a LPF to your uneffected signal & a HPF + LPF to whatever you place in its loop. The signals get blended in parallel. Great for making any effect bass friendly.

Yes! We've talked about crossover pedals in the past. It's a cool concept. It would be nice if there was a smaller version that could go under the board....

 

[MikoFX]

Do any of you have any experience of whether the Bass micro synth tracks better with a Jazz vs a precision?
My P doesn't seem to gel with the pedal and I noticed that the Bethel guys all use jazz basses… I wonder whether the pedal tracks better with a deeper low end from a jazz bass?

I play a Dingwall Super J (Jazz Bass Variant) and the BMS tracks flawlessly. But, TBH the P Bass is the darling of most of the big names who use the BMS and it works just fine for them.

Things you can do to help with tracking:

•Make sure it's receiving a clean signal by placing it early in your signal chain.
•Add a compressor right before it.
•Make sure the signal it's receiving isn't too hot. With some basses you may need to roll back your volume as their output signal may be too high. You can also correct for this by dialing back the output volume of the compressor to below unity gain.
•Roll back the tone knob on your bass. Feeding it (or any sub octave effect) too much upper order harmonic content can cause issues with tracking.

Bethel boards typically have a signal chain that follows this order:

Tuner > Compressor > BMS > Drive > Tone Hammer/DI

 

[IanA]

I play a Dingwall Super J (Jazz Bass Variant) and the BMS tracks flawlessly. But, TBH the P Bass is the darling of most of the big names who use the BMS and it works just fine for them.

Things you can do to help with tracking:

•Make sure it's receiving a clean signal by placing it early in your signal chain.
•Add a compressor right before it.
•Make sure the signal it's receiving isn't too hot. With some basses you may need to roll back your volume as their output signal may be too high. You can also correcy for this by dialing back the output volume of the compressor to below unity gain.
•Roll back the tone knob on your bass. Feeding it (or any sub octave effect) too much upper order harmonic content can cause issues with tracking.

Bethel boards typically have a signal chain that follows this order:

Tuner > Compressor > BMS > Drive > Tone Hammer/DI

Thanks for that, I think maybe a compressor might be required in that case as the only thing that I run before it is a tuner pedal.
The bass isn't particularly hot, just an Am pro ii Precision with an NP4 pickup…

Interestingly the octave in the stomp never has any issues but when I tried the Octo Nojs it was worse than the micro synth!

 

[MikoFX]

Thanks for that, I think maybe a compressor might be required in that case as the only thing that I run before it is a tuner pedal.
The bass isn't particularly hot, just an Am pro ii Precision with an NP4 pickup…

Interestingly the octave in the stomp never has any issues but when I tried the Octo Nojs it was worse than the micro synth!

Hmm... I never had an issue with the Okta-Nojs, in fact it is one of the best tracking octaves I've played (I rank it with the Octabvre MKIII & Subsonic).

Try rolling back your volume knob by 25% & see if that improves it at all. Also try rolling back your tone knob. Try a combination of both.

Granted, if your bass doesn't have a ton of sustain it could be that the decay of the note is what is causing the tracking issue. A properly dialed in compressor would help correct for that.

 

[NickyBass]

I'm not familiar with the BMS, but when I use the Octabvre, I like to play higher up on the lower strings. My basses don't have a noticeable dead spot, but sometimes the lack of sustain in the middle of the neck becomes apparent with octave pedals. Worth a shot anyway.

 

[IanA]

Hmm... I never had an issue with the Okta-Nojs, in fact it is one of the best tracking octaves I've played (I rank it with the Octabvre MKIII & Subsonic).

Try rolling back your volume knob by 25% & see if that improves it at all. Also try rolling back your tone knob. Try a combination of both.

Granted, if your bass doesn't have a ton of sustain it could be that the decay of the note is what is causing the tracking issue. A properly dialed in compressor would help correct for that.

Maybe you are right and my bass is just hitting the BMS too hard. I guess adjusting the trim pot might also help. I play with rounds and the bass doesn't seem to have any dead spots. The tracking issues are within a second of striking a note and are far less apparent the closer to the neck I play( I tend to use a .88 pick with BMS songs)

 

[MikoFX]

I'm not familiar with the BMS, but when I use the Octabvre, I like to play higher up on the lower strings. My basses don't have a noticeable dead spot, but sometimes the lack of sustain in the middle of the neck becomes apparent with octave pedals. Worth a shot anyway.

Maybe you are right and my bass is just hitting the BMS too hard. I guess adjusting the trim pot might also help. I play with rounds and the bass doesn't seem to have any dead spots. The tracking issues are within a second of striking a note and are far less apparent the closer to the neck I play( I tend to use a .88 pick with BMS songs)

Playing higher on the neck definitely helps, but TBH it should track just fine down to first position A on the E string. And frankly, if you're covering popular worship songs that use the BMS you shouldn't even be playing in that range anyways

 

[IanA]

Playing higher on the neck definitely helps, but TBH it should track just fine down to first position A on the E string. And frankly, if you're covering popular worship songs that use the BMS you shouldn't even be playing in that range anyways

sorry my bad, I meant I had tried plucking higher up toward the neck rather than by the bridge or over the pickup itself

 

[MikoFX]

sorry my bad, I meant I had tried plucking higher up toward the neck rather than by the bridge or over the pickup itself

Oooh, gotcha! Rereading your statement, you did say that.... I just didn't process it the way you meant it. lol

I play in the area between the neck pickup and the end of the fretboard. Directly over a pickup would definitely produce more Harmonic content that could result in tracking issues.

 

[IanA]

Oooh, gotcha! Rereading your statement, you did say that.... I just didn't process it the way you meant it. lol

I play in the area between the neck pickup and the end of the fretboard. Directly over a pickup would definitely produce more Harmonic content that could result in tracking issues.

Understood, maybe this is just a technique issue then. The bass does have a lot of mid content that can sometimes sound quite aggressive with a pick!

 

[projectapollo]

Do any of you have any experience of whether the Bass micro synth tracks better with a Jazz vs a precision?

My P and J track about the same on the bass microsynth, IME. I'm using palm muting w/pick more and getting better results. Since the BMS gets used on Big Moments, I have a tendency to want to play hard with a pick. Thats not helping. Especially if I start getting into any fret noise.

The Octron3, Bass Microsynth, and Aguilar Octamizer all have similar tracking challenges, IME. The HX's Octaver model is by far the best tracker, IMHO.

Here are some additional tracking tips that are provided with the Octron3 that I found useful:

Tips for Octave Down Tracking

Like other Analog Octave dividers, Octron3's lower octave will get confused by chords, open strings, harmonics, weak pickups and sloppy playing. Clean, articulate playing is rewarded with near-perfect tracking. Here are some general tips for getting the best tracking results not only with Octron3, but with any octave divider, and even many guitar synthesizers that work on the same principles:

• Use the NECK pickup - a guitar's neck pickup has the roundest and purest tone. As you move away from the neck, with middle, bridge, or any combination of pickups, you add more harmonics and less of the fundamental frequency. Lower octave tracking will become less accurate resulting in skipping and dropping out. Also, make sure your guitar is set up right. Dead spots and buzzing frets will cause poor tracking.
• Let only one note sound - The octave down circuit will warble, skip and drop out if you play multiple notes at once or let open strings sound. Palm muting will help you control your dynamics and will produce the best tracking. The more articulate your single note playing is, the better the tracking will be. You can even use the tracking as a way to improve your playing.
• Letting notes decay - As a note decays, there comes a point where the Octave down circuit can no longer determine the note you're playing. At this point it will sputter a little and drop out. The way to prevent this is to know at what point this happens, and modify your playing to prevent it. Learn just how long you can let a note hang and cut it off before the Octave down circuit gets confused. Note - with single-coil pickups the natural hum can get pretty loud. When especially bad, this can cause Octron3's lower octave to skip.
• Play the chromatic scale on every string, up and down the neck. It seems that every guitar has one or two notes that just won't track well.

 

[IanA]

My P and J track about the same on the bass microsynth, IME. I notice that tracking takes a while to get stable with playing technique. I'm using palm muting w/pick more and getting better results. The Octron3, Bass Microsynth, and Aguilar Octamizer all have similar tracking challenges, IME. The HX's Octaver model is by far the best tracker, IMHO.

Here are some tracking tips that are provided with the Octron3 that I found useful:

Tips for Octave Down Tracking

Like other Analog Octave dividers, Octron3's lower octave will get confused by chords, open strings, harmonics, weak pickups and sloppy playing. Clean, articulate playing is rewarded with near-perfect tracking. Here are some general tips for getting the best tracking results not only with Octron3, but with any octave divider, and even many guitar synthesizers that work on the same principles:

• Use the NECK pickup - a guitar's neck pickup has the roundest and purest tone. As you move away from the neck, with middle, bridge, or any combination of pickups, you add more harmonics and less of the fundamental frequency. Lower octave tracking will become less accurate resulting in skipping and dropping out. Also, make sure your guitar is set up right. Dead spots and buzzing frets will cause poor tracking.
• Let only one note sound - The octave down circuit will warble, skip and drop out if you play multiple notes at once or let open strings sound. Palm muting will help you control your dynamics and will produce the best tracking. The more articulate your single note playing is, the better the tracking will be. You can even use the tracking as a way to improve your playing.
• Letting notes decay - As a note decays, there comes a point where the Octave down circuit can no longer determine the note you're playing. At this point it will sputter a little and drop out. The way to prevent this is to know at what point this happens, and modify your playing to prevent it. Learn just how long you can let a note hang and cut it off before the Octave down circuit gets confused. Note - with single-coil pickups the natural hum can get pretty loud. When especially bad, this can cause Octron3's lower octave to skip.
• Play the chromatic scale on every string, up and down the neck. It seems that every guitar has one or two notes that just won't track well.

That is all really useful stuff thank you for posting it!

 

[projectapollo]

That is all really useful stuff thank you for posting it!

You might really like this:

 

[Zbysek]

Playing with fingers usually helps tracking…