Al Krow

Ah interesting. For some reason I thought Helix allowed parameter assigns? Do you know if that is the case, if not be very easy to check with @BigRedX who is a bit of a Helix expert?

Agreed! Which multi-fx have you come across that don't allow parameter assigns?

100% ^^ How a particular bass sounds in the mix may actually not differ that much but, equally, there's an unmistakable signature sound to some of the greats eg John Entwistle. For me, the quality of the pups and electronics makes the biggest difference here. YMMV! Playability of basses on the other hand is another thing: weight, balance/neck dive, string spacing, neck thickness, how a bass sits on your frame etc. Can individually, and certainly together, make a real difference to how comfortable and enjoyable a bass is to play. Would it be fair to say, as a rule of thumb, that the really budget basses don't major on playability? But also that playability won't necessarily improve much beyond midrange bass prices and you then start increasingly paying for branding and/or craftsmanship of boutique basses?

Also love the fact that some (definitely not all!) of the most successful musicians in the world played basses that many average gigging bassists could have afforded when those basses were in production. And for no other reason than they loved them eg Paul McCartney with his Hofner and Yamaha BB and Tina Weymouth another Hofner player are two that immediately come to mind, and I'm sure we can think of plenty of others?

Could be a fun blindfold test to do at a future bass bash? The clip has had 172k views in 2 weeks - clearly a topic of interest!

@LukeFRC can you can let us know what line of work you're in? Just askin' for a mate... Ah, just add a tuner and a wireless and no one will know!

For both of us...

"Pedal board ego death" - love that phrase!! Ah it's not such a bad thing! I think I'm having the same epiphany with a Boss GX10 multifx which, so far seems to be able to do so many things really well, and a number of things well enough (with the one exception so far of synth) that the ensuing pedal board cull is likely going to pay for this new unit multiple times over! And actually very liberating taking just one, albeit very capable, pedal to gigs!

Interesting to pick up on this. Our singer mentioned on Sat night she only used one ear piece and left the other one out "otherwise she felt disconnected from the band and audience" - which is a classic IEM conundrum. It doesn't affect me at all in the same way - I enjoy the clarity and comfort of having a tailored IEM mix and no one's complaining about missing out on the experience of a deafening guitar amp - ok maybe the occasional dep guitarist - now we're all going through FoH apart from the acoustic drums. I don't really fancy the additional set-up faff and need to worry about an additional source of feedback from an ambient / overhead mic, just for the sake of one band member, but was wondering if there's decent ambient IEMs on a par with the KZ ZARs we're using, that don't cost the earth, and she can treat herself to a pair?

Parameter assignment Nice YT review by this bassist who's a regular on Talkbass. Some really cool things to be done with parameter assignment, which is something I've just started scratching the surface on - was reminded of this clip by @MichaelDean's above post and I think Sean is using quite a lot of the same fx patches to build up his organ sound? I've started the clip at 06.22, to dive straight into the relevant bit re. parameter assignment. Seems that Sean is also in agreement with me about the Overtone block being decent for polyphonic octave up - and he's definitely got me interested in checking out the Ring mod block! 😊 I'm a complete novice when it comes to midi, but it seems to me that being able to control up to 20 different parameters at one go with any of the footswitches or the expression pedal gives a level of control comparable to most midi set-ups? Be interested if those of you more versed in midi than me would agree?

Looing forward to finding out if Santa has got anything up his sleeve that's going to make the cut into any of your "best of 2025"?! Have a fab Christmas all!

I'm using the PS for +/- 1 and +/- 2 semis - works just fine! It struggles with +12 semis for octave up though which is where the "Overtone" fx comes into its own. Still not perfect or as clean as the dedicated Boss XS-1 for octave up, but certainly usable and the full patch, as outlined above, with amp sim and GEQ in the chain is a tasty tone thickener - very Fishman Powerchord! Actually that kinda summarises some of the key pros & cons of the Boss multi-fx vs dedicated Boss pitch shift pedals: Boss XS-1: accurate pitch shifting without undue "flubbiness" for +/- 3 to 4 semis. A number of users have commented it's one of the best octave-up pedals around. But only able to do one interval at a time (albeit can mix wet and dry volumes). Whammy capability with external expression pedal. Couple of presets possible with external footswitch. Compact format. Boss XS-100: as XS-1 plus built in expression pedal for whammy-style effects. Multiple presets. Still only one interval at a time possible. GX10: decent, but more limited "usable" pitch shift range. Presets plus expression pedal can be assigned to any fx parameter. Fishman Powerchord tone thickening available with Overtone patch.

Before folk start wondering, the XE sounds like an old Jag model to me? Time for a bit of Xmas XS? 😅

Just had a quick play on with pitch shift set to -2 semis fully wet, and GX10 seems to comfortably handle taking down the low E by a couple of semis in terms of a usable-in-the-mix bass. What are you finding with the ME-90B?

Being able to assign the expression pedal to dictate the amount of gain on drive patches to take it from mild to full-on drive is also very neat. Essentially you have the option of assigning the expression pedal to any parameter of any particular fx in the chain. Possibilities are endless... All this stuff is obviously do-able on the Core with an external expression pedal, but having one on the pedal itself definitely focuses the mind on the additional possibilities.