Al Krow

1 hour ago, Chienmortbb said:

 I had a Soundcraft Ui16 for a while and the difference between that and the CQ20 is very noticeable. 

As in the Soundcraft Ui16 was considerably better in terms of pre-amps? 

Personally delighted that the Govt are introducing this reform: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/nov/17/reselling-tickets-for-profit-to-be-outlawed-in-uk-government-crackdown

Great news for those of us wanting to see live music having saved up for the actual face value ticket price (although these can be eye-watering!) and not some ridiculous rip-off figure.

The only remaining fly in the ointment is the continued ability of the online platforms to charge a "service fee", but hopefully this will also be capped to a reasonable amount.

5 hours ago, LawrenceH said:

Hi all. Reviving this thread because I'd like to know if people can comment specifically on the sound quality of these CQ mixers versus the ubiquitous Behringer XR (and X32) series?

 

I've not got any experience using digital mixers but the years have taught me that using good gear throughout a signal chain tends to have a cumulative impact on the overall sound - more than A/Bing individual channels in isolation would suggest. Been using a couple of analogue desks recently with limited feature sets that I find harder work to get sounding good than I remember old Allen & Heath GL series being, where you just plugging in, messed around with the swept mids where necessary, and you were away.

 

That said, how noticeable is any perceived difference in sound quality between the A&H and the Behringer kit, and where is it heard? I'm particularly interested in the basic sound (pre-amp, channel EQ, main bus) but also compressors and vocal reverb.

 

TIA!

Can't comment on how good relative to Behringer as never owned latter. But definitely better preamps and IEM experience than with our Soundcraft Sig.12MTK, and has excellent channel EQ options. Very happy to recommend.

Love this! Inspired me to start getting up to speed on midi (I'm a complete newbie!), but have got myself a Disaster Area 3XL and three of my Boss pedals are midi capable: GT1000Core, SY-200 and the XS-100

Any tips and suggestions very welcome! Also just asked ChatGPT to prepare me a midi introductory course!

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

Ultimately I think I'm going to have to buy one and send it back for a refund if I can't get it to do what I want.

Fyi BRX - If you end up giving this a good try-out and find it's not for you and are out of time to return it to Music Store who are selling it new for £305 - there are several of us with this on our 2026 wish list (including me!) and I'm sure will be happy to guarantee you a very decent used price for it! If you end up deciding to keep it, given the high synth standards you have, well that would be high praise indeed! 

On 14/11/2025 at 11:05, BigRedX said:

 

Thank you.

 

I've tried to glean as much information from the manual as possible but something it's not always clear especially without the actual device in front of me, so there are a few things I wanted to get confirmed before I decide whether or not to buy one. 

 

To that end I have a couple of final questions before I add it to my Christmas list:

 

1. Will the editor work with the latest versions of Mac OS? Compatibility is currently listed as OSX 10.6 and higher which worries me that it will get left behind in the next year or so. For what I want to do I suspect that without the computer editor I'll be completely stuck. Is an Apple Silicon native version being worked on?

 

2. As it appears that no PSU is applied with the device, can someone recommend a suitable small and reliable PSU to use with it? My only other pedal is the Helix Floor which has its own mains supply so I don't need or want anything big and complex with multiple outputs. Something simple with a mains plug at one end and a 9v plug of the correct polarity (that cannot be changed by mistake) at the other would be exactly what I want.

Hey BRX - super impressed that you're thinking of giving the FI v4 a go given your previous position on synth pedals. IMO it's almost certainly the best of the bunch and on my own wish-list for 2026 especially if the next software update proves to be as useful as we think it might well be!

I can't answer your first query (which I'll leave @Quatschmacher to revert on), but regarding the second just wanted to reassure that I've been fortunate in not having a PSU plug fail on me once during hundreds of gigs for my pedal board, which I use to power a Harley Benton Powerplant for multiple pedals on my board, although with some of my PSUs the wire connections have got worn over periods of time and needed replacing. I guess the safe thing is to take a spare? In the unlikely/unfortunate event of failure, it should take no more than a minute to swap them over during a gig. I agree with you about getting one with the correct polarity rather than risking a polarity reverse add-on, which shouldn't be needed in any event for anything sub 2A. And I'm sure you're already planning on getting one with a decent cable length for ease of use and not going for the cheapest. Appreciate that doesn't directly answer your Q - thought I'd best leave that to an actual FI owner to come up with a recommendation!

If you do go for it, really look forward to hearing how you get on with the FI v4 VIP.

29 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

@Al Krow but a bigger pedal board may not be an option. My Helix which is probably smaller than a lot of people's pedal boards is at the limit of what can be comfortably fitted on a lot a stages I play. Others have already stated that there is insufficient stage space for a keyboard synth. For them a bigger pedal board may well also be out of the question.

 

The tracking speed is worrying. Almost all the synth bass clips I have seen using processed bass guitar are slow to medium paced songs, or ones with a lot of space between the notes in the bass part. Most of what my band play is over 130bpm and the bass lines are mostly 1/8 notes or faster. That's going to be a problem. The other thing I have spotted is that if you are using synth sounds for rhythmic parts everyone will expect the timing to be absolutely spot on because these are usually handled by a sequencer of some sort. Your audience will be able to hear that something is wrong even if they can't pin point exactly what it is. For me the ideal solution which doesn't involve using a keyboard would be to put the bass through a MIDI triggered Filter and VCA device, but I only know of one and that's a relatively large rack-mount unit which is no longer being produced.

Hey BRX - fully appreciate you have a full Helix and adding an additional separate pedal(s) to that doesn't make sense for you.

But for pretty much everyone who is planning to get an MXR (or FI), they will either be upgrading an existing set up, shift something else off their pedal board to accommodate, or get a bigger pedal board. It's what many of us pedal users do very regularly, when the need arises.

I also completely also get your point re. synth pedal tracking - it's a fundamentally important issue for live use and has been picked up by several of us on this thread. Was precisely the reason for my choosing to go with the Boss SY-200 despite it not having as good synth sounds as several other synth pedals - it's my personal compromise and for me considerably better than the "nothing at all" alternative.

41 minutes ago, EmmettC said:

I'm sort of losing patience with the tracking for faster songs with the mxr, so I think I'll try the FI VIP next, @Quatschmacher any ideas when the new presets will be available?

+1^^ re being keen to find out when the next software update will be for the FI. Peter's previously indicated he can't give us an estimated date unfortunately, but will hopefully be sooner than Luke's pedals coming up for sale. 

Helpful comment re. fast tracking on the MXR - thanks!

Also @BigRedX "Also who is to say that someone with a more conventional pedalboard set up already has both room and PSU capacity for an additional synth pedal."  Aww come on 😅?! Anyone on this thread looking to buy the MXR or FI etc will make room or get a bigger pedal board, if they decide to get one. 

@BigRedX - you're obviously happy to use a keys synth and all power to you! 

But a couple of points in your post:

- you say a pedal with an external PSU gives rise to "complications and unreliability"? I'm guessing maybe half of the bass players on this forum use pedals (typically on a pedal board) with an external PSU week in and week out, and we do so without any issues? 

- if, as you say, the audience doesn't notice the difference between us playing a song without any synth, then they're even less likely to notice the difference between a keys synth and a quality bass-pedal synth?

@Dazm66 "It's taken me long enough to play bass to a decent standard and I have no interest in learning keys to get those sounds" You've summed me up in a nutshell when it comes to synth bass!

I'm currently leaning a little to the FI v4 VIP, which is only £20 more new than the MXR, if I do swap from my Boss SY-200, but certainly bass-mates of mine who have upgraded their C4 to the MXR are really happy with the changeover!

On 10/11/2025 at 22:37, Dazm66 said:

Got mine yesterday. Had a play this morning and echo a lot of the above. This is perfect for those of us who might need a synth sound for two or three numbers up in a set. The presets are fab and there’s more than enough settings to tweak. It’s a lot of fun! Tracking is good enough and I hope better when I get it on the board with a compressor. Mr Martin Allison must have amazing technique or there’s some editing in the vids! All in all a very good bit of kit that really does provide the synthiness I need. 

Thanks for that, including the very helpful comment regarding tracking capability = "good enough but not as per IMA's hype" if I've read you correctly? Although tbf I guess completely understandable from IMA, given this is his baby.

An honest review of the new MXR bass synth effects pedal MB301... | TalkBass.com

Just came across this thread on TB - made for interesting reading!

15 hours ago, HeadlessBassist said:

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly of '25, eh?

 

The Good - Ecstatic over buying one of the last 5 Status Stealths, my Fender Elite Jazz, my 95 Stingray and most of all, my 1998 GB Spitfire. Mostly all solid keepers. An honorable mention has to go to my Cort Artisan Space 5 (the third one I've owned), which continuously amazes me for it's sheer value for money, playability and great sound. Also, hopefully arriving before the end of '25 is my Walnut/Graphite 66 Modern/Classic Jazz, with a single piece body by @Silky999 and one of @Kiwi's AUROK™️ Graphite Necks.

 

 

The Bad - There weren't really any bad instruments per se, mainly some that went out of the door as I traded up to other things. If there were any disappointments, it was the sheer weight of my KingBass Mk-II (now up for commission sale at Andy Baxter's), whose mass could easily generate it's own gravity, and my beautiful Stingray 5 Special, which was left in the dust by my old Aguilar equipped '95 Stingray. But that was entirely predictable.

 

The Ugly - Only one £150 no name Precision that I bought on a whim from Gumtree, which was recently donated to a school I teach at.

So in the spirit of the thread, if you had to save one of your 2025 purchases from the proverbial fire ie your "best", which would it be and why?

1 hour ago, Lozz196 said:

It certainly did fall into place in that clip Daryl, sounded really good.

+1^^ @Bluewine - really great to hear your band in action. As Lozz said - a really good sound, and some nice footage too!

16 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

With the caveat that hundreds of bass players have owned and loved this pedal…

 

Tracking was the wrong word! I meant latentcy - I couldn’t live with the slight latentcy and thr attack of the thing - I don’t know how to describe it but it was a me thing, and I could hear it listening to a video so it can’t just be latentcy …

Ah latency and tracking are very much intertwined, so all good! Are there particular timestamps on the video you could helpfully point to for us, so we can get a better idea of what you are referring to?

2 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

 

I had no idea if he's a member on here or anything so kept my thoughts to myself - but would agree - it's painful watching! 
@Kev - skip through and miss bits! 

 

My take, reinforces what I thought - Enzo X probably not deigned for bass... 
C4, the thing that annoyed me with the tracking you could hear on the video (bought and sold one twice)
FI4 - sounds best to me and can do a lot
MXR - pretty much on par and can do less with a simpler interface. 
 

Thanks Luke! What's the issue with the C4 tracking, for those of us who have never owned one?

6 minutes ago, GisserD said:

nearly 2 hours of video, but no conclusions.....

He says at the end he wants community to come to their conclusions in the comments below. jeesus. 

You've got a very good ear, Darren, did you come to a conclusion?

18 minutes ago, Kev said:

 

Nice, i'll dive into that later.  Did you get any verdict from it?

 

Slightly OT, but did I see someone somewhere express concern about how visible the FI VIP's text is under stage lights?  Looking at this video compared to all the other pedals, it does seem pretty bad!  Shame really, as its a nice design otherwise.

That would have been me earlier on this thread and I did get ticked-off for pointing that out, haha!

However in a live context I won't be messing around with patch settings / trying to create a new patch from scratch mid-set, so as long as the display is visible and telling me which of the 99 available preset patch nos. I'm on, I would have thought that would be fine. And probably a lot easier to read than remembering which dot accounts for which of the 8 presets on the MXR for me.

This ain't bad at all! 

Currently easy enough to spot AI on YouTube (and not least 'cos this ones being honest about it!) given the static cover. Obviously we don't have the same cues on Spotify.

The internet is not going away! Enjoy using it or don't. 

Spotify has been a massive blessing to music listeners all over the world. It would be great if it paid bands better, for sure!

It seems to me that streaming is to music, what libraries are to books. Don't think anyone is arguing that libraries are evil, and everyone should buy all their own books?

It's certainly not either/or: I love listening to music on YT and Spotify. I also love regularly gigging and being by paid decently by venues who know the worth of live music as part of what they offer their customers. 

3 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

I'm a regular gig goer, merch buyer and physical record buyer as well. Streaming is where I often discover bands who I then support through gigs and purchases. Streaming isn't necessarily bad but it also isn't good. It's just a part of modern reality so why not try to use it in s positive way?

This ^^

4 hours ago, SumOne said:

Playing an instrument or playing with a band is a different matter though. AI isn't going to replace that achievement, fun, camaraderie or live event. It's partly why I've mostly moved from electronic music production into playing Bass with a pub band, and when I do produce my own music (spending a lot of time with an MPC Key 37 at the moment) I'm doing it because it's fun to do - not because I'm aiming to make any ground breaking music that I'll make £ from.

And this too! ^^

Streamed music has already dealt a blow to most bands' hopes of making decent money from their original creations. AI assisted / generated music music is just the next nail in that coffin.

Live music is where it's at for most bands and solo artists looking to make a living from their art. Yes there's one hologram providing superb entertainment, at vast cost and albeit with some incredible session musicians actually playing the music, but an average punter going down a busy pub doing live music at the weekend ain't going to be fobbed off with anything but a live band or solo act.

What we all should be campaigning against is the ridiculous infringement of copyright laws that our Govt seems to be wanting to wave through for AI companies to train their large-language models on, and which is theft pure and simple.

52 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Good clips, if nothing else, it does tell you to avoid the 3 octave up mode!

Not sure I'd ever find a use for anything above +1 oct anyway with our material!

Two excellent YT clip reviews

Amazing - thanks!

7. I couldn't pick out the younger Mick Jagger from the pic and the drummer looked unfamiliar to me, but makes sense!

9 hours ago, neepheid said:

Honourable mention go to the Boss XS-1 Poly Shifter - hands down the best pitch shifting pedal I have ever heard in terms of preservation of tone and tracking.

Ditto ^^

My only "regret" is that I'm liking it so much, I'm already tempted to move it on...to get its bigger sibling the XS-100