Rumble Posted December 28, 2010 Share Posted December 28, 2010 Having read loads of great reviews about the Roland V bass system, I went ahead and purchased a used one off this forum. However, I was sat playing by Status S2 headless last night (I'm a bass monogamist BTW) and it suddenly dawned on me that there is pretty much zero space between the bridge (individual monorail jobbies) and the bridge pickup, so there's absolutely no space for the Midi pickup to be mounted!! Now, I realise and accept that I've been a slow minded egit, but will I still be able to use the V-bass for modelling and effects without the Midi pickup? Please say yes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete.young Posted December 28, 2010 Share Posted December 28, 2010 (edited) Yes, you can use it for amp modelling and effects, but none of the polyphonic stuff will work, so no instrument modelling and no synths. Maybe it's time to think about owning more than one bass and pick up a cheap something through the forum. As long as it plays OK, it doesn't matter what it sounds like! Dave.c picked up a very decent little Cort for not very much outlay just to use with his V-Bass. There is another way, if you want to get the best out of the V-Bass and stick with the Status- you can get a set of piezo saddles and a midi expander board from Graphtec. Not cheap though, and will require some mods to the Status. Edited December 28, 2010 by pete.young Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rumble Posted December 30, 2010 Author Share Posted December 30, 2010 Thanks for the advice. The guy from who I'm buying the V-bass has seen this thread and offered me a refund given that he hadn't yet posted it. To be honest the main reason I was getting the V-bass was because I was lead to believe that it gave the best fretless / upright bass effect without having to spend at least triple the money on a fretless bass. Not sure what other options I have really. I'm growing to love the Status graphite neck, so it might be that I just need to hold out for a Status fretless?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete.young Posted December 31, 2010 Share Posted December 31, 2010 A Status fretless probably sounds like a nice fretless, but it won't sound like an upright bass. Depends what you're looking for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ped Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 Dang! I was lucky that mine JUST fits in the gap between my bridge and pickup, but it was touch and go, the only way to really see was to buy it and pray. I don't suppose you can move the bridge saddles back a tad, the pickup is very thin (less than 1cm I think) ped Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete.young Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 The pickup is actually 13mm wide at it's widest point. It won't fit on my TRB5P unfortunately, but it's such a good bass I bought it anyway! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rumble Posted January 1, 2011 Author Share Posted January 1, 2011 Well it actually looks like I won't be getting the V-bass afterall given that the seller has seen this thread and kindly offered me a refund. Unfortunately, it leaves me with another quandry; which other multi-effects will give me a decent defret effect? I'm not overly keen on the Boss pedals because the ME10B I tried seemed to offer 101 distortion effects and about 4 delay / chorus / octaver effects and I'm just not into distortion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassBus Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 There is always this alternative that one Streamline player has used. Puting the hex pickup between the two mags. Oh, and Status fretless basses are wonderful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rumble Posted January 2, 2011 Author Share Posted January 2, 2011 I had thought of putting the midi pickup between the two bass pickups, but assumed there was some reason why it had to go between the bridge pickup and the bridge; is this not the case? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassBus Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 They only recommend that placement as the strings move least there. Bridge saddles would be best for that reason as well. You could put the pickup anywhere on the body you choose but at the risk of more latency. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rumble Posted January 2, 2011 Author Share Posted January 2, 2011 Would the latency be noticable if sat just t'other side of the bridge PUP? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete.young Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 (edited) [quote name='BassBus' post='1075163' date='Jan 2 2011, 11:56 AM']You could put the pickup anywhere on the body you choose but at the risk of more latency.[/quote] The Roland instructions say that the pickup should be positioned at most 50mm from the bridge, which rules out putting it inbetween the pickups. Not sure why, but I think it's more likely to be related to ghost notes than latency issues. The further away from the bridge you get, the closer the various harmonic points of the string get and there is a possibility that these might fool the pickup into sensing the wrong frequency. The Streamline clip is very interesting - that shouldn't work according to Roland! I will do some experiments if I have time, although my GK3-B is screwed onto the bass so moving it about is a bit of a pain. Edited January 3, 2011 by pete.young Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 [quote name='pete.young' post='1071167' date='Dec 28 2010, 06:48 PM']Yes, you can use it for amp modelling and effects, but none of the polyphonic stuff will work, so no instrument modelling and no synths. Maybe it's time to think about owning more than one bass and pick up a cheap something through the forum. As long as it plays OK, it doesn't matter what it sounds like! Dave.c picked up a very decent little Cort for not very much outlay just to use with his V-Bass. There is another way, if you want to get the best out of the V-Bass and stick with the Status- you can get a set of piezo saddles and a midi expander board from Graphtec. Not cheap though, and will require some mods to the Status.[/quote] Sorry to de-rail. I am thinking of piezo-ing my Streamline. I am presuming that the monorail bridge units are ABM. Have you actually done this or seen one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete.young Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 In answer to Owen, no, I've never done anything like this, I've always stuck with the GK3-B. Matt Golgotha's thread about his Midi Jazz has some good information though [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=50068&st=0"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=50068&st=0[/url] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ped Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 The problem with moving the pickup away from the bridge isn't latency, there is never any latency with the Vbass unit, but there may be tracking issues. Try it with some double sided tape, it may be fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Golgotha Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 (edited) [quote name='ped' post='1076167' date='Jan 3 2011, 11:54 AM']The problem with moving the pickup away from the bridge isn't latency, there is never any latency with the Vbass unit, but there may be tracking issues. Try it with some double sided tape, it may be fine.[/quote] I seem to remember back from my VG-8/gr-30 days i put some blu-tac under the GK-2a pickup and moved it around on my strat to see if it made much difference with the sensitivity (I used an RMC fan-out box which split each string to a separate mixer channel and added effects individually per string). I would advise the recommended proximity to the bridge is mainly to eliminate magnetic cross talk/ghost notes and unintentional string noise/stray harmonics when using [b]pitch to midi conversion [/b]to give it the best chance to accurately convert the string information to midi and not when using COSM effects. (additionally I seem to remember that the proximity to the bridge gave a more consistent tracking of the string due to reduced string oscillation at this point). The divided pickup is basically a series of mini humbuckers with individual outputs, and for the purposes of the V-bass i don't think it is AS crucial where the divided pickup is positioned as for the majority of patches it is effectively like running a multifx unit for each string - this changes where you are using pitch shifting patches (alternative tunings etc) where the nearer the pickup is positioned to the bridge, the more accurately it can pitch transpose on some of the patches. Edited January 10, 2011 by Matt Golgotha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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