Biggsy Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 Hi guys, I picked up a Bass Microsynth a few weeks ago, but after its first practice it's since been confined to noodling around. I find it to be a humungous tone-suck when in my signal chain, so it's simply not useable for anything more than arsing about at the moment. (There was me thinking all EHX gear was true bypass.. d'oh) Another quirk of the Synth is that when engaged, I find it to significantly lower my output volume. Normally I'd have bunged it straight up on ebay, but I totally love the sounds I can get out of it and really want to incorpirate it into my live board if it weren't for the above issues. I know there are bypass pedals and I know there are boost pedals, but I haven't managed to find one that covers both, (I'm probably just being lame/lazy/both), and I'd really like to keep it to one because a lot of pedalboard real estate is already taken up by monsterous EHX footprints. Does anyone know of such a thing? Or any mods I can have done to the Synth itself? I did consider selling up and going for a Digi whammy or something, but they seem to command a ridiculous premium that I'm opposed to out of principle. I'll shortly be posting wanteds for the above, as well as a blend/loop and perhaps a nice reverb (incase that makes any impact on my options), so any advice is greatly appreciated! Cheers, Adrian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 (edited) Bob the Blender? EDIT: That wasn't very helpful. I mean a DHA Bob the Blender has all of the features you need (I think). You can talk to Dave Hall on this message board, or go on his website for info. Edited April 2, 2008 by cheddatom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Higgie Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 Any simple true bypass loop could be modded/made on request to have a volume knob. Most builders could do this for you. I hear DHA makes top quality stuff as Cheddatom recommended, so I would give him a try first and foremost Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggsy Posted April 2, 2008 Author Share Posted April 2, 2008 Cheers guys, I'll defo try and find Dave.. Tom, you're always helpful mate, I'm pretty sure you've posted an answer to every question I've asked on here! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 [quote name='Biggsy' post='168606' date='Apr 2 2008, 06:11 PM']Cheers guys, I'll defo try and find Dave.. Tom, you're always helpful mate, I'm pretty sure you've posted an answer to every question I've asked on here![/quote] Heh, just 'cos I try to answer questions doesn't mean i'm being helpful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kev Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 if DHA costs are a little too high for your needs, red onion solutions do great custom loopers/blenders Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crez5150 Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 [quote name='Biggsy' post='168369' date='Apr 2 2008, 01:17 PM']Hi guys, I picked up a Bass Microsynth a few weeks ago, but after its first practice it's since been confined to noodling around. I find it to be a humungous tone-suck when in my signal chain, so it's simply not useable for anything more than arsing about at the moment. (There was me thinking all EHX gear was true bypass.. d'oh) Another quirk of the Synth is that when engaged, I find it to significantly lower my output volume. Normally I'd have bunged it straight up on ebay, but I totally love the sounds I can get out of it and really want to incorpirate it into my live board if it weren't for the above issues. I know there are bypass pedals and I know there are boost pedals, but I haven't managed to find one that covers both, (I'm probably just being lame/lazy/both), and I'd really like to keep it to one because a lot of pedalboard real estate is already taken up by monsterous EHX footprints. Does anyone know of such a thing? Or any mods I can have done to the Synth itself? I did consider selling up and going for a Digi whammy or something, but they seem to command a ridiculous premium that I'm opposed to out of principle. I'll shortly be posting wanteds for the above, as well as a blend/loop and perhaps a nice reverb (incase that makes any impact on my options), so any advice is greatly appreciated! Cheers, Adrian[/quote] I FIND THE SAME WITH ALL MY EHX PEDALS......LOTS OF SUCKING!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ahpook Posted April 5, 2008 Share Posted April 5, 2008 [quote name='BassManKev' post='169137' date='Apr 3 2008, 02:17 PM']if DHA costs are a little too high for your needs, red onion solutions do great custom loopers/blenders[/quote] plus the one. i recently got one of their single loop switches and it's great. i've just aksed them to build me a footswitch for my ampeg too. great people and very reasonable too. if you mail them they may even be able to build you a loop/boost pedal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kev Posted April 5, 2008 Share Posted April 5, 2008 they offered to build me a blend pedal too, but i never went through with it as i sold the effects i needed it for haha seriosly though, great people and great prices Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisnameistaken Posted April 6, 2008 Share Posted April 6, 2008 There is some discussion of bypassing it at the switch [url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=315187"]here[/url], although the instructions are not idiot-proof-looking enough for me to have tried it myself yet. I'd rather do this than bypass it with a looper pedal (which is what I'm doing now) because of the reasons you mentioned - I have giant EHX pedal footprints eating all of my board, and babysitting them with loopers just makes things worse. As for the low output level - are you sure you've got the preamp trimpot tweaked correctly? It's a pain to adjust it but if you get it just-so I find the levels are alright if you have at least one slider maxed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannybuoy Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 Boss LS-2 will let you bypass the pedal and adjust the volume of it. Plus it has 2 loops so you can also had another tone-sucking/volume-changing pedal in the 2nd loop. It's pretty versatile, you can use it as a blender, instrument/amp selector, etc. It's not true bypass though and some people over at harmony central say it sucks tone and others don't - but the people saying it did may have been using crap cables or suffering from I-must-have-true-bypass syndrome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 [quote name='thisnameistaken' post='170624' date='Apr 6 2008, 11:32 AM']I have giant EHX pedal footprints eating all of my board, and babysitting them with loopers just makes things worse.[/quote] You could get red onion to make you the exact looper you need, buy a bit of plywood, and build your own nice and compact pete cornish style board, with your pedals hidden and just your footswitches on a box. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggsy Posted April 11, 2008 Author Share Posted April 11, 2008 Oops, nearly forgot this thread! Kev, thanks for the heads up on Red Onion Solutions.. I haven't spoken to Dave yet but I guess bypass is bypass, so the more money I can save the better. Having said that, I noticed one of their features is that all of their products are completely passive, so surely they can't offer boost? I'd imagine they could adjust volume down from 100%, but not up to -say- 150% like I'm after.. I guess that's a question for them though! Crez, which EHX pedals do you have? My English Muffin, Qtron and Bassballs don't touch my clean tone at all. I haven't (and probably should) read into the specs of each EHX pedal, but I remember when digging for info on the Muffin it's true bypass, which must be what lead me to believe the whole range was/is. Cherrypicking the 'wiser' units would have served me better in hindsight. 'Thisnameistaken', I'm with you; I'd only screw up such a mod.. I have heard of a guy that you can pay to do it, but he's probably in the States making it uneconomical. Regarding the trim pots, I've set them to the guidelines in the manual to achieve different sounds, and tweaked each (and combinations of each) pot to try and get the volume higher, but it ends up messing the sound up. I think I even tried it with all trim pots at max to no avail - but I may have dreamt that(!) Is that what you meant, or is there a seperate adjustment elsewhere on the pedal, like on the Bassballs? Danny, the LS-2 does sound like exactly what I'm after, but I fell out with Boss pedals a long time ago. They are actually the reason I was searching for true bypass pedals when I started changing my board as they really cloud up my clean sound to pretty much the same degree as my Microsynth. Pook, yours and Kev's recommendations have persuaded me to go custom. Actually (I should have mentioned) my pedalboard has two or three effects loops on it, I just don't have switches for them. I'm going to have to look into loops, blends, bypasses et all to get a proper understanding, so I can properly plan my pedalboard and hopefully get one custom unit made that does it all. Maybe Red Onion would be able to advise me, but I'll still have to spend some time figuring out the possibilities beforehand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ahpook Posted April 11, 2008 Share Posted April 11, 2008 [quote name='Biggsy' post='174546' date='Apr 11 2008, 02:11 PM']Maybe Red Onion would be able to advise me, but I'll still have to spend some time figuring out the possibilities beforehand.[/quote] i'm sure they'd be more than happy to help. (btw - the footswitch for my ampeg came and works a treat, hats off to the red onion people !) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mace Posted June 2, 2008 Share Posted June 2, 2008 Not sure if it's too late but the xotic x-blender is brilliant for that kinda stuff - not cheap but def recommended! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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