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BASS SYNTH


The GroovyPlucker

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I need to give a FI another go.  I bought one early days from Thomann, tried it, couldn't get a good sound out of it, sent it back after a few days.  Awful to use, really fiddly dial (no notches, weird design choice?), and didn't track well. Couldn't replicate the DI tones I used to love.  Have to assume from all the comments in this thread that mine must have been faulty?

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29 minutes ago, Kev said:

I need to give a FI another go.  I bought one early days from Thomann, tried it, couldn't get a good sound out of it, sent it back after a few days.  Awful to use, really fiddly dial (no notches, weird design choice?), and didn't track well. Couldn't replicate the DI tones I used to love.  Have to assume from all the comments in this thread that mine must have been faulty?

I reckon you had bad luck. The first 9 patches are exactly the same as the 9 DI patches.

Tracking is dependent on several factors: clean monophonic technique, pickup type and position, string type, input volume, etc. There are settings to control input level, note on level and note off level.

I agree the lack of detente positions on the selector knob is annoying but not insurmountable. To be honest, 2/3 of the stock patches were not to my taste. When I first loaned one, I wasn’t that into it. It was only when I bought one and programmed my own patches and loaded some other users’ patches on it that I really saw and heard what it was truly capable of. 

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33 minutes ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

is it easy enough to connect with midi? I think I have midi on my soundblaster card but i don't like midi too much, ok if you use it all the time, can you do a midi  outta the f1 to usb with some kinda connector cable or does it not work in that way?

You can connect MIDI via a USB-MIDI adapter or MIDI interface (which is what you need to transfer presets on it). I don’t think it transmits MIDI out to other MIDI gear from what I remember from talking to András; I wanted to know if playing notes on bass would output the MIDI data somone could control external synths. The answer was no. MIDI out on the FI is just for taking to the editor. MIDI in is for both editor and playing via MIDI data. I guess sending MIDI data from the MIDI out port on your soundcard to the FI’s MIDI in port would allow you to trigger from a MIDI sequencer. 

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1 minute ago, Quatschmacher said:

You can connect MIDI via a USB-MIDI adapter or MIDI interface (which is what you need to transfer presets on it). I don’t think it transmits MIDI out to other MIDI gear from what I remember from talking to András; I wanted to know if playing notes on bass would output the MIDI data somone could control external synths. The answer was no. MIDI out on the FI is just for taking to the editor. MIDI in is for both editor and playing via MIDI data. I guess sending MIDI data from the MIDI out port on your soundcard to the FI’s MIDI in port would allow you to trigger from a MIDI sequencer. 

just for the editing, can't seem to find a decent explanation in the manual about how to edit on the pedal, maybe I'm reading it wrong, or being lazy as per usual. although would like to try on the pc as well, cheers, mark

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1 minute ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

just for the editing, can't seem to find a decent explanation in the manual about how to edit on the pedal, maybe I'm reading it wrong, or being lazy as per usual. although would like to try on the pc as well, cheers, mark

Editing on the pedal only gets you so far. Basically you turn the parameter switch to whichever parameter you want to adjust (cutoff, resonance, etc.). The “data” digit (right-most digit in the display) will show a 5 which corresponds to the stored preset value in the editor (eg a cutoff of 45). Then you turn the encoder dial to adjust either positively or negatively from there. The dot in the display flashes to indicate a change has been made. If you wish to save the change, you need to press the encoder dial. The dot then stops blinking. Repeat for other parameters.

It needs to be noted that adjustments on the pedal are always relative to the value of the stored preset as created in the editor. That is, a value of 9 on the pedal isn’t the same for each preset, rather it is a ratio of the original parameter value from the preset as created in the editor. I can’t remember the ratios off the top of my head. Further to this, if the preset created in the editor had a resonance of 0, this would be the value corresponding to 5 on the pedal and dialling in 1, 2, 3 or 4 on the pedal would have no effect whatsoever as resonance can’t go below zero. (Changing to values above 5 on the pedal would have an effect.)

The stuff about editing on the pedal is most likely in the quick start guide which isn’t repeated in the bigger manual.

Editing on the PC is where the real magic happens as you have complete control over all the oscillator levels, waveshapes and tons of other goodies. You really must hook this thing up and download some other user patches and create your own to get the best out of this pedal. 

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5 hours ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

yeah, i thought as much, I'll try the PC hook up if I need to adjust the presets, which i may be able to live with, time will tell, I'll seek your advice on the relevant cabling if/when i do go down the PC editing route, cheers, Mark

Seriously do it sooner rather than later. There is a wealth of user-created patches which are far superior to many of the stock patches. I think, in the end I kept only two stock patches on the pedal (and I modified those to my taste) then eighty are my own, the rest are by others.

You can get a lot of variation out of the presets just by tweaking the onboard parameters. (Worth noting that there’s a bug which means that adjusting the pedal’s attack parameter has no effect in patches created with the “new” (non-deep-Impact-emulating) filter. This is a known bug and will be fixed with the next firmware update. 

Edited by Quatschmacher
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14 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

I reckon you had bad luck. The first 9 patches are exactly the same as the 9 DI patches.

Tracking is dependent on several factors: clean monophonic technique, pickup type and position, string type, input volume, etc. There are settings to control input level, note on level and note off level.

I agree the lack of detente positions on the selector knob is annoying but not insurmountable. To be honest, 2/3 of the stock patches were not to my taste. When I first loaned one, I wasn’t that into it. It was only when I bought one and programmed my own patches and loaded some other users’ patches on it that I really saw and heard what it was truly capable of. 

Yeah, I figure it must have been a bad unit. Like I say, I owned a Deep Impact for many years so know exactly how to get it to sound good, the FI just sound like what I could only describe as a effect modeller equivalent, with poorer tracking.  Maybe I should give one another go....

I did catch the rehousing project @GisserD, huge improvement it seems!

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Well...my Future Imapct has arrived....it's rather large!! 

Had a noodle and it's great, although the presets will have to be tweaked so I'll have to download the program and have a look.

Any recommendations on Midi to USB cables? Seen a few on ebay.

Will try some of the presets others have made and see if i can get close to the sounds I want, probably only need about 10.

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8 minutes ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

Well...my Future Imapct has arrived....it's rather large!! 

Had a noodle and it's great, although the presets will have to be tweaked so I'll have to download the program and have a look.

Any recommendations on Midi to USB cables? Seen a few on ebay.

Will try some of the presets others have made and see if i can get close to the sounds I want, probably only need about 10.

If you want it a lot smaller, that can be sorted. There's a very clever chap by the name of @GisserD, who's got a bit of a following both over here and in the US for his little creation (I'm claiming credit for the blue and white edition). Be warned, he's tall... :)

Edited by Al Krow
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50 minutes ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

Well...my Future Imapct has arrived....it's rather large!! 

Had a noodle and it's great, although the presets will have to be tweaked so I'll have to download the program and have a look.

Any recommendations on Midi to USB cables? Seen a few on ebay.

Will try some of the presets others have made and see if i can get close to the sounds I want, probably only need about 10.

Tweaking is possible to an extent on the pedal itself too. 

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1 hour ago, Quatschmacher said:

Tweaking is possible to an extent on the pedal itself too. 

I might just see if I can get away with any patches others have used, might save me a lot of time, although it might be easier than I think, we'll see, a lot of this depends on my accurate playing, the tracking is excellent, but want to find the right sound where I can do some fast runs, there's a few that presets will allow this, but my fingers have to be very accurate, they are pretty good but I'm no muso upper registry noodler....

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16 hours ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

I was told by the guy i bought it off that it had to be a midi interface, novation nio he used??

The Roland UM One mk 2 is a usb midi interface and it works perfectly with the FI. Other more expensive options are also available. 

Edited by mr zed
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2 hours ago, The GroovyPlucker said:

I was told by the guy i bought it off that it had to be a midi interface, novation nio he used??

Many audio interfaces have MIDI ports and thus are dual function audio interfaces and MIDI interfaces. Some Focusrite models do this and some are on the list of verified, tested units for FI.

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9 hours ago, mr zed said:

The Roland UM One mk 2 is a sub midi interface and it works perfectly with the FI. Other more expensive options are also available. 

I found a Focusrite 8i6 for £70 on ebay  - works with the FI plus has 6 inputs and midi for inputting into a DAW. Needs in/out midi cable as well, but I can now record the whole band live (that's bass, guitar, vox, e-drums and live cymbals) as well as editing the FI...

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3 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Keeley Electronics Synth 1

About to be released  - £179 from Andertons

Not sure about this one (definitely not making me think it's going to make me want to replace my FI!) but will leave this on here in case it's of interest.

 

 

seems ok, but bet it doesn't have the tweakability of the F1, still need to get the F1 into the pc to see what's in that editor btw....still don't know why pedal manufacturers don't just load these pedals with proper useable bass synth emulations, must be pretty easy to do, they'd sell by the bucket load,  someone's missing a trick here......

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