New MXR bass synth pedal released

[Quatschmacher]

On 01/01/2026 at 09:03, AndyTheBassBison said:

I’m still loving mine and have got a tap switch to change presets. I’d heard it is fussy about power supplies but my gig last night was something else - the venue’s power did not agree with it at all,  even with any of my power supplies. It was so noisy I had to take it off my board. My boss and ebs pedals were unaffected. My only other gripe is that it’s easy to accidentally change preset when you press the main switch, would be great if the preset button deactivated when you connect an external tap switch.

Isn’t there a way to reassign what function the main footswitch does?

[AndyTheBassBison]

5 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

Isn’t there a way to reassign what function the main footswitch does?

Yes, you can scroll through presets by holding the main foot switch but it’s clunky and your foot covers the preset lights so it’s guesswork which one you’re on.

[Quatschmacher]

44 minutes ago, AndyTheBassBison said:

Yes, you can scroll through presets by holding the main foot switch but it’s clunky and your foot covers the preset lights so it’s guesswork which one you’re on.

What I meant was that if you plug in an external footswitch, then you can reassign the main footswitch so it doesn’t cause the problem you mentioned above. 

[AndyTheBassBison]

3 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

What I meant was that if you plug in an external footswitch, then you can reassign the main footswitch so it doesn’t cause the problem you mentioned above. 

Ah ok. I’ll have to take another look at the manual, I don’t recall seeing anything about that

[Quatschmacher]

1 hour ago, AndyTheBassBison said:

Ah ok. I’ll have to take another look at the manual, I don’t recall seeing anything about that

Basically just don’t put the main footswitch into preset selection mode (long press); just leave it as an engage/bypass switch. 

[AndyTheBassBison]

7 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

Basically just don’t put the main footswitch into preset selection mode (long press); just leave it as an engage/bypass switch. 

Thanks and sorry for the confusion but that’s how I’ve got it set up. The issue is that it’s easy to hit the tiny preset button (next to the four red/green LEDs) when using the main foot switch as an engage/bypass switch. I just need to work on my foot technique!

[Quatschmacher]

3 hours ago, AndyTheBassBison said:

Thanks and sorry for the confusion but that’s how I’ve got it set up. The issue is that it’s easy to hit the tiny preset button (next to the four red/green LEDs) when using the main foot switch as an engage/bypass switch. I just need to work on my foot technique!

Ah, I see. 

[Kev]

On 02/01/2026 at 10:36, Kev said:

Well, its found a place on my board.  Still getting to grips with it, but it's a VERY cool sounding unit, easy to adjust the parameters for the most part, and all the sounds it makes are actually useable, rather than something to just muck about with. Took a good bit of messing about to get it working well in my QC chain.  Naturally, it doesn't track nearly as well as I'd hoped.  The hammer-ons and pull-offs not re-triggering in Ian's videos was what I was really hoping would work, and it does for the most part below the 7th fret or so, but any further up on all strings it retriggers, which is frustrating, and a tad confusing really as I'm not sure I understand why, for example, G2 on the A string will hammer nicely from F, but retriggers on the D (10th vs 5th fret).  I'm sure using old flats help a ton, EQ curves and compression on the QC help tame the harmonics  and smooth things out from the rounds but its still not brilliant.  Still, it handles ghost notes well and there isn't a ton of latency, as long as its in 4 string mode.

 

The first and last preset are my faves, the last being quite similar to one of my favourite patches I had on the Chunk synth.

 

 

Having spent a week with this, the retriggering with hammer-ons in certain settings is just about the only negative I have.  It sounds brilliant, and now I'm learning how it wants to be played, it's tracking very, very well.  Having everything adjustable by twisting knobs is just wonderful, can't be a coincidence that the only two synth pedals I've ever got on with have not involved PCs or apps.  Fat fingers will struggle a tad though, i can see some finding it hard to adjust knobs without knocking others, which would be especially frustrating when adjusting saved presets.

 

Did I read somewhere that there is a way of setting the pedal to work as a filter without any of the synth voices in the mix IE a filter affecting Dry signal only? It's not something I've spent long looking for but it isn't immediately obvious to me how.

[Quatschmacher]

16 hours ago, Kev said:

 

Having spent a week with this, the retriggering with hammer-ons in certain settings is just about the only negative I have.  It sounds brilliant, and now I'm learning how it wants to be played, it's tracking very, very well.  Having everything adjustable by twisting knobs is just wonderful, can't be a coincidence that the only two synth pedals I've ever got on with have not involved PCs or apps.  Fat fingers will struggle a tad though, i can see some finding it hard to adjust knobs without knocking others, which would be especially frustrating when adjusting saved presets.

 

Did I read somewhere that there is a way of setting the pedal to work as a filter without any of the synth voices in the mix IE a filter affecting Dry signal only? It's not something I've spent long looking for but it isn't immediately obvious to me how.

From the manual:

 

Hold shape button when green and turn envelope knob fully clockwise for the dry-thru-FX blend. Then I guess you either disable the shape (if possible) or blend towards voice mix with “voice” disabled. 

Edited January 10 by Quatschmacher

[reesource]

I just made something to stick on my pedal board next to the pedal, as there's no way I'm ever going to remember all the extra control assignments. I figured it might come in handy for other people, so here it is.

[mattpbass]

Now that these are a bit more freely available I picked one up a couple of weeks ago, and my impressions so far are kind of what I expected… it’s fine at what it does. To get some synthy sounds for a non synth playing bass player it’s probably the best compromise I’ve tried between form factor, quality of sounds, tracking, ease of use. Does it sound or track way better than a Future Impact (or any other solution I’ve tried)? I’d say no, but it’s a lot less fugly, and more fun to twiddle with than having to fire up an editor.

 

Definitely feels a bit Emperor’s new clothes to me though, I’ll not be ditching the real synths for this. 

[foldyman]

Anyone needing a fat fingers mod, you can get these from thonk and they work great. You can either honour the original colour scheme or go rogue, your choice!

 

[foldyman]

On 02/01/2026 at 10:36, Kev said:

Well, its found a place on my board.  Still getting to grips with it, but it's a VERY cool sounding unit, easy to adjust the parameters for the most part, and all the sounds it makes are actually useable, rather than something to just muck about with. Took a good bit of messing about to get it working well in my QC chain.  Naturally, it doesn't track nearly as well as I'd hoped.  The hammer-ons and pull-offs not re-triggering in Ian's videos was what I was really hoping would work, and it does for the most part below the 7th fret or so, but any further up on all strings it retriggers, which is frustrating, and a tad confusing really as I'm not sure I understand why, for example, G2 on the A string will hammer nicely from F, but retriggers on the D (10th vs 5th fret).  I'm sure using old flats help a ton, EQ curves and compression on the QC help tame the harmonics  and smooth things out from the rounds but its still not brilliant.  Still, it handles ghost notes well and there isn't a ton of latency, as long as its in 4 string mode.

 

The first and last preset are my faves, the last being quite similar to one of my favourite patches I had on the Chunk synth.

 

That's weird, I've found the opposite; anything below Cish pitch wise on the A string has more of a tendency to retrigger, anything above that will pretty reliably not rearticulate when I hammer on. Passive J, tone all off, neck pickup, just some light compression in front of the mxr.

[Kev]

2 hours ago, foldyman said:

That's weird, I've found the opposite; anything below Cish pitch wise on the A string has more of a tendency to retrigger, anything above that will pretty reliably not rearticulate when I hammer on. Passive J, tone all off, neck pickup, just some light compression in front of the mxr.

 

Cross terminology here, by below I meant 1-6th fret 😅 so our experiences appear to be the same.

 

Just to add though, after a few hours more with this pedal, almost all my negativity faded away.  Yes the aforementioned retriggering isn't ideal, but the tracking is actually great once you learn to play to it.  I adore the thing!

[foldyman]

7 hours ago, Kev said:

 

Cross terminology here, by below I meant 1-6th fret 😅 so our experiences appear to be the same.

 

Just to add though, after a few hours more with this pedal, almost all my negativity faded away.  Yes the aforementioned retriggering isn't ideal, but the tracking is actually great once you learn to play to it.  I adore the thing!

Agreed it's great!

[AndyTheBassBison]

The honeymoon period is over and I’m still loving this pedal although it isn’t perfect. Tracking isn’t quite good enough to do ‘ain’t nobody’ live so I’ve gone back to using my oc5 in modern/poly mode for that song. I find the octaver setting on the mxr is good but isn’t a replacement for the OC5.

[Quatschmacher]

On 29/01/2026 at 15:36, mattpbass said:

Now that these are a bit more freely available I picked one up a couple of weeks ago, and my impressions so far are kind of what I expected… it’s fine at what it does. To get some synthy sounds for a non synth playing bass player it’s probably the best compromise I’ve tried between form factor, quality of sounds, tracking, ease of use. Does it sound or track way better than a Future Impact (or any other solution I’ve tried)? I’d say no, but it’s a lot less fugly, and more fun to twiddle with than having to fire up an editor.

 

Definitely feels a bit Emperor’s new clothes to me though, I’ll not be ditching the real synths for this. 

I’d still like to give one of these MXRs a spin but I’m on a self-imposed buying ban, at least until I’ve shifted some of the gear I have listed.
 

No need for an editor for most stuff with the forthcoming FI4 update as it adds onboard patch management features. Also now sports a DX7 FM engine too for all those classic 80s sounds. 

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, AndyTheBassBison said:

The honeymoon period is over and I’m still loving this pedal although it isn’t perfect. Tracking isn’t quite good enough to do ‘ain’t nobody’ live so I’ve gone back to using my oc5 in modern/poly mode for that song. I find the octaver setting on the mxr is good but isn’t a replacement for the OC5.

 

Thanks for sharing that Andy, that's really helpful to know.

 

I think the new v4.5 update on the FI, which Peter mentions, above is going to be a game changer for the FI matching the MXR for ease of use in terms of on pedal editing and with some great sounds "out of the box", with 22 'song' presets on the FI, vs 8 on the MXR (excellent little clip here). And for an extra £20 the FI v4 then also provides:

• a more capable synth engine (including FM synthesis);
• a better display; 
• many more available presets (99 vs 8 );
• midi capability; and
• the ability to deep dive with a bespoke computer editor for those who would like to have that option.

Having sat on the fence for the past half-year trying to figure out whether to go for the MXR or FI, with the v4.5 software update (due for release in March) it's become a relatively easy decision and I've got a FI VIP on order.

[Kev]

I'm not sure I picked up on the ease of use aspect of the update, what has changed there?  I thought it was just usable presets, but have they increased the ability to make adjustments on the pedal without the editor?

 

Still sorely tempted to try a VIP, but I think i'll wait until 4.5 is out in the wild for a while.

[Al Krow]

5 minutes ago, Kev said:

I'm not sure I picked up on the ease of use aspect of the update, what has changed there?  I thought it was just usable presets, but have they increased the ability to make adjustments on the pedal without the editor?

 

Still sorely tempted to try a VIP, but I think i'll wait until 4.5 is out in the wild for a while.

 

Pls see Peter's response above:

1 hour ago, Quatschmacher said:

No need for an editor for most stuff with the forthcoming FI4 update as it adds onboard patch management features. Also now sports a DX7 FM engine too for all those classic 80s sounds. 

 

I'm sure he'll be able to elaborate 😊

[Quatschmacher]

51 minutes ago, Kev said:

I'm not sure I picked up on the ease of use aspect of the update, what has changed there?  I thought it was just usable presets, but have they increased the ability to make adjustments on the pedal without the editor?

 

Still sorely tempted to try a VIP, but I think i'll wait until 4.5 is out in the wild for a while.

Yes, there is now the ability to copy/swap patches (at least within the VA engine) directly on the pedal. The factory patches are now built into the firmware file and can be reset directly on the pedal. As for onboard sound parameter adjustments, these are as in previous versions with access to 9 common parameters with full adjustment range. (I had hoped to persuade the team to implement a secondary layer of adjustments to take it to 18 but they didn’t go for it. We actually looked at full onboard parameter adjustment but it would have required either a cheat sheet for numerical entries or fairly cryptic 3-digit names and sub menus. The complexity of adjusting flexis via such a menu was what caused András to demur.)

[mattpbass]

2 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

I’d still like to give one of these MXRs a spin but I’m on a self-imposed buying ban, at least until I’ve shifted some of the gear I have listed.
 

No need for an editor for most stuff with the forthcoming FI4 update as it adds onboard patch management features. Also now sports a DX7 FM engine too for all those classic 80s sounds. 

Yeah the new FI4 update looks good, when is it out? I’m tempted to pick up a VIP to compare, I had a 3 a while back but be interesting to see how much better things are now. And the DX7 addition is great, Danger Zone ahoy! 😅

[mattpbass]

20 minutes ago, mattpbass said:

Yeah the new FI4 update looks good, when is it out? I’m tempted to pick up a VIP to compare, I had a 3 a while back but be interesting to see how much better things are now. And the DX7 addition is great, Danger Zone ahoy! 😅

never mind, answered my own question, March. I’ve ordered a VIP so let’s see how it compares!

[Quatschmacher]

26 minutes ago, mattpbass said:

Yeah the new FI4 update looks good, when is it out? I’m tempted to pick up a VIP to compare, I had a 3 a while back but be interesting to see how much better things are now. And the DX7 addition is great, Danger Zone ahoy! 😅

The 4 is a significant upgrade over the 3. 

[Al Krow]

5 minutes ago, mattpbass said:

never mind, answered my own question, March. I’ve ordered a VIP so let’s see how it compares!

 

Do you have the MXR also? An A/B of the MXR vs the v4.5 FI VIP would be very useful / helpful for many, particularly as there's only £20 in it price wise new.