Boss XS100 Poly Shift Pedal

[paulmcnamara]

Just taken the plunge to get one of these............. does anyone have any experience of this or similar......

[Owen]

You are our leader in these matters. 

[stewblack]

What is it, what does it do?

[stewblack]

What does it look like?

[stewblack]

etc 

[pantherairsoft]

No bass demos yet, but general guitar feedback seems to be that the tracking is insanely good. Maybe just marketing, but there is a ‘best whammy ever’ vibe floating about at the mo.

[neepheid]

I am interested in the baby one (XS-1) but only if it represents a big leap forward from the TC Electronic Brainwaves I currently use.  Now can we please get all the guitar noise out of the way and someone please demo it with bass?

[matybigfro]

It looks pretty good although there's a side by side vid with a Digitech whammy I think I prefer the tobe of the DigiTech. The boss is almost a bit too perfect. Saying that I have a boss gt-1000 core and have been happy with the whammy in that.  The drop tuning in it seems very very good.

 

Will be interesting to see if this and the new algorithms they used on the plugout turns up in a new multi at some point. 

Edited Friday at 20:30 by matybigfro

[Al Krow]

12 hours ago, matybigfro said:

It looks pretty good although there's a side by side vid with a Digitech whammy I think I prefer the tobe of the DigiTech. The boss is almost a bit too perfect. Saying that I have a boss gt-1000 core and have been happy with the whammy in that.  The drop tuning in it seems very very good.

 

Will be interesting to see if this and the new algorithms they used on the plugout turns up in a new multi at some point. 

 

The physics of bass notes being an octave lower than guitar means they are more difficult to track and I've not yet found a dedicated pitch shift pedal that works really well on bass, particularly moving more than a couple of semitones. And multifx have, in my experience, been significantly less good than dedicated pedals - certainly the ones I've used.

 

 

As you say, the drop tuning seems to be excellent for guitar!

 

If it gets comparably close on bass, colour me super interested - having singers who have different vocal registers means that this could be ideal for use with my crew! Although £195 for the XS-1 is going to be a decent chunk of change to part with.

Edited Saturday at 09:01 by Al Krow

[paulmcnamara]

The detune mode is beautiful on fretless and the possible harmonies on bass look promising........... 

In my band many of our songs are capo-ed and to change pitch accurately is a real boon!

[pantherairsoft]

I’m very keen to try the 100. I liked the bass whammy, but the tone suck from the pedal was pretty noticeable. My fav pitch shifter for bass was the Eventide Pitchfactor, with an expression pedal. That was a great whammy. I assume the H9 does it just as well. The PF was funny about which expressions pedals it liked though, which was annoying. I think it was the only pedal I’ve ever used that wouldn’t work with a Moog EP-3.

 

From the guitar pedal demos, it seems to have that hifi clear reproduction of the Eventide, which really appeals to me, as I use it after dirt and modulation for a more synth-like pitch shift.

Its not cheap, but if it sounds good, I’m very tempted.

Edited Saturday at 09:18 by pantherairsoft

[Al Krow]

9 hours ago, paulmcnamara said:

The detune mode is beautiful on fretless and the possible harmonies on bass look promising........... 

In my band many of our songs are capo-ed and to change pitch accurately is a real boon!

 

Sounds good! Nothing currently online featuring a bass, so if you're able to record a couple of clips for us that would be awesome!

[Al Krow]

Bass demo finally out, and a decent one to boot. It sounds pretty darned good to me and obvious use as both a pitch shifter and an octave pedal. Well done (again) Boss!

 

 

[cetera]

Think I'll have to drop into Andertons and do a test between the Digitech Drop and this for accuracy/latency. I will never need it much below dropping to D standard anyway but I've never been 100% satisfied with the Drop pedal...

[Al Krow]

26 minutes ago, cetera said:

Think I'll have to drop into Andertons and do a test between the Digitech Drop and this for accuracy/latency. I will never need it much below dropping to D standard anyway but I've never been 100% satisfied with the Drop pedal...

 

Yeah same re. the Drop - disappointingly didn't find that much, if any, improvement over my Zoom B1-4. Look forward to getting your thoughts!

[Al Krow]

And maybe worth mentioning a big plus of the XS-1 is the Drop is a one way street: only down. 

Word on that same street is that the XS-1 not only up-shifts, but has one of the best octave-ups in the business. If that's the case, looks like my OC-5 could be heading for the exit!

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Al Krow

[SumOne]

Sounds good. Could replace an Octaver, Chorus, and a hipshot drop tuner, and things like the Digitech Drop as I'd find it useful for stuff like blending in a shifted up 5th into a fuzz.

 

It could even convert me from a 5 to a 4. He goes 2 steps down in the video but I wonder how good it'd sound switching 4 steps down (EADG to BEAD), there are a couple of songs I'd find that useful for with a 4 string and mentally that just feels like it'd keep things simpler than mucking about with different semitone settings for different songs or different parts of songs. One problem I have with pitch shifting is potential for getting confused (I was in a band with a guitarist that kept getting caught out by his pitch shifter being set to the wrong amount, or engaged/disengaged at the wrong time - it wasn't technically the fault of the pedal but I think they can easily lead to confusion if the player hasn't really mastered it). 

 

 

Edited 4 hours ago by SumOne

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, SumOne said:

Sounds good. Could replace an Octaver, Chorus, and a hipshot drop tuner, and things like the Digitech Drop, I'd find it useful for stuff like blending in a shifted up 5th into a fuzz.

 

It could even convert me from a 5 to a 4. He goes 2 steps down in the video but I wonder how good it'd sound switching 4 steps down (EADG to BEAD), there are a couple of songs I'd find that useful for with a 4 string and mentally that just feels like it'd keep things simpler than mucking about with different semitones for different songs. One problem I have with pitch shifting is potential for getting confused (I was in a band with a guitarist that kept getting caught out by his pitch shifter being set to the wrong amount, or engaged/disengaged at the wrong time - it wasn't technically the fault of the pedal but I think they can easily lead to confusion if the player hasn't really mastered it live). I'd reduce the risk of getting confused if I just used it to switch to BEAD for whole songs that need those lower notes. 

 

Re. chorus - I think he was using an external chorus as I can't see anything on the pedal itself that does chorus? But if I missed that, even better!

 

He goes 4 semitones down (= 2 steps in his terminology) at 01.40 and says it get "flubby", although it sounds way better than on my multifx!

Going down from E --> B is 5 semis i.e. 2.5 steps (not 4) using his terminology - he's actually open to requests (see the equivalent post on Talkbass), so you could ask him there? (If you're on that, if not I can gladly ask him on your behalf?) My sense is it won't be awful, but probably not great either?

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Al Krow

[SumOne]

34 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

Re. chorus - I think he was using an external chorus as I can't see anything on the pedal itself that does chorus? But if I missed that, even better!

 

He goes 4 semitones down (= 2 steps in his terminology) at 01.40 and says it get "flubby", although it sounds way better than on my multifx!

Going down from E --> B is 5 semis i.e. 2.5 steps (not 4) using his terminology - he's actually open to requests (see the equivalent post on Talkbass), so you could ask him there? (If you're on that, if not I can gladly ask him on your behalf?) My sense is it won't be awful, but probably not great either?

 

 

I might have it wrong, but I think the chorus sort of effect (a detune/doubling effect +/- 20 cents) was via the pedal.

 

Ah yeah, my semitone maths wansn't on point! So in that case he has basically dropped down the low E to a C and that sounded okay to me, hopefully one more semitone would be okay.  I guess it is the sort of thing you might feel when playing (perhaps a bit of latency) more than being an issue in how it sounds in a recording.

 

Although come to think of it, I don't think I ever play a low B in my current 90min set, the lowest is a D a few times. So getting used to just dropping down to that is probably better than dropping all to BEAD. 

 

I'll add it to my expanding wishlist of pedals! (along with MXR Bass synth, Boss RE-2, and some sort of analogue envelope filter).

Edited 3 hours ago by SumOne

[Al Krow]

With you on MXR Bass Synth as a wish list item! Can recommend the EBS IQ as an excellent and really good value filter.

 

PS and my only variance (given how well our multifx does general modulation!) with your expanding wishlist would be to trade the Boss RE-2 for an SL-2 😉

Edited 1 hour ago by Al Krow