Boss XS100 Poly Shift Pedal

[Woodinblack]

56 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

I've ended up with the XS-1, hopefully arriving in a couple of days. 

 

Excellent - can I have first dibs when you move it on?

[Al Krow]

49 minutes ago, pantherairsoft said:

I’ll dig a little deeper into the side by side specs. I have more expression pedals and expression splitters than I know what to do with, with I’ve always use pitching on its own pedal and typically, I’ve found great use for the built in extra of stuff like this.

 

I do think the presets will

be a game changer, but maybe I can live without them. Either way, I’m fairly certain one of them is getting added to the collection.

 

Yeah I think it's the same side by side spec for the XS-1 and XS-100; I think the key difference being the presets (very useful) and the built in expression pedal on the XS-100

 

[neepheid]

I am weakening towards the XS-1.  After finally hearing some bass usage, I think it does a better job of tone preservation than my Brainwaves.

[Al Krow]

5 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Excellent - can I have first dibs when you move it on?

 

Nah, get your own!

 

You didn't wait for me to move my recently purchased cheap-as-chips Ali XP floor floor light on, before getting one, did you? And what about those excellent KZ-ZARs eh, which you jumped on post Krow purchase and recommendation? You're definitely at risk of becoming a West Country Krow gear groupie...

 

But where were you when I eventually upgraded my Boss SY-1 for a Boss SY-200? Boss SY-1 - Effects - Basschat

[Al Krow]

5 minutes ago, neepheid said:

I am weakening towards the XS-1.  After finally hearing some bass usage, I think it does a better job of tone preservation than my Brainwaves.

 

Yeah - that Lasse Vuorsola did a great job with his first video, which was all the confirmation I needed given that from my OC5 and SY 200 experience I knew that Boss seemed to have nailed tracking algorithms better than most. Loved the fact he then asked for and dealt with specific queries with a second video. Hero.

[Al Krow]

@pantherairsoft - suspect this will be right up your street in relation to our recent chat about the XS-1 vs XS-100, from one of the TB'ers:

 

FUN FACTS about attaching a dual switch to the XS-1 !!
I connected a Boss FS-6 dual switch and tested the feature of storing settings on each of the two external switches, plus the built-in switch.
The XS-1 can store BALANCE amount, SHIFT interval/mode, and the TOGGLE/MOMENT option for the built-in footswitch, and each of the dual switches giving you instantaneous access to each (one at a time, though).
With instantaneous access to 3 different intervals, you could, for example, have a minor 3rd, major 3rd, and perfect 4th, for various harmonizing tasks. Similarly, m6, M6, and P5. You can have up to 4 different keys (counting bypass).
I tested this running a full mix through the pedal, the transitions are instantaneous but without any clicks or pops at the moment of change.

 

[Woodinblack]

29 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

You didn't wait for me to move my recently purchased cheap-as-chips Ali XP floor floor light on, before getting one, did you? And what about those excellent KZ-ZARs eh, which you jumped on post Krow purchase and recommendation?

 

Both of those were pretty cheap - this is too expesnive for what I need, but a bit cheaper would be ok!

 

29 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

But where were you when I eventually upgraded my Boss SY-1 for a Boss SY-200? Boss SY-1 - Effects - Basschat

 

I suspect I updated my SY-1 for an SY-200 before you did? But then I never really used it much anyway!

 

 

[Al Krow]

 

Just arrived!

Great excuse to uprate my little mini gigging pedal board, which has been unchanged for 5 months (must be a record) with something bigger and can provide a home to a few more noise boxes currently sitting on my pedal shelf...

 

PS I'll put a note on file that you want first dibs @Woodinblack if it ever gets upgraded - can give you a status update in a couple of years maybe?

[Woodinblack]

22 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

PS I'll put a note on file that you want first dibs @Woodinblack if it ever gets upgraded - can give you a status update in a couple of years maybe?

 

Sure, I will start making space on the pedalboard now

 

[Al Krow]

 

Useful side by side comparison of XS-1 vs Drop.

 

Comments enlightening:

- little in it on latency

- Boss have focussed on the attack and response as the processing catches and retunes your instrument => the feel is better preserved and the sound of that initial attack sounds right.

[Baloney Balderdash]

A couple of demos of the Boss XS-1, dialed in to seek to emulate an effect somewhat similar to an 8 string octave course bass -esque effect:

 

I feel the 1 octave up effect works best for this, since the dry signal will be dominating, as the bass strings would on a real 8 strings bass, compared to the octave strings, and so the fake octave can kind of hide behind the real bass signal.

 

In any case, a huge improvement over the TC Elextronic Sub'N'Up I used previously, even with a custom made Toneprint, with pre and post octave engine EQ filters to improve tracking, minimize digital artifacts and make the 1 octave up effect sound more natural.

 

 

Here we go:

 

Sound test of the new Boss XS-1 pitchshifter, testing octave down and octave up respectively blended with dry signal, on my 28.5" scale tenor bass (reverse orientation middle/bridge P pickup), tuned in A standard tuning, seeking to emulate a somewhat 8 string octave course bass -esque effect.

Octave Down: 0:00 - 2:30
Octave Up: 2:30 - 4:21

 

 

 

Sound test of the new Boss XS-1 pitchshifter, testing octave down and octave up respectively blended with dry signal, on my 5 string 28.6" scale tenor bass (bridge J pickup), tuned in E standard tuning, seeking to emulate a somewhat 8 string octave course bass -esque effect.

Though I avoided playing the low E too much, as it is already pretty floppy sounding on the short scale as is, and E0 is insane, however I did hit it a few times, just for the sake of the demo.

Octave Down: 0:00 - 6:10
Octave Up: 6:10 - 9:44

 

[Al Krow]

Had a chance to try mine out properly this evening.

 

Really nice octave up and down, the momentary is neat! Like the fact that it has a chorus thrown in. The de-tuning both up and down is decent and tracking good.

 

Moment of minor panic when I thought I wasn't able to get a 100% wet signal, however another bassist suggested I might just be hearing the acoustic sound from my bass in addition to the output via my home monitors, as I was playing at pretty low late-night home volumes. When I double checked by recording the output, turns out he was right! And obviously the clean acoustic sound is going to have more of an impact on a pitch shift than with pretty much all other fx - so certainly a point for me to be aware of going forward!

 

Edited Saturday at 08:50 by Al Krow

[Al Krow]

@paulmcnamara cheers for bringing this to the attention of the BC community (and maybe less for hitting my wallet, haha!). Would you be up for amending the title to "XS-1 and XS-100" for us, so the thread captures both pedals that are being discussed on here? If so, if you or one of the mods ( @Woodinblack?)  could put that through, that would be fab. 

[Al Krow]

Spent a few hours setting up a larger pedal board to accommodate the XS-1 and Boss EV-30 dual output expression pedal, in addition to the three pedals I previously had on my compact gigging board (and then, of course, filled up the rest of the board with a few other pedals that had been patiently sitting on my pedal-shelf itching to be used!)

 

 

The expression pedal puts it into full whammy mode and seems to work by over-riding the on-off when the XS-1 is "on" (obvs has no impact when the pedal is in by-pass).

It applies a range of mix & detune from 0 (fully dry / no detune) to 100 with the destination mix and interval being whatever is set on the XS-1.

Effectively allows both momentary to be engaged, plus also incremental tones to be set and held.

 

It is pretty cool/fun, particularly when combined with the SY-200!

 

Edited Saturday at 11:07 by Al Krow

[Al Krow]

Completely concur with @Baloney Balderdash on how good this thing is for octave up and down! It wasn't my original use case (detuning) but this will open up a lot of 8 string bass possibilities for filling out the sound, which is ideal for a 4 piece outfit like ours with just one guitar and no keys. An unexpected bonus and, dare I say, worth the price of the pedal by itself?

[Baloney Balderdash]

I just made up and recoded this little hard rock boogie for another demonstration of how the 1 octave down sounds blended with dry signal, this time using a pick:

The way the octave down sounds blended with dry signal is starting to grow on me, and I think it sounds particularly great using a pick, and even the low A string (not demonstrated above) on my tenor bass (that would be the same A as the low A string on a 4 string bass in regular E standard tuning), that would be A0 (a full whole step below the low B string on a 5 or 6 string bass) when taken an octave down sounds pretty damn tight (though admittedly I do have a HPF engaged, so that might account for some of that credit).

 

Utilizing my 28.5" scale LTD B4JR tenor bass, equipped with an EMG Geezer Butler P pickup, and tuned to A standard tuning.

 

Edited Sunday at 14:15 by Baloney Balderdash