Experimenting with Boss Pedals

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Experimenting with Boss Pedals

Postby Christian LeBlanc » Tue Aug 30, 2011 10:28 am

Every time I ask a question on here it ends up costing me lots of $$$! ;)

j/k. Lately I've been playing bass a lot and experimenting with my Boss pedals and signal paths (I've got an LS-2 Line Selector), as well as a compressor (MXR Super Comp), which has been really educational for me; are my impressions and comments on what I get up to worth sharing? Between distortion, compression, reverb, harmonies, delay, flange, tremolo, eq, and even an e-bow, I'm having lots of fun, I just don't know how interested anyone would be in hearing about it. On the other hand, maybe it could spark all kinds of keen observations and so on. Couldn't hurt, could it? Just one thread, randomly going anywhere?

Just as an example, hear's a quick sample of what I got up to with eq -> harmonist pedal -> distortion -> delay -> reverb -> e-bow, on my bass guitar: http://soundcloud.com/yourboyfriend/118 ... es/s-v3eFy Given the nature of the e-bow on fat bass strings, this sound doesn't really work for quick arpeggios :P

I recorded directly from the pedals into the computer for this, although I do remember it sounding a little cooler when it went into my bass amp instead, which I guess is why people like putting a mic in front of their amps so much.
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Re: Admit It...

Postby macrae11 » Tue Aug 30, 2011 11:45 am

I love science experiments! The distortion sounds a little MT-2ish, and while I prefer more of a DS-1 color on Bass dirt, this example is really fun, although a bit grating.
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Re: Admit It...

Postby Christian LeBlanc » Tue Aug 30, 2011 12:46 pm

macrae11 wrote:MT-2ish

Spot-on! When I bought the bulk of my pedals years and years ago, I couldn't decide between an MT-2, XT-2, or a DS-2 for distortion, so I ended up getting all three, which I'm quite happy about, years later. One of these days I'll stump someone by coming up with a 'good' sound on the XT-2.

Failed attempts at using more than one at a time got me to buy an NS-2 noise suppressor (for in series) as well as my line selector (for parallel), which gives me more options to play around with. I've never been a "tone" guy before, but I'm starting to get more into it, bit by bit.

Which leads me to another bit of off-topic-ness: http://jmascis.com/2011/08/fuzz-munchkin/ This pedal's supposed to sound just like J. Mascis' pedal, which is great, but...isn't it better to experiment and come up with your own tone, not someone else's? (someone please agree with me so I won't be tempted to drop $300 on a limited-edition boutique pedal I don't need!).
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Re: Admit It...

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Tue Aug 30, 2011 1:19 pm

macrae11 wrote:I love science experiments! The distortion sounds a little MT-2ish, and while I prefer more of a DS-1 color on Bass dirt, this example is really fun, although a bit grating.


I should dig up some examples to post of the DS-1 on the 8x10 bass rig vs the DI bass track. I know we have a few examples to choose from.
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Re: Admit It...

Postby macrae11 » Tue Aug 30, 2011 1:37 pm

Mathieu Benoit wrote:
macrae11 wrote:I love science experiments! The distortion sounds a little MT-2ish, and while I prefer more of a DS-1 color on Bass dirt, this example is really fun, although a bit grating.


I should dig up some examples to post of the DS-1 on the 8x10 bass rig vs the DI bass track. I know we have a few examples to choose from.


SJ Idol was one of my favorite examples of that. I wish John hadn't sold that bass. Or at least sold it to me!
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Re: Admit It...

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Tue Aug 30, 2011 2:04 pm

macrae11 wrote:SJ Idol was one of my favorite examples of that. I wish John hadn't sold that bass. Or at least sold it to me!


Yeah that's the one I was thinking of too. What bass was it?
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Re: Experimenting with Boss Pedals

Postby macrae11 » Tue Aug 30, 2011 2:06 pm

It was the P-bass with the big humbucker in the neck. I forget the name he had for it. Played hard with a metal pick to get any semblance of definition out of it.
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Re: Experimenting with Boss Pedals

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Tue Aug 30, 2011 2:10 pm

macrae11 wrote:It was the P-bass with the big humbucker in the neck. I forget the name he had for it. Played hard with a metal pick to get any semblance of definition out of it.

His P-basses were all named after food. There was the cream of mushroom soup bass, and the tomato soup bass, and probably a few more but I can't recall exactly what they were.
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Re: Experimenting with Boss Pedals

Postby macrae11 » Tue Aug 30, 2011 2:45 pm

Yeah I think it was the mushroom soup bass.
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Re: Experimenting with Boss Pedals

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Tue Aug 30, 2011 2:59 pm

macrae11 wrote:Yeah I think it was the mushroom soup bass.


Come to think of it... He's pretty eccentric isn't he? I've known him for so long that this simple truth tends to escape me.
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Re: Experimenting with Boss Pedals

Postby Christian LeBlanc » Sun Oct 16, 2011 8:40 pm

A side-by-side comparison of the Boss TR-2 and the PN-2 tremolo function, square-wave, full depth:
http://soundcloud.com/yourboyfriend/pedals-trem/s-0AbzG

And, some playing around with the PN-2 panning function, at times combined with a DC-3 and the TR-2:
http://soundcloud.com/yourboyfriend/pedals-pan/s-7h7m2

Notes show up in the player as to what's going on when. Output is run straight into the computer, no amp sims or anything good like that.
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Re: Experimenting with Boss Pedals

Postby macrae11 » Tue Oct 18, 2011 12:10 pm

The PN-2 makes me nauseous. Also please destroy your chorus pedal. ;-)
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Re: Experimenting with Boss Pedals

Postby Christian LeBlanc » Tue Oct 18, 2011 1:14 pm

macrae11 wrote:Also please destroy your chorus pedal. ;-)

No way! It adds the all-important seasick on top of the already-present nausea. Now if I can just get the VB-2 Vibrato for some added vertigo, I'd be all set for vomit in 6 dimensions.
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Re: Experimenting with Boss Pedals

Postby Christian LeBlanc » Wed Oct 19, 2011 2:54 pm

Ok, mixers make these forays a lot more fun.

Last night I tried distortion -> flanger -> DD5 double delay. The 'dry' signal went into a centered mono track on the mixer, while I put the delay (set extremely short) into the PN-2 panner, with its stereo outs going into two more tracks on the mixer, panned hard left and hard right. While fun, I didn't think it merited its own demo here.

The reason I bring it up, though - because of the short delay, I was getting some of that modulation that Malcolm brought up in an older thread. To me, it was almost like an unbidden tremolo effect, but almost more like that wavey sound you hear when you're tuning your guitar in relation to the previous string. Would this be comb filtering? If so, I pretty much understand how and why it happens, rooted in frequencies...I'm just unsure as to why it seemed to randomly come and go. I can record a clip later, if necessary.
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Re: Experimenting with Boss Pedals

Postby Christian LeBlanc » Thu Dec 08, 2011 4:21 pm

Since I'm privileged to have my very own thread for posting my wanky experiments, I thought I might share my set here: http://soundcloud.com/synthnight/december1st2011

This is a live n' loose set I recorded over a lunch hour at home recently, of me singing and playing acoustic guitar, and trying to make it as 'experimental' as possible (without resorting to shoving weird bits of scrap between the strings). Vocoders, distortion, delay, etc. Feel free to skip around; I've also annotated it extensively to explain what I'm doing at any given point.
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