Bass Synth Instruments

[jimfist]

fwiw I think the "special sauce" that Industrial Radio and Rob O'Reilly employ is the fret sensing system...aka the old Steve Chick technology. Not sure if anyone's mentioned this in this thread yet, but have you looked for a second-hand Peavey MIDIBass or DataBass? That gets you the fret sensing system + piezo bridge + mag pickups + traditional bass + USA manufacturer...only thing it doesn't have is integrated conversion (there's an outboard electronics module that handles most of that) and a warranty.

Yeah, I probably should look into this more closely. From what I've seen, even good condition used Peavey MID Bass or Cyber Bass instruments fetch a premium price, and anything on the cheap is probably priced that way for a reason.
I prefer to purchase new for warranty reasons, and the USA preference isn't necessarily about manufacturing, but the customer service/shipping aspects, geographically, in the event it's required.

I'm not 100% averse to used gear, but I hesitate with a purchase of this type without being able to audition in person.
I could be looking forever for something like this to show up used at a music shop or local sale.

The Fretrax system in a Rybiski bass would have fit the bill, but I contacted them and they don't do it anymore.
So, the dilemma is to find a USA version of Industrial Radio or Rob O'Reilly, and no luck yet.

 

[CryingBass]

@sunbeast
Generally, I'll be playing traditional bass sounds, and adding in alternative sounds here and there, either layered, lead line, or special effect. So yes, the wild card here is whether I like the Willcox bass for what it is as a bass. It would truly be a dilemma to find that I love the GR55 implementation, but find the bass itself to not be my cup of tea.

Best case is that I find both the bass and the HexFx GR55 to be satisfactory. If either aspect fails, then I'd have to scrap the idea. Problem is that I can't just go to a local music shop and audition the Willcox. I'd have to purchase and rather quickly run the setup through its paces.

You're right that it's a significant chunk of $$ to lay down on something of an experiment, but the only way to know is to try, right? IMO, there's value in knowing what does or doesn't work, and why....even if it means I might lose a couple $$. Will continue to mull this over.

If you are going to use the Wilcox out on gigs, I just want to make sure you are aware of their somewhat-unique power supply and rechargeable batteries ( at least on mine ). In the long run, but might be an issue as rechargeable batteries of any kind tend to degrade over time. I don't use mine enough to tell you for sure.

 

[jimfist]

If you are going to use the Wilcox out on gigs, I just want to make sure you are aware of their somewhat-unique power supply and rechargeable batteries ( at least on mine ). In the long run, but might be an issue as rechargeable batteries of any kind tend to degrade over time. I don't use mine enough to tell you for sure.

Yup, that's one of my concerns, though I'm not gigging so much lately post-covid. Lots of gigs have just gone away.
I'd consider getting a backup, but also thinking 20 years down the road, could be an issue. I also need to find out if, when the HexFx is used with the GR-55, that arrangement supplies power to the bass through the 13 pin connector. That would be great.
The Lightwave system is something of a double edged sword, and it's making a 100% committment to Willcox a challenge.

 

[Tosh]

...I also need to find out if, when the HexFx is used with the GR-55, that arrangement supplies power to the bass through the 13 pin connector....

It does not. The Lightwave system requires more voltage than the GR-55 can deliver.

I've left my Saber plugged in for 32 hours straight before it's battery ran down. When I am playing it for a couple of hours/day, it goes all week before needing a re-charge. It can sit unused for months before the battery is discharged. Willcox sells replacement battery packs for about $100 IIRC.

As for playing it "normal" - it has piezo + optical pickups and a rotary control for blending. The tone controls are pretty effective, with a sweepable mid. It's light and has no neckdive. I changed out my strings and raised the action a bit shortly after I got mine. I wanted to get it closer to the feel of my Godin Ultra A4.

 

[jimfist]

It does not. The Lightwave system requires more voltage than the GR-55 can deliver.

I've left my Saber plugged in for 32 hours straight before it's battery ran down. When I am playing it for a couple of hours/day, it goes all week before needing a re-charge. It can sit unused for months before the battery is discharged. Willcox sells replacement battery packs for about $100 IIRC.

As for playing it "normal" - it has piezo + optical pickups and a rotary control for blending. The tone controls are pretty effective, with a sweepable mid. It's light and has no neckdive. I changed out my strings and raised the action a bit shortly after I got mine. I wanted to get it closer to the feel of my Godin Ultra A4.

OK. I can deal with that. Good news.
As for pick playing and palm muting, I understand that there's a bridge cover that may force the alteration of the muting position. Any insight on that aspect?

 

[CryingBass]

It does not. The Lightwave system requires more voltage than the GR-55 can deliver.

I've left my Saber plugged in for 32 hours straight before it's battery ran down. When I am playing it for a couple of hours/day, it goes all week before needing a re-charge. It can sit unused for months before the battery is discharged. Willcox sells replacement battery packs for about $100 IIRC.

As for playing it "normal" - it has piezo + optical pickups and a rotary control for blending. The tone controls are pretty effective, with a sweepable mid. It's light and has no neckdive. I changed out my strings and raised the action a bit shortly after I got mine. I wanted to get it closer to the feel of my Godin Ultra A4.

That's what I thought, and good news about actual battery task-life and full-life. Gotta get mine out again!

Op - good luck with your quest, but put a value to your time too. Wilcox, Godin Ultra, and other things mentioned might all work well for you. Take the plunge

 

[Tosh]

OK. I can deal with that. Good news.
As for pick playing and palm muting, I understand that there's a bridge cover that may force the alteration of the muting position. Any insight on that aspect?

There's not what I would call a bridge cover. My terminology might be off here - the "saddles" are underneath individual housings; there is no conventional bridge. This is needed to keep the photo-optics in shadow (wouldn't want to mute or distort a sound just because you turned into the spotlight, right?).

I don't palm-mute - I finger mute individual strings - so I'm comfortable with simply resting the meat of my hand on the body when needed. I can see how these attributes of the Lightwave could be difficult for more experienced players than myself. That's something you will have to decide for yourself.

Keep this in mind you will be learning new techniques simply because you'll be using new electronics (the GR-55, or SY-1000, or whathaveyou) so getting a different guitar for this purpose is just another part of the equation.

FWIW I've also been eyeing the Industrial Radio bass, though I would prefer the JP4 (which isn't actually available yet).

And if I bought a $4K bass my wife would require me to sell something to offset the expense, which would be VERY hard to do ;-}

 

[CryingBass]

Lightwave or the Highway! Lol

 

[Tosh]

how about "Lightwave, or Good-Bye Wave!"

seriously my wife is not like that ;-} She's just not sure why I need more than one (piano/bass/amp/computer/etc).

OP - I forgot to mention that one of the Lightwave's biggest advantages is that it has no unified bridge, so there is very little crosstalk between the pickups (optics don't care but piezo saddles do). When it comes to hexaphonic string processing, this is golden.

PS - let's talk about PTM latency

from MIDI Speed Tests - Axon Yamaha Roland:

GI-20 GUITAR SYNTH AUDIO DELAY
E 192800 195683 65.37414965568
A 287518 289717 49.86394557504
D 371610 373267 37.57369614272
G 475411 476797 31.4285714265

The GI-20 is regarded as either equal-to or better-than the GR-55 for pitch-to-MIDI performance. The Abysmal 65ms delay on the open E string cannot be overcome by any guitar system (other than some fret sensing tech EG Industrial Radio). I'm never going to tell someone you can play drums from a bass guitar in perfect sync.

But I still think there's a lot of possibility in hexaphonic guitar synthesis.

Many years ago, when the clavichord was the dominant keyboard instrument, and the piano was new to the scene, some performers claimed the piano was inferior to the clavichord because it's action as too slow.

AFAIK, Beethoven never even bothered with a Clavichord

 

[Quatschmacher]

FWIW I've also been eyeing the Industrial Radio bass, though I would prefer the JP4 (which isn't actually available yet).

It is, or was, when I ordered one in December 2019; just the website hadn’t been updated.

Still, see my caveats about buying one. Here’s a thought, maybe anyone interested in buying one should only do so on the condition that mine get finished first. That might give them a kick up the arse to get it done. Coming up three years now since I ordered and no replies to emails since August 2021. (I emailed in October 2021, March 2022 and again a couple of days ago - nothing!)

 

[jimfist]

The GI-20 is regarded as either equal-to or better-than the GR-55 for pitch-to-MIDI performance. The Abysmal 65ms delay on the open E string cannot be overcome by any guitar system (other than some fret sensing tech EG Industrial Radio). I'm never going to tell someone you can play drums from a bass guitar in perfect sync.

I'm going to have to dig harder to see if the Willcox Lightwave system brings the triggering of the GR-55 latency down to a reasonable amount. From what you describe, it won't. If that is the case then I'm not sure I want to go that route. And if the only other available options are Industrial Radio & Rob O'Reilly (both overseas with long wait times), then I may have to go back to square one and re-think this whole exercise.

Was hoping to do get this done so I'd have some toys to play with over the upcoming Christmas/New Year's vacation break, but it seems like it's going to take much longer to sort this out. Very difficult slog getting all the tech info I need up front so that I can make choices with confidence, and this stuff is way out on the fringes, evidently.

 

[sunbeast]

how about "Lightwave, or Good-Bye Wave!"

seriously my wife is not like that ;-} She's just not sure why I need more than one (piano/bass/amp/computer/etc).

OP - I forgot to mention that one of the Lightwave's biggest advantages is that it has no unified bridge, so there is very little crosstalk between the pickups (optics don't care but piezo saddles do). When it comes to hexaphonic string processing, this is golden.

PS - let's talk about PTM latency

from MIDI Speed Tests - Axon Yamaha Roland:

GI-20 GUITAR SYNTH AUDIO DELAY
E 192800 195683 65.37414965568
A 287518 289717 49.86394557504
D 371610 373267 37.57369614272
G 475411 476797 31.4285714265

The GI-20 is regarded as either equal-to or better-than the GR-55 for pitch-to-MIDI performance. The Abysmal 65ms delay on the open E string cannot be overcome by any guitar system (other than some fret sensing tech EG Industrial Radio). I'm never going to tell someone you can play drums from a bass guitar in perfect sync.

But I still think there's a lot of possibility in hexaphonic guitar synthesis.

Many years ago, when the clavichord was the dominant keyboard instrument, and the piano was new to the scene, some performers claimed the piano was inferior to the clavichord because it's action as too slow.

AFAIK, Beethoven never even bothered with a Clavichord

Interesting to see the difference between the pitch-to-MIDI and internal PCM triggering of the GR-55. As I've suspected from my own experience, the internal sounds do trigger a bit faster in the low notes than MIDI, but surprisingly overall the MIDI triggering is actually a tad faster as the higher notes clock a bit slower with the PCM sounds. I'm kinda curious if this doesn't have something to do with a note-envelope choice for the PCM sounds that is different than the external MIDI synths used for testing (since there is no other way to trigger the internal sounds than through a 13-pin instrument/pickup there is no way to test that hypothesis). Also worth noting that they discuss under the results that even the most direct MIDI-on note to a synth has an inevitable latency of its own directly in the synth being triggered that makes up a part of these measurements (though this would presumably be the same latency at any pitch).

I'm going to have to dig harder to see if the Willcox Lightwave system brings the triggering of the GR-55 latency down to a reasonable amount. From what you describe, it won't. If that is the case then I'm not sure I want to go that route. And if the only other available options are Industrial Radio & Rob O'Reilly (both overseas with long wait times), then I may have to go back to square one and re-think this whole exercise.

Was hoping to do get this done so I'd have some toys to play with over the upcoming Christmas/New Year's vacation break, but it seems like it's going to take much longer to sort this out. Very difficult slog getting all the tech info I need up front so that I can make choices with confidence, and this stuff is way out on the fringes, evidently.

Indeed the numbers don't lie (they may not necessarily be definitive, but are likely at least pretty close to what you should expect), and give a more illuminating view of the reality than any of us can with our own subjective feel for things. Even without the lag of processing and MIDI, etc the fastest pitch triggering algorithm still requires I believe a full wavelength of a fundamental to start to process- a note wavelength period is 1/frequency in seconds, so for example an E1 would be about 1/40 seconds or 25 milliseconds (possible some algorithms require only a half of a wavelength? I'm not familiar enough with tracking innovation to know).

 

[Tosh]

You're right it takes one complete wavelength for the pitch analysis process to work, and then you add to that additional time for the PCM sound(s) to be heard. This is the main reason I don't use PTM outside of the studio, and why I started using the SY-1000.

 

[jimfist]

You're right it takes one complete wavelength for the pitch analysis process to work, and then you add to that additional time for the PCM sound(s) to be heard. This is the main reason I don't use PTM outside of the studio, and why I started using the SY-1000.

Right. And this leaves us with the "fret sensing" technology of Industrial Radio (Australia) and Rob O'Reilly (Ireland) basses, as FretTrax (USA) no longer does this anymore, if I want to do things like separate string programming and alt tuning. Errrrmmmm....yeah, not looking good.

 

[sunbeast]

You're right it takes one complete wavelength for the pitch analysis process to work, and then you add to that additional time for the PCM sound(s) to be heard. This is the main reason I don't use PTM outside of the studio, and why I started using the SY-1000.

How does the SY1000 process pitch info? Does it use the same process used in the non-PCM "V-Guitar" sounds in the GR-55 (ie where you find the different types of guitar/bass models like the Jazz Bass, Rickenbacker but also a couple cool basic synth sounds like a wave synth)? I assume those must somehow be processing the audio from the instrument to make sounds rather than tracking the pitch? I like the few synths they give here in the GR55, but an entire pedal full would be amazing (if only the SY1000 didn’t cost around as much as a Moog!).

For my uses the GR55 is great, but yeah I wouldn’t rely on it for directly copping PCM sounds with a bass except in an experimental way (I layer a bunch of sounds through lots of delay and reverb for texture, also usually I am modifying the sounds to minimize their attack unless playing up the neck). It works fine for me with a guitar, though even then sounds like a piano or similar can be hit or miss just because of how obvious they are when they are “off”

 

[sunbeast]

Right. And this leaves us with the "fret sensing" technology of Industrial Radio (Australia) and Rob O'Reilly (Ireland) basses, as FretTrax (USA) no longer does this anymore, if I want to do things like separate string programming and alt tuning. Errrrmmmm....yeah, not looking good.

Are these made 13-pin compatible too, or I assume you mean to use these with something other than a GR-55 (which can’t be MIDI triggered)

 

[Snarf]

Non-starter. I can play a bit of keyboard, but carrying around that much additional baggage is a no-go.
I don't mind an additional floor pedal or two, or even a small rack module for sounds.

The two videos look really interesting...will look into those a little closer.
Thanks for the info!!

You're out of luck, then. My synth bass rig for a while was a laptop with an interface and midi controller running my own sounds in Reason. I tried to downsize and just use pedals. Tried GR55 and C4, both are awful. They make interesting toys, but they are not professional tools for live performance. The GR55 doesn't sound good, and has bad latency. The C4 can sound good, but the latency is truly bad.

I found a middle ground: Korg Minilogue and a mixer pedal (EHX Switchblade). The Minilogue is compact and easy to set up. I make my sounds from scratch because I learned analog synthesis through my laptop phase.

This, after lots of experimentation, is the only realistic way to get good synth sounds with the right feel and the smallest possible impact on my gear loadout. I may someday go to a workstation format and use the onboard sounds, just because I'd like the option to split the keyboard, layer multiple sounds, and have piano and keyboard sounds available. I used to do all that on the laptop, but that is so so so much extra setup that I'll never go back to it.

 

[jimfist]

Are these made 13-pin compatible too, or I assume you mean to use these with something other than a GR-55 (which can’t be MIDI triggered)

I don't think the Rob O'Reilly basses are 13-pin compatible...MIDI & USB for triggering, 1/4" jack for straight bass.

Industrial Radio: custom 15-pin connector to the interface box (below), & 1/4" (backup) out for straight bass.
The interface box has MIDI in/out and USB for triggering, and individual 1/4" piezo outs for audio processing each string, and a mag pickup 1/4" output.

It would appear that the 13-pin system is used by Willcox only at the moment, though I think the Godin A4 Bass Ultra (discontinued...son of a B&^#% !!) also has it. So the IR and RO fret sensing technology doesn't give access to the Roland goodies for individual string processing or tuning...at least not via a 13-pin connector.

What has me wanting the GR55 is, in great part, the ability to use bass and amp modeling for alt tunings at the press of a footswitch. Any idea how this tech plays out with the Willcox Lightwave in terms of latency specs?
I could still see myself going that route just so I can use one bass all night and not have to deal with 2 different tuned basses plus drop-D tuning for each. If the GR-55 can pull this off, then I'm still in business....possibly.

Or should I be looking at the SY-1000 for bass modeling & alt tuning?

 

[Snarf]

Oh, just to add a quick thought to this thread: A lot of bass lines that were written and performed on synths just play and groove so much better when you actually play them on a keyboard. My ultimate case in point is Ain't Nobody by Chaka Khan. I'm a fairly accomplished player and I make my living performing, but that damn bass line is really, really hard to play on an electric bass. But on a keyboard? No problemo. You just have to commit to working on developing a time feel on keyboard as opposed to a bass.

 

[Tosh]

How does the SY1000 process pitch info? Does it use the same process used in the non-PCM "V-Guitar" sounds in the GR-55 (ie where you find the different types of guitar/bass models like the Jazz Bass, Rickenbacker but also a couple cool basic synth sounds like a wave synth)? I assume those must somehow be processing the audio from the instrument to make sounds rather than tracking the pitch? I like the few synths they give here in the GR55, but an entire pedal full would be amazing (if only the SY1000 didn’t cost around as much as a Moog!).

For my uses the GR55 is great, but yeah I wouldn’t rely on it for directly copping PCM sounds with a bass except in an experimental way (I layer a bunch of sounds through lots of delay and reverb for texture, also usually I am modifying the sounds to minimize their attack unless playing up the neck). It works fine for me with a guitar, though even then sounds like a piano or similar can be hit or miss just because of how obvious they are when they are “off”

BOSS - SY-1000 | Guitar Synthesizer

The SY-1000 has a couple of different synth engines running; the Dynamic Synth is the most useful IMHO. It's real-time modelling on a per-string basis. Some patches do exhibit latency (typically the OSC voice) but for the most part it's truly real-time. It will do PTM but I find I get better results with the old GI-20.