Wish Bass synth

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(Kidding aside, the current synth block does well on bass if you play above the 12th fret and set synth voices shift to -12)
 
Admin M@ said:
I really mean above a certain fundamental frequency of about 80Hz, where tracking is reasonably quick.

PS: Nice. I'm friends with Nathan. Have you seen his Mario stuff? Insane.
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Yes I’ve watched it !

Many bass synth pedals are disappointing, but sometimes using a compressor help them to track the notes. But in the axe even with a comp, impossible to have something fun. But yeah the synth in the axe are not done for the bass that’s why I asked
 
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My name is mud said:
Well I think I have tried everything today to have a bass synth patch but without success. The synth don’t track the bass , it glitch etc .

So if we can have whatever synth dedicated for bass it can be cool 👍🏻
Thank you
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The synth block doesn't track below around G1 on the low E string of a bass. This has been posted as a Wish several times but the Axe doesn't track pitch lower than that. @Admin M@ is this because when designing both the Axe II and Axe III, tracking below G1 was found to be too slow?

The workaround, which introduces some latency, is to run a parallel path where you have a Pitch block followed by the Synth block. Set the Pitch block to virtual capo one octave higher (100% wet) and feed that into the Synth with the Synth set to one octave down. This gives you a synth in unison, in parallel to your dry sound, so you still have the immediate attack from the dry signal and the synth locked to your pitch (albeit slightly late). You'll probably want to filter out some low end from one of the paths too.

The Source Audio C4 has great tracking down to B0, so the tech for lower tracking is there, but each unit has it's own type of pitch tracking.
 
Luca9583 said:
The synth block doesn't track below around G1 on the low E string of a bass. This has been posted as a Wish several times but the Axe doesn't track pitch lower than that. @Admin M@ is this because when designing both the Axe II and Axe III, tracking below G1 was found to be too slow?

The workaround, which introduces some latency, is to run a parallel path where you have a Pitch block followed by the Synth block. Set the Pitch block to virtual capo one octave higher (100% wet) and feed that into the Synth with the Synth set to one octave down. This gives you a synth in unison, in parallel to your dry sound, so you still have the immediate attack from the dry signal and the synth locked to your pitch (albeit slightly late). You'll probably want to filter out some low end from one of the paths too.

The Source Audio C4 has great tracking down to B0, so the tech for lower tracking is there, but each unit has it's own type of pitch tracking.
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Interesting trick . You mean that the axe himself cannot do that because of the hardware ?
 
My name is mud said:
Interesting trick . You mean that the axe himself cannot do that because of the hardware ?
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Yep the pitch tracking simply doesn't work below G1.

A more advanced method would be to combine the above with Jam Origin's Midi Bass with a Midi note to CC conversion script, so that:

Any notes above G1 on the bass send a CC to engage a second Synth block set to unison, and to mute the "octave down" Synth above.

Any notes Below G1 on the bass send a CC to mute the second Synth block set to unison, and to engage the "octave down" Synth above.

This way the Midi Bass plugin is used as a controller only, to toggle the bypass state of each Synth block depending on the actual pitch played by the bass. The benefit of this would be that for all notes from G1 and above, you wouldn't have the extra latency introduced by the Pitch Block.
 
Another cool feature of the C4 is that it allows you to specify the precise pitch tracking range to suit any range you like. I found with that pedal, that limiting the range to the actual available notes of your bass guitar tracked better than increasing that range to also include high guitar notes (eg for extended range guitars that extend lower down to bass territory).

So a future Fractal product could potentially have a selectable Guitar or Bass tracking mode or range, similar to the C4 or Boss SY 1000. This would be killer as the Axe's Synth is one of the best tracking monophonic guitar synths out there.
 
Luca9583 said:
Yep the pitch tracking simply doesn't work below G1.

A more advanced method would be to combine the above with Jam Origin's Midi Bass with a Midi note to CC conversion script, so that:

Any notes above G1 on the bass send a CC to engage a second Synth block set to unison, and to mute the "octave down" Synth above.

Any notes Below G1 on the bass send a CC to mute the second Synth block set to unison, and to engage the "octave down" Synth above.

This way the Midi Bass plugin is used as a controller only, to toggle the bypass state of each Synth block depending on the actual pitch played by the bass. The benefit of this would be that for all notes from G1 and above, you wouldn't have the extra latency introduced by the Pitch Block.
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But… like … a boss syb5 got a more advanced technology than an axe 3? That’s not all about coding ? I mean the axe is technically advanced in his hardware ?
 
My name is mud said:
You mean that the axe himself cannot do that because of the hardware ?
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My name is mud said:
That’s not all about coding ? I mean the axe is technically advanced in his hardware ?
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It can't conceivably be a hardware limitation as such.

However, perhaps the latency would be too great sampling lower frequencies using the current Axe algorithm. Or perhaps Cliff doesn't want to compromise a certain level of quality to go to lower frequencies. Or perhaps there are other (legal/patent) issues that prevent using other faster methods. Etc.

Nonetheless, the wish is valid...
 
+1
I do remember tho that the Panda Audio guys (Future Impact) took several iterations of their firmware to get the tracking to where it's at now.
IIRC you can also switch the unit from tracking for bass to tracking for guitars.

I need to get out my Future Impact pedal again.
 
My name is mud said:
But… like … a boss syb5 got a more advanced technology than an axe 3? That’s not all about coding ? I mean the axe is technically advanced in his hardware ?
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Having owned an Syb-5 and pretty much every bass synth pedal (and selling them all), i think the tracking on the Syb-5 for most notes, even though it does "track" down to A0, is pretty glitchy with some latency.

It's a totally valid wish for the Axe..i've been asking for it since the Axe II and would love to see it. If the C4 can do it then i'm sure the Axe can too.

The other thing to consider is how the actual synth tones are being created. From what i can tell, the Axe and C4 both sound like they're producing actual waves in their synths which then need to be triggered by a pitch tracker of some kind. Some of the none hex pickup Boss synth stuff (SY-1 for example) seems to be more of an "input shaping" kind of synth sound that often has unwanted overtones or sounds more organ like.

It would be great to see how all synth pedal manufacturers are achieving their pitch tracking, but i'm sure these are all kept behind the scenes for obvious reasons.

The Pigtronix Mothership models were both analog synths with a pitch tracking circuit..and these did track the low B0 of a 5 string bass but with some glitches. The C4 is also glitchy sometimes. The Eventide H9 could also track 5 string bass in bass mode but with an unplayable amount of latency.

So i think as @Admin M@ says above, the laws of physics mean that the lower in pitch you go, the slower the tracking is going to be, so i think each manufacturer will decide at which point/pitch the tracking is no longer acceptable and will cut the tracking range there. The workaround i mention above with the Pitch block does have latency but is still usable if blended with a direct or distorted sound.

For bass guitar synth tracking, i still think that a polyphonic pickup (Roland, Cycfi) is the best way to go for several reasons. You don't get the glitches from one string to another on monophonic lines and, in the case of the Roland/Boss hex gear, each string has a certain tracking range. So currently, the best possible setup which would be very expensive, would be to run a multichannel pickup into several C4 pedals (one for each string), to get the most up to date bass guitar synth.

I've mentioned this before on the forum, but a future modular Fractal product that would allow the user to have any combination of fx blocks (eg 5 Pitch blocks and 4 Synth blocks, but less Reverbs for example) and a multipin input, would be totally killer. Then you could assign each string to it's own Synth block and specify the tracking range of each Synth block.

For now though, the C4 is your best bet.
 
Luca9583 said:
Having owned an Syb-5 and pretty much every bass synth pedal (and selling them all), i think the tracking on the Syb-5 for most notes, even though it does "track" down to A0, is pretty glitchy with some latency.

It's a totally valid wish for the Axe..i've been asking for it since the Axe II and would love to see it. If the C4 can do it then i'm sure the Axe can too.

The other thing to consider is how the actual synth tones are being created. From what i can tell, the Axe and C4 both sound like they're producing actual waves in their synths which then need to be triggered by a pitch tracker of some kind. Some of the none hex pickup Boss synth stuff (SY-1 for example) seems to be more of an "input shaping" kind of synth sound that often has unwanted overtones or sounds more organ like.

It would be great to see how all synth pedal manufacturers are achieving their pitch tracking, but i'm sure these are all kept behind the scenes for obvious reasons.

The Pigtronix Mothership models were both analog synths with a pitch tracking circuit..and these did track the low B0 of a 5 string bass but with some glitches. The C4 is also glitchy sometimes. The Eventide H9 could also track 5 string bass in bass mode but with an unplayable amount of latency.

So i think as @Admin M@ says above, the laws of physics mean that the lower in pitch you go, the slower the tracking is going to be, so i think each manufacturer will decide at which point/pitch the tracking is no longer acceptable and will cut the tracking range there. The workaround i mention above with the Pitch block does have latency but is still usable if blended with a direct or distorted sound.

For bass guitar synth tracking, i still think that a polyphonic pickup (Roland, Cycfi) is the best way to go for several reasons. You don't get the glitches from one string to another on monophonic lines and, in the case of the Roland/Boss hex gear, each string has a certain tracking range. So currently, the best possible setup which would be very expensive, would be to run a multichannel pickup into several C4 pedals (one for each string), to get the most up to date bass guitar synth.

I've mentioned this before on the forum, but a future modular Fractal product that would allow the user to have any combination of fx blocks (eg 5 Pitch blocks and 4 Synth blocks, but less Reverbs for example) and a multipin input, would be totally killer. Then you could assign each string to it's own Synth block and specify the tracking range of each Synth block.

For now though, the C4 is your best bet.
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Sure the SYB5 is glitchy but still can do things that the axe can't . I mentioned it cause it is an old pedal and dont think that the axe 3 "can't" do that technically. I surely dont understand the why but only @FractalAudio can explain with simple words "why is it hard to put a bass synth effect in the axe 3?"
 
Luca9583 said:
It's a totally valid wish for the Axe..i've been asking for it since the Axe II and would love to see it. If the C4 can do it then i'm sure the Axe can too.
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I agree. Most dedicated synth pedals track better than the synth block in the Axe fx. So technically it can be done I guess. This goes for bass but also for guitar. The synth can use an update for sure.
 
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