Guys, you use the Big Muff on basslines when you run synths through it, not leads..pads..etc.
In case that's what you were doing.
Actually I tried it on leads, bass, kicks and various synth FX. Just didn't do much for me. I'm not sure what the vintage of the model was (I tried using it back in '99 or 2000). The build quality seemed good and it sounded nice on guitars though...
I'd love to try something like a Culture Vulture (supposed to be INCREDIBLE on synths), but they're a little out of my price range right now.
Deluxe Memory Man reissue! Or a Diamond Memory Lane if you're feeling slutty.
Here are the three top reasons guitar distortion pedals don't always sound great with synths:
1. A good guitar distortion cuts the lows on input to avoid fartyness. This can make your nice fat synth sound wimpy.
2. Many of the classic distortion circuits have a low input impedance in order to be reactive with the guitar pickup. Not good for synths.
3. Even a guitar sounds horrible with most distortion boxes unless it's plugged into a tube amp. This goes double for fuzzes. And quadruple for double fuzzes like the Big Muff. The classic guitar distortions are all designed to drive tube amps. Guitar amps are far from flat and can do wonders to smooth out harsh waves.
Solutions:
1. play it through a tube guitar amp
2. overdrive a mic preamp instead
3. use a modeling stompbox
electro harmonix pedals are great - i have the small stone (which is really nice, except for the slight gain reduction issue). tried some others as well and i have to say they'd make a great contribution to the signal path.
zoom made a series of analog distortion boxes a while back and discontinued...
i have the zoom tri-metal (actually just bought a 2nd)
sounds great on my mfb synth 2... i turn everything up except the gain (unless i want it more crunchy and can deal with the increased line noise)...
rat pedals are great as well (i have the deucetone)
i don't see how a cheap crappy pedal would be any better for a synth than a guitar in the long run. reminds me of another discussion on another forum about kaospads... why would you put your X-thousand dollar synth's signal into something that's actually going to degrade the final signal (unless of course that's what your going for).. but anyways...
1. A good guitar distortion cuts the lows on input to avoid fartyness. This can make your nice fat synth sound wimpy.
Too true, I have experienced this. They don't do synth bass any justice (unless you want a thin bass sound for the mix - still a usable color) but still shine for mids and highs.
1. A good guitar distortion cuts the lows on input to avoid fartyness. This can make your nice fat synth sound wimpy.
2. Many of the classic distortion circuits have a low input impedance in order to be reactive with the guitar pickup. Not good for synths.
3. Even a guitar sounds horrible with most distortion boxes unless it's plugged into a tube amp. This goes double for fuzzes. And quadruple for double fuzzes like the Big Muff. The classic guitar distortions are all designed to drive tube amps. Guitar amps are far from flat and can do wonders to smooth out harsh waves.
Solutions:
1. play it through a tube guitar amp
2. overdrive a mic preamp instead
3. use a modeling stompbox
Solution 4: Patch your stompbox into a send on your console and bring it back in on a seperate channel from the synth and keep the send master gains down in order to prevent driving the effects pedal too hard. I've got my RAT patched into aux 4 on my desk all the time so I can dial in 'bite' to pretty much anything.
Deluxe Memory Man reissue! Or a Diamond Memory Lane if you're feeling slutty.
Here are the three top reasons guitar distortion pedals don't always sound great with synths:
1. A good guitar distortion cuts the lows on input to avoid fartyness. This can make your nice fat synth sound wimpy.
2. Many of the classic distortion circuits have a low input impedance in order to be reactive with the guitar pickup. Not good for synths.
3. Even a guitar sounds horrible with most distortion boxes unless it's plugged into a tube amp. This goes double for fuzzes. And quadruple for double fuzzes like the Big Muff. The classic guitar distortions are all designed to drive tube amps. Guitar amps are far from flat and can do wonders to smooth out harsh waves.
Solutions:
1. play it through a tube guitar amp
2. overdrive a mic preamp instead
3. use a modeling stompbox
5. use in parallel with a high passed EQ focusing on the highs more. Thats what I prefer.
This is pretty much like 4 I guess..but a great way to get analogue distortion all over your mix.
I use a Nord Lead 2x that i run thru a series of pedals live. I am really happy with this cause I love the Nord Lead in so many ways, but it's a bit sterile sometimes and lack any kind of fx, so the pedals add a little mojo to the sound and I get to hand pick my FX and control them with my feet, that wouldn't be possible with internal FX in a keyboard.
1. Boss DS-1 distortion, really old one, sounds great on screaming leads. Gonna compare it with a RAT later this week just for fun.
2. EH Nano Small Stone, really nice phaser, I chose the nano because i needed a small pedal board to fit under the keyboard stand. Does exactly what I want and it sounds great!
3. TC Corona Chorus, I tried loads of choruses and this was the best one for me. I use the stereo out and it just widens it up without sounding very "chorus-y", really smooth! I never turn this one off.
4. Boss RE-20, emulation of Rolands Space Echo. It has stereo in and out witch is great cause i want the chorus before the delay. Nice delay, steals a little bit of treble on the dry signal when activated but it doesn't really bother me.
5. Boss RV-5, reverb pedal, I use the plate and the spring modes most. Also has true stereo in and out so it doesn't mess up my nice stereo chorus.
I am using a Damage Control Liquid Blues tube OD pedal. It is no starved plate and runs
the dual 12ax7's at 250 volts. It has a clarity knob that allows you to blend the amount of signal or unaffected signal. The OD drive is not over the top plus it has a really nice Opto compressor dial. Also thrown in is a Treble dial I have just two hardware VA's and use their mono sum into the LB. Another good reason going this route is I can use my Pre-73 single channel mic/line preamp. instead of tracking with my crusty old 1202. going mono out of my Miniak and Xio is no problem here. I have a Rocktron Delay pedal in the chain following the Tube OD but mainly use Plugs for FX. I don't use much drive and usually use the pedal to warm things up. It doesn't sound muddy when I make slight tweaks. When I want more grit I turn up the OD knob
3. Even a guitar sounds horrible with most distortion boxes unless it's plugged into a tube amp. This goes double for fuzzes. And quadruple for double fuzzes like the Big Muff. The classic guitar distortions are all designed to drive tube amps. Guitar amps are far from flat and can do wonders to smooth out harsh waves.
I realize I'm replying to a somewhat old post, but I have to disagree here... guitar into a fuzzbox going straight into a mixer is a pretty classic tone. T Rex did this a lot for example. Guitar amps tend to smooth out the top end, going direct gives a super fizzy fuzz tone with all those high harmonics intact.
Solution 4: Patch your stompbox into a send on your console and bring it back in on a seperate channel from the synth and keep the send master gains down in order to prevent driving the effects pedal too hard. I've got my RAT patched into aux 4 on my desk all the time so I can dial in 'bite' to pretty much anything.
Ding ding ding
This is how I do it. I have a modded Boss CE2B (mods for clarity, depth, speed and ce2 spec) that I use as a send on my mixer. This is especially useful to me since using Mopho KB and Tetra means separate outs and the Boss is mono.
Other pedals I like are the MXR Distortion+, Phase 100, Strymon Timeline and Eventide Space. I'm thinking I may sell the Phase 100 and Distortion+ to get Strymon's new Möbius pedal... Mmm
I have some Electro-Harmonix tube pedals and a big Line 6 digital FX stomp box.
The tube pedals are awesome, some are filters can can be controlled by CV (tube EQ) or volume (Tube zipper). The Tube zipper does a really nasty filter sweep.
The "guitar" lead sound in this track is actually a Polivox processed by the Tube EQ:
The digital FX boxes are also impressive, I have the Pod HD500 which emulates a load of vintage FX and amps etc. It lets you set up chains of different FX for some really quite sophisticated effects.
__________________
I don't care how it's made. I only care that it sounds good ...but analogue is more fun.
Using the FX sends on a mixer will give you flexibility & ability to effect more than one keyboard at once.
I really like eventide time factor and line6 M9 as they can receive midi program changes.
TC Electronics Hall Of Fame & Flashback are nice. I also rather like the MXR Carbon Copy, it has got a nice modulation feature that adds a bit of a detuned warble to the sound. Of course the RAT is nice on monosynths, and the Boss TU-2 is a great tuner if you've got a synth that drifts on you.
without trying to STEAL this thread id like to ask a question which is very relevant to this thread - maybe even FUNDAMENTAL
whats the best way to connect synth to guitar pedal ? especially in regard to impedances and output level (Ohm / dB)
i mean its obvious you can take synth MONO OUT (Unblanced TS) and plug it into pedal INPUT and off you go... whats the problem you may ask... well iam not so sure this is so obvious solution - synth is not a guitar - generally when connecting synth proffesionally you have to keep an eye on IMPEDANCE and LEVEL OUTPUT unless you want a shitty sound... modern synths typically output -10 dB LINE OUTPUT while some PROFFESIONAL WORKSTATIONS output +4dB LINE OUTPUT... similarily OUTPUT IMPEDANCE varies from 85 Ohm (Korg Kronos) to 1000 Ohm (EMU Proteus MPS)... needles to say that LEVEL and IMPEDANCE mismatch greatly affects sound...
what is the typical / average electric guitar OUTPUT LEVEL and IMPEDANCE or in other words what do these guitar-pedals "expect" to get on their INPUT... if you want to make most out of the pedal and make it sound like the pedal manufacturer planed - you should spend some time customising the signal coming from your synth to resemble the guitar signal that the pedal "expect" for optimum sound...
mizpulyn, this has been discussed numerous times before in this and other threads, no real secret there =) I'm a fan of the Pigtronix Keymaster for that type of stuff.
New Reply 
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Too true, I have experienced this. They don't do synth bass any justice (unless you want a thin bass sound for the mix - still a usable color) but still shine for mids and highs.
LAVLAB IS HERE! 
