LeftyBassist.com

A friend of mine from another forum worked with me last year on trading some bass synthesizer pedals for the purposes of review. I'm still surprised he let me handle such expensive pedals, but I'm glad he did.

First up is the AKAI Deep Impact, made famous by Chris Wolstenholme's extensive use of it in the band Muse.

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Akai Deep Impact (Discontinued, $300-400+ on eBay)

POWER: 9V DC, 2.1mm center-negative – the Boss standard. 180mA current draw.

SIZE: 140mm X 175mm X 61mm

FREQUENCY RANGE: 30Hz - 470Hz

BLEND: The clean/synth blend on the Deep Impact is referred to as “balance.” It seems to work well enough. However, it has some minor but noticeable high-end rolloff.

PROGRAMMABILITY: It features 9 programmable channels, which is convenient for storing your favorite settings and being able to recall them on the fly. However, accessing them is not so convenient – the available “Program Up” footswitch on the Deep Impact is only for cycling up through the programmed settings. If you want, you can buy a single-button footswitch to plug into the Deep Impact in order to cycle downward (“Program Down”). A digital display labeled “Prog. No.” tells you which channel you're currently using.

PRESETS: There are nine total preset sound types – Dark Bubble, Hardcore, Kitaroh Bass, Bright Synth, Brats, Fat Bottom, Majesty, Hot Space, and Hiccups.

INPUT: Single input, with an Input gain adjustment to improve tracking and prevent unwanted distortion. The three colored LEDs (green, yellow, and red) act as your guides to tell you how hot your signal is, so you can adjust the knob accordingly until you don't get a red light anymore.

OUTPUT: Single output, and an output adjustment knob.

CONTROLS: A “Parameter” knob controls which of the synthesizer parameters you can adjust, and a second knob by the digital display allows you to adjust the parameter from 1 to 9 (5 being the normal setting). The parameter value shows up in the digital display labeled “Data”. You can adjust The Note On and Note Off levels (the triggering of the notes; “Off” for triggering the end of the effect, and “On” for triggering the start), the Preset sound, the Attack, the effect Decay, the Envelope Depth, the Dynamics (for setting sensitivity), the Cutoff, the Resonance, the Balance (for blending the clean and synth signals), and the Level.
The two-knob control setup is great for preventing any accidental adjustments, but it's also a pain to use when you are trying to craft your 9 programmed sounds. It's not exactly “user-friendly”...

SOUNDS: The most important part of any synth pedal is how it sounds, and this is where the Deep Impact somewhat disappointed me. A few presets are nice; Hardcore is great for a distorted synth tone, Dark Bubble has a bit of funk to it, and Majesty is a weird, warbly, and ambient tone that reminds me of a few old 80's cult movies. Many synth tones had an “ambient” feel to them, which would have been nice if they had sounded more natural. Overall, all 9 presets seemed “cheesy” to me – they seemed more appropriate for a keyboard than for a bass. However, this is a perfect keyboard "replacement" - it nails those sorts of classic synthesizer sounds that you can't achieve with an envelope filter / distortion / octaver combo. But, you will need to learn how to deal with its tracking...

TRACKING: The tracking on the Deep Impact isn't too great compared to the other two synth pedals. It can glitch up when you play fast. It doesn't always like quick transitions from one string to another. Whether the note was high or low, it sometimes didn't track, and it sometimes tracked with warbles and glitches. Some patient and careful tweaking can help, but tracking's still not perfect. I tried the pedal out using standard EADG tuning only.

SUMMARY: Small profile, pedalboard-friendly. Unfriendly controls for the frequent tweaker, but excellent for preventing accidental adjustments. A mix of classic and cheesy synthesizer sounds. Great keyboard replacement, as long as you don't try anything too fancy in terms of dynamics. I honestly think it's over-hyped and not worth the price, but the programmability is a huge plus.

OVERALL SCORE:

Next up is the Korg G5, a long discontinued "behemoth" of a pedal.

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Korg G5 Synth Bass Processor (Discontinued, $300-400+ on eBay)

POWER: 9V DC, 2.1mm center-negative – the Boss standard. 400mA current draw.

SIZE: 280.8mm X 210.4mm X 39mm - it's huge, unfortunately, and that's a drawback for those with limited board space.

FREQUENCY RANGE: 20Hz – 20KHz

BLEND: It uses a Mix knob to provide the clean/synth blending, and it works really well. The high end rolloff is negligible, IMO.

PROGRAMMABILITY: Like the Deep Impact, the G5 has 9 programmable channels. However, unlike the Deep Impact, it's a very user-friendly setup. There are four switches total: 1, 2, 3, and Bank. Bank allows you to toggle between the 3 different groups of 3 channels, each represented by a different color LED; when the LED by Bank is green, you're in group 1; when it's red, you're in group 2; when it's yellow, you're in group 3. The channel switches always have red LEDs. When you stomp on one to bypass for the clean signal only, the LED of that channel will flash. Korg's indicator approach is a bit confusing at first, but it's easy to become familiar with it.

PRESETS: There are 11 preset sounds – Two sawtooth waves (one fast, one slow); two sawtooth waves with square waves one octave below (one fast, one slow); three very different fuzz waves; an envelope filter; and two different vocal filter sounds.

INPUT: Single input, with an Input gain adjustment to improve tracking and prevent unwanted distortion. A “Peak” LED indicator flashes when the input is too high. I'd recommend adjusting the Input level until the LED seldom comes on.

OUTPUT: An Output gain adjustment allows you to control the overall output of the G5. There are also four different outputs – a Mix output (use this for your amp), a Synth Output (use this for sending only the synthesizer sound), a Phones output (for headphone use), and a Tuner output (self-explanatory).

CONTROLS: There are 6 parameter knobs – Waveform, Intensity, Decay, Resonance, Mix (described earlier), and Level. Waveform allows you to select one of the 11 preset sounds. Decay and Resonance are fairly straightforward (same as with the Deep Impact), controlling filter sweep decay and filter resonance strength respectively. Intensity is a bit of an odd control; it allows you to change both the depth and the direction of the filter sweep. The start cutoff frequency is automatically set, but an optional expression pedal can adjust that in real time. I didn't have an expression pedal to test this with, however. The one thing that really bugged me was that when you set the Intensity to “0”, it's an unpleasant sound – it's flat and muffled, no matter what the waveform happens to be; I think it's supposed to be that way, though. All of the other possible settings are much better anyway.

SOUNDS: The Korg was very impressive in this department. Every preset sound had something to offer me. It sounds very "organic" and is perfect for combining with ambient effects. I was particularly fond of the more bizarre fuzz waves, and the two sawtooth/square wave mixes. Depending on how you set up the controls for the fuzz waves, you could easily use them as standalone fuzz pedal replacements (and you'd be able to blend your clean sound in!). The envelope filter is very good as well – it has a nice, funky sound to it that can be smooth or quacky while still being reasonably easy to manage in terms of volume dynamics. I really didn't care much for the vocal filters, but they're interesting sounds nevertheless. All of the preset sounds offer a great degree of flexibility. The Deep Impact seemed to spend more of its resources on establishing a controllable tone, whereas the Korg doesn't worry about that (see Tracking below).

TRACKING: When I first tried this at a low volume in my apartment, I thought the tracking wasn't too great. I tried it again with the volume up, and I realized it really doesn't have tracking issues – I had just never heard the waveform sounds the G5 could make. The tracking is really good on this unit; the manual says the G5 should be played only with single notes, but it actually handled chords well. The manual also says it should only be played using standard EADG tuning; I'm not sure how true this is, as I didn't try it with any other tunings, but it performs so well on the other strings that I think it could probably handle a low B.

SUMMARY: The Korg G5's interface and features are definitely the most stage-friendly of all. It's the largest of the synthesizer pedals I tried, unfortunately, but for what it offers, it's forgivable. The sounds and tracking are very good, and despite being a digital pedal, the various sounds come off as feeling “natural” (except the vocal filters). It'd be interesting to see just how useful the expression pedal would be for the G5. The Korg G5 is definitely the one that I wish would be reissued!

OVERALL SCORE:

Finally, there is the EHX Bass Micro Synthesizer, still in production, and seen on the boards of those such as Juan Alderete of The Mars Volta.

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EHX Bass Micro Synthesizer ($240 - $280 New)

POWER: 24V AC, positive-tip adapter. It needs its own special adapter to power it, or you can use a Y-cable and two 12VDC outputs on a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2. There is a Power switch on top for turning the pedal's power source on and off. You need to have this on to use the pedal, or to even let a bypassed signal through. The LED indicator only tells you if this switch is on – it does not tell you if the effect is on. The stomp switch could use an LED indicator, but it doesn't have one.

SIZE: 8” X 6.75” X 1”, more or less.

FREQUENCY RANGE: Unknown?

BLEND: There really isn't a true “blend” on this pedal, because of how it's designed. You can mix your original signal with any of the Octaves and the Square Wave, but everything is affected by the Attack Delay and the filter section.

PROGRAMMABILITY: No programmability (it's a shame!)...

PRESETS: None – as it is an analog pedal, there are no presets to work with.

INPUT: Standard input. An input gain pot is mounted on the bottom of the pedal. Insert a small flathead screwdriver in the hole on the bottom of the pedal to adjust the input gain as needed to prevent unwanted distortion and tracking issues. The instruction manual describes a good method to properly set the input gain, which you will most likely have to do if you bought it new and are using an active bass (you probably won't need to for a passive bass).

OUTPUT: Standard output, nothing extra.

CONTROLS: There are 10 sliders on the BMS. The first section is for the Trigger (for setting the sensitivity of the filter section). The second section is for the Voicing Filters: Sub Octave (generates a note one octave below the original signal), Guitar (the clean signal, despite its deceptive label), Octave Up (generates a note one octave above the original signal, lightly distorted on purpose), and Square Wave (generates a fuzz tone somewhat similar to the Big Muff sound). You can slide them up and down from 0 to 10, to create a variety of mixed tones.

The next section is for the Attack Delay. This slider is similar to the “Slow Gear” effect; it creates a violin-like volume swell for your notes. At 0, there's no effect; at 10, the delay and swell are at their longest. This can also be useful for softening your attack a bit.

The last section is for the Envelope Filter: Resonance (same as the other pedals), Start Frequency (marks the start point of the filter sweep), Stop frequency (marks the end point of the filter sweep), and Rate.

SOUNDS: You can get some really cool sounds out of this pedal. There's still a learning curve, but the manual is really helpful with its sample settings. The octave section alone is very good; dialing out the clean signal completely allows for a more dramatic synthesizer tone. I personally like to leave a good amount of clean signal in for extra fullness. The Attack Delay is fun to play with, and it's a feature none of the other synth pedals have. The filter section is very flexible, and besides being able to dial in a variety of large and small filter sweeps, you can hone in on a particular frequency for even more bizarre tones. I've been able to create everything from organ-like tones (although not as amazing as those of the EHX POG) to sequencer effects to wild lead synthesizer sweeps. While it doesn't have the range of waveforms found on the Korg G5, the BMS makes up for it with a unique filter section, a “Slow Gear” effect, and great octave functions. It's more of a multi-purpose pedal than a synthesizer pedal, it seems.

TRACKING: The tracking is very good overall, but it takes some work to get it right. It's important to set up the Trigger properly so it doesn't “double-track.” For the Sub Octave, it's like most other octave-down pedals; on the lowest E-string notes, it'll sound a bit distorted and warbly sometimes, but even then it stands up to the test. You need to adjust the Trigger and Attack Delay accordingly to suit your playing style, or you'll find yourself wondering why the filter didn't trigger.

SUMMARY: Excellent tones, and features that you won't find on the other pedals. The interface is fairly user-friendly, and doesn't take long to learn. The bypass is reportedly not too great, but I haven't had any issues with it, and there's enough room inside to easily modify it for true bypass if you really want to. The major drawbacks: needs its own special adapter, the sliders are easy to knock out of place, and it's NOT programmable! These three issues make it very difficult to incorporate into a live-gig pedalboard, but the crazy ones find a way.

OVERALL SCORE: