I am an bass player playing in a 4 piece rock band. We would like to add a keyboard sound (mainly chords) to fill in the mix. We do not have a keyboard player. I remember seeing Sting play pedals on the first tour they had in the USA and assumed this was what he was using them for. Can anyone Help Me figure this out? What do I but? How doeas it worK?
They are bass pedals… they dont play “chords”, but they play monophonic bass synth notes. I would’nt really call it a “keyboard sound”, its more like a huge earth shattering bass sound…
Thanks for the reply…are there any pedals out there that can be programmed to sound like chords?
Rush had the same problem in 1979. The pedals with self-contained sounds are mostly all monophonic. The Moog Taurus III might be the only self-contained unit available as a new product right now.
The other way to go is with MIDI pedals, which don’t make any sound, just MIDI interface note-on/off commands and a few other tricks. Actually, the Taurus III can do MIDI and make its own noises. Anyway, then you can hook up a MIDI sound module and play it from the pedals. If you get a module with a decent “multi” mode, you could program chords to respond to each pedal press. I used to run an old Kawai K1m module with a set of Roland PK5 pedals. I think the PK5 pedals could be programmed for multiple notes or at least more than one octave per pedal, but I don’t remember now and programming them causes headaches. The Kawai did not have good bass, but it did provide some high strings and chordal stuff. If you want the analog synthesizer sound, look at the Roland MKS-50. It does not have MIDI multi mode, but it does have a unique “chord memory” function.
you could get a set of midi pedals and connect them to something thats programmed to play chords. I believe thats currently what Rush does now, just uses the pedals to trigger midi events.
Eric
Thank You for the info…Can you advise me as to what specific products I should purchase to accomplish this. It is obvious that I know nothing about this type of application. Thanks to everyone for your help!
I’m going to take a conservative approach - if you don’t know what you want to do, then don’t waste your money. Does anyone in the band have any keyboard experience? If so, then they should be the ones looking into it. If not, and there’s just a general idea that “we need keyboards” but you don’t know what kind of sounds and/or don’t have any specific ideas, then I’m guessing that you don’t really need keyboards.
OK, take everything I just said with a grain of salt, but also take the idea that you “need” keyboards with a grain of salt! 
Let’s try a different tack:
-
What are the instruments in your band now?
-
Do you play originals or covers?
-
Are there any specific songs you are trying to cover that have keyboards?
-
What is lacking that makes you feel the need to “fill in the mix”?
-
Maybe add some effects to your bass, like distortion, if you feel like you are missing something during guitar solos? Or if you have a singer, have him play keyboards sometimes?
Hope this helps! I myself have used Roland PK-5 MIDI pedals to control a synth (usually the Little Phatty), as well as the Taurus 3 bass pedals. But it’s not easy playing bass pedals and bass at the same time. Also, I’m just playing single notes with the bass pedals, not chords.
You need a Digikick, http://www.digikick.com/
MIDI’d to a polyphonic synthesizer.
You can program each of the many footswitches to play any 3-note chord. This allows a guitarist, bassist or even the drummer to play piano & synthesizer chords while playing their primary instrument as well.
I played bass & bass pedals off and on for several years, all small gigs in bars and such, and we never had a keyboard player unless it was me. The best role for the pedals has always been high sustaining strings. As much as everyone loves to rave about that huge Taurus bass sound, it’s the high strings that bring something new to the sound of the band. There’s already a bass guitar for the low end. Every time I felt too lazy to lug the pedals out, my band mates always commented that something was missing and I needed to remember the pedals next time.
Listen to Rush’s Snakes Arrows album (sorry to keep bringing them up, there are lots of other musicians) … Nick Rascalwicz (whatever) put Taurus I’s on almost every track. But the way he did it, the Taurus didn’t really add anything that EQ couldn’t have done with the bass guitar sound, and most people won’t even realize they are there. I like my synths, pedal or otherwise, to stand out and have their own space. That’s how you expand the sound of a band.
The T3’s have a bank of traditional synth sounds: the “yeah yeah yeahs” sound, a soft horn, high rezz lead, etc.
Certainly, you can tune the OSCs off of each other, introduce beating, etc. yielding a sound much more monophonic that what one might consider a single note.
And as mentioned, certainly, you can MIDI wire up a set of Bass pedals to an external module or kbd. I recently purchased an OB Matrix 1000 of eBay specifically for Strings and am very pleased with what it can do.
Not sure if this suits your situation but it’s just a bit more info ontop of what some of the other guys contributed.
.
Lots of choices. I don’t agree that Taurus III would be a bad choice. Sometimes you can drop the bomb literally in the bass range with a foot pedal unit like the Taurus and play chords on your bass in a baritone to tenor range. It would change the way you play YOUR main instrument and save the bottom for the pedals. You know, I understand where you’re at. You’ve got ideas - not sure what to buy, where to go with it. As a bass player, I think you should be concentrating on being the best bass player you can be. YOU can play chords on your bass and sustain cool deep monster low end on pedals. With a Taurus III you can even trigger other synthesizers (I believe it does have MIDI -musical instrument digital interface- so you can play the Taurus sound or something else… or both… 
) and it has the capacity to play arpeggiation. In my view, your band could invest in a Taurus and add a whole lot of possibilities. I think you wanted to hear some ideas - there you go brother.
I am lusting after that damn Taurus III myself. 
But my wife won’t let me sell any of my prized gear to make that happen!! She’s way smarter than me and she’s the best.
Basically what I’m saying is - route your bass through something that will enhance the bass sound, play the chords on THAT and use something like a Taurus for the real bottom end. Have you ever checked into Electro Harmonix pedals for your bass? Wow, I just had a neat idea! Check out the EH Voice Box. You can route the signal of your bass through that… and route a separate microphone through it to use it. Whatever you play on the bass and whatever you sing through the dedicated mic will create all kinds of interesting effects (vocode, harmonies, whistle effect… ) ----- check out Jack Conte’s video demo of the Voice Box on You Tube. Maybe you can use a mic and a voice box to create something extra as well!
Think backwards is what I’m saying dude!!! Play those chords you’re talking about on your bass and get pedals to chunk up and tweak the sound of it. Save the foot pedals for the actual bottom - I highly suggest looking at videos for the Moog Taurus III <<check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipJKiXh7A-w&feature=related>>, remembering that you can also pick up other synthesizers (with MIDI) on the cheap… doesn’t matter if they’re beat to hell as long as they have functionality and output… and trigger those WITH the pedals (although you’re probably going to be sitting down at your shows brother!).
Check out that Voice Box while you’re looking into pedal control. Of course I don’t what style music you’re into… but that doesn’t mean YOU can’t push the envelope. Look what the New Wave Punk era did in the 80’s…
There are a lot of bass pedals and other accessories that are available right now you can look for it through online by searching, which is the fastest way. Some of them need to be program so it’s up to you if you want to do it by yourself anyway there are also a lot of donwloadable programs in order to set it according to your desire.