Excellent 
Glad youâre glad!
^^^^^^
I must be pretty weird to want to play bass in a folksy jam band on a freaking Moog synth but, well, thatâs the instrument I want to play on. 
âPretty weirdâ sometimes rhymes with âinventionâ 
As a bass player the moog bass sound is my favorite synth bass. I often go to the Rezzo Bass patch (or variation of it) ⌠it works great for lead sounds too in the higher octaves.
The Little Phatty and my left hand form the bass player of one of my bands too.
Thatâs good to hear man. When I first had the sub 37 I couldnât get the right bass out of it as far as it fitting in perfectly for the music I like to play. What I found is that the release on the envelope was set to last too long and it was somehow changing the tone of the bass setting I was using. It makes it sound kind of like its in a can or else like its ringy?.. Anyway cutting the release to almost 0 and then getting a better speaker has made me feel like I may never need another bass instrument.
Its been great getting phat rich smooth bass tones out of this thing. I like how you can go from totally smooth creamy bass-- change the filter setting a bit, adjust slope, use feedback and multidrive and get lots of nice distortion out of it. Also the LFOâs are great for tremolo and are really suitable for lots of scenarios for the music I like to play.
All in all I am pretty impressed with this thing and its only growing on me over time.
About the LFO, precisely, I sometimes use it as a rythmic trick: using the saw down wave form on the filter cut off frequency and/or amp, you can get kind of a eighth note pattern just keeping the key pressed. A bit lazy but Iâve got my reasons
If in the future you decide you really need that metalic sound, you could always go for either a wavetable synth like blofeld or an FM synth. DX7âs are quite cheap but a pig to program. Other alternatives are analogue synths with FM. Check out things like Novation bass station2 or other Moog stuff with FM.
I donât know what you mean by metallic sound-- Iâm pretty brand new to synthesis and also pretty new as a musician..
Hi francklinstower,
Thatâs a nice turn you did . Please can I ask you to contribute to this thread, just for the records: http://forum.moogmusic.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=23186?
It helps us all to track down whatever problem (or no problem at all) to render a better picture of the Sub37 forces and weaknesses if any.
All the best with that new Sub37 !
Greg
I donât know what you mean by metallic sound
The sound of metal being struck like a bell or tines of an electric piano. These sounds contain complex harmonics that are difficult to achieve any other way. Yamahaâs DX range of synthesizers are FM synthesizers.FM synthesis modulates one oscillators frequency with another. Bit like pitch modulation with an lfo but using a hfo instead. Multiply that by 6 and you have a DX7. Btw all oscillators on the DX7 are sine waves only
Blofeld is a wavetable synthesizer. This has many digital soundwaves including lots of FM type waves for creating the same kinds of sounds.
Both these options are at the cheaper end of the scale. There are many other similar synths out there that can do similar.
Or you could âpseudo combineâ the two and go with a Sy77/TG77 or Sy99. (if you want the ability to import your own wave samples) You also get additional wave options for the operators, unlike the DX7.
Both are monster synths, but capable of those metallic sounds, not to mention very nice bass.
^^^^^^
Thank you for that-- I will do some research on your suggestions shortly. So far I am quite happy with the sub 37 and it seems to be fitting in very nicely. I am a simple guy and I donât want to get lots of equipment, I just want to play simple but beautiful music. If I find that the sub 37 cannot fill ALL of my bass needs then one more unit might be in order-- if that ends up being necessary I would prefer it to be a unit with no keyboard so I can run it with the sub 37. It would be interesting to mix the sub 37 with another synthâŚ
Right now my developing band has me on bass, a violinist and a drummer who uses Congas, Bongos and one other drum I donât know what it is called- its Irish. We plan to bring in a guitarist also and maybe a pianist. I would never have guessed that a Moog synth would set well with these other acoustic instruments but so far it is exquisitely beautiful.
So, where is your band located and how do I audition? Seriously does sound fun and interesting, and Iâve wanted to bring Moog and acoustic together for a long time. Do keep us all posted on the progress!
Oh dear! You donât want lots of gear? You have bought your first synthesizer. I have to warn you, they are addictive and you will end up with more. I remember my first synth, a korg karma that i thought would be enough for me. Im now up to eleven synths and an empty wallet.
Try layering your Sub with a Rhodes voice by using MIDI control. A ROMpler will provide a more accurate reproduction of a Rhodes than a DX7 or Blofeld. ROMplers may not be very hip or popular but itâs the easiest way to get a self contained Rhodes sound. Yamahaâs are popular. You could get a rack unit. Or pull a Rhodes sample from an iPhone or iPad, or laptop. A real piano bass will be much more alive, and if you got a piano bass with Midi sensors, you could still layer, but they are also much more expensive and heavy. Anyway, once control is set up you can then route the Rhodes audio out into the Moog, for extra fun with the filter, or just open the filter and turn off the oscillators to get a dry Rhodes sound without external mixers or requiring multiple outputs from the Rhodes. Set the key priority low, map the Sub keybed to mid or upper range, and set the oscillators to low footages and you can still comp Rhodes chords on top of an monophonic emphasized bass line. Or set the key priority high to help emphasize leads.
Nice idea. I might try that with some of my synths.
Iâm sorry guys but Iâm on the other side.
Francklinstower, I would rather challenge you to program the sound you need/want on your brand new Moog; tons of help can be gathered here.
Why?
For one, you said you were new to synths and itâs a great way to learn.
For two, I do prefer having only one instrument with tons of character than multiplying the units and diluting the sonic identity.
But hey, thatâs me
Iâm pretty much in the same camp. Last night I took Ftowerâs settings and started playing around with the LFO destination, just to see what would happen. 3 hours later I came up for air!
hi franklinstower. I am more of a bass player than a keyboard player. I only use my Sub37 for recording. I love the bass sound and find it much easier to get a good recording than my bass guitar. I have a BA-115HPT Ampeg I bought for bass guitar but it works great as a monitor. All the bass you want and more. Also you mentioned wah, just plug an expression pedal into the filter cv input and you have instant wah and filter sweeps. I use 3 pedals on my sub37 which is awesome since version 1.1 allows you to freely map the other two cv inputs (pitch,volume).