Freqbox or RingMod for synthbass with electric bass?

[MBlom]

I love it when my bass sound like a synth, and so far I´ve put it through a MachineDrum for som amplitude modulation or sample reduction. But that gives it more of a distorted sound than a synth-like sound. I own a MF-101, which I absolutely adore, and thought I´d add another Moogerfooger for this purpose. I have tried a MF-102 RingMod and with mild settings I was able to get nice sound of it. Though I realise ring modulation is more of an atonal, spacy effect than a "tone shaper" of an existing sound/melody, and the latter is what I´m intersested in, not at all the former. I haven´t tried a Freqbox but to me it seems like the hard sync on it would be just the thing for me, and I imagine I could get a much wider palette of sounds from it than a RingMod when using it to turn my bass into a bassline synth. So, am I way off or do you think the Freqbox is the thing for me?

[Alien8]

I just did some experimenting myself with the sounds you mention.

I went EHX microsynth to do it. Mind you I do own a Freqbox and Ring Mod too... The Freqbox will do it, but the hard sync gives you some gnarly grinding tones.

Funny enough, both together and a volume pedal with an expression out would help you here - especially with your filter. Add a CP-251 and you're right where you need to be. The freqbox for the fuzz tones, Ring mod for the octave up / down sound, and the expression pedal / CP-251 for the filter sweeps. The Microsynth is just a compact get er dun kinda package, the foogers give you sooooooooo much more, but they are hard to move around as a package and set-up for week day jams - I leave em at home now.

[MBlom]

What do you mean when you say the Ring Mod does the octave up / down sounds, can it be set to give precisely octaves? I was under the impression it changed pitch gradually and sweep.

[EricK]

I haven't done this in awhile, but if you feed one of the Ring Mod's outputs (Either osc or carrier out, I can't remember) the mix knob becomes more of an "octave" knob, selecting from high or low octaves.

You can send a sample and hold to the mix and have it randomly switch octaves if you wanted.

It gets interesting how Foogers have all these different functions built in to them.

[ColorForm2113]

Or just spilt your signal before going into the ringmod, and send one to a mixer then to the carrier in. you will need to boost the signal to make it equal to the level of your average cv volume. Then depending on how you eq the signal going in it will be octave up or down (more bass = octave down, more treble = octave up)

[bunnyman]

Well, the way a typical ring mod works is that the output is the addition and subtraction of the carrier and modulator frequencies. Therefore, if you input the same frequency to both inputs, you'll have an output of an octave higher (2x initial frequency.) IE, if you input A above middle C (440Hz) into both inputs, you'll have an output of 880Hz. However, if you put 440Hz into the carrier input and the internal modulator oscillator is set to 100Hz, the output will be 550Hz AND 340Hz, which would sound pretty gnarly. It's also why ring mods are great for making inharmonic bell tones or making your bass sound like a giant rubber band. While getting an octave higher is easy as pie (put the same signal in both inputs), I'm not really sure how you'd get an octave LOWER. I haven't used the MF ring mod (I have an EH Frequency Analyzer), but my bas guitar into the ring mod into my Big Briar MF-101 (which is also being controlled w/ a Moog foot pedal) sounds awesome and pretty synthly... <sorry for rambling...>

[ColorForm2113]

I'm not really sure how you'd get an octave LOWER.

See my post above. I'll see if I can through together some sort of demo this week to explain it better.

[MBlom]

Got to try the FreqBox today. It sure needs som serious taming! Had the suspicion that people who talk about it as a fuzz box didn´t know how to get the settings right for making hard synched oscillator scream synth lines, but now I know it´s not that easy.

So I got quite doubtful whether this is the thing for me. Didn´t have more than 15 min to try it, so I can´t say I gave it a thorough examination, at the end I managed to bring it down a notch by setting the mix at 4-5. But I didn´t quite feel that it gave the notes I played, but a wall of noise instead that could be altered. Hmmm. Now I need some serious persuasion from you guys!

And, yes, I tried it through a MF-101 to bring down the highs.

[EricK]

There have been a lot of people on this forum who have voiced much displeasure with the freqbox.

WHen I saw Les Claypool, he had some sort of synth effect that he ran his bass thru for what seems to be what you are trying to do. I videotaped the show and he opens with this sound. I think he is using an Access Virus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CK5jNv5CyM

[EricK]

Try turning the envelope and fm down.

[MBlom]

Turned envelope and fm to zero before I even switched it on

Thanks for the advice Eric, but I'm so turned on (sorry) by the idea of having a bunch of foogers to put my bass, guitar and synths through and possibly even make a synth of it's own out of 'em, so I'll give the FreqBox a try again with more time to really get a feel of it. I'll bring my own bass and MF-101 to the store then. The MF-101 looks so lonely by itself. It deserves some friends.

I'm not giving up on foogers yet!

[EricK]

Hey,
Don't get me wrong, Im not trying to dissuade you from doing that at all. Id like you to have all the info to make an objective decsion. I think the FB is great for what it is supposed to be. Some die hard Moogers here have hated on it.

Id personally like to see 3 units running off of a single input signal. LIke you run your bass to a mult and to 3 freq boxes, tuned at different intervals running to a single filter. That would be pretty awesome hahah.

I hope you find out what you are looking for. The foogers are great. I went in with the same idea of making them into a modular synth. I have mine racked though. After having them, I quickly began to realize how they would be much more space effective if they were double width MU modules rather than in stompbox format.

I love them all though and use them all the time, generally, no matter what instrument Im using. Most especially the delay.

As I said, the CP and freq box acts like a seperate synth voice (osc and modulation). So the FB can do some hellatious things once you combine them.

My cousin did a spoken word song and the music was all freqbox. It sounded great.

[soundxplorer]

There have been a lot of people on this forum who have voiced much displeasure with the freqbox.

I think a lot of people have the misconception that it tracks the pitch of your input and matches it. It doesn't track pitch in any way. It just hard-syncs the internal oscillator, which means every time the input signal hits the zero-crossing point, it resets the wave cycle of the internal oscillator (which is staying at a constant pitch, unless acted upon by the envelope follower). This creates buzzy, hard sync tones. I used my Freqbox mostly with the sync button turned off, as a drone oscillator to add to my Little Phatty. I don't care much for hard sync tones, I think they are sort of a one-trick pony. There are other devices that do indeed track pitch and try to replicate it with the internal oscillator, such as the Snazzy FX Mini Ark. But I don't know how well that works with bass. It sounds pretty good with guitar.

[MBlom]

Hey,
Don't get me wrong, Im not trying to dissuade you from doing that at all. Id like you to have all the info to make an objective decsion. I think the FB is great for what it is supposed to be. Some die hard Moogers here have hated on it.

Not at all, I totally understand and appreciate you trying to widen the perspective.

[ColorForm2113]

Or just spilt your signal before going into the ringmod, and send one to a mixer then to the carrier in. you will need to boost the signal to make it equal to the level of your average cv volume. Then depending on how you eq the signal going in it will be octave up or down (more bass = octave down, more treble = octave up)

hmm this must have been one of those strange late night experiments were i was kinda half asleep and everything sounds more awesome than it actually is...just tried this again and didnt really work like i remembered, oh well thats why they make octave pedals