Guitar synth / organ pedals

[GuitarStv]

I've noticed a lot of these coming out in the last couple years any my interest is piqued. Looking for a guitar synth pedal to add some cool sounding sustained chords and maybe a few single note lines in recordings. What's awesome that I should be checking out, and why do you recommend it?

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

The latest Boss tech is very cool. The SY-1 does something like 12 sounds with 12 variations. It’s the same engine as the big brother but they program it all and just give a couple of parameters to adjust.

The EHX 9 series is also cool in the same way. They program sounds out of the HOG engine then package them in the various pedals. The C9/B9 and Synth 9 sound great.

The other alternative is to build it up yourself. I was doing organ type sounds a long time ago with a compressor, original POG, RotoMachine and a delay. Sometimes a volume too to remove the attack. Now a B9 does all that.

 

[Aceman]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

I was playing an EHX Synth 9 a couple of weeks ago. Used the string sytnth setting to play the synth line in Rainbow In The Dark. Approacjhed immediately afterwards on "How did you do that?!?!?!?"

Use it for Separate Ways by Journey and Bad Medicine by Bon Jovi. Multiple gigs, multiple comments on it sounded awesome.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

This all depends on how deep you want to get in there. EH pedals can do organ, keys, and Mellotron sounds (sort of). The new Boss pedals do more analog polysynth sounding stuff. If you want to trigger actual samples, you will need a hex pickup and a more involved rig.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

Mooer had a couple of mono synth pedals that were relatively cheap that I had my eye on when they came out ..turns out they'd ripped off EHX so they got sued & the pedals were discontinued and that was that :laugh2:

But yeah part of the reason why I bought my Mooer GE300 was because I wanted to start doing some stuff with it's onboard guitar synth..nothing crazy..just backing chords/arps/melodies etc. It's synth engine is up there with the Boss SY300 in terms of sounds/features. ..though it's apparently not a rip-off this time :lmao:

Truth is the whole poly synth thing is pretty complex to figure out/program etc but it sounds pretty sweet & it's been fun messing around with presets, which is what I'm going to stick to ..at least for now :laugh2:

Had the synth turned down low in the mix here..'cuz I did'nt really know what I was doing & it got pretty messy in spots..but this is the sort of stuff I'm planning to get a proper hang of/ use it for :bigthumb:

I did hear that they (Mooer) were due to come out with a poly-synth pedal based on the GE300's synth engine...

 

[Liam1963]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

I humbly concur with the EHX 9 series, used the C9 and B9 in the studio, sounds best with a full humbucker in the bridge. Also, I run a compressor before them, and have the studio engineer watch recording levels carefully, as they do have a habit of getting "peaky".....

 

[stevie_bees]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals



Currently using the Boss SY-1 in my 3-piece band for pads and some lead lines.

 

[NegativeEase]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

I use a EHX B9 Pedal. it sounds great if you work at the pickup, chain, and blend to make it smooth and sensitive to your playing. In the manual it specifically says not to use the neck pickup -BUT I've had great luck in the studio using phasing, coil splitting and tapping with pickup blends and the eHX synth pedals -just don't use the neck by itself is their point -it has difficultly tracking the lack of succinct attack on the front edge of the notes.

Also, if you're not careful it will just sound like an EHX Pitchfork with the higher octave blended too annoyingly loud.

great and fun pedal.

 

[Securb]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

Now that Roland has released the GR-55 the GR-33's are going for around $200 used you might want to take a look at one of those.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

Now that Roland has released the GR-55 the GR-33's are going for around $200 used you might want to take a look at one of those.

It is a good idea to dedicate a guitar to synth playing with these, as you will have to attack a GK pickup to it.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

This all depends on how deep you want to get in there. EH pedals can do organ, keys, and Mellotron sounds (sort of). The new Boss pedals do more analog polysynth sounding stuff. If you want to trigger actual samples, you will need a hex pickup and a more involved rig.

Shallow. Super duper shallow. Basically I want to be able to make (kinda) keyboard sounds without the effort of learning a new instrument.


I'm really impressed with the EHX 9 series pedals. The synth9 and mel9 seem pretty awesome and straight forward to do fun stuff with.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

Shallow. Super duper shallow. Basically I want to be able to make (kinda) keyboard sounds without the effort of learning a new instrument.


I'm really impressed with the EHX 9 series pedals. The synth9 and mel9 seem pretty awesome and straight forward to do fun stuff with.

Yeah, then the EH stuff is the right stuff to get. I'd love one big pedal with all of those sounds, or other companies to do similar things with polyphonic pitch mangling.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

I just dialed this "Cathedral" tone in with my Mooer...damn it's MASSIVE :bigthumb:

Dude talks a whole lot, but **** that ...I'm forever in his debt :laugh2:

He finally plays @ 4:45

Gonna use it for the Autopsy/Necrophagia tribute songs I'm working on..

Now if I can only get a nice Jon Lord/Hammond tone..I'm set for life

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

Well, after some extensive youtubing I'm really feeling the Enzo synth pedal.

Every demo I can find of the Boss SY-1 I can find a better sounding EHX and Enzo one. The EHX pedals sound great, but are very much dialed in towards a few particular sounds.

 

[NegativeEase]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

I cant do Mooer pedals, as I get an involuntary nauseous response to pronouncing that word out loud or even just in my head.

I don't know why... it has nothing to do with the quality of the pedals.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

Well..I don't have any hang-up's with Mooer but I know what you mean. Much as I love a nice cheap Chinese knock-off pedal, I've never bought a JOYO for that very same reason (..and yeas I've bought Vitoos & Amoon pedals) :lmao:

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

Well Mooer was found guilty of copying Electro Harmonix software right down to the (C) Copyright EHX line.

 

[Aceman]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

Well Mooer was found guilty of copying Electro Harmonix software right down to the (C) Copyright EHX line.

Rookies...

 

[NegativeEase]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

Well Mooer was found guilty of copying Electro Harmonix software right down to the (C) Copyright EHX line.

Ha. is that true?

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Guitar synth / organ pedals

Well Mooer was found guilty of copying Electro Harmonix software right down to the (C) Copyright EHX line.

Ha!


Lest anyone think this sort of copying is a dumb Chinese rip-off tactic . . . I work with a lot of very expensive computer networking and routing equipment. Some of our stuff is built by Cisco routing systems. Some of our stuff is built by the company started by a bunch of disgruntled Cisco routing system employees . . . Arista routers. Both sets of routers are great. Both sets of routers use the exact same command line arguments to do things. Including typos. (Whoopsies!) There have been lawsuits back and forth between the two companies for years.