Boss SYB-3 Bass Synthesizer

The manual gets you on your way. The real test is going through and twisting the knobs 'til something you like comes up. The res knob is the big factor for all the settings. Sens/Decay seems important for the TWah. Settings 8 and 9 are for chords.

I use an Artinger bass with a Kent Armstrong humbucker into the Boss into a Music Man 115B One Twenty and a Traynor Bass Mate II. I use the dual outputs on the pedal.
It's bound to make noise, especially with the res knob cranked. The sub sounds are too cool. At points you get plunky or QBert sounds that sound initially then go away and let the sub sound take hold.
Settings 8 and 9 are fuzzy and work with chords where the other settings can't handle more than one string.
My chops aren't the best, but you learn how to make the effect trigger as you hit different notes. You also learn to hold a note instead of play it so the full sound can come out.

It's a Boss. I got the PSA adapter, so batteries aren't a problem. I don't think I'd ever find one for $90 again, so no backup.

Don't know.

I use the synth playing bass in a new rock band. The main members got worried when I pulled it out and started in on some wild sounds. I told them I'd use it tastefully. They've come to understand and appreciate the way it can add to songs when tossed in at appropriate times.
The singer grimaces when it's used. She is not into things from the '80's.
I got this for its $90 price. It's kind of a novelty, but I can see my using this in almost any band I play in. The sub sounds can be spooky, the hold function makes for great between-song noise, and why not have an altered bass sound at times?

This pedal won't give good sounds unless you earn them. 4 of its 6 (6!!!) knobs are self-explanatory, but you will never fully understand what the concentric Freq/Res knobs do to yr sound because there are too many possibilities. The manual gets you going in the right direction, but it's impossible to explain such a freak of nature and I think Boss knows this better than any of us.

The sound is amazing. I can always dial in something that's gonna turn heads with it. The secret is to use it sparingly. Throw it on for a few chords in the chorus, or at the tail end of a bridge, and you can get swooshing electronic sounds, Tron-like pinging, laser noises, or huge featureless chunks of sub-frequency darkness.
When you try to play faster than quarter notes, though, you can have problems with the tracking. Not to worry, though--the key to solving the tracking issue is just to mix in yr dry sound to around 50/50. That way, even if the pedal "hangs" on the note you just played, your dry sound will be moving on & will provide a good rhythmic attack instead of dropping out altogether. Try to be as subtle as possible with the wet sound, and you will make the fewest mistakes. You can also try going to modes 8 & 9 instead, as they can handle chords and follow your right hand more closely.
But here's a tip: If you buy this, do yourself a favor and get a real good enveloper filter (Q-Tron, Meatball, Moogerfooger) to go with it. I recommend an octave pedal as well. The tracking synth tones have pretty clunky attacks and releases, and subtle envelope filtering takes the edges off and makes it sound more synth-y. It also enables you to sound like Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell at the same time. The octave pedal will compensate for the fact that the synth tones often don't fill out the overall sound of your band as well as straight bass. Put all three on and play "Flash Light" or some robot-style James Brown, and watch the ladies flock to the floor.
So yes, there is nothing else that will give you this sound as cheaply or in such a compact package, and it will reward you for all the time you put into it. If you dig Beck, Bernie Worrell, Zapp & Roger, Nu Shooz, Kraftwerk, "Low"-era Bowie, Sugar Hill, Giorgio Moroder, Meco, Moog, even the cursed Prog, this thing rocks.
I used to loathe Boss, and in spite of that this is still my favorite pedal of all time.

If you always use an A/C adapter, this thing will probably never fail. But if you think about "reliability" in terms of producing a reliable sound for every gig, there's some real studying required. Buy a pad to keep near your pedalboard.

Can't really say, I've never needed it.

All in all, this (together with maybe the Boomerang) is the number one requirement for any bassist that thinks of him/herself as "experimental" in the slightest sense of the word. Onstage laser fights, dying digital lamb sounds, techno heartbeat noises, it never ends. If you put it with a good envelope filter, you can get something that's close to nearly any electronic synth/rhythm section sound you can dream up.

Things that would've improved it:
1) An arpeggiator. I want those ELP/Floyd/Zeppelin soundscapes.
2) An effects loop for the dry sound. The dry sound, regardless of how awesome, always sounds wimpy alongside the flaming-rocket-debris sounds the synth makes. You could rig one with the stereo outs, but that's too much trouble.
How about a sequel, Boss?

I give 5 because it's hard to use it. It took nearly 1 week to get a good tone out of it but the the tone was amazing when I found it. There is a small manual READ IT because it helps a lot.

My setup is a Washburn XB-200<--->SYB-3<--->DRIVE (CD-300B).
I have a Korg AX-1B but I did not use Korg with it. Anyway it sounds bad at first but after some experiments it sounds great. No noise or something like that and it has good sounds in it, but first you have to find them.

IT IS BOSS. IT IS LIKE A TANK.

NO IDEA.

I PLAY ROCK IN A BAND AND I LIKE THE SOUND OF IT AND MY BAND LIKES IT TOO BUT YOU HAVE TO BE CAREFULL BECAUSE IT HAS A PROBLEM. YOU CAN'T PLAY CHORDS AND YOU CAN'T SLAP<-- THATS NOT MY PROBLEM ANYWAY I TOOK THIS PEDAL EVERYWHERE I GO IT'S THE BEST PEDAL I HAVE EVER HAD.

When I first bought this pedal I thought I'd thrown my money away. The manual explains what the controls do, but not how to use them. No reference was made in the manual to the importance of input levels to tracking, and so my active Bass just made horrible noises. It was some months before I began to get any useable sounds, so be prepared to experiment.

With this pedal it's important to use the correct Bass (or guitar) setup. As I've said, to high or low an imput, and the tracking is so poor the pedal becomes unusable. I mainly use either a Fender Precision or a Danelectro Longhorn, and both are capable of giving exellent doubled bass lines with this pedal, as though you had a stalking keyboardist. Especially usefull (to me) were the T-synth setting, which were far easier to control, and gave a more natural (for a synth) sound. Once again, it's worth the time to experiment.

It's been dropped, kicked, and generally abused, but with no damage other than some missing paint. Drinks batteries though, so use a power supply

N/A

I've been playing for about four years, and bought this pedal despite it's main uses falling outside the typical rock or metal I usaully play, yet it's versatility has increased the spectrum of available sounds and style alot. If this Bass synth had anyway of storing sounds, it would be usefull, but not if it cost more, bearing in mind how often I'm likely to ever use it live.

Easy to use if you read the manual and it gets easier with pratice

It has good sound quality if you work it right.Two amps both in puts.

NOt realiable at all the first one i got was bad from the first day i got it and then once i got a new one the problems went away. And with an adapter it is now reliable.

boss was a bitch to work with when repairing the first unit. My music store guy was great and after four repair attempts boss sent me a new pedal and if you have a broken pedal beware.

Over all it is a good pedal but i would like to be able to mix the effects instead of only being able to use one at a time. i would like to get a micro haramonizer bass synth. I like the -1 oct effect and the T-wah they are my fav with the right adjusting the t-wah can sound like a envelope filter. i play funk and heavy metal and it is great. and the pedal is good if you don't get the bad one like i did.

It's an analog bass synth, into a compact effect by BOSS. Plug your instrument into a Jack input and play.
It's monophonic, and has four knobs : mode select (choose between 7 wave forms), frequency, resonnance, decay.
The output signal for instrument and synth are separated. The output can be mono or stereo.

THIS MACHINE IS ONE OF THE BEST ANALOG SYNTHS I EVER HEARD !!!!!!!!

7 wave forms : sawtooth, square, double square, sawtooth-1 octave, sawtooth + noise, double square + noise, sawtooth + noise-1 octave.

You can have all the analog sound you want. EVERYTHING.

The distorted waves are terrific. The autowah is clear.

The knobs are very very sensitive, so you got many sounds to program. Programming is simple. This machine has no memory (bad news) and demands a hight input level (other bad news). No poliphony. But you can play with bass, keyboard, guitar, sequencer, sampler,...

The SYB-3 also has 4 effects : 2 distorted and polyphonic waves, and two autowah (normal and reversed).

I made all my music with it.

Boss, by Roland. No problem.

My favorite synth. Won't buy another one.

The SYB-3 is a monophinic bass synthesizer. Plug your bass in it, and play analog sounds !

3 knobs (frequency, resonnance, decay), 7 wave form from an oscillator, simple isnt'it ? Welll... it's very sensitive. There are many, many, many sounds, no memory, it's not polyphonic, you must take your time to learn how to use it.

THE SOUND IS TERRIFIC !!!!!!

This machine got old sounds from analog machines.
You can have all analog sounds you ever wanted.

No MIDI, no memory, but 4 effects : 2 wha and 2 distorted waves (and polyphonic !).

The plug in (input) is a Jack. Two output : mono or stereo (dry signal and synth signal).

ALL MY MUSIC IS MADE WITH THE SYB-3.

I also use a DD-3 Digital Delay and a DR-110 drum machine.

You can hear it :

http://site.voila.fr/NECROPOLIS

Boss by Roland ? NO PROBLEMS !

I bought it in 1996. Never buy another synth before, never gonna buy another one. I'm a bass player, yhis machine is mine.

It's easy to get good sounds out of this without any instructions in the store. As far as playing., it's like an octaver. That means you better off not slapping, chording or playing at 190 bpm. These aren't the only problems, kids. You see, when I first tried this out over a year ago, I had serious trouble with the tracking and decided that I couldn't use the damn thing. Well, yesterday I saw a used one in mint condition. I decided to try it again. This time it wasn't much different from playing an octaver. When I took it home, I figured out why. Your input volume affects the tracking. Too low...only half the notes you play come out. Too high...every little finger noise tries to become a note. At the right volume, it's not that hard to use...as long as you don't slap, chord, etc etc. One more thing. No preset memory man! That's allright if you're farting around at home but I don't like changing settings at gigs. I've read that guy from Korn (Fiedly or something?) said he wanted to buy three or four more just so he doesn't have to change settings! I also know Bootsy Collins (not surprising) and Larry Graham has one. (You can hear Graham use his on his new album produced by "The Guy Formerly known as Prince who I call Prince anyway" or "Symbol Dude" as my brother sometimes him.

It's hard to rate the sound quality of this effect because most of the sounds (modes 1-7) are really synth wave forms. I have a Yamaha EOS synth(same as the QS300) and I think overall these synth sounds sound more analog (though they are certainly not!) The T-Wah is not that great (at least compared to my Mutron III) but it is similar to the Dynamic Filter and you can adjust your direct sound and effect sound volume separately. (I think any wah for bass should have this option) Also it's really handy just to have in the same pedal with the synth modes. I put this is my pedal board with my Korg AX30B, so I can use the envelope filter because I don't like the one in my Korg. Anyway, my rating of 9 is strictly for the synth modes. I won't rate the wah. (This doesn't mean it sucks. I just wouldn't have bought it if the wah was sold separately).

NO comment. Though I have never broken a Boss pedal. I did have problems with the output jack on the FT-2 Dynamic Filter though. (I explain this in my review of the FT-2)

I would say this is of good value. (For me, I would rate it as 9 because of the condition and price I got mine for) You get a real synthesizer (it is!...as I have said these are actually sythesizer wave forms) in a regular stomp box, don't have to do anything weird to your bass and also have the bonus of the T-Wah. Of course, this is not an important effect for most people. I use distortion (never played a gig without it!) and wahs on bass all the time. I hardly chorus, flanger and delay etc on bass. (Very rarely in recording and never on a gig). Anyway, all I can is try it our first and if you have trouble tracking...you may not suck...maybe your bass's pickups are just wimpy...

The unit is fairly easy to setup with the only real problem being the number of different sounds that the unit is capable of producing. The manual is acceptable at explaining the unit's functions; however, my pedal didn't come the with side sticker that showed which waveforms went with what setting.

The overall sound of the unit is pretty good for a vintage synth-like tone (mini-moog comes to mind). The hold function on the pedal is the feature that sold me on it. That said, this pedal has several very major caveats. 1. If you want to play either chords or fast runs - forget it. The pedal is monophonic and does not track quickly at all. Eigth notes at approximately 120 bpm is about maxed out. 2. The pedal has a slight but noticeable "pop" when the synth tone engages no matter what speed you play at - basically the beginning of the synth tone is abrupt and somewhat unmusical. No amount of setting changes will eliminate this. 3. You must play very cleanly and feed the input of the pedal with the correct volume. The pedal has a very tight range of input volume that will allow the unit to track the best and to not get minor finger nose. Once the signal into the pedal is the correct volume - tracking is acceptable. Active basses will have way too much input volume for this pedal unless they are really turned down. 4. The pedal must come first in your signal chain and typically requires compression on the synth notes to avoid getting a wicked amount of output signal with some pedal settings. 5. The T-wah setting are terrible if you really like a generous amount of wah. My bass is a japanese Fender fretless Jazz bass that has been heavily modified into a Raven Lab's PHA-1 outboard preamp and into a Mesa Boogie Buster combo amp. My effects are run inbetween the preamp and the amp input.

Extremely well built as is typical for Boss. This pedal sucks batteries bigtime and will not last through a three set gig without replacement. I highly recommed the wall wart for this thing.

Never have dealt with them.

After owning this pedal for almost two years, I would still buy it again. It has a great sound for filling in the low end using the hold function. However, the pedal is definately not used every song. I play eclectic music (everything from jazz, progressive rock, funk, etc).

it is easy to get a sound out of it. it is differcult to get more than 5 different sounds out of it. It is also differcult to get a GOOD sound out of it. But mess with it. Who knows what you could find

HORRIBLE, if you play at a tempo of more than 15 beats per minute then youll be in for a suprise when your amp only plays back every fith note you play. You will be pissed when you go home with it and find out that the effect cuts out after a a certain low volume is attained.

its not gonna break

havent dealt with them

this thing sucks. I sometimes wonder if i got a defect but i tried others and got the same crap.

It is not useful unless you play a simple beat and play slow. Good for hip hop and phat rythems, i just dont like it.