Boss Harmonist PS-6

Octafish

What's people's experience of these? I borrowed one of these off a mate for a try out thinking I might be able to use it to recreate harmony lines live. That turned out to be a bit ambitious on my part, but regardless of that I was somewhat dissapointed with the pedal in general.

In Harmony mode the tracking isn't great and goes wobbly every so often, particularly with low notes and and unison bends. It also sounds a bit poor when using it as a pitchshifter to tune down the guitar a 4th, 5th or octave. Again sound gets wobbly and lacks clarity and definition and with no dry signal mixed in it starts to modulate. It does sound a bit better/tighter with some dirt, clean seems to expose it.

I also ran it in pitchshift mode in comparison to my EHX Pitchfork (which doesn't do the harmony bit) and the Pitchfork sounds so much better, greater consistency in the tracking and still sounds good and solid even with no dry signal in the mix. The Pitchfork's effected signal sounds more guitar like whereas the Boss sounds really over digitized/processed and just wobbly. I can use the Picthfork to turn my standard tuned guitar into an A or B tuned baritone (clean sound with 100% FX mix). The Boss just doesn't sound right in this situation. Maybe I'm doing something wrong or something's faulty, although a google search seems to reveal a lot of similar experiences, what's yours?

althy

did you plug it in your fx loop?

flying_pie

Pitchfork can do harmony. It looks fiddly but you can set it to a given, blended interval and use an expression pedal to adjust intervals relative to the scale if needed. There are demo videos showing how to do it.

I've only used the digital version of the Harmonist within the Boss GT units and found the same problems you've documented. Pitchfork is far superior.

JezWynd

It does sound a bit better/tighter with some dirt, clean seems to expose it.

Sounds like putting a compressor in front might help it.

thecolourbox

flying_pie said:

Pitchfork can do harmony. It looks fiddly but you can set it to a given, blended interval and use an expression pedal to adjust intervals relative to the scale if needed. There are demo videos showing how to do it.

I've only used the digital version of the Harmonist within the Boss GT units and found the same problems you've documented. Pitchfork is far superior.

I have a momentary switch with two expression pots in to switch between major and minor thirds or sixths however playing that or an expression pedal in real time changing with each note is bloody hard work

vasselmeyer

I have a PS-5 which I use for very occasional harmonies, but I did play around with some of the weirder stuff that it did and it really seemed fine. As I understand it the PS-6 is polyphonic whereas the PS-5 is monophonic. Perhaps that additional tracking is hard for it.

Have you moved it around in your chain?  Some people find it works better after dirt, although mine is second in the chain after the compressor.

flying_pie

thecolourbox said:

flying_pie said:

Pitchfork can do harmony. It looks fiddly but you can set it to a given, blended interval and use an expression pedal to adjust intervals relative to the scale if needed. There are demo videos showing how to do it.

I've only used the digital version of the Harmonist within the Boss GT units and found the same problems you've documented. Pitchfork is far superior.

I have a momentary switch with two expression pots in to switch between major and minor thirds or sixths however playing that or an expression pedal in real time changing with each note is bloody hard work

I can't say I'm surprised to hear that. 

I would personally just use my pitchfork for 4th or 5ths (or octaves) and not bother with anything more complicated. 

meltedbuzzbox

If you have the space a whammy V is the undisputed king for all things pitch related

Octafish

althy said:

did you plug it in your fx loop?

No, would this make any difference to it's ability to track though? I've a Hot Rod Deville and I've never been a fan of the FX loop on it (seems a bit hissy) so I run all my pedals in front.

Octafish

vasselmeyer said:

I have a PS-5 which I use for very occasional harmonies, but I did play around with some of the weirder stuff that it did and it really seemed fine. As I understand it the PS-6 is polyphonic whereas the PS-5 is monophonic. Perhaps that additional tracking is hard for it.

Have you moved it around in your chain?  Some people find it works better after dirt, although mine is second in the chain after the compressor.

PS-6 is supposedly monophonic in harmony mode, it's polyphonic in pitchshifter mode although still a bit sloppy with chords. I think the dirt just covers up it's sloppiness. Clean it can't keep up with the Pitchfork, with dirt the difference between the two is less noticable.

Octafish

flying_pie said:

thecolourbox said:

flying_pie said:

Pitchfork can do harmony. It looks fiddly but you can set it to a given, blended interval and use an expression pedal to adjust intervals relative to the scale if needed. There are demo videos showing how to do it.

I've only used the digital version of the Harmonist within the Boss GT units and found the same problems you've documented. Pitchfork is far superior.

I have a momentary switch with two expression pots in to switch between major and minor thirds or sixths however playing that or an expression pedal in real time changing with each note is bloody hard work

I can't say I'm surprised to hear that. 

I would personally just use my pitchfork for 4th or 5ths (or octaves) and not bother with anything more complicated. 

Yep, was interesting to compare the two and see how good the Pitchfork actually is. I'd been looking at recreating some harmony lines I've written for new material with my band, but I think live I'll just play the more dominant harmony lines and use the Pitchfork with octave up or down to create a psuedo duel guitar line effect.

meltedbuzzbox said:

If you have the space a whammy V is the undisputed king for all things pitch related

I've heard it's supposed to be the best, but a bit big for me.

thecolourbox

flying_pie said:

thecolourbox said:

flying_pie said:

Pitchfork can do harmony. It looks fiddly but you can set it to a given, blended interval and use an expression pedal to adjust intervals relative to the scale if needed. There are demo videos showing how to do it.

I've only used the digital version of the Harmonist within the Boss GT units and found the same problems you've documented. Pitchfork is far superior.

I have a momentary switch with two expression pots in to switch between major and minor thirds or sixths however playing that or an expression pedal in real time changing with each note is bloody hard work

I can't say I'm surprised to hear that. 

I would personally just use my pitchfork for 4th or 5ths (or octaves) and not bother with anything more complicated. 

But no good for harmony playing though, I think the feature to set the key and the harmonies to work based on that is what the OP was hoping for. I had the Behringer knock off of the Boss when I was going through a bit of a Brian May phase, which is why I got the momentary switch expression thing, you can't do that kind of harmony playing with 4ths, 5ths or 8ves

Octafish

To be fair I think I was being a bit ambitous expecting a pedal covering harmony lines. The Boss is ok if you stay in one key, but I've got harmony lines that are in F#m then move to Cmaj7.

thecolourbox

Octafish said:

To be fair I think I was being a bit ambitous expecting a pedal covering harmony lines. The Boss is ok if you stay in one key, but I've got harmony lines that are in F#m then move to Cmaj7.

Blimey that's an unexpected key change?!

Octafish

thecolourbox said:

Octafish said:

To be fair I think I was being a bit ambitous expecting a pedal covering harmony lines. The Boss is ok if you stay in one key, but I've got harmony lines that are in F#m then move to Cmaj7.

Blimey that's an unexpected key change?!

Ha, ha not quite as unusual as it looks/sounds and no, we're not a jazz band !

Grunfeld

I noticed the PS-6 was significantly better further down the chain.
Going first it was iffy.  But so long as it had a bit of oomph to drive it -- either clean from a compressor or after OD -- then it was fine.  Really good I thought. 

flying_pie

Octafish said:

To be fair I think I was being a bit ambitous expecting a pedal covering harmony lines. The Boss is ok if you stay in one key, but I've got harmony lines that are in F#m then move to Cmaj7.

You would need a multi effects with different patches for that. I know that my Boss GT 100 could be set up with patches for different keys for the harmonist.

dunstanmus

I love the Boss pedal but it has to be in the loop.

althy

dunstanmus said:

I love the Boss pedal but it has to be in the loop.

had the same experience, sounded as good as harmonizer can sound in my F50's loop
also harmonizers only seem to work (for classic sounds) with active pups or heavy  humbuckers

Octafish

WIll being in the FX loop make it track any better? Yeah no fan of or owner of a guitar with active pickups or humbuckers so I'm going to struggle there.

As I posted further up, I'm think I'm expecting to much of it as a harmoniser anyway as I need it to go over key changes. Pitchfork definitely is a better tracking and sounding pitchshifter and doesn't need to go in FX loop and single coil friendly.

Pete24v

Grunfeld said:

I noticed the PS-6 was significantly better further down the chain.
Going first it was iffy.  But so long as it had a bit of oomph to drive it -- either clean from a compressor or after OD -- then it was fine.  Really good I thought. 

yep, i have one on the end of my board, for some reason it didn't do too well at the start.