Tentatively FT - Boss SY-300 Guitar Synthesizer

thecolourbox

I got this in the Black Friday madness last year, thinking I'd probably be able to move it on if I didn't get on with it. Unfortunately my tiny brain just can't work out how to use it for what I wanted to (a sort of doubled/shimmer pad on my clean playing and a synthy fuzz to layer with fuzz riff playing).

It obviously doesn't sit right with me to try and sell it for more than I paid, but at the same time I'll feel very annoyed myself if I end up selling it for peanuts as I'll just have wasted time, money and effort and won't do anything fun with the money anyway. 

So I thought I'd offer it up for interesting trades, to see if I can redeem my error, and potentially we both end up with something we can like and use

It's in as new condition as I've only used it a few times to try and work it out. I got the replacement UK power supply so will include that, can also provide an EU one but I'm guessing that's no good to anybody). Manuals and paperwork still unopened as I prefer reading them online. Photos will follow when I revisit this thread on my phone rather than my laptop.

It's a big box but will sort the postage out if we work out a trade. 

Trades-wise:

• I like pitch effects, 
• unusual drive/dist/fuzz effects that you can't necessarily get on Helix. 
• If something else would do that reverby pad pitch thing in the background of clean sounds, that could be cool. 
• Some specific things on my list might be a Mantic Flex, Fuzz Factory, Catalinbred Galileo or other Brian May sounding things, Digitech Expression Factory, MXR Blue Box, Keeley Monterey 
• Ooh and this is niche, but the TC Helicon Critical Mass is interesting to me.

I'm not averse to a new instrument - I'm happy at the budget end of things (i've two squiers currently), happy with unusual stuff or even a different instrument entirely? Who knows? I play a Mustang mostly, and have a thinline Tele, so something different could be interesting

Please feel free to PM me to discuss rather than needlessly filling out the comments

I'm based in Birmingham, if that makes any odds.

Thanks

thecolourbox

blobb

I love mine, and I haven't even started trying to create my own sounds with it yet. Instant organ, synth etc... sounds just using the presets. It level matches briiliantly. I run a drive and a boost before it and switch between the three on the fly. Thing is the synth engine is based not on pitch detection but a sort of signal modifier. So if you go in clean you get a clean organ, boost it it sounds different, drive it, it is different again. So each preset has 3x different flavours to it and you can crank the drive level etc as you do it. I just put a wah in front!

Just in case anyone just thinks this a synth controlled by strings rather than keys. It's so much more than that. Bump.

thecolourbox

Thanks that's very kind. Yes it certainly sounds better than others of this sort of thing from the past where it sounds like somebody playing a Casio keyboard badly! 

It can do a hell of a lot and can do parallel/through sounds. It's essentially a massive multi effects with synth generators in there I think. I didn't really like many of the orders for my playing except the Jazz Clean one showing in my photo, which I toned down a bit. But there's a fully formed editor where you can deep dive and get all kinds of sounds. 

I'm just not that kind of brain unfortunately - my playing style is fairly plain and simple and my technical brain is not very adventurous. 

Roland

I had to look this up, so I guess potential buyers might too: https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/boss-sy-300

thecolourbox

Thanks Roland that's very kind of you - yes indeed it's a bit niche. It's the big big brother of the SY-1 and various other SY numbers, and can basically do everything they do and much much more. The sound on sound review is as good starting point certainly so thank you