Taurus substitute?

[hieronymous]

So, I was finally able to bring an idea to realization - using the Little Phatty as a Taurus substitute!

A few years ago, I recorded a piece using a Rogue as a "pseudo-Taurus" - I didn't have a foot-pedal-controller, so I would play the keyboard in between playing my 6-string bass:

taurus VI

I don't remember the exact details, but I'm pretty sure that it's just the Rogue and the MF-103 phaser. The bass is a Fender Jaguar Bottom Master 6-string bass, which is kind of a variation on the classic Fender Bass VI, hence the title of the piece. (The bass is played through the MF-101 low pass and MF-104 delay.)

Fast forward to the past few days. Took delivery of my Little Phatty and Roland PK-5 controller. I didn't actually even take the PK-5 out of the box for a week or so - just had fun messing around with the LP. But the other night I finally got motivated and hooked up the pedals. I messed around with the "Thank You Bob" preset, and came up with this:

little taurus (I re-renamed it to what I originally came up with - not a great name, but related to the whole endeavor)

This time it's a '68 Gibson Melody Maker bass through a Death By Audio "Harmonic Transformer," MF-101 and MF-104 again, but this time with the frequency controlled by the smoothed-out sample-and-hold in the CP-251 - I realized that I couldn't control the frequency with a footpedal and do the PK-5 at the same time!

It's probably not going to pass for a real Taurus I, but I'm happy - I can play a note on the bass and on the synth at the same time instead of having to alternate!

My one complaint - not enough pedals on the PK-5! An octave and a half would be nice, though the PK-5 takes up a lot of space as it is...

[Elgee Noro]

If it is the pedalboard you're after, try to get an Elka DP-18 or a Studiologic MP-117 (hence the numbers 18 or 17 keys )

The ELKA is out of production but can be found 2nd hand, as I did.

I recreated the Taurus-preset sound of the Taurus I with a Model-D using the mp-3 samples found on this site:
http://www.retrosynth.com/~analoguedieh ... og_taurus/

Playing with hands is different (???) than with feet. A part of the whole sound is play it "feetly" with the hands.

If you think you found the right sound, try play the pedalbasspart with Genesis' Afterglow from the "Seconds Out" album, mix it in and see if it sounds convincing.


Happy Tweaking.

If you've found the sound: and then


btw: The today prices of a Taurus-I are almost the same as for a good Model-D, so .......

[ken robinson]

I have the LP and the RME hooked to the Roland Pk5 pedals. I get all the taurus sounds you can think os by tweeking the LP presets and a few of the presets of the RME don`t even need tweeking. The pk5 pedals have a octive control switch on the top of the pedals that allows you to ajust the octive from 0 to 8. With this I havent even been able to pass octive 2 if I do the bass is so low that it breaks up I run this setup through an Ashdown mag 300 this is a 375 watt bass amp with 4x10 combo cab with a piezo horn in the center.

I have found this to work great for Taurus sounds I am a bass guitar player who was looking for the Taurus sound to use with my band to get that bone shacking lows you hear at Genesis, Yes, and Rush concerts. I also wanted to use the pedals for synth sounds other than Taurus.

The way Rush uses them my band does ELP`S Welcome back my friends without keyboards but I can open the song with that unique synth rythem that everyone knows by pressing one pedal and people love it. I also with help from Amos was able to get an airraid sound that is on black sabbaths WAR PIGS sometimes we open a show with this a real atention getter all triggered by the pk5`s You can get a set of roland pk7 pedals they are an octive an a half but have no controls on the top of the pedals

Thanks for listening to my ranbeling`s on
Ken Robinson

[hieronymous]

Thanks for listening to my ranbeling`s on

Not at all - thanks for posting!

That's great that you're using the LP that way. I'm still figuring the whole thing out. It's fun though! Now I just need to learn how to program the patches better in the LP.

[hieronymous]

Here's another one. Though I have to admit that although I played the synth part with my feet, I didn't do it simultaneously with the bass part!

taurus VIII