Just spent the better part of today going through all 9 of the Synth 9 presets and assessing them for chord playing as well as for use in soloing. There are many good options available if you want to play predominately chords. With respect to soloing, I was looking for a cleaner sound (as opposed to a dirtier sound). I think that the Mini Mood with the volume of the portamento note and portamento speed turned down to about 8:30AM will work. The Solo Synth preset was just too dirty for me, no matter what I did to the controls. If there awas a way to get rid of 95% of the fuzz while keeping the sustain, this would be prefect. The other surprise for me was the String Synth present. I was thinking that it would be good for chords in the background of a song (like on many smooth jazz songs) but I found that if I rolled back the attack time to about 9:00AM, I could make this work for solos which require fast picking. The sound is very clean and there is lots of sustain.

Lots of rambling above, let me know if I can clarify anything.

While I wait for the “Bass 9” pedal, I decided to buy the pitch fork.

Thank you very much for the detailed feedback. After I posted this thread, I stumbled across the pitch fork when reviewing some other forum responses to my topic. I have to say I am now leaning in that direction. Right now the only “must have” for me is the ability to play clean sounding single bass notes over 12 bar blues progressions for the most part and loop them so I can practice soloing over them. Any other features that I get are a plus but not required.