I've owned the original Taurus pedals for nearly 20 years now, and I basically just had to get a Toro as a backup in case my Taurus just up and died (that sound is so vital to me) and partially because I was just so damn curious about it, being a big Taurus fanboy. Playing them side by side, I honestly can't tell any difference. They did a great job cloning it. It's an absolute steal for anyone who needs these iconic sounds. Pick up this and a set of MIDI pedals and you're good to go for 1/3rd of what a Taurus is going for nowadays (and without having to take a gamble on a vintage piece that might be on the verge of needing understandable maintenance (those exposed pedal contacts really are a pain, I just had a deep cleaning done on them), or have other 'old age' issues)
I feel your pain! Those circuit boards were a nightmare in the days of smoky pub gigs...I never understood why they were so exposed when the rest of the unit was so well built.
Thank you for this review - for people of a certain age like myself the Taurus sound is the bedrock of prog, and all my fave bands used a set, especially Genesis and Rush, and your playing immeditaley made me think of Clocks by Steve Hackett and I now see there's a video of you playing that too so that's my next stop. Like you I couldn't believe it when Behringer annouced the Toro and I ordered one immediately. Hooked it up after delivery last month to a cheap set of no-name MIDI bass pedals I've had sitting in the cupboard for years and lo and behold, the house shook! Thanks again for your professional POV - glad I found you channel. 👍
Thanks for your comments, always appreciated. You're right about the Taurus sound, there's nothing else quite like it and there are certain songs which wouldn't be the same without it....especially Rush and Genesis as you say! Hope you're having fun with the Toro, mine has brought a whole new dimension to rehearsals!!
Thank you man for a proper demo and also a background wanting this Toro , I just ordered it, I used to owned the Moog's back in the day Mini, Prodigy, and so on, so the Toro take me back,...=) Love cheers
Sounds great. I have 4 Taurus 1’s, all in mint condition. The toro makes sense financially. I play them through 4 18’s in my studio. I wonder if the Toro can duplicate the bottom end?
I've been using it live for nearly a year now and the bottom end is earth shattering run through a decent p.a. I genuinely hear no difference whatsoever between the Toro and my old Taurus 1, unlike every other set up I've tried or seen used. The Toro is the real thing, trust me!
@progbass…very nice, great pithy hands-on demo and love the bass player POV for the video. I’ve JUST picked up a Toro and Crumar Mojo pedals yesterday from Sweetwater (of course!) and cannot WAIT to dig in! P.S. LOVE your Rush T-shirt and black/white Rick, and yes I am a Prog keyboard player and now fancy myself as part Geddy Lee and mostly part Tony Banks!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed. Have fun with the Toro, it's awesome! Sounds even better in rehearsals through a decent pa. And yes, as you've probably guessed, I'm a massive Geddy Lee fan 😄😄
Great vid! Did you have any issues connecting it with a Roland PK5? That is exactly what I intend to do when I get one. Thinking particually about the double setting on the PK5, with the Toro being Monophonic. Strange how many people forget that The Police used Taurus pedals as well. The intro to Don't Stand So is pure Taurus.
No problems at all - my PK5 is set to factory defaults and midi channel 1 on the Toro worked right out of the box. Really the only thing to worry about is staying in the right octave range, I use settings 1 and 2, stray too far from those and you'll get no sound, in other words treat them like a set of Taurus! You're right, everyone associates Taurus with Prog, but they used to turn up all over the place.
"The variable section is way to complex for a bass player". Come on, you're letting the side down - were supposed to mock all the other members of the band, not ourselves! On a more serious note, I love the relative simplicity of the Toro and the Solina clone that Behringer have just released. Combine those two and you've got my favourite synth sounds of the 1970s.
Hah! A little tongue in cheek of course :-) I'm definitely going to spend a little time getting into the variable sounds...I used to use them a lot with my old Taurus pedals but it's been a long time so I'll need to reacquaint myself. The Solina sounds interesting, I might have to investigate that...
@@progbass I'd definitely recommend checking the Behringer Solina out. I'm not hugely familiar with progressive rock but my father and brother are big fans of the 70s era bands, and a string synth seems to have been the most prominent keyboard sound after the Minimoog or Taurus. There was the Mellotron as well of course, and for Pink Floyd the wonderful Farfisa Compact Duo organ.
For my sins I have several sets of Taurus 1 and a couple of Taurus 3's and this sounds identical. The panel looks fabulous and love the illuminated sliders. For £199 it's a steal.
Several sets? That's just greedy 😂😂 I really do miss my old Taurus 1, but you're right, the Toro is a perfect recreation. The more I play it the more I absolutely love it!
Oh no! I have a set of PK-5s. It seems crazy not to get one of these for £189! Do you have a case for gigging the PK-5s and does the Toro stay put on top without falling off?
You really must! 🙂 They will balance on the PK5 but I'd secure them with velcro if I were you. At the moment I'm keeping them on the floor next to the pedals but I'm going to mount them on a pedaltrain I think. I've only got a soft case for the pedals, does the job but a flight case would be better of course.
Just got one of these and it was delivered today. Can't play yet as I don't have any midi controllers. But I'm surprised at how decently built the thing is. I kinda have resentment towards behringer because I feel like their marketing is really weird and their stuff is typically very plastic. However, there isn't too much plastic on this thing + the sounds don't lie. Will keep you posted with how it's going in a day or so when my foot controller gets here. Might even do a video on me channel.
I've had mine a while now and I love it. If you want a genuine taurus sound it's the only thing out there that comes close, does exactly what it says on the tin!
@@progbassaaaand you’re right! It sounds absolutely amazing. The toro mode alone is worth the price of admission and the variable is nice to customize the sound a bit more. Gotta get more precise with my feet though 😂 keep on hitting wrong notes.
Any midi controller will work just fine - I'm using a set of Roland PK5-A, they're reliable and extremely well built and I'm more than happy gigging with them.
The pedals are just a straightforward midi controller, they don't do anything other than send a note to trigger the Toro. I can adjust the octave with them and just set it to match my old Taurus software sample.
@@progbass follow up question how did Getty Lee of Rush use them. So i may understand when he does tom sawyer he hits one note boom chi then boom chicka . So he is hitting 2 notes on the taurus from what i can tell. But i am also a bass player but i dj produce more now electronic music. I also own the minitaur which i can use as a effect for the Toro if i want bowel moving bass. Is there anywhere to learn how to incorporate the toro with bass guitar and or synths. Thank you in advance. Also is there any difference in the pedals on the market today that was new ?
Originally back in 1977 or so he just used Moog Taurus 1s to add extra depth while he was playing bass or keyboards. They then figured out a way to trigger keyboards from the Taurus (this was before midi) so he could effectively add keyboards while playing bass. Eventually he moved to midi pedals that triggered just about anything I guess! The Toro is rack mountable so you could use it just like any other synth module. All I really want it for at the moment is for the Taurus sound so I hook it up through the Roland pedals....nice, simple set up that works for me.
@@TedBrownMedia The original Tom Sawyer growl sound was made with the Oberheim OBX. Live it's triggered. I would guess Sometime in the mid 80's (I think it was the Hold Your Fire tour), Geddy switched to Korg MIDI pedals for triggering. I forget exactly when he started using samplers, but I would imagine for the Moving Pictures tour he probably triggered a sequencer to play that part. I would love to know exactly how he did this before he used samplers.
Yeah, sorry - I mucked up the levels on this one. This was a quick and dirty overview...once I've got to grips with the variable section I'll probably do something a bit more in depth...and I'll get the mic level right!
