Al Krow

Thanks for that - seemed be similar in size to the PT boards i.e. either too narrow or deep unfortunately. But...I stumbled across the Harley Benton range at Thomann and they have a perfect size for the B1(X)-4 in the shape of a 17.5 cm deep board. The HB 50M with hardcase plus their HB Iso-5 pro PSU should be just the ticket and comes to exactly £99, which conveniently means free shipping

This one is indeed an analogue clone of the Roland 808, but with the work flow apparently significantly improved. The Behringer logo has been obscured by the headphones I see!

Arrived today

Congrats on the new bass!!! I had an identical experience a few years back, wandered into a store in Camden and ended up trying both a Ric 4003 and a Lakland , albeit one of their budget Skyline range and therefore less lovely in terms of finish than the one you tried, and came to the exact same conclusion. The new walnut (my fav finish) Ric was on sale for £1,650. In hindsight a very good price for a new Ric, but at the time was enough to stop me biting. Prices have only gone one way since. I guess the one thing that keeps me from having a missed-opp regret is that I now require a thumb rest string on all my basses 😁 Hope you get a lot of pleasure out of yours.

@Higgie great / informative post! Very interesting also to see which of your pedals survived the Stomp cull! (Not a dirt pedal in sight!)

Lol! Someone falling over and spilling beer over a bass / pups / EQ or expensive amp & cab is going to do a lot more lasting damage than beer on my cheap t-shirt and jeans. IMO any of my basses, immobile on a stand during set breaks, find it much harder to move out of the way of a falling drunk, than I do. Yours, of course, may be more nimble.

Just spotted that the B1X-4 has another 6 pedal effects included (n/a to the B1-4 or B3N) which enable use of the expression pedal as a wah, volume pedal and pitch shifter. I had somehow missed this last one but sounds like fun!

Haha - you know my views, despite my having a bunch of gear I really enjoy, most things are good enough for live - it's all in the fingers: that's the cake. Nice gear is just icing - the sugar rush that makes us bass players happy (and btw that's not a bad thing at all!) Your fingers, mate, I know will make any gear work and there are plenty of other excellent bass players for whom a Zoom is perfectly adequate (as is their Squier basses). And rightly so!

Cool - I look forward to what you end up with and whether it's similar to the basic slap patch I shared above.

Sure - I'd be happy to have a crack at this. My gut feel is the HX should win hands down - it's just simply a more capable chip set with a ton more tweakable parameters. The equally interesting question, from my perspective, to other HX users is what drive patches have they got set up that they're using for live work and has this allowed them to dispense with their dirt pedals? The workflow on the Zoom particularly with ToneLib software is great and super easy to use (as was discussed at length elsewhere) and appeals to the "I can't be bothered to derrière about on a PC editing patches" person at my core; and the B1-4 also slips very comfortably into a gig bag pouch. But the Helix is a step up, no question. @LukeFRC has recently made the move from Zoom --> Stomp and, from the sounds of it, has not had any regrets! If you've got a choice but can only have one, Gav, seriously you know the answer already - it's a no-brainer. Get a Helix.

Well it's certainly not an HX Effects tips and ideas thread - haha! I think you'll find another one dedicated to precisely that. Be a good place to post your query 😉

Nice thread topic! One of my projects for 2020 is to work on some classical electric bass. To that end I managed to get hold of an Ibanez GVB36 with 14mm string spacing, which I've strung E to E but with top C detuned to B, in other words classical guitar tuning but an octave lower. (Hmmm, you've now got me thinking that a 6 string Wingbass may be another option to explore down the line!) Am now revisiting some of the easier classical guitar pieces that I once had mastery of as a youth!

I was trying to follow in your footsteps and come up with something pointless, but failed miserably.

There most certainly are! 😎

I'm sure the HX FX knocks it out the park. But that's not the point of this thread!

If any of you are mounting your B1-4s on a pedal board, which pedal board size have you gone for? I'm looking for something compact that can accommodate the approx 16 cm depth of the pedal - the PT Nano seems a little too shallow, and the Metro 16 overkill.

Hah! Been a bit of a wall of silence on this one from fellow BC'ers, but given that drives are probably the single most commonly used effect bar none, I've been meaning to post a note on this for a little while and also to try something out... In terms of a juicy drive on the B1-4 / B3N the "Squeak" effect, which I've renamed Rat Tail for obvious reasons given what it's looking to model, is definitely my favourite. As a drive it's more punchy than either the MXR-DI or the Dark Pre effects, but unfortunately it loses more low end than either of the other two (the MXR-DI effect seems to be best for retaining low end). This is despite me introducing a 50:50 wet/dry mix into the effect patch itself. Didn't seem to be any way around this particular conundrum until I picked up an used Boss LS-2 recently. I tried the B1-4 in the LS-2's send / return loop and blended the Rat Tail with clean from the bass (rather than synthetic "clean" through the B1-4: it's not a particularly good by-pass in the effect itself) and bingo! Meaty low end plus a delicious drive. Hmmm...I can see myself getting a little mini board at this rate to set up the LS-2 and the B1-4 Summary: B1-4 Squeak drive effect + clean blend with Boss LS-2 = very usable Rat Tail drive

Pulling you over to this thread to save de-railing the other one! I guess with over 3,000+ posts on this Yammy thread, I'd have to say you're not wrong there! 😁 Can't remember if you're a 4 or 5 string player, but there's some excellent Yammy BBs including a top of the range Yammy BB P34 in the FS currently on for a good price if you're a 4 string player, and a 'budget' 5 string Yammy BB425 which will hold its own with basses several times its price and several in betwixt and between. The more modern BBs are typically PJs...oh yes there's another thread extolling the virtues of those just now! 😊

About 3 years after the launch of FI v1 in circa Aug 2016 I presume there was a version 2.0? So the better time interval is v1 to v2 to v3...

I sense I'm passed 'peak gear' (famous last words!) helped by being on the Gear Abstinence Challenge 2020! I think gear falls into 2 categories: - stuff we 'use' and that includes both home use or use for gigging; - stuff that we simply enjoy having i.e. 'collectables'; and if these give us pleasure and we can afford it then why not? No different to any other pleasure giving hobbies / pastimes e.g. vinyl records, foreign holidays etc IMO pretty arrogant for gigging bass players, me included, to say that one use, gigging, has more value than another e.g home use, right? I have a couple of collectables that don't get used that much, a Ken Smith and a BBNE2, but I love having them both; and some gear that I have hardly used to date (basically a number of pedals, but a couple of specialist basses in that mix too) with good intentions to get around to using when time permits! Most of my kit I've managed to pick up in very good used condition and should hopefully retain their value. But I know that ALL of my gear gives me immensely more pleasure than cash sitting in a building society account earning virtually no interest. So any guilt? None.