Al Krow

I completely agree with krispn that the other school of thought is equally valid. Just from a practicality perspective / personal preference I find that being able to adjust EQ on the bass, itself, is handy as I can hear the impact of any tweaks to EQ in 'real time' whilst standing at a reasonable distance from the amp and cab. But clearly you have EQ options on both your amp and your bass and potentially on your pedals as well! I'd still suggest something along the lines of my post above as a good starting point on your bass (or amp) EQ - it's a good 'let's tighten up the bass EQ' recipe IMO

Recommend try the following for starters: Set your amp flat and use the EQ on the bass to adjust. Volume at 8/10 on the bass (and set the amp vol bit higher than before to compensate) - you then have a bit of headroom on stage via your bass. On the bass EQ, cut the bass a touch (11 o'clock) Boost the mids to between 2 pm to 3 pm and boost the treble a touch to 1 pm. On first blush it seems to me that your boosted bass on both your bass and amp EQ is what is causing the issue. See how the above settings I've suggested sound and then definitely feel free to adjust as necessary and as your ears are telling you to!

A number of decent amps certainly do have a hpf as part of their EQ.

I suspect you won't actually hear any difference with the Thumpinator as it is clearing out the sub-audio frequency crud and what it's removing is, by definition, inaudible. What you can see is the beneficial impact on speaker excursion (and by implication speaker efficiency in the audible range) which is very clear to see on the YouTube Thumpinator clip.

Newly arrived Zoom B1X-4 on the 'creative' home use board and can be easily 'whipped off' for rehearsals and gigs as a solo pedal. Drive pedals currently under review and I suspect one of them may be for the chop as I'm starting to manage to get some decent drive patches on the Zoom multi! That would then potentially free up space for a bitcrusher. The Zoom has already paid for itself several times over

Dave - my Thumpinator is only being used on my home board and the B1X-4 has just had a couple of outings to rehearsals, so not sure my experience is any better than yours. But here's the thing: both the Thumpinator and HPF on my Zoom have been set to primarily tackle the sub-audio range to let my cabs 'breathe' and my pedals not have to deal with the energy absorbing low end of sub 30 Hz. In terms of room boominess won't that more likely be in the 30Hz to 60Hz range? In which case neither the Thumpinator nor the HPF, the way I have it set, are going to help. If I'm right, you'd be better off cutting at 50Hz on the GEQ effect, or setting your HPF to start cutting at 80Hz as John is doing.

Yup separate buttons for both of those on the B1-4. Clearly Zoom seem have taken on board feedback on this point, which is good. Either that or, as Dave suggested, they think getting stuck in Bossa nova loops mid gig is very funny.

Anyone worked out what the three additional 'bump', 'contour' and presence filters do and what the EQ centre points on the 4 band EQ are?

I came across this rather good thread on "the end of GAS" in general discussion recently... 😁 Congrats on the new lady in red. She does look the beans!

+1 ^^ about being a little weird incorporating drums into bass effects patches. It's probably why I never used the drums on the B3n, whereas having access by just pressing a dedicated drum button on the B1X-4 is much more handy.

Welcome to the growing circle of failures Si (I officially failed before I started). You can maybe be our honorary president. Free supply of curried chicken available as part of the role.

Sorry to hear. In terms of programming any of the still in production Zoom multifx's I can't recommend the Tonelib patch editing software highly enough. It's free to download and use and makes creating patches both a doddle and a lot of fun. You should have 14 days (or 30 days?) before you need to return for a full refund, so hopefully that will give you a chance to see if it is too much for you. I've actually gone for the B1X-4 that you mention, having previously had a B3n which I moved on having got a Helix Stomp - but then have come full circle back to Zoom! The B1X-4s are available to buy now and I'm liking mine a LOT It has the same newer DSP and chipset as the B3n i.e. has been upgraded from the older B3 and MS-60B; but 'only' has 50 patches and not 150 which the B3n offers, but in a much more compact form factor. The B3n is a really good piece of kit for live use - its three pedals and three stomp switches give it an edge over the B1X-4's two pedals in that regard, but its larger size means it doesn't quite fit into the pouch of a gig bag so easily!

Fingers crossed it arrives. But I understand your slight nervousness (although if they don't ship you will be able to get a full refund via eBay) - we have a saying here in the UK: "don't count your chickens until they have been put into a decent curry"...

It's an excellent bit of kit! 😎 But surprised the B1-4 is taking so long to come through. I think a few of us managed to order from Zoom UK directly (via the link Dave provided) and got our B1-4 and B1X-4 within 48 hours. I had a bit of fun using the expression pedal on the B1X-4 at rehearsal last night using the Wah-distortion stock patch on one of our covers. Basically scrolled through clean --> Dark Pre --> Wah-dis to provide a bit of colour to the repeated bass line. Got the thumbs up from my bandmates. For me definitely worth the extra £15 to have the wah pedal included in one unit.

How easy are they to park?

Well if any folk are likely to know you'll probably find them on this thread, probably starting with the gent in the above post!

A couple of practical points to note: 1) if you scroll up and down through one bank you're doing the same across ALL FIVE banks i.e. go from 10 --> 12, means if you switch banks you'll be on 22, 32, 42 and 52 on the other four banks 2) useful warning comes up to tell you that your batteries are low!

Which are the two pitch shifters you are using on the B1-4 and are these the same Zoom effect as on the B1on (and MS-60B)? What precise settings do you have them on besides the dry / wet balance? I'll give them a go on your settings on mine and let you know. Did I read somewhere that the drive on the TC SD can now be changed using Tone print - or am I just imagining that? If it can, that could deal with the one weak spot of the pedal based on folks' comments that the drive is a bit 'meh' on the SD.

I'm guessing the difference in experience here is going to be G1-4 vs B3n / B1-4 with the latter two being specifically geared to the bass frequency range, whereas the G1 is aimed at guitarists?

Dunno if you've seen this in the FS? (Lol - just seen that this was a 2015 thread, and the OP has probably given up bass and taken up boules by now... 😁)

Exactly! Add in 35" scale, a John East 3 band preamp and it seems to me you're on the road to tight low end heaven 😁