Al Krow

Ok thanks, if it's just that and not better connectivity then I'll live with the loss of 8ms from our 2 hour set 😀

Please explain for the benefit of simpletons like me (ok probably just me) why this is a better bit of gear than my Smoothhound and why I should upgrade to this?

It's ok, buddy, you're not at risk: JdB put his order in before us - but for some reason chose to go with more expensive and slower delivery 😂

You're very welcome! Just had a chance to play through my rig, rather than just headphones - sounded really good, and it was fun putting the wah pedal into use. I've updated my earlier mini review with a couple of additional points. Yup this is going to be getting live use from me for sure! I've already got a sneaky suspicion this is is going to be the best use of £85 that I spend on bass gear in 2019!

Just been prompted by your new avatar Mark to reflect on design. The shape of the older BBs I know is certainly not to everyone's liking (I've obviously not had a problem with it!!) But I have to say the new line up, not least the BB P35, is IMO very good looking and I'd say holds its own very well aesthetically when lined up against the more traditional Fender shape. In my case, I'd go further and say I genuinely prefer it. YMMV - beauty is obviously in the eye of the beholder! PS @M@23 if I got anywhere close to 100 gigs PA (let alone 150) Mrs Krow would have me out on my ear for sure! Definite tinge of envy that you can do what I love doing as a hobby, full time.

If you have very recently got one of these (or the X rated version!): Or been a long time fan of this: Then there are a LOT of great individual effects available which are common across both multi fx pedals. You'll likely agree with me that a huge amount of the benefit / fun is going to come from creating our own bespoke patches to improve on some of the pre-loaded ones. Thought it would be good to have a thread for any of us who fancy sharing the details of any patches you've made and finding useful (ideally with a close up pic of the effects settings) OR if you want some help / ideas for pulling a particular sound / effects patch together - please shout! PC Editing Software For editing purposes on your PC either the free Zoom editing software or that provided by ToneLib - Zoom are both really useful. There is also now this: https://tonelib.net/forums/ Comparison of B1-4 vs MS-60B The MS-60B was ground breaking when it was released in 2013 and was the first multi-fx I ever bought. Here's a little comparison of how the B1-4 builds on its older siblings capabilities: Advs of B1-4 significantly easier to use interface. The MS-60B used to do my head in before the advent of patch editing software; but the ToneLib PC editing software is free, easy to use and makes creating and editing patches a doddle on all Zoom pedals and has levelled the playing field on that score. live use: global EQ and volume knobs (vs in patch only on MS-60B) live use: ability to scroll up and down through 5 banks of 10 patches (vs 26 in one direction only, I recall, on the MS-60B) live use: two decent flappy paddles (vs 1 stomp switch on the MS-60B) live use: useful 3 light led tuner: great for dark stages / venues latest chip set, same as the B3N => up to 5 effects per patch (vs 4 on the MS-60B); and you can set to use a patch as a bank of 5 individual effects which is very neat capable headphone amp with aux in excellent and easy to access drum machine for home practice (IMO the looper is pretty meh) cheaper - which can be a bit of a surprise given how much extra it offers! Advs of the MS-60B half the footprint greater range of effects patches bomb proof metal case I've had three MS-60Bs come and go over the years. But for me the B1-4 is without doubt the better and much more usable piece of kit, and is happily sitting at the heart of my small pedal board now. B1-4 / B1(X)-4 effects list (I think the B3N effects are pretty much identical) B1-4(X) Effects (2019).pdf Zoom B1-4 PATCH LIBRARY (user created patches) Notes 1. These can be accessed via the ToneLib software - go to an empty patch and top right click on "Import the patch data from a file". 2. Please note that unfortunately the patches are model specific e.g. a B1-4 patch can't be used on a B1-4X or B3N 3. If you have any B1-4 patches you would like to share then please post and I'll also upload them here (not sure I can access your B1-4X or B3N patches to physically upload here - but I can certainly provide a link to your post, for ease of reference). B1-4 patchesA. A. Amp & Cab Free Bman [JdB-A&C].zb1f FreeTE4x12 [JdB-A&C].zb1f B. Modulation AnalogCho [AK-Mod].zb1fAnalChoDri [AK-Mod].zb1f Delay 90 [AK-Mod].zb1f Delay 400 [AK-Mod].zb1f Phaser [AK-Mod].zb1fTapeEch300 [AK-Mod].zb1f Tremolo [AK-Mod].zb1f TapeTrem [AK-Mod].zb1fWah Slap [AK-Mod].zb1f WahSlapBk [AK-Mod].zb1f C. Compression Glam Comp [AK-Comp].zb1f Limiter [AK-Comp].zb1f D. Drive & Fuzz BlueB BOD [AK-Dri].zb1f BManDrive [AK-Dri].zb1f BOF [AK-Dri].zb1f DG B7K [AK-Dri].zb1f Atreides [AK-Dri].zb1f Xotic BB [AK-Dri].zb1f E. EQ Presence [AK-Mod].zb1f Motown [AK-EQ].zb1f F. Other FX P. Pitch Shift +1 Semi [AK-Pitch].zb1f +1 Tone [AK-Pitch].zb1f -1 Semi [AK-Pitch].zb1f -1 Tone [AK Pitch].zb1f R. Reverb Reverb [AK-Reverb].zb1f

Hah! I do now have an idea for a new thread - which could be useful for those of looking to create bespoke patches

That's a really good point. I've been using mine bass --> smoothound --> back line amp with nothing in between. The rest of the band are using an analogue mixer and not in-ears. Pretty simple and old fashioned really - the 'innovative' feature is a wireless bass player who wanders around - lol! Which is probably why it's just not been an issue, so far... Hmmm...wonder what latency a Zoom B1-4 multifx I'm about to start using is going to bring to the party?

Thanks Mark. Is it also fair to say the steels, being much harder than nickel, tend to wear down frets a lot more quickly? Dang! Only one month more playing time before I need to restring? Ah but wait... that probably equates to another year or two for me (phew!) given that you are doing a LOT more gigs than me - I'm guessing you must be doing 250 gigs a year?! ...and you're doing all those gigs on just one bass!

I was really hoping the new Xvive2 would be good, because it's such a convenient plug and play set up with no separate pedal sized receiver unit. I found there was an element of glitching on all 4 channels which I couldn't shake just with home use, consequently I've not dared use it live. So I've stuck with my Smoothhound which has served me very well these past couple of years and the 8ms latency has so far not been an issue at all for me or ever been raised by bandmates.

@M@23 - see you have gone to the darker side (midnight blue --> black) from your avatar and joined 'Team Sandberg'! You kindly shared your thoughts on your favourite strings for your P35 when we met. I think you mentioned they were nickel rounds? Grateful if you could remind me of make and guage etc.

Thanks - just tried that. USB power by itself is still a little background noisy. But when I inserted the PSU (switched off) as well that seemed to 'earth it' and the noise disappeared! I think @operative451 mentioned using a Ground Lift pedal earlier in this thread (or the B3N thread) which I'm guessing is achieving the same result. But given that I have a couple of months supply of AA batteries, that'll keep me going for a while and I suspect I may just go rechargeable AAs thereafter.

First impressions...(through headphones) Glad to find that my spare PSU worked - it's just a standard 9V centre negative 500mA power requirement per the manual. That's quite a chunky current draw though. Plugging in the PSU acts as an off switch for the batteries. Neat! With the PSU engaged I did get a bit of noise on some of the effects patches ('patches'). It's pretty NOISELESS WITH BATTERIES. So it looks like I'm going to be ordering some rechargeable AA batteries (although I did manage to find a stash of about 20 AA batteries lurking from before I went all Ciocks / IsoBrick, so plenty to keep me going for a while yet!) Had a quick run through the pre-loaded 40 patches. Found a few (but only a few) that I liked - a couple of ones I was familiar with from my B3N e.g. [24] Fat Tube - drive, [44] SMR400 - amp and one that Zoom must have more recently released or I'd missed previously [34] Sub Boogie = octave down + chorus, which seemed better at tracking than the B3N octave patches I remember. There are currently 50 user patch slots = 40 preloaded patches and 10 empty slots. This is the same total available user patch slots as MS-60B, but worse than both the B1on, with 100, slots and the B3N with a 150. Someone please explain to me why the patch numbering goes from 10 to 59 - what happened to 0 to 9?! Given that there are at most half a dozen existing patches I'll be tempted to use and very few existing ones that make use of the expression pedal, the fun / usefulness is definitely going to be creating our own and overwriting the existing patches. In particular there are no delay, flange, chorus patches pre loaded. So the next step will be a deeper dive into the individual effects - no list of these in the supplied manual, but available from the Zoom website. I've attached a copy in case you're feeling lazy. There are a TON of individual effects to get your teeth into! (Which those with MS-60B and B3Ns in particular will be familiar with). Zoom's GuitarLab 4.0 is out and ToneLib apparently already supports the B1-4 / B1X-4. I'll be sticking with ToneLib for editing patches as I found that a very usable interface last time around and got myself up to speed on it. The ability to adjust volume and 3 band EQ 'on the fly' globally is going to be really useful. Don't recall having that on the B3N. Update...(through rig) Sounded just great! Effects were crisp / clear. The octaver tracking not quite so good as I thought when listening through headphones - started glitching at A on the low E string (which is actually pretty typical for octavers, so it's certainly usable) Patch [27] Wahdist - drive allowed me to put the wah pedal through its paces. That is going to be a LOT of fun! If you're thinking about getting this pedal for use as a standalone rather than on a board where space may be at a premium, then I'd seriously recommend spending the extra £16 and getting the expression pedal. The Zoom FP-02 expression pedal retails for £30 from Zoom UK, so you're effectively getting the expression pedal for half price. Quick verdict If you've paid £70 (or £85 with expression pedal) for this and are expecting it to stand toe to toe with a Helix Stomp, you're going to be sorely disappointed. But if you're looking for a compact multi-fx which will likely pretty quickly displace the B1on, MS-60B and B3 with their older DSP and chip sets, then this could well do the job. If you don't have a headphone amp and want one - this is worth the entry ticket just for that and, of course, it also doubles up as a tuner! Zoom B1(X)-4 effects.pdf

Nah - get a full family shot done!

You missed off your MS-60B (or did you never have one of those?) - for a full family shot!

Out of interest how did you get to £1,450 on the FRFR? (I thought a key selling point of FRFR was that it was quite price competitive).

Yes indeed you did! Ok, sounds like the B1on has met its nemesis! And for me the B1-4 does look much more like a Zoom multi-fx, with its trade mark red livery, than the B1on. Not that that should matter...

And maybe the new Source Audio 'C4' synth pedal could be worth checking out, too. Interested to hear a bit more about why you don't feel it cuts it at gigs?

Do you find your Sandberg, basic?

Mr happy gear nerd, you do make me smile with some of your comments. @stewblack, on the other hand, quite rightly recognised a very gracious response (from Mick) when he saw it.

Petite and ideal for a gig bag (and with an interface a LOT easier to use live than my MS-60B) were exactly the reasons for me getting one too (oh and that I don't have to wait for a birthday before I'm allowed). Should be a few of us moving ours on by the time it gets round to your birthday, so you've probably timed that to perfection 😂

@jrixn1 or @dave_bass5 can one of you dear gents put our illustrious mod le ped out of his misery? He's been waiting three weeks** to find out whether the B1-4 (i) sounds better and (ii) is less noisy than he's beloved B1on? If it is, there's gonna be one B1on that is not long for pedworld methinks 😀

Well it's your thread, so you have to say that don't you? 😁

Yup - given that it has the latest DSP chip set present in the B3N that is exactly what I would expect / hope for

Dear Mick @TheGreek - for sure it was a little dig. No apologies from me on that. I don't own TE gear, probably will never, but I don't take the opportunity to slag it off at every opportunity just 'cos I briefly tried it for a short while and it didn't float my boat. There's plenty of gear that I've returned 'cos I couldn't make it work for me, but I don't go slating them off at every opp. You seem to do that quite happily with the DG amp, of which I happen to be a contended owner who's used his at plenty of pub and function gigs. You owned that DG Amp for two weeks and couldn't make it work for you and returned it. But you've not listed all the other D class amps that didn't work for you and how long you had them for. And there are loads right? The point is there are a ton of bass players who can and do make D class work for them week in week out. I accept they're not for you and that's cool. You're of course entitled to express an opinion, everyone is! And I'm totally in favour of folk telling it like it is, warts and all. But we need to be ready for come back from owners of the said equipment when we do. That's entirely reasonable, right? I'm more than happy to get Cuzzie's (regular as clockwork) ripostes when I lay into Sandberg Delanos (even though he doesn't have them on any of his Bergs). I lived with my Berg as my goto bass for FOUR YEARS and have gigged it plenty. So I kinda feel I've got some experience to put behind my comments on its pups. If you had anything close to the same (even 6 months and some decent live use) on the DG M900 your negative comments would carry a lot more weight, certainly with me. But most importantly, when we hopefully get to meet on a future SE bash and no one can hear any difference between any of our gear, I'll more than gladly buy you a (or several!) beers, if you'll allow me Yours, Al, a very contented DG M900 owner.