Al Krow

Well the OC-2 is indeed pretty iconic! If you want a clone that nails the OC-2 sound, then the Valeton OC-10 is your man. It's more compact, very sturdy and around half the price new that used OC-2s are selling for. Check out comments and sound clips in the thread below if you want to explore that one further:

Morning John! The available effects on the B1/X-4 are pretty much identical to that on the B3N - so the discussion that we had on HPFs earlier on in this thread (or was it the recent B3N thread?) will all still be 100% on point.

Are the drums also easier to access than on the B3N would you say? Must admit I never really bothered with the drum feature on the B3N, I'm guessing because it was a little bit more fiddly to access than just pressing a button that's labelled "drums"! Although looking at the rhythm list in the B3N manual it's an identical set of drum patterns to that on the B1/X-4. Oh and I had little play with patch [29] "A wah" tonight and it seems better than I remember it on the B3N, but I guess I must be hearing things or my funk technique has become more Zoom approved - lol! I could see myself using that one live instead of an MXR M82. Let me know what you think about that patch given that you've recently also got yourself the MXR? Having started using on the patch editor last night, creating and saving new patches on the unit itself still feels to me very cumbersome (actually more so than on the B3N with it's triple window interface vs the single window on the B1/X-4) and I'm definitely looking forward to getting back into ToneLib** for patch creation, editing and ordering. ** the latest version of ToneLib is ver 3.7.6 and it's fully set up for the B1/X-4 (the earlier versions weren't). I even managed to find a red USB cable to be on-Zoom brand - lol!

They also provide a Hartke (I think 50W) combo in the Yamaha store in central London. Not the best amp to be using in the middle of a store with a lot of noise around for hearing bass, but I guess that's maybe the whole point - as they have a bunch of other customers and instruments to sell besides basses! Your clip sounded much better than the quality of the sound in the Yammy store! And certainly through headphones you can hear the three different settings quite clearly - I think I marginally preferred PJ over P and suspect that it would cut through better in a live mix. For recording did you DI out of the amp or use a microphone to record the cab? Sorry ignore that, just spotted the 'mobile phone on the floor' 😄

Kinda know what you're getting at and you're right that the 'less is more' philosophy can certainly be true for pedals when it comes to complexity and being put-off getting to grips with stuff that requires detailed PC editing. Had a bit of fun with the tuner, looper and drums this evening. The tuner has three centre lights which come on when you're in tune (as John mentioned earlier) and this is going to be very welcome for anyone gigging / in darker venues. The looper is relatively short at 30 secs but easy to use with a separate button to engage. It seemed all too easy to me to clear what you've just recorded! Pretty basic in that it's just one up to 30 secs loop pattern that can be stored and doesn't record from the aux in, only the bass. Contrast that with a decent looper e.g. my Boss RC-30 which has 3 hours of recording time and 99 loops available. Similarly there's a separate button for the drum machine. Again a pretty basic feature, but useful for home practice. 62 different drum patterns (55 of which are in 4/4) that can be easily accessed by turning the first dial and you can also set volume and tempo with the other dials. The patterns can't be edited, so my Alesis SR18 can rest easy for now... Not sure I'll be making too much use of the looper, but the drums will get used for home practice and the tuner is neat.

There was a fair bit of love for Alto TS monitors on this thread. So much so, in fact, that I ended up getting a TS308 for my bands (will likely get first gig use in a couple of week's time).

This rather lovely Shuker bass in the FS... ... reminded me not a little of the Ibanez SRSC805: The Shuker has the Nord big singles which I know several of us love whereas the Ibby has the Bart Mk1s (which an equal number are not as big a fan of). It also has a rather classy John East Uni pre with para mids. Hmmm...wonder if I could get Wunjos to 'custom order' one with Nords and fit the John East and end up with a 'Shuker lite' Ibby single cut?! Is that something that sounds tasty to anyone else besides me?

Slapback (short) delay

Welcome aboard! Are you already a Zoom multi user?

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!