Al Krow

@Bigwan this comment of yours really caught my eye: "As much fun as I’ve had with the Stomp over the years, it’s been lacklustre for me in a LIVE setting. The Ampeg SGTDI gave me everything I required with minimal tweaking." Could you elaborate for us a bit please on what the difference you're hearing between the two that makes the Stomp "lacklustre" whereas the SGTDI really hits the mark?

I seem to be collecting these, just now! Getting noise issues on my main gigging bass (Elrick) with both the Lekato and Nux, but not with the Boss WL-20s, but not on my Spector Euro 5LX. So am wondering whether this might be down to a shielding / earthing issue on the Elrick preamp - will investigate. Update June 2023: the issue with the Elrick was the barrel jack connection which has been replaced. All fine now

This is the other thread running in parallel 😊 Boss wireless alternative? - Accessories and Misc - Basschat

@Woodinblackwould it be worth merging this and the Alternatives to Boss wireless threads, as they are covering pretty identical ground simultaneously?

[Previous problem identified could be a shielding issue on the bass preamp - comment deleted].

I've had: (Crowded) 2.4 GHz space Smooth-hound - great piece of kit and Chris, the UK manufacturer, provided fantastic customer service e.g. replacing the plastic battery cover which has a tendency to easily break, without charge. Shure GLXD16 - didn't really find much, if any, benefit over the Smooth-hound and it's significantly bulkier / more expensive, so moved it on; Boss WL-20, super compact; frees up space on the pedal board and has generally been really good, but I've been experiencing drop outs (like the OP) recently since we've started using wireless IEMs in the same 2.4 GHz space; 5.8 GHz Tempted to go for the Shure GLXD16+, but £549 price tag - ouch! That's one expensive "cable" 😅 Lekato WS-50 (around £60)

These look good, but I guess I was hoping they might deliver a significant improvement in latency for the 2.5x price premium, but apparently not? Nux C-5RC 5.8GHz, Latency 5ms, Range 30M Lekato WS-50 5.8GHz, Latency 6ms, Range 100M (I'm guessing pinch of salt time for that) Correction - manual says 30M+ (unlike the larger figure on the website)

Cheers Lozz, They're actually Lekato WS-50 (5.8 GHz) - normally £60 but Amazon have them on currently for £48 so I thought I'd give them a punt. I've had pretty good experience with the Lekato kit I've had - really good vfm, so fingers crossed with this. I've got my Boss WL-20s (2.4 Ghz) as a fall back, but was getting a disappointing amount of drop out at a gig on Sat night to the extent I ended up firstly standing right next to the receiver and then swapping it out for a good old fashioned cable by the second set! The drop out maybe entirely related to us starting to use wireless IEMs as noted by Russ in his post above.

I mean it claims 100m range. I'd be content with 20m so there's some headroom there and 6ms latency, which I can live with and comparable to Smooth-hound, which were fine. So if the 5.8 Ghz means it drops out less and hopefully not at all, then that should be fine. I'm about to find out...

Well I've just ordered a pair of wireless bugs costing half the price the Xvive U2s that kept dropping out and, as they're 5.8 GHz, represent a truly poor man's version of the Shure GLXD16+. What could possibly go wrong? 😂

Must admit I'm very tempted to step up to the GLXD16+ because of its available 5.8GHz band which is going to be outside the crowded 2.4GHz space - I've found my WL-20s intermittently cutting-out / not really giving me much range recently at a couple of venues maybe coinciding with the band also starting to use wireless IEMs also operating at 2.4GHz. Baulking at the £549 price tag, though (as that's more than I've just spent on our mixing desk, which seems the wrong way around!) and I managed to pick up my WL-20s used for < £100 and really enjoyed using them for the past couple of years.

As another MB LM3 former user and currently with a AC 121 Lite, suggest checking out the Bugera Veyron 1001M which delivers around 800W, is very good value and very well featured.

PS @SumOne interested that you found the Boss GT 1000 Core to be the "best sounding", particularly given you've had quite a broad range of the popular models. Could you articulate for us what you were hearing with that multifx, that makes you give it such high praise?

Oh believe me, I love the 18 month sale or return (at full price) policy you seem to operate! 😅

Wow! It is a pretty harsh overall summary! "Combining obsolete hardware, awful sounds and baffling limitations, Zoom’s latest multi-effects pedals are overpriced, underpowered and completely outclassed by the competition." Not sure that I agree at all with the "awful sounds" and comment about "baffling" in relation to its limitations. But I've sympathy for rest of the statement, which is why I personally am not tempted to upgrade my B1-4 to the B2-4, but have jumped ship, entirely, to another more capable multifx. I still rate the B1-4 as being the best bang-per-buck multifx available and having been a Zoom fanboi, I'm disappointed with the missed opportunity that the B2-4 seems to represent.

Actually triple parallel paths so you can eg stream LF/MF/HF separately - I'm sure folk will be able to make use of that tri-band capability; plus a ridiculous 24 effects blocks, which should mean setting up whatever your favourite clean tone is and being able to use it on every patch if you want to, and then layer your fx on top. 250 patches should also allow a patch per song for most of us (I appreciate several BC folk will have an even larger repertoire than that) and then order the first 30 or so into a 2 hour set which can be easily scrolled through. Obviously there's a fair bit of work involved, but being able to copy and paste will certainly help and once the work is done presets are an absolute god-send for songflow. Just gonna need to see if I can persuade our guitarist to abandon his pedal board dance routine and go multifx now! I've loved my B1-4; it's provided a lot of what I've needed as a simple one stop shop mini-board. And for the money it's incredible value - less than the cost of many single dedicated effects pedals.

Ah cool. I guess what I'm particularly trying to clock was if Zoom have created a whole new set of stock patches for the B2-4, or whether they are using the same B1-4 patches but they just sound better on the B2-4 because of an improved chip set? I think you're saying the former ie a whole new set of patches?

Yup, totally agree. I mean why bother having one convenient pedal with presets, which could do the job sufficiently well on many of your bass fx, so that you'd be hard pressed to notice the difference in a live band mix, when you could have 10 pedals and spend five times as much? 😁

Totally agree with that approach. There are just some things that multifx have not quite nailed yet, across the board in particular synth and filter and where dedicated pedals still rule the roost; although there's some serious quality in the dedicated digital space even for these.

Came out in Oct 2020, I'll be super impressed if they release an upgrade this year. I guess they would need to also upgrade the GT 1000 which shares the same CPU? Helix Stomp came out a full 2 years before in Oct 2018 and with Yamaha now in the driving seat and an equivalent stellar pedigree to Boss, I'm guessing that may be the more likely candidate for a refresh?

Long time multifx and Zoom fanboi: a Zoom MS-60B was my first ever bass pedal almost exactly a decade ago. Its successor, the B1-4 has been a super-handy standalone pedalboard for gigs over the past 18 months; but a new addition dropped through the door last week which I'm looking forward to getting to grips with.

Is it true that almost every track they've ever recorded is in the key of Em?

Nice review! When you say the stock patches are more usable, are they essentially otherwise the same as what was on the B1-4 or a whole new set of patches?

Core + SY-200 seems like a pretty awesome pairing and not take up too much more space than a Pod Go or an HX Effects.

Looks interesting. Shame that manufacturers making preamps don't think to add a DI out in addition to a normal 1/4" out as standard in the way that the comparably sized MXR M81 does.