Al Krow

2 minutes ago, Kiwi said:

The idea is to arpeggiate without need for MIDI or extra stuff.  

I'm only aware of the Boss SY-1 and SY-200 having arpeggiator capability and, even then, it's not possible to layer the arp onto other fx 'within' the unit. Maybe the SY-1000 has this level of capability, but significantly beyond my budget.

How are you currently achieving arp functionality with your set up?

2 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

I forgot that - used tend to go for more mind! 

Yeah, there's maybe a reason for that 😅

I mean the Zoom B1-4 is such a ridiculously good value pedal anyway - so feature laden. And if you have a key effect that you love like the B3K/7K it does well - well go for it!

Worst case you pick one up for £50 used and sell it for £45 plus P&P... I've got one on my PB and another as a stand alone multi-fx tuner I can pop into my gig bag when I'm travelling light.

1 hour ago, LukeFRC said:

The last few on here secondhand have been £300-320 ... they are about... 

Is it end of line? Well yes and no. 

It's a digital effect... at some point it's going to be outdated, probably in more than 20 years time, but still.... will there will be some new shiny thing in the future, yes, will the "upgrade" be much more than what the Helix line is now? Maybe modelling of guitar amps maybe, but I question how much difference/improvement it would make for bass where the needs are slightly different...

 

 Also the last update was only a few months ago, and the HX one has just come out, while it's clearly a way of spinning the line out (like a mid stage face lift on a car) it's not like they could not support something thats only just come out.... 

 

And, crucially, is there anything out, in a similar price bracket with the similar features that is better? not really. 

 

 

 

 

 

(total curveball, if you wanted the volume/wah the full size Helix secondhand loose more value than the stomp, and in some ways for big digital multifx it has more competition than the stomp) 

 

Arguably the GT1000 Core is comparable / better and in a similar price bracket?

@TRBboy you got me interested in the Sonicake! Looking at some of the online reviews it seems to suffer from significant (10ms) latency as a key drawback,which will layer with any latency you have in the rest of your signal chain. Can add up and become noticeable. 

The B7K sim on the B1-4 is pretty good, particularly with a bit of bass EQ boost which you can add pretty easily, to counter low-end scoop inherent in the sim. 

I've got my eye on the (hopefully!) soon to be released MS-60B Plus, particularly if it has an upgraded chip set but no confirmation that's going to be the case yet. 

51 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

The fact that the FI responds to MIDI means you can use any other bit of sequencer/arp hardware to trigger it. Korg make some cheap sequencers.

 

This clip is a Precision bass but I’ve had plenty of success using Jazz basses with it in the past.

 

Also, as there’s still more than half the space left in the new pedal there are some things we’re developing that will take this even further. (Technically there are 4 separate apps and only two are in use with the current implementation.)

Good point re midi and arp sequencers.

"More than half the space left" = the V4 has more than double the memory capacity of the V3? Nice one!

20 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

The ACCURACY priority setting does get rid of the pitch blip entirely.

If we select ACCURACY priority, how much latency in terms of ms should we be expecting?

4 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

My sincere apologies, I clearly didn’t read that properly! (Too much testing and not enough sleep.)

You've done an amazing job, Peter. No one'd going to deny that!

3 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

Just to avoid perpetuating a falsehood, these Boss pedals do not track anything at all, they simply overlay the existing audio with a signal that makes it sound like a synth. 

Yes that point has been made multiple times, haha, hence my stating that they use a different mechanism.

But as a user of the pedal the underlying electronic wizardry is much less important for me (and I suspect others) ie what we're interested is how it sounds / works for ourselves and our audiences. The recent Boss pedals SY-1 and SY-200 "tracking" of what we're playing is pretty flawless (and a massive improvement on the SYB-3 and SYB-5 predecessors) and the lack of glitch blip set them apart from the FI for live use for me.

9 minutes ago, lidl e said:

So there's a lot to take in there

 

In layman's terms, as someone who loves my FI but really only use other peoples patches with slight tweaks, what am i missing out as far as new sounds? 

 

Are there going to be some new crazy patches that sre just not possible with the v3?

 

Is this really only exciting for heavy duty deep divers, or is there something that would immediately jump out to a casual user just plugging a v3 and v4 in side by side?

" Superior pitch tracking - Greatly reduced latency and increased sensitivity to input instrument dynamics. Pitch detection can now be set to prioritize speed or accuracy;" 

The tracking was always my stumbling block with the FI. Appreciate it's done in a different manner, but the lack of glitchiness and tight tracking of the Boss SY1 / SY-200 was the key differentiator for me even though the FI always had better sounds. This change has definitely got my attention!

1 hour ago, Skybone said:

Was a long time fan of Elacin/Etymotic ER20S earplugs, but you can't seem to get them anymore. Tried the Alpine's but hated tham. Bought some Auritech Music plugs, and they were great.

 

Recently bought some ACS Custom plugs, really pleased with them.

The Auritech seem to have a superficially similar design to the Alpine - interested that you found them so much better. Were they just better at noise reduction? At £20 a pop seems to be worth a punt!

Guess you're finding the ACS Customs to be a step up from the Auritech?

@Phil Starr

Would it flood the stage area less if you had the sub at the front? Appreciate they are probably the least directional part of PA kit, but maybe sufficient to deal with the sense from the band/guitarist that it was sounding bass heavy? I've seen subs placed at the front and sides of stages which seemed to work well - also appreciate you're not going to have a stage for most pub gigs! 

7 minutes ago, BlueMoon said:

I guess we all have uniquely shaped ears and going for moulded plugs will ensure a good fit. The generic plugs will have been designed to an “average” ear canal shape.

 

With my Alpine plugs I have found I’ve achieved a much better seal if I use the applicator that they supply with the kit. Trying to insert the plugs without the applicator forms a less efficient seal in my experience.

 

 

 Ah maybe where I've been going wrong - i.e. not using the applicator. Have you been able to get replacement supplies of this and do you know what it contains?

12 hours ago, BlueMoon said:

Personally I’ve had good experience with Alpine filter earplugs. Effective and reasonably priced.

Ah that's interesting - as Alpine are the ones I'm currently using and not finding them particularly effective. I guess that's making the point of getting something bespoke i.e. something off the shelf may be good for some but not others.

BC'ers - looking for a recommendation on some high quality "off the shelf" ear plugs that will provide very decent ear protection at rehearsals etc. 

Not looking for IEMs as such - just plain vanilla ear plugs for when I'm not gigging myself.

Don't mind paying a bit extra for something really decent, but not looking to go bespoke/customised, so perhaps < £150?

Some of the ear plugs that get 5 stars online don't actually seem to be that great in my experience, but I guess at £30 or so I shouldn't be expecting too much?

20 hours ago, police squad said:

Having used a very cheap Lekato 2.4 wireless, which dropped out a little the last gig I did, I have now plumped for the MIPRO MI58 set up

I've read some really good reviews and I'm hoping it will serve me well.

I'm not going to be using it at festivals, just my pub gigs

Just read the reviews - pretty glowing! 

5.8 GHz should be a definite plus in terms of interference from other 2.4 GHz kit. 

But it's a decent investment at 10 times the cost of the Lekato's, so hopefully will be quite a step up. 

5 hours ago, jaythemusicguy said:

Regular MS60B v1 user; even has MIDI controllability (is that a word?). If the new version is an upgrade and the buttons are toe-able...interesting.

That said I bought a NinjaFox Wingman attachment for mine: https://ninjafoxengineering.com/products/wingman

That looks great - would definitely have held onto my v1 if that had been around and I'd spotted it a few years back!

We had a really boomy first half of a gig with the sub at back of the stage adjacent to the drum kit. Concluded must have been getting getting more bleed into the kick drum mics. 

49 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Try putting a Boss pedal in between - if the pitch goes, a buffer will solve your problem. 

Thanks Russ.

I think the difficulty there is potentially the Zoom B1-4 doubles up as a headphone amp. I'll give your suggestion a go when I get home, but won't putting a non-headphone amp pedal in between have the ability to drive the IEMs in the same way? 

Was wondering if there's a grounding hack or piece of hardware available to achieve the same as just touching the jack?

Was just using my Xvive U4 plugged into my Zoom B1-4 for some "silent" practice while away from home, and was getting a high pitched whine which disappeared when I touched the input jack adapter. 

Seems to be a clear cut earthing issue? There's no Ground Lift switch on the (budget) pedal. 

Any straightforward hacks you can recommend / suggest to solve? 

1 hour ago, SumOne said:

I'm looking forward to the MS-60B+ Possibly an all-in-one pedalboard in a Boss compact pedal size?

 

Presumably it can be battery powered, 6 effects is  just about enough to use as an entire pedalboard  - to use it as an all-in-one I would want to use four effects just as 'always on' :  compressor, EQ, High/Low passes, Drive, so that leaves 2x blocks to add other effects per preset (e.g. synth and reverb),  and scrolling up/down presets will be a good addition as it's a bit of a faff on the older version.  

Agreed, the key limitation for me was the one way scrolling. So if you had the max 26 patches it was a faff to get back. 

Wonder if they will have taken the opportunity to upgrade the chipset and if so whether there may more patches available? I seem to have made use of most of the 50 patches on my B1-4, although tbf I only use a fraction of those live. 

Thanks Martin. We've got a first covers band gig with a side project of mine in a month's time as a 3 piece and no drummer and the guitarist is busy using midi to download the actual tracks to songs in our sets. So I was very interested in your experience, but looks like we'll be diving in at the deep end first, haha!

Totally agree on the impact of increasing tempo can have of the energy of a song. Can absolutely work both ways though - when drummers play too fast it can stop a song from breathing particularly on funkier stuff.

13 hours ago, martin8708 said:

I have a Boss DR 01S that I use when playing acoustic guitar at home , lots of interesting percussion options .

With the band we use a Beat Buddy pedal ( we have two ) , purely down to the fact that we haven’t had a reliable drummer in the last 3-4 years . We have a regular dep drummer that will play for money , but will not come to rehearsal .

The advantages of the beat buddy are we can set the tempo / pattern to exactly how we all want it .

Ive found most dep drummers play a lot quicker than the original tempo of the song , which puts added pressure on the vocalist’s phrasing of the song .

Are you using your BB for live use or just rehearsals? 

On 31/01/2024 at 12:38, tayste_2000 said:

 

Also would reduce the time it runs on AA batteries for, one of the main reasons I have 3 of the older model is the fact I can just throw it on the floor and play.

 

As long as these still allow you to move fx between units I’ll be happy with them.

 

I fgot a MS100BT yesterday and I’m starting to think all I want over the stock bass unit is the Particle Reverb.

Apparently saying the MS100BT has now been discontinued by Zoom? 

5 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

Are you running IEMs direct off the auxes?

 

Mono auxes for wireless IEMS - these can give us tailored monitoring e.g. I have bass boosted on mine and singer focuses on vox, her keys and guitar.

Headphone and group outs for wired IEMs

All of them have separate volume controls on the desk: Soundcraft Signature 12 (MTK)