New Zoom B3

[1976fenderhead]

(review temporarily removed as I do further testing)

Edited February 6, 2012 by 1976fenderhead

[discreet]

[quote name='1976fenderhead' timestamp='1328532578' post='1528508']
By this time I had made up my mind so didn't try anything else (delays, reverbs, amp sims, pedal effects or double effects).
[/quote]

Dude, I'm very sorry you are disappointed with the B3! Thing is, I was going to get one mainly for the amp sims... I don't really use FX at all, apart from a bit of light tube grit. Any chance of a review of the amp sims before you send it back??

[1976fenderhead]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1328533920' post='1528542']
Dude, I'm very sorry you are disappointed with the B3! Thing is, I was going to get one mainly for the amp sims... I don't really use FX at all, apart from a bit of light tube grit. Any chance of a review of the amp sims before you send it back??
[/quote]

Sorry, factory reset, fingerprints wiped, carefully repacked and ready to go
I really don't need the amp sims at all, maybe it's good for that, I don't know, wouldn't be able to evaluate their accuracy anyway...

[discreet]

[quote name='1976fenderhead' timestamp='1328534178' post='1528546']
Sorry, factory reset, fingerprints wiped, carefully repacked and ready to go
[/quote]

No problem. Rumple has very kindly offered to lend me his for a day or two, so I'll add my 2p in due course!

[Rumple]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1328534527' post='1528554']
No problem. Rumple has very kindly offered to lend me his for a day or two, so I'll add my 2p in due course!
[/quote]

You can borrow it next week Mark and do a review.

I'm using the Aguilar sim at home, it sounds nothing like my aguilar amp but adds a nice tone through the computer for practicing.

Do amp sims really work anyway? how can a box of tricks played through various speakers or headphones really sound like say an SVT with an 8x10 cab.

[discreet]

[quote name='Rumple' timestamp='1328535522' post='1528579']
You can borrow it next week Mark and do a review.
[/quote]
Thanks very much, Dave! Looking forward to it.
[quote name='Rumple' timestamp='1328535522' post='1528579']
...how can a box of tricks played through various speakers or headphones really sound like say, an SVT with an 8x10 cab?
[/quote]
Maybe it can't, but that's what I want to find out. I'm expecting to hear a number of tonal options at least, judging by what has been posted in the above reviews.

[cheddatom]

[quote name='Rumple' timestamp='1328535522' post='1528579']
how can a box of tricks played through various speakers or headphones really sound like say an SVT with an 8x10 cab.
[/quote]

well, it will take some tweaking, but if you have it through a loud amp and 8x10" cab you should be able to get close... or if you're comparing your headphone sound to the sound of a SVT with an 8 x 10" in an isolation booth with the mic being fed straight to your headphones.

I'm surprised that 1976 found the effects too subtle. I use a B2.1U for modulation (and some other stuff) and find the phasers particularly "over the top" but this is good for what I want.

[1976fenderhead]

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1328546446' post='1528829']
I'm surprised that 1976 found the effects too subtle. [/quote]

I'm surprised too. I get the feeling that they wanted to tailor this for bass so much in protecting the definition of the low notes and allowing the bass to cut through in the mix, that not only they added useful low cuts and mix knobs to almost everything, but they also toned the modulations down not to muddy the bass too much. I need a multi fx for modulation mostly, I could live with these phasers and choruses, they do the work even if poorer than the M5's, but the flanger is so much worse and so poor it was a killer for me.

[Dave Tipping]

I still can't wait for mine to come I've never really been a fan of over doing fx and my main priority is keeping the bottom end nice and defined and clear in the mix ... the fact most of the effects have a mix knob is a massive + for me personally.

[1976fenderhead]

I removed my review from above because I did some further testing due to some odd behaviour bugging me (like the dry sound always coming through with the pitchshifters at 100% wet). I was getting this odd behaviour the first time, but now I plugged the bass straight to the B3 (instead of having the M5 in between) and I didn't get that behaviour. Not sure what that was about, if related to the position in the chain after the M5 or not. I also managed to get a better 4 stage phaser and warped phaser than the M5's and close-enough chorus, though the 8-stage phaser is still thin compared to the M5's, same happening with the flanger. I'm now wondering if this may actually be a good thing with the woomph of a live amp, so I think I won't return it and give it a go in practice or live first to see what's better. The lack of thickening of the sound, though seeming a bit thin at home, may actually be a plus live, I'll see. I also need to test this tomorrow a bit louder during the day, as the neighbours were beginning to complain...

[Dave Tipping]

- let us know how you get on. Only one more sleep for me ... thankfully I don't have an M5, so providing the chorus is half decent and it does over drive and fuzz close to my pedals I'll be chuffed. Is there a soft case available for this anywhere? or does it come with anything?

[Green Alsatian]

I've had further dabblings with the B3 tonight, and after reading 1976's comments about the flangers, I delved deeper than my cursory preset checks the other night.

I'd concur that the flangers are very subtle and I've found it tricky to coax a decent 'jet' sound from them - it's more geared towards the chorusy sounds you can get from a Flanger. It's like the mix doesn't go fully wet, even turning the mix up to 100%. As others have said, it seems clear that this is to preserve the bottom end, which is understandable. I certainly found them usable and you can yield better results by tweaking them, but when I plugged in my Ibanez Airplane Flanger (my all-time favourite flanger of all time), it's like night and day!

Naturally, I still haven't fully tinkered with everything - that will come in time. I'm also still running through headphones as I haven't had the opportunity to run it through my amp (albeit only a Marshall Bass State B65). I'm still very impressed with the B3 - probably the first multiFX I've owned that isn't a chore to use!

Edited February 6, 2012 by Green Alsatian

[1976fenderhead]

[quote name='Green Alsatian' timestamp='1328567973' post='1529415']
It's like the mix doesn't go fully wet, even turning the mix up to 100%.
[/quote]

That was my feeling too, maybe that's a good thing though as it doesn't lose any definition... Only practice in a studio or gig will tell...

[cheddatom]

to get a real "woosh" from a flanger wouldn't you need some distortion too?

[brensabre79]

I thought this about the vintage chorus, hardly any effect at all until I turned the amp up at a practice and realised I had waaay too much chorus

I agree though, to get the jet sound from a flanger you need to have plenty of gain, overdrive or distortion - there are some combo effects near the end so you don't waste a slot...

[1976fenderhead]

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1328604186' post='1529682']
to get a real "woosh" from a flanger wouldn't you need some distortion too?
[/quote]

ok, maybe I should have said swirl

[Green Alsatian]

A swish?

[1976fenderhead]

After a lot more testing of the modulations today, I decided it doesn't hold up to the M5 so I'm definitely returning it. They can actually get more noticeable than the M5's, especially in the lower E string, but the thing is, they just don't sound as natural.

It seems like on the B3 the flanger/phaser/chorus effects are applied to a certain mid-high frequency range which becomes prominent, as if added to the clean sound. It sounds more "hi-fi" in a way, but a bit digital. That's why on my first review I thought I couldn't get any strong enough effect: I had accidentally knocked my amp mids knob to zero and it was completely cutting the frequencies somewhere around 600-800Hz (can't remember), and that was enough to make the effect almost disappear.

On the M5, the effect actually sounds like it's lower on the frequency range and affecting a wider band (the whole band?) as well. It sounds much more organic and natural, even if a bit less noticeable sometimes. The range of depth, resonance and rate is wider on the B3 (minimum resonance on the B3 is close to maximum resonance on the M5, and maximum depth on the M5 is between 1 and 2 thirds on the B3, depending, speed gets much higher on the B3), but it just doesn't sound great going in those extremes... I wish I could actually have lower resonance than minimum on the B3. It goes into negative values, which I never saw before, but those make it thin at first and warbly at the end.

I could sometimes get some decent tones, but they took loads of work tweaking lots of parameters, while on the M5, it sounds good with almost no tweaking straight away... I see it happening like with the 506 I had ages ago, every different gig or practice room I had to go and retweak everything. Though it's much easier on the B3, it would still be a pain compared with normal stompboxes, while the M5 is just like one...

I also played around with the pitchshifters a few times again, and though I didn't get the behaviour I got the first time not being able to dial out the dry tone (no idea what the hell happened there) they are also much poorer than the M5's: they sound a bit like a keyboard, with a hint of reverb or chorus, and you get some slow trembling with one of them (like when you tune with harmonics and they aren't quite in tune yet). There's also sometimes slow tracking with one of them.

I played a bit more with the auto-wahs, which are definitely better than the M5's, but it seemed there was always quite a strong boost on the lows I couldn't dial out. Haven't tested much to fix this, maybe it's ok.

And I also started having some concerns regarding sturdiness... that glass over the screens is way too large for confort. I imagine a cable jack or a drum stand dropped over it and there it goes - massive scratch or broken. Much harder to happen with the G5/9/13 series, which look bomb proof.

And I absolutely hate the way the tuner works.

Now reposting from my first review:


[i]Synths: Not bad sounding, especially the Korg-like model, definitely better than the M5, but the tracking kills them on fast notes, say above 200bpm at least, maybe lower, so I'll have to stick to my EHX Bass Micro Synth (and considering a Mark Bass for the presets and sawtooth which I prefer to square wave). If you make it so there's no filter closing or opening though, just the same steady frequency, tracking is not a problem...[/i]

[i]Compressors: Better than the M5, but nothing too remarkable here either...

Octave: Very good I thought, the only thing I tried where the B3 absolutely kills the M5.

Distortions: Don't like them on the M5, don't like them here. They all sound fizzy and artificial to me even when you mix a lot of dry sound. And why on earth would anyone want to model the Boss Bass Overdrive???

Preamps: Sort of liked the Xotic Bass BB model, didn't care much for the others... The colour button setting on the M80 model is close but not good enough.[/i]

[b]EDIT:[/b] I tested the M80 colour button model again and I now think it's actually pretty good, but I haven't AB'd it directly, there was some time between playing with the M80 and playing with the B3.


[i]Just a word for [url="http://effectpowersupplies.com/"]effectpowersupplies.com[/url]: brilliant service as always.[/i]

I haven't tried delays, reverbs, amp sims or double effects properly. There's also the drum patterns which I didn't try much but seemed ok, and the looper I didn't try at all.

Edited February 7, 2012 by 1976fenderhead

[chrismuzz]

Thanks for the incredibly detailed review fenderhead! Couple of little questions for you if you don't mind:

Does the unit colour, alter, or suck your tone when, for example, having no effects active?

What was it you disliked about the tuner? Does it still track well? I use a Korg Pitchblack at the moment and was hoping one of these would be a decent replacement.

Thanks again!

[1976fenderhead]

[quote name='chrismuzz' timestamp='1328629540' post='1530306']
Thanks for the incredibly detailed review fenderhead! Couple of little questions for you if you don't mind:

Does the unit colour, alter, or suck your tone when, for example, having no effects active?

What was it you disliked about the tuner? Does it still track well? I use a Korg Pitchblack at the moment and was hoping one of these would be a decent replacement.

Thanks again!
[/quote]

I was actually just going to post about tonesucking or not, because some guy on talkbass said he got it. Personally, I couldn't notice any difference. I plugged bass > B3 > amp, then bass > amp a few times, never noticed any colour or tonesucking. I have new strings, and the zing and twang were all there.

As for the tuner, I have the Pitchblack too. You know how with the PB you get one red LED lighting just slightly if you are very slightly out of tune? That allows you to tune to perfection. With the B3 the screens are pretty useless besides telling you the note you're on, it's all about the lights on the top, and they always light fully, so if you are 1% high, the red light to the right will light full on, perhaps blink if it's very slight, but it's hard to have a fully gradual feel from it as I guess each light represents a certain percentage range... I won't say it's not accurate because when I moved the tuning peg up or down just a tiny touch from tuned, it noticed and signaled out of tune, but the whole concept is a bit weird... Makes me feel a bit uneasy and hard to trust as much as with a PB. The screens could have been used much better for this. On the M5, you have a horizontal bar and a big dot moves freely left to right on it, it's not 'stepped', so though not as good as the PB and hard to see the note from the height of my 1.88m, it's still pretty good.

Also, on the B3, the tuner doesn't mute strings by default with the 1 sec press, you have to do a longer press of 2 secs for it to mute, not sure if this can be changed or not but it's a bit annoying. I like lightning fast D-dropping between songs

Edited February 7, 2012 by 1976fenderhead

[aldude]

[quote name='1976fenderhead' timestamp='1328630266' post='1530323']
I was actually just going to post about tonesucking or not, because some guy on talkbass said he got it. Personally, I couldn't notice any difference. I plugged bass > B3 > amp, then bass > amp a few times, never noticed any colour or tonesucking. I have new strings, and the zing and twang were all there.

As for the tuner, I have the Pitchblack too. You know how with the PB you get one red LED lighting just slightly if you are very slightly out of tune? That allows you to tune to perfection. With the B3 the screens are pretty useless besides telling you the note you're on, it's all about the lights on the top, and they always light fully, so if you are 1% high, the red light to the right will light full on, perhaps blink if it's very slight, but it's hard to have a fully gradual feel from it as I guess each light represents a certain percentage range... I won't say it's not accurate because when I moved the tuning peg up or down just a tiny touch from tuned, it noticed and signaled out of tune, but the whole concept is a bit weird... Makes me feel a bit uneasy and hard to trust as much as with a PB. The screens could have been used much better for this. On the M5, you have a horizontal bar and a slider moves freely left to right on it, it's not 'stepped', so though not as good as the PB and hard to see the note from the height of my 1.88m, it's still pretty good.
[/quote]

Weird, on mine the number of lights tells you how far away from the note you are. I use chromatic mode.

[1976fenderhead]

[quote name='aldude' timestamp='1328630782' post='1530337']
Weird, on mine the number of lights tells you how far away from the note you are. I use chromatic mode.
[/quote]

Yes of course, but you have basically 3 levels of distance to the right and 3 to the left, with the M5 or Pitchblack you have nearly infinite levels because on the M5 you have as many as the resolution of the screen, and on the PB you have the number of lights plus their dimming from one to the next. A lot more stages to see where you are.

[aldude]

[quote name='1976fenderhead' timestamp='1328630970' post='1530343']
Yes of course, but you have basically 3 levels of distance to the right and 3 to the left, with the M5 or Pitchblack you have nearly infinite levels because on the M5 you have as many as the resolution of the screen, and on the PB you have the number of lights plus their dimming from one to the next. A lot more stages to see where you are.
[/quote]

Ah, I misunderstood what you meant, yes I think the B3 lights are either on or off, not used the Pitchblack/M5 but the lights are dimmed as you get closer? I guess that could give a better resolution - depending on a number of things, including the range assigned to each light. FWIW, I did ffind the B3 tuner to be excellent, very fast and stayed on the note rock solid. I can't comment on its accuracy, but it certainly did sound in tune!

[Dave Tipping]

Gutted .. came home to a "your parcel is in our depot" thingy ... acht well it's only a few miles away and it opens at 6am

[Green Alsatian]

On the subject of the Line 6 M5 - is that just one effect at a time? ie. you can't form chains of effects like dirt > modulation > delay > reverb? I've owned the Line 6 MM4 (Modulation Modeller) and the DD4 (Delay Modeller) in the past, which I mainly used with synths and they were both 'one at a time', which was a pity, especially on the MM4 as I like to run a slow phaser into a rapid flanger for a pseudo 'Ensemble' effect from the 70s string synths.

For the most part, the effects were really good and it was nice that Line 6 'played with history' on some of them by going beyond their original functionality (eg. adding depth and resonance control to the Phase 90 model). The DD4 was also a lot of fun, in particular. I imagine the M5 models are an advancement on the old modeller series.

Back to the B3, watch out for the 'Bomber' effect on the B3, folks - it's literally an explosion effect, triggered by playing! I nearly jumped out of my skin with the headphones on when I belted a note with it on!