Can I do Royal Blood with just a Zoom pedal? Answer: No! 😂

[Pea Turgh]

Hello chums.

 

My 15 yr old has just picked up the bass.  Good lad!!  He loves Royal Blood, and wishes to emulate their sound.

 

I have a Zoom MS70 CDR, and am in the process of downloading the unofficial Zoom Effects editor so I can add distortion sounds to it.

 

I will experiment and report back, but is there a Zoom effect that can split a signal, bop it up an octave to distort, and recombine to the bass signal, all within the pedal?

 

Thanks in advance,

Pete.

Edited January 9, 2023 by Pea Turgh

[PaulThePlug]

Great to hear! Mine is 13 and has my Ibby GSR200 and a little amp thanks to @shoulderpet, encouraging him to '...make some noise Orpington!'

White Stripes, Black Keys, Royal Blood...

Maybe more a ZoomB1 Four thing...

Check out Tonelib for patches

There ate also some Zoom Patch Threads on here...

 

Edited May 20, 2022 by PaulThePlug

[fretmeister]

If you can do it in a little Zoom pedal then I'm going to buy one!

 

I can do it in the Helix and there's even a bit of an attempt at a factory preset for it, but the switching is the thing - turning on and off the octaves and the 5ths for the pseudo guitar chords. Only 1 footswitch on the tiny zoom thingys.

[Newfoundfreedom]

I would imagine you could get the guitar sound. Something like octave up - distortion - harmony (for the 5th above to give it a power chord sound.)

 

However, you would still need a way of splitting and recombining the signal to switch between clean bass / guitar / guitar and bass. 

 

I used to do it with a line 6 M13 using variations of the effects above.  Plus an AB/Y pedal to change between "instruments" and a blender pedal to recombine the signal. 

 

 

Edited May 20, 2022 by Newfoundfreedom

[Pea Turgh]

Doh!  Should have searched first…

 

 

[andruca]

11 hours ago, Pea Turgh said:

Doh!  Should have searched first…

 

 

 

Yep, cheapest I could go was 2 Zoom devices. Unfortunately no parallel processing on Zoom devices as of today (even on their latest G6/B6 generation). Still, you can get a B1on/G1on for 35€ used here in Spain (so 2 for 70-80€, previous gen, but sounds better than the B1Xfour -current gen- I've owned, and ditched). Add 15€ for an ABY pedal. And I made the Y/balance box I use when going thru' only 1 amp (box+3 mono jacks+pot) for another 20€. So in the vicinity of some 120€ (100£?) you'd have the cheapest rig for it. The only poor link in the chain is the pitch shifter, all other things can be set to sound real competent. Even tho' the Zooms' bass pitch (this is the one to use, not the guitar version) is certainly no POG or PitchFork, it can even sorta' get some chords that sound passable with a noisy enough tone. Not done with 1 multiFX but with 2 VERY CHEAP ones, probably half or less than any other alternative. Here's the exact post where I describe the whole ghetto thing.

On a side note, you shoudn't even worry if the models you get are for guitar or bass if it's any of: B1on/Xon, G1on/Xon, MS-60B/50G/70CDR, G3n/B3n, G1foud/Xfour, B1four/Xfour (2 latest generations). Effects in them can be tweaked with either the Zoom Firmware Editor or Zoom Effect Manager (both unofficial, just Google them, I suggest Zoom Effect Manager 1.1.1, easier and no firmware "deconstruction" needed on the part of the user). You can put any effect from any model into another unit of the same gen. I've got a page where I compile all my Zoom firmware/FX tweaking resources and info and speak about both tools (downloadable there too).

Edited May 21, 2022 by andruca

[Newfoundfreedom]

Or, if you want to do it the easy way, and you can find one, the Akai UB1 Unibass is specifically designed for the exact job. 

 

I've been watching one on eBay the past couple of weeks. £199 starting bid and unsold twice, so it may pop up again. 

 

 

[andruca]

1 hour ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

Or, if you want to do it the easy way, and you can find one, the Akai UB1 Unibass is specifically designed for the exact job. 

 

I've been watching one on eBay the past couple of weeks. £199 starting bid and unsold twice, so it may pop up again. 

 

 

 

Definitely a better option (as per video samples) than the Fishman Fission which, I've tried twice, and tracks like crap, glitches a lot, definitely worse than the Zooms' bass pitch. Also the distortion in the Fission sucks, the Unibass' distortion sounds a lot better. Still nowhere near what you can achieve with a POG/PitchFork and independent treatment of the "guitar" signal.

Edited May 21, 2022 by andruca

[Pea Turgh]

I’ve just downloaded the Zoom Effects Manager 1.1.1 and am a little overwhelmed by the choices!!!

 

[Pea Turgh]

Right - so far I can use a line selector effect to go from bass only to bass + pitch up + distortion.  I could potentially create different patches for different songs as a quick fix til I get some other pedals! 
I’m going to experiment with the bass distortions to see if I can have an unaffected low end and distort the upper frequencies.  We’ll see.  That effects manager is great though!

[Buddster]

 

I've a Zoom B1 four and never really been able to get a convincing emulation of the sound on its own. 

Cost aside, Mark at talking bass has a good video here

 

 

 

 

[Pea Turgh]

Here’s the updated rig.  Home made pedal board with Donner ABY (£25) splits the signal to go to my tuner (to mute the bass signal) then on to my bass amp and newly built micro cab. Other signal goes to my Zoom MS70CDR with a load of new patches courtesy of that unofficial Zoom editor, on to an Axl guitar amp which we picked up for a tenner  locally.  So £35 spent (and he’s nicked the kit I already had) is getting us close.  The Zoom octave up sounds pants, so that’ll be next.

 

Edited July 12, 2022 by Pea Turgh

[Donner]

On 12/07/2022 at 19:38, Pea Turgh said:

Here’s the updated rig.  Home made pedal board with Donner ABY (£25) splits the signal to go to my tuner (to mute the bass signal) then on to my bass amp and newly built micro cab. Other signal goes to my Zoom MS70CDR with a load of new patches courtesy of that unofficial Zoom editor, on to an Axl guitar amp which we picked up for a tenner  locally.  So £35 spent (and he’s nicked the kit I already had) is getting us close.  The Zoom octave up sounds pants, so that’ll be next.

 

That's awesome!

[Pea Turgh]

Well this is escalating quickly!  Got the octave issue addressed courtesy of @ricksterphil. 

I need another tuner for me and some form of distortion for the kid so I can have my Zoom back 😂

 

The lad is pretty darn good at this bass stuff - he’s joined a local rock school club type thing (Rock Project), so hopefully will be gigging soon.

 

So I’m answer to my original question;  no, you can’t do RB sounds on the cheap 🤦🏻‍♂️

Edited October 7, 2022 by Pea Turgh
Grammar

[BreadBin]

I have an EHX Bass Blogger im getting rid of that I reckon would work well, even has 2 outputs (dry and distorted)

Can bring to the Bash on Sunday?

[Pea Turgh]

2 hours ago, BreadBin said:

I have an EHX Bass Blogger im getting rid of that I reckon would work well, even has 2 outputs (dry and distorted)

Can bring to the Bash on Sunday?

Cheers dude!  Think I’m all spent for this month though 😂

(ssshhh, bring it just in case…)

[BreadBin]

40 minutes ago, Pea Turgh said:

Cheers dude!  Think I’m all spent for this month though 😂

(ssshhh, bring it just in case…)

I'm sure we can work something out 😉

[Maude]

On 21/05/2022 at 08:48, Newfoundfreedom said:

Or, if you want to do it the easy way, and you can find one, the Akai UB1 Unibass is specifically designed for the exact job. 

 

I've been watching one on eBay the past couple of weeks. £199 starting bid and unsold twice, so it may pop up again. 

 

 

I used to use a UB1 years ago when I had my rediculous rig, the kind I thought looked cool dragging into a pub as a noob. 

It was four home made matching cabinets, a 2x15 on the bottom, then one housing a Line6 guitar combo, then a 4x12, topped off with a rack unit housing a Peavey Max valve pre-amp with crossover which split the high and low bass signal and fed into a stereo power amp via a stereo 30 channel graphic EQ. 

I went through the UB1 and sent the octave up plus a 5th to the guitar amp and the clean bass to the Peavey crossover. Upped the gain to get a little valve growl and sent the highs to the 4x12 and the lows to the 2x15, did I pioneer 'tri-amped'? 

When balanced properly, in more ways than one, I used to be able to create thunder with that thing. 

Insane and slightly embarrassing looking back. 😂😂😂

[Pea Turgh]

Bought an EHX Bass Blogger from @BreadBinat the SW Bass Bash (cheers dude!). You are of course right, Brandon - the dual outs are perfect.  Gone is the splitter, the bass goes in to the Bass Blogger, wet signal goes to the tuner so he can have clean or distorted bass, also mute the bass.  Dry signal goes to the Sub’n’Up on up only (no dry signal at all) in to the Zoom for guitar-type distortions.

Bloody marvellous!

 

Still haven’t managed to get my Zoom back for my rig though 😂

[BreadBin]

Awesome!

[andruca]

Just got a Sub'n'up Mini for cheap. Can't be happier. Tracks the octave up perfectly and immediately. As much as I hate TCE for their "optimistic" bass amp specs (what a joke) the Toneprint concept is awesome. I've made a couple custom Toneprints in no time (octave up+clean+overdrive, octave up+chorus+overdrive), both with a hi-pass filter in the output EQ section, set to 80hz, to avoid some lows that still come out of the polyphonic +1 octave. I'm mostly still using the clean polyphonic octave up into a Zoom for "guitar amp" tone duties (a B1XFour with guitar amp models added, will almost exclusively use the Rectifier orange channel emulation and occasional pitch shifter adding 5th up -mildly mixed-), the Toneprint overdrive is not that good really. All in all, very cool concept and huge posibilities. Also got a Roland Cube60 guitar amp for dirty cheap, to have a wholly independent "guitar" path.

Edited November 4, 2022 by andruca

[Pea Turgh]

Santa has sorted the eldest’s pedalboard.  This is now bang on the money for the first album, apparently.  I must admit, it does sound very impressive.

 

Donner splitter, Harley Benton tuner, Mooer Tender Octaver, EHX Big Muff “tone wicker”.  All powered by a HB Iso1 AC (awesome bit of kit).

 

But just when I thought I’d be getting my pedals back, child #2 nabs my Zoom & looper 🤦🏻

 

[Pea Turgh]

Of course, now I also need to add a bottom box (?) to the board so I can mount the power supply underneath and make it all look neater.  Also might add some input & output jacks at the back.

And yes, I am now living my dreams through my kids 🤦🏻

Edited January 9, 2023 by Pea Turgh