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Zoom B2 Four


MarshallBTB

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Can the Zoom G2-4 be hacked to use with bass? And / or do the patches work reasonably well on bass anyway?

The compact form factor is appealing and Andertons have these available now for £129, which seems very good value.

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20 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

Now where I will criticise Zoom is that the old PC editing software does not work on the B2 Four. On the plus side the effects are quieter  and there are some really useful patches out of the box.

Hi John, is my understanding correct that the B2-4 does not talk to Zoom Guitar Lab nor ToneLib?

So the only way to edit is through the Apple App or on the B2-4 itself☹️

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3 hours ago, JohnDaBass said:

Hi John, is my understanding correct that the B2-4 does not talk to Zoom Guitar Lab nor ToneLib?

So the only way to edit is through the Apple App or on the B2-4 itself☹️

Correct.  Zoom dropped a clanger there. Don't get me wrong its a great pedal, especially with a version of your Free/Bad Co patch on it (stolen from the B1 Four). Most of the stock patches are usable unlike the B1 Four.

Edited by Chienmortbb
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19 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

Correct.  Zoom dropped a clanger there. Don't get me wrong its a great pedal, especially with a version of your Free/Bad Co patch on it (stolen from the B1 Four. Most of the stock patches are usable unlike the B1 Four.

Wow, now that is a huge error. 

At least my B6 talks to Zoom guitar Lab so swapping patches from B1 Four is easy.

It's hard to believe that the Zoom techies overlooked a desktop solution. 

I did have some GAS to build a new pedal board around  a B2 Four, but your confirmation has doused that fire until a desktop solution appears. 

Thanks John

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1 hour ago, JohnDaBass said:

Wow, now that is a huge error. 

At least my B6 talks to Zoom guitar Lab so swapping patches from B1 Four is easy.

It's hard to believe that the Zoom techies overlooked a desktop solution. 

I did have some GAS to build a new pedal board around  a B2 Four, but your confirmation has doused that fire until a desktop solution appears. 

Thanks John

 

Hopefully no such clanger on the MS-60B+ due out in the next couple of months. 

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Seems like an oversight not to have guitar lab/Tonelib compatibility, and also no android app (although looking at the reviews of the G2 one in Play store, maybe we're not missing anything 😅). Hopefully they will address this. 

 

It's not an issue for me as I don't have any patches I want to port across. I also find the UI on the pedal simple to navigate and set my sounds up, so the lack of software support isn't an issue, however it seems like a glaring omission which will certainly put some people off.

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On 02/04/2024 at 19:44, Chienmortbb said:

There is a problem with Android. There are multiple manufacturers and the OS is controlled by another company (Google). So its like the wild west in terms of policing Android distribution. With iOS it is one stop manufacturer and OS provider so much less support needed. The platform is stable and reliable.

 

I am not saying Apple are perfect but most  of the Pro Audio software and DAWs are on Apple devices as they have prioritised audio visual performance. I have an Lenovo Android tablet which takes over 1 second to respond.  That makes it unusable.

 

That's a truly awful excuse for Zoom's failure to support Android. The app is a library app, it's not an audio app. There are defined classes to deal with everything that would be required of it, so there's no excuse for not producing the app. And just because you've got a crap tablet doesn't mean that 99.999% of Android users don't have tablets or phones that work an awful lot better - my elderly cheap Huawei tablet, for example. Other manufacturers support Android - Behringer do for the X-Air series, Nux for their Mighty Plug, M-Vave for their wireless MIDI.

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On 04/04/2024 at 11:14, TRBboy said:

Seems like an oversight not to have guitar lab/Tonelib compatibility, and also no android app (although looking at the reviews of the G2 one in Play store, maybe we're not missing anything 😅). Hopefully they will address this. 

 

It's not an issue for me as I don't have any patches I want to port across. I also find the UI on the pedal simple to navigate and set my sounds up, so the lack of software support isn't an issue, however it seems like a glaring omission which will certainly put some people off.

 

I've just installed the Android Tonelib-Zoom to try it out with my MS-60B. Hopefully Tonelib will update Tonelib-Zoom to cater for the recent releases, on both Windows and Android, and maybe they could teach the Zoom developers how to program for Android.

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Further report: Android Tonelib-Zoom works on my Pixel 8 Pro and Nokia T20 tablet. I don't have an OTG adaptor for micro USB (it's on the way) so haven't tested it with the elderly Huawei tablet yet.

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Update on the power supply: finally received my power supply from Thomann..... And they've just sent me a bog standard EU>UK travel adaptor... 🤦 Not impressed, but I'll just carry on using the power supply over already been using. 

 

Also having a problem with my B2 Four.... I just can't decide which drive sound I like best! 😅 Oh the first-world problems caused by multi effects! 🤣 Back to the drawing board shortly to try to make some decisions. I'm not as in love with the dark drive as I expected to be, although I do like the dark preamp for my Crunch sound 👌

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thinking of order one of these next week. Im ok with the software being iOS as id probably use my ipad more than my Mac anyway. 

Ive looked at a couple of the support documents but cant see if the unit still needs a PSU or if it runs off bus power from the ipad. Im guessing it needs a PSU as well though?

 

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On 05/04/2024 at 11:46, tauzero said:

 

I've just installed the Android Tonelib-Zoom to try it out with my MS-60B. Hopefully Tonelib will update Tonelib-Zoom to cater for the recent releases, on both Windows and Android, and maybe they could teach the Zoom developers how to program for Android.

 

I've just emailed them to ask / encourage them to do exactly that for the B2-4 and MS-60B+ 😊

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1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

Just ordered mine from Bass Direct. According to the manual it can be bus powered, this swung it for me. 

Awesome! Hope you like it. I had a wobble last week, but it is a really good unit TBF. A good middle ground between quality of sounds, flexibility and ease of operation I think. 👌

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Just now, TRBboy said:

Awesome! Hope you like it. I had a wobble last week, but it is a really good unit TBF. A good middle ground between quality of sounds, flexibility and ease of operation I think. 👌

Cheers. Im still 50/50 whether i really need it, but as it’s cheaper than the BDDI i would have ended up getting, and covers my other need for an interface that works with my ipad for home practice (covered in another thread) it seems a reasonable price to pay. 

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2 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

Cheers. Im still 50/50 whether i really need it, but as it’s cheaper than the BDDI i would have ended up getting, and covers my other need for an interface that works with my ipad for home practice (covered in another thread) it seems a reasonable price to pay. 

Exactly, I mainly wanted it for the Darkglass emulators, so it's cost effective anyway and has a bunch of other cool stuff. Still haven't got my sounds quite how I want, but getting there. I had ditched my drive pedals off my board, but may yet reintroduce one or both.

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I have to say, the Djent preamp is SICK! I'm still playing with it to see if I can get the settings right for it to be useable for me in the band, but it's an incredible distortion! The ZNR is really useful in conjunction with any of the drives too, I've just left it at default settings but works really well as a noise gate.

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3 minutes ago, TRBboy said:

I have to say, the Djent preamp is SICK! I'm still playing with it to see if I can get the settings right for it to be useable for me in the band, but it's an incredible distortion! The ZNR is really useful in conjunction with any of the drives too, I've just left it at default settings but works really well as a noise gate.

 

Totally agree about the ZNR ("Zoom Noise Reduction") being a must - that's a standard block on pretty much all my B1-4 patches.

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I’ll need to dig my old B1-Four out as i have a nice generic tone with just the right amount of drive programmed in for the type of songs I’m doing. 
I can’t remember what i was using for OD, but it wasn’t from an amp sim. I remember at one stage i was using various BDDI’s and switching between them. I’ll probably not do that this time. 

Edited by dave_bass5
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4 minutes ago, TRBboy said:

I like the fact that with the B2 Four, having 5 slots on each patch and the three footswitches, I can get everything I want on one patch! 😅

Yeah. That’s the attraction for me. BDDI on all the time and add others to taste as and when the song needs it. 
I might create a separate patch for just one song. I normally use a 5 string as it needs low B and C#. Thinking I’ll just add the octave below in with the pedal and play higher. 

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4 minutes ago, TRBboy said:

I like the fact that with the B2 Four, having 5 slots on each patch and the three footswitches, I can get everything I want on one patch! 😅

 

Oh that's interesting - they've set up the new MS-60B+ with 6 slots on each patch. Wonder why the difference between the two?

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