Zoom B1 Four + Power Amp

[GlamBass74]

Bear with me on this one...

 

I love my little B1 Four. It's cheap and has some features such as HPF that I really like. Tuner is useful and battery life is pretty good. 

 

I have a couple of crown drivecore xls power amps. 

 

I'd love to drive the crown with the zoom, but as hard as I try the zoom just hasn't got the grunt to act as a powerful preamp. (even on the crown's 0.775v setting)

 

Is there a simple/small/"cost effective" way of splicing another "device" into the output of the zoom pedal and boosting it to a level that the crown would deal with? 

 

I'd been tempted by an MXR M81 preamp pedal. I've read that it "will drive a power amp", but I wondered if there were other options? How does the M81 do that with only a 9v supply? It seems that to get any kind of headroom, then higher input voltages seem more common (aguilar tonehammer di pedal runs on 18v for example)

 

Ive got quite a few other preamp pedals, but they all seem to run out of puff output wise. 

 

Am I missing something? 

 

Thanks

 

[bertbass]

A few years ago my amp died, I didn't have a spare but had a Traynor 300w poweramp available.  I plugged my bass into a Behringer bass graphic EQ pedal and then into the Traynor, it worked a treat, infact, it sounded great with plenty of headroom.

 

You could always get a small mixer and use that as a preamp.

[plankspanker]

I had an MXR micro amp until very recently - about a quarter turn of the knob was enough to bring a passive P-type bass up to the same level as a MusicMan with a 9 volt preamp and anything beyond that seemed ever so loud. The MXR specs say it has up to +26dB of gain and a maximum output level of +6dBV but I'm not sure how that relates to the sensitivity of your power amps.

[bertbass]

The power amp input impedance is relevant as well.

[GlamBass74]

This is all I can find spec wise

 

I have the 1002 and 2002

 

I thought a decent preamp pedal would drive them, but they seem lacking (even bridged!)

 

Maybe my bass output is low? 

 

I'd hoped the MXR M80 would do it, but nay

[jezzaboy]

If you plug in a ART mic pre amp or similar, this will drive the amp, runs on a wall wart so plenty of oomph. I had a Crown and had the same issue with a pre amp pedal, might have been the MXR and it couldn`t drive the Crown even on the lower setting you mention.

 

I already had the ART and it worked a treat.

[jezzaboy]

This is the one I have. Also great to plug into a FRFR speaker set up.

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by jezzaboy

[GlamBass74]

thanks everybody - some food for thought

 

I love the idea of using the crown, but I just need to find the correct pedal or unit to suit my needs

 

I have placed an order for something today - i'll report back with my findings....

[Baloney Balderdash]

13 hours ago, jezzaboy said:

This is the one I have. Also great to plug into a FRFR speaker set up.

 

I got that one's bigger brother the Tube MP Project Series preamp, that among other stuff also features a switchable HPF, fixed at 40Hz.

 

And I can attest that it easily drives a poweramp, plus will give you some tube warmth, as well as some nice tube grit if you wish, depending on how high you got the gain turned up.

 

I'd recommend swapping the stock preamp tube though, which is a cheap Chinese one that is a bit thin and fizzy sounding, swapping for an EHX 12AX7EH tube was a notable improvement in sound.

 

 

 

Edited July 12, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash

[lemmywinks]

11 hours ago, jezzaboy said:

This is the one I have. Also great to plug into a FRFR speaker set up.

 

 

I had one of these, very nice little boxes that make everything sound good! I think they were around £40 when I got mine though so prices have gone crazy, Maybe the Behringer version would be useful?

https://www.thomann.de/gb/behringer_mic300_tube_ultragain.htm

Edited July 12, 2023 by lemmywinks

[Phil Starr]

Have you tried driving the amp off the headphone out? I've still got the B1ON and I reckon that would provide 0.775V.

 

FWIW we play back our recorded drumtracks from an iPad headphone out via an active DI. That has improved the sound and we are using balanced line at the earliest point in the chain.

[Baloney Balderdash]

1 hour ago, Phil Starr said:

Have you tried driving the amp off the headphone out? I've still got the B1ON and I reckon that would provide 0.775V.

 

FWIW we play back our recorded drumtracks from an iPad headphone out via an active DI. That has improved the sound and we are using balanced line at the earliest point in the chain.

The previous generation of Zoom multi effects, including the B1on and B1Xon will drive a poweramp, the newer Four models however won't.

 

Also in my opinion the B1Xon is superior to the newer B1X Four in every possible way.

 

Way more tweakable and customizable with a very flexible UI, and also sounds better as far as I am concerned (and with the 3rd party unofficial firmware hack the "Zoom Effect Manager", that allow you to load every effect you should wish from that same generation of Zoom digital effect models to it, also way more effects available to chose from, that is all the effects from the B1(X)on, G1(X)on, MS-50G, MS-60B and MS-70CDR).

 

 

Edited July 12, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash

[GlamBass74]

5 minutes ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

Also in my opinion the B1Xon is superior to the newer B1X Four in every possible way.

 

Fugly though innit? 😁

 

Thanks for the info Baloney

[BassmanPaul]

On 11/07/2023 at 15:34, jezzaboy said:

 

The TubeMP series were what I was thinking too. I have several different versions in my gear closet. Pity you weren't closer to me 'cos I would have given you one of them.

 

 

[Chienmortbb]

On 12/07/2023 at 10:02, GlamBass74 said:

 

Fugly though innit? 😁

 

Thanks for the info Baloney

Having had the B1 ON, B1 Four (and now the B2-Four), I disagree. The only effect missing from the B1 ON is the Organ and that was not top of my list of effects. The tuner on the B1 Four is the best tuner I have used live. The combination of the speed of settling and the clear LCD and LED displays are really useful. 
 

The addition of Volume Bass Middle and Treble controls is a big improvement and many of the effects were improved.

 

The only thing I bought the B2 Four for is the DI out. It saves me taking another box (DI) to a gig. 

[Baloney Balderdash]

23 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

Having had the B1 ON, B1 Four (and now the B2-Four), I disagree. The only effect missing from the B1 ON is the Organ and that was not top of my list of effects. The tuner on the B1 Four is the best tuner I have used live. The combination of the speed of settling and the clear LCD and LED displays are really useful. 
 

The addition of Volume Bass Middle and Treble controls is a big improvement and many of the effects were improved.

 

The only thing I bought the B2 Four for is the DI out. It saves me taking another box (DI) to a gig. 

Owing both the G1 Four, B1 Four, G1on and B1Xon, I still disagree.

 

The new generation of Zoom effects were a step back in quality as far as I am concerned. 

 

And in terms of twekability a huge step back, just as one out of many examples the B1Xon allows you to assign whichever one parameter (from which there are way more than just the limiting max 4 of the B1 Four to chose from, which really allows to to tune the individual effects to sound exactly as you prefer) from whichever effect of each patch to the build in, and by the way great, expression pedal, however you like it, that is in terms of direction and range, the B1X Four on the other hand gives you only a handful of predetermined dedicated expression pedal specific effects, and that is the only thing the build in expression pedal can be used for on those units.

 

Also the new "Four" models just doesn't sound as good as the "on" models (given of course tweaked right).

 

Edited July 16, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash

[EmpInfNed]

With Palmet Match 402 seems me it works great. No need a booster.

 

 

[BassmanPaul]

I'm glad it worked for you though you did get the T in the wrong place in your post!