Synth sound on Zoom B3n Pedal?

[Lobstrosity]

I got a Zoom B3n about a year ago, and it has lots of fun effects and presets. I haven't found a combination of settings to make a good synth sound yet. The pre-set patch doesn't sound great!

Can anyone suggest what settings to use for a good synth sound? 

[Elfrasho]

I didn't find any usable synth sounds from my B3n. I loved mine too, but for synths, not much use. To be fair, my HX stomp is pretty useless for synths too.

[Al Krow]

22 minutes ago, Elfrasho said:

I didn't find any usable synth sounds from my B3n. I loved mine too, but for synths, not much use. To be fair, my HX stomp is pretty useless for synths too.

 

+1^^

 

Not yet come across a multifx that does synth sounds well, despite having owned and gigged quite a few! 

 

Dedicated synth pedals definitely seem to do the job better.

[JohnDaBass]

3 hours ago, Al Krow said:

 

+1^^

 

Not yet come across a multifx that does synth sounds well, despite having owned and gigged quite a few! 

 

Dedicated synth pedals definitely seem to do the job better.

So , what's your shortlist of recommendations @Al Krow ?

[ardi100]

I can get a few usable synth patches from my Boss GT1-B, but it's hampered by the number of effects you can use in any one patch.

 

I imagine it's much easier to build your own synth patches with fewer restrictions on the number of blocks of effects you can use?

[BigRedX]

16 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Not yet come across a multifx that does synth sounds well, despite having owned and gigged quite a few! 

 

Dedicated synth pedals definitely seem to do the job better.

And an actual keyboard synth will do the job even better.

[Al Krow]

3 hours ago, BigRedX said:

And an actual keyboard synth will do the job even better.

 

And a motorbike goes faster than a push-bike. But not everyone wants a motorbike?

Some of us are very content with "just" being bass players!

 

16 hours ago, JohnDaBass said:

So , what's your shortlist of recommendations @Al Krow ?

 

John - you've got me thinking! I'm going to pull together a pros / cons summary of some of the current "best of the bunch" synth pedals which may be of interest to you and a few others.

[Elfrasho]

I had the C4 and that was great. Although I've heard nothing but good things about the newer MXR Bass synth. pricey though.

[SumOne]

It kind of depends on what type of synth sound you want.

 

One way of doing it is Octaver and fuzz, and I seem to remember getting some quite good ambient pad type sounds with the B3N mucking about stacking drive, modulation, reverb, delays.  Add the slicer for some interesting sounds.

Generally, envelope filters can be great for it (but the filters in the B3N aren't up to much). 

 

For the sort of mono Bass synth bassline sounds you are probably after though: Future Impact, C4, or the MXR are probably the top choices. 

[Al Krow]

(See below)

 

Edited 11 hours ago by Al Krow

[BigRedX]

On 26/10/2025 at 10:55, Al Krow said:

And a motorbike goes faster than a push-bike. But not everyone wants a motorbike?

Some of us are very content with "just" being bass players!

 

@Al Krow I think what you want out of "synth bass" and what I want are two very different things which is why I wouldn't have bothered with anything synthy for the example you posted in another thread and why I am not satisfied with any of the synth bass pedals because none of them will give the control, evenness and consistency of sound that I can get from using a keyboard synth, or even better by programming it in my DAW.

 

And I am a bass player. I just haven't limited myself to solely the bass guitar for producing bass sounds. I'm "lucky" in that I have enough technical ability to be able to choose the most appropriate tool for the job, and from experience a plucked stringed instrument is not always the best choice. And having said that my technical ability on all the instruments I play is pretty limited, so IMO if I can do it anyone can!

[Al Krow]

12 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

@Al Krow I think what you want out of "synth bass" and what I want are two very different things which is why I wouldn't have bothered with anything synthy for the example you posted in another thread and why I am not satisfied with any of the synth bass pedals because none of them will give the control, evenness and consistency of sound that I can get from using a keyboard synth, or even better by programming it in my DAW.

 

And I am a bass player. I just haven't limited myself to solely the bass guitar for producing bass sounds. I'm "lucky" in that I have enough technical ability to be able to choose the most appropriate tool for the job, and from experience a plucked stringed instrument is not always the best choice. And having said that my technical ability on all the instruments I play is pretty limited, so IMO if I can do it anyone can!

 

I'm not denying that any of us who can ride a push bike could learn to ride a motor bike, if we wanted to? Just like we could take up keys, or any other instrument for that matter, if we wanted to. 

 

And I suspect most musos already know that synth keys are the premium product in the synth-tone space? No debate from me on that, and respect to you for doing both.

 

But it's why when bass players ask about bass synth pedals on a bass forum I don't immediately jump in and suggest they take up keys! And very much also vice versa if I was ever on a keyschat forum or thread.

 

 

 

 

 

[LukeFRC]

I think there's a place for questioning synth bass pedals and pointing out that an actual synth (or laptop and midi controller of choice) would do more better or whatever. 

 

But equally, as a non-piano player, I could stick a FI4 on my board and play synth bass stuff straight away with a fairly minimal learning curve (presuming reasonably clean technique), with no additional hardware or stage set-up changes. 

 

For what it's worth I'ld love a FI4 vip - it's an amazing little box... but I'ld also like a Arturia MiniFreak... not sure where the money for either will come from and how much I would use either....

[BigRedX]

Being able to play a number of different instruments - albeit mostly badly - and the fact that I have in the past spent considerable time trying to make synths sound like other instruments and using other instruments to try and control synths or produce synth-like sounds, means that now I can see that the easiest and most efficient way of producing various sounds is to use the instrument that produces them in the easiest and most efficient way. Also in a live situation being able to reproduce those sounds exactly every time becomes very important.

 

Back in the 80s when I first started seriously dabbling with controlling synths from my guitar or bass or trying to make my guitar and bass produce more synth-like sounds I quickly discovered that for me the learning curve for developing enough keyboard technique to be able to play the parts I wanted was far shallower than the one required to modify my playing technique to get the synth sounds to trigger accurately and more importantly in a way that could be replicated every time I plugged in my instruments. 

 

I've also found that for all the good guitar and bass synth demos that are on YouTube, if you couldn't see that a guitar or bass is being used to trigger the sounds you wouldn't know that they weren't being produced by a keyboard player. Notwithstanding the fact that most of these demos require a huge number of takes in order to get a performance that is suitably glitch-free for public consumption. That for me completely negates the point of using a guitar or bass to control a synth or produce synth-like sounds. It's not easy/good enough to be repeatable, and for me the things that make plucked stringed instruments so expressive are all the things that simply don't translate when trying to do pitch to synth and instead produce unwanted glitches in the sound or pitch instability.

 

I would definitely be using a keyboard synth for some songs in my current band were it not for the fact that at the moment we are concentrating on keeping the equipment we use at gigs as simple and easy/quick to set up as possible. Until we regularly get more than 30 minutes for setup and sound check those songs that will have to wait and the songs we play live will be those that we can do with the existing instrumentation.

[Al Krow]

4 hours ago, BigRedX said:

I've also found that for all the good guitar and bass synth demos that are on YouTube, if you couldn't see that a guitar or bass is being used to trigger the sounds you wouldn't know that they weren't being produced by a keyboard player. Notwithstanding the fact that most of these demos require a huge number of takes in order to get a performance that is suitably glitch-free for public consumption. That for me completely negates the point of using a guitar or bass to control a synth or produce synth-like sounds. It's not easy/good enough to be repeatable, and for me the things that make plucked stringed instruments so expressive are all the things that simply don't translate when trying to do pitch to synth and instead produce unwanted glitches in the sound or pitch instability.

 

I would definitely be using a keyboard synth for some songs in my current band were it not for the fact that at the moment we are concentrating on keeping the equipment we use at gigs as simple and easy/quick to set up as possible. Until we regularly get more than 30 minutes for setup and sound check those songs that will have to wait and the songs we play live will be those that we can do with the existing instrumentation.

 

Thanks @BigRedX. So many good points there! Agree in particular that:

- we want bass synth pedal performance that is suitably glitch free, which for me is as important live where you only get one take, not the multiple you get on YT! It was actually the main driver for me opting for the polyphonic 'tracking' of the Boss SY-1 and now the SY-200 with its preset options, and choosing to sacrifice not having the richer synth sounds available on the FI. Delighted to hear that FIv4 has substantially improved  tracking and it's definitely back on my radar as a consequence. The MXR is also getting a lot of plaudits and being enjoyed by basschat mates who are gigging with it regularly.

- there's a set up difference between adding keys vs adding a pedal to a pedal board.

 

I've updated my note, I did for John, to reflect the mono vs poly tracking on the various pedals:

Synth pedal review (25-10).pdf

 

Edited 8 hours ago by Al Krow

[Rich]

I'm not a keys player at all, in any way shape or form. I know one piano chord and that's about it. But when I wanted proper bass synth sounds for a prog project**, I did a lot of patch-tweaking on my MS-60B but then had little hesitation in getting hold of a wee synth (a Novation Mininova in my case). To give you an idea of what a crappy keys player I am, I had to put note name stickers on the keys. See attached photo for evidence of crapness. But I don't regret the move in the slightest -- yes I have more kit to carry around (well, not much really... synth, stand, two leads and a tiny mixer), but for those big phat and pharty MiniMoog/Taurus/etc sounds, nothing I've had from any pedal comes remotely close.
I'm not going to pooh-pooh the idea of working with pedals at all, experimentation is a lot of fun, but I would heartily recommend the idea of getting an actual synth. And let's face it, the forum name doesn't specify which sort of instrument is producing the bass.  

 

** Sod's law being what it is, the project smashed into the buffer stops for the second time very shortly after I bought said synth. 🙄