dannybuoy

I love my BB1025X, but it doesn't sound quite like a P. The newer models should sound somewhat closer though due to the pickups having a more traditional design. I would look at a Squier Classic Vibe. The necks are sublime and better than the MIMs I've played.

Get a B3n, the Dark Pre sounds very close! (Or buy my B3K!)

I prefer to accept F&F payments when selling, especially from new forum members, as the alternative is I get charged a fee and open myself up to someone scamming me as PayPal always side with the buyer. I only buy insurance for very expensive items or exotic locations, otherwise I just use a tracked service, but will (and have done) issue a refund if something genuinely goes missing. The thing about insurance, it’s just like gambling on if your parcel will go missing or not. I could send a 100 parcels and spend a few hundred quid on insurance, or go without and if I’m lucky I’ll get to keep it! Chances that several will go missing and exceed the sum spent on insurance will be slim, as the odds are stacked in favour of those selling the insurance.

The stuff that Pedal train supply these days is shocking, starts peeling off both the board and pedals after a very short time. Hope this turns out better!

String spacing is a lot tighter on the BB5000A btw - I think they did two versions of them but the one with narrow spacing is around 15.5mm vs 19mm from the current BBs. Some people might find that difficult to play.

Yeah that's about it, gain = distortion in many people's view, but in electronics terms gain = amplification.

Technically it would have more gain at 18V. Gain is just an increase in volume, but in an overdrive pedal there is a low ceiling where distortion happens when the volume exceeds that point. Doubling the voltage raises that ceiling (i.e. more headroom) so it will sound cleaner, but louder, then the same settings at 9V. Ab lot of the Darkglass stuff sounds better at 18V IMHO (although you can blow a lot of them up at 18V if it's a really old one or a newer one with digital cab sim, so don't try this at home, kids!). If you're still running the M900, you could try an Alpha Omega or even a Pike Vulcan for a different flavour.

The Korgs are ancient by today’s standards, processing power is limited and modelling very basic, the Pandora I had was also very hissy. I’d stick to Zoom personally. For me, headphone out is a bit lonely without an aux in to play against, so if you want that, you are left with the B1on and B3n. The former is much cheaper, battery powered, more fiddly to use. The latter is more expensive, requires a power socket, but is much nicer to use and comes with much better Ampeg models as well as Darkglass distortion sims if that kind of stuff floats your boat! You did say it seemed a bit big, but the B3n is pretty compact. Not sure what your portability requirements are, but it takes up about the same footprint as a standard iPad and would fit in a gig bag pocket.

If line in and headphones are required, the only Zooms that fit the bill are the B1on, B1xon and B3n. B3n sounds better but doesn't take batteries if that is important.

The biggest issue with the OC-2 was that Oct1 up full whack was not quite loud enough for many. Are you finding you have to max the volume of the octave, or are you finding the sweet spot around noon like I am on the Octabvre?

I must add that I have a dimmer switch in my room, and it's only when that was on that I had a problem. The flat cables were like an antennae for the noise emanating from the coil in the dimmer. Anything with metal jack plugs were fine, so it could be a lack of shielding at the plastic jacks. In effect you would only notice it in certain rooms when listening full range (the problem was masked for so long by my tweeterless SVT210AV cabs!). But when nearly all my playing was in that room into headphones, it became a big issue!

I think you'd need an LED indicator ring around the knob to indicate the preset position, like the TC RH450/750. That design but with a blue coloured smooth circular line instead of red dots would fit the bill. Either that or motorised knobs!

They're all crap. I have a load of EBS ones going spare! I went from having a silent board, to months later after switching to using headphones that my signal chain was very noisy. Upgraded to a Cioks isolated supply, same issue. Tested every element of my chain in isolation, eventually down to testing single patch cables in a true bypass loop. The flat EBS and Warwick cables were the source of all my noise issues!

There are no hard and fast rules and plenty of overlap where high gain overdrive can sound like distortion or low gain fuzz. "distortion dumps a portion of the signal to ground from the opamp feedback loop, and overdrive doesn’t" might be true for some circuits, but it isn't a general characteristic of distortion. Not all distortions use op-amps for one!

Sounds like regular analog octave glitching then, so you’d experience the same through an amp. Most octavers are a bit dodgy below the 7th fret on the G string, that’s the kind of thing you get used to working around and simply play higher up on the neck on the lower strings to compensate! I can get pretty stable tracking on most notes all the way down to low C on the B string, it’s usually just the open notes and the G string I try to avoid!

When it wavers, do you mean it jumps up and down an octave? This is the most common form of glitching, as it can't work out which octave range you are playing in. I find it highly unlikely that your headphones are the cause, have you tried it through an amp yet? If the sound you describe is more of a pulsing sound then that might be the octaver faithfully producing a really low note that's below the audio range. The MXR might well be the best for tracking for some people. But if you read around you will see that for every octaver out there, there are a bunch of people saying it's the best tracking one they've ever used, whilst simultaneously there are another lot saying it's the worst!

All analog octavers can struggle on lower notes especially on the open strings (even an open A). Saying “you know these can go down to low E” does not mean much. Most octavers I’ve played can go to low E with no trouble, but give that same pedal to someone else and they might struggle with anything below A. The bass, strings and technique all have an influence on tracking! Try favouring the neck pickup, playing fingerstyle directly over the pickup, and roll off the tone / treble to see if that helps?

If you want distortion, I would steer towards the B3n. It has a very capable Darkglass B7K sim that is missing from the MS-60B, and the Ampeg SVT model is quite usable as a distortion too (which I couldn't say the same for the previous Zoom generation). The octaver is also much better than I remember from previous Zoom units too. It gets my seal of approval as long time pedalhead anyway, it's the first cheap multi FX that I've found satisfactory!

I’ve never even tried to get synth sounds out of my B3n! 🧐

It's worth the upgrade purely for the improved SVT and added B7K, then just add a passive Orchid or Radial DI box and you're set! But you're right, removing the DI + audio interface was a bad move. They did add a headphone amp but it suffers from headroom issues for me and keeps clipping where it shouldn't, so still using the Bighead with it.

I'd be interested in a Helix if it could sound as good as the Ampeg, Sansamp and Q-Tron models in the Zoom. In my experiments with Helix Native though, I couldn't quite get there!

If you like the OCD sound but want more low end than the UD and a clean blend, I have a COG Mini 66 for sale!

Looks 14 times better with the pickguard ON.

You won't really lose much by trying one out. They're close but different and I'm not sure which I prefer! But the Mojomojo is on the board and the Blueberry in a cupboard if that helps!