Al Krow

Thanks. It is indeed possible to turn the speaker sim off on the VTDI, but I guess I'm looking for a comparison of the two pedals as standalone - shame I no longer have my VTDI otherwise I could have loaned it to you to do a proper A/B, Peter!

Exactly thanks. Two Origin pedals under one hood on the highly regarded Sansamp pedal, which is often available for around £150 used. So, back to my question of whether this is a material step up over the much loved VT Bass DI? Look forward to an unbiased A/B of the two in due course.

That's a really useful point, thanks Linus! So essentially we can go from bypass --> clean or dirty B15 tone, depending on what you have the pedal set on. Tbf I guess that's exactly what you would have to do if owned the amp? Some great bass tones from this - particularly liked what IMA was producing - that Retro Rock! Ooof! Question: how much different / better than a Sansamp VT Bass DI, is this?

She tried the wireless out at a gig on Sat and worked great. @Woodinblack Do you guys just use the one wireless? Just wondering if there will be interference / drop-outs if more than one of us get the same wireless set up? I note that, in theory, both the Joyo and Lekato have 4 channels. Amusingly her Lekato wireless via Ali Express arrived in time for the gig, but her AKG D7S from Thomann didn't!

Haha - no, simply meant I agree 100% with Rich! I'll edit to avoid any confusion!

We found the wifi connectivity improved a lot and we no longer suffer drop outs following switching the CQ desk's internal setting from 2.4GHz to 5.8GHz

Yeah fair about dynamic pricing, still being possible. "Ticketmaster faced intense scrutiny and hundreds of consumer complaints after the prices for both the 2024 Oasis and 2023 Bruce Springsteen tours soared dramatically with high demand, leading to accusations of price gouging. Resulted in a Competition and Markets Authority investigation. While the CMA did not find evidence of real-time algorithmic "dynamic pricing" in the Oasis case, it did find concerns regarding a lack of transparency about different price tiers and that consumers were not given clear information, which may have breached consumer protection law." I guess at the end of the day folk can't stop sellers selling tickets at whatever prices people are willing to pay. Same goes for anything that shoots up in value e.g. some bass pedals right? But at least these tickets are being sold to someone who actually wants them - will now be illegal for touts and commercial resale sites to scoop up thousands of tickets purely for resale at massive margins. And, sure, I appreciate that it's also illegal to sell cocaine and that doesn't stop the equivalent of ticket touts pushing drugs, so the resale of tickets may simply go underground? But I guess the argument goes if coke were legal, take up would be massively higher i.e. making it illegal reduces the supply and demand?

100% agreed!

Should also hopefully now be history. Can only resell at face value, plus service fee.

As in the Soundcraft Ui16 was considerably better in terms of pre-amps?

Personally delighted that the Govt are introducing this reform: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/nov/17/reselling-tickets-for-profit-to-be-outlawed-in-uk-government-crackdown Great news for those of us wanting to see live music having saved up for the actual face value ticket price (although these can be eye-watering!) and not some ridiculous rip-off figure. The only remaining fly in the ointment is the continued ability of the online platforms to charge a "service fee", but hopefully this will also be capped to a reasonable amount.

Can't comment on how good relative to Behringer as never owned latter. But definitely better preamps and IEM experience than with our Soundcraft Sig.12MTK, and has excellent channel EQ options. Very happy to recommend.

Love this! Inspired me to start getting up to speed on midi (I'm a complete newbie!), but have got myself a Disaster Area 3XL and three of my Boss pedals are midi capable: GT1000Core, SY-200 and the XS-100 Any tips and suggestions very welcome! Also just asked ChatGPT to prepare me a midi introductory course!

Fyi BRX - If you end up giving this a good try-out and find it's not for you and are out of time to return it to Music Store who are selling it new for £305 - there are several of us with this on our 2026 wish list (including me!) and I'm sure will be happy to guarantee you a very decent used price for it! If you end up deciding to keep it, given the high synth standards you have, well that would be high praise indeed!

Hey BRX - super impressed that you're thinking of giving the FI v4 a go given your previous position on synth pedals. IMO it's almost certainly the best of the bunch and on my own wish-list for 2026 especially if the next software update proves to be as useful as we think it might well be! I can't answer your first query (which I'll leave @Quatschmacher to revert on), but regarding the second just wanted to reassure that I've been fortunate in not having a PSU plug fail on me once during hundreds of gigs for my pedal board, which I use to power a Harley Benton Powerplant for multiple pedals on my board, although with some of my PSUs the wire connections have got worn over periods of time and needed replacing. I guess the safe thing is to take a spare? In the unlikely/unfortunate event of failure, it should take no more than a minute to swap them over during a gig. I agree with you about getting one with the correct polarity rather than risking a polarity reverse add-on, which shouldn't be needed in any event for anything sub 2A. And I'm sure you're already planning on getting one with a decent cable length for ease of use and not going for the cheapest. Appreciate that doesn't directly answer your Q - thought I'd best leave that to an actual FI owner to come up with a recommendation! If you do go for it, really look forward to hearing how you get on with the FI v4 VIP.

Hey BRX - fully appreciate you have a full Helix and adding an additional separate pedal(s) to that doesn't make sense for you. But for pretty much everyone who is planning to get an MXR (or FI), they will either be upgrading an existing set up, shift something else off their pedal board to accommodate, or get a bigger pedal board. It's what many of us pedal users do very regularly, when the need arises. I also completely also get your point re. synth pedal tracking - it's a fundamentally important issue for live use and has been picked up by several of us on this thread. Was precisely the reason for my choosing to go with the Boss SY-200 despite it not having as good synth sounds as several other synth pedals - it's my personal compromise and for me considerably better than the "nothing at all" alternative.

+1^^ re being keen to find out when the next software update will be for the FI. Peter's previously indicated he can't give us an estimated date unfortunately, but will hopefully be sooner than Luke's pedals coming up for sale. Helpful comment re. fast tracking on the MXR - thanks! Also @BigRedX "Also who is to say that someone with a more conventional pedalboard set up already has both room and PSU capacity for an additional synth pedal." Aww come on 😅?! Anyone on this thread looking to buy the MXR or FI etc will make room or get a bigger pedal board, if they decide to get one.

@BigRedX - you're obviously happy to use a keys synth and all power to you! But a couple of points in your post: - you say a pedal with an external PSU gives rise to "complications and unreliability"? I'm guessing maybe half of the bass players on this forum use pedals (typically on a pedal board) with an external PSU week in and week out, and we do so without any issues? - if, as you say, the audience doesn't notice the difference between us playing a song without any synth, then they're even less likely to notice the difference between a keys synth and a quality bass-pedal synth?

@Dazm66 "It's taken me long enough to play bass to a decent standard and I have no interest in learning keys to get those sounds" You've summed me up in a nutshell when it comes to synth bass! I'm currently leaning a little to the FI v4 VIP, which is only £20 more new than the MXR, if I do swap from my Boss SY-200, but certainly bass-mates of mine who have upgraded their C4 to the MXR are really happy with the changeover!

Thanks for that, including the very helpful comment regarding tracking capability = "good enough but not as per IMA's hype" if I've read you correctly? Although tbf I guess completely understandable from IMA, given this is his baby. An honest review of the new MXR bass synth effects pedal MB301... | TalkBass.com Just came across this thread on TB - made for interesting reading!

So in the spirit of the thread, if you had to save one of your 2025 purchases from the proverbial fire ie your "best", which would it be and why?

+1^^ @Bluewine - really great to hear your band in action. As Lozz said - a really good sound, and some nice footage too!

Ah latency and tracking are very much intertwined, so all good! Are there particular timestamps on the video you could helpfully point to for us, so we can get a better idea of what you are referring to?

Thanks Luke! What's the issue with the C4 tracking, for those of us who have never owned one?

You've got a very good ear, Darren, did you come to a conclusion?