Al Krow

Any reason not to have it in shelf mode for the 30Hz one and potentially improve on the fdeck?

In case relevant to anyone else - replied to Luke's question on the B1-Four thread.

Hi Luke - pulling you onto this thread to deal with your very valid question. I posted quite a detailed rationale for why I, and a much more experienced US bassist (Jimfist), were both going back to a simpler Zoom pedal having had the Helix HX Stomp. Please see my post: Posted Wednesday at 00:23 where I share our combined thoughts on the matter. In my mind there is no question that the Stomp is the better, more capable and more sophisticated piece of kit and I barely scratched the surface of what it could do / only got round to making a couple of cursory initial patches. Interestingly a BC mate of mine gave me quite a hard time for not getting to grips with the Stomp and the fact that it was sitting on my board as an expensive tuner! However, the very fact that I felt little motivation to get into it whereas (as can be seen from this and the related Zoom patches thread) I've gone to town with the new Zoom pedal, kinda reflects very well the ease of work flow point I made in that post. (The slightly amusing thing, is that having got a Stomp himself and indeed got to grips with it - my mate actually came to the same conclusion as I did, which is the Stomp was more than he was going to need and he's returned his). For balance - there are of course a ton of happy Stomp users on the Stomp thread and a number of both Zoom and HX Effects users who have 'upgraded' to the Stomp. And I'm certainly not ruling out going back to the Stomp (it's successor or similarly capable multi) in the future.

Shelf = abrupt cut off of everything below the 'shelf' level (in my case 30 Hz) i.e. a 'cliff edge' cut off. Useful if you're only using to get rid of low end 'crud' (Edit: but based on our discussion below the HPF mode would seem to be better option for this). The Hpf effect on the B14 is (I belive) acting at -12dB per octave so in your case it will start cutting at 60Hz, by 30 Hz, one octave below, it will be reducing volume by 12dB and by 15 Hz by 24 dB etc. Useful if you're looking to 'tighten things up' at the low end. In your case you are cutting some of the fundamental notes on the B string which are already not going to be particularly easy to hear, given the combination of our hearing range attenuation and speaker frequency response which for most cabs will also be seeing some fall off in ability deliver low end. The low B is 31 Hz so you will be cutting the fundamental on that by approx 12dB. Not sure whether this was the intention? Tbf it's what a lot of sound engineers do and most of what we hear is at the first fundamental of the B string and above, anyway, which is 60Hz and not being touched by your HPF. I guess it's for the same reason that 4 string players might set their HPFs to start cutting at 80Hz i.e. just below the first fundamental of the low E string (low E fundamental = 41Hz).

Where are the PJs in Olly white? 😁

Zoom GuitarLab software for the additional effects, which are not available through ToneLib. I really like the ToneLib interface - it makes editing patches a doddle! I added the Low EQ, with tweaked settings, to the start of 20 patches and the ZNR, mostly at the end of the chain of several along the way, to curtail noisy patches, apart from one where it was already adjacent to the noisy effect and seemed to work best right next to that particular effect. Did all the edits and backed up the changes all within 15 mins.

ZTron Twin patch which takes its cue from the Aguilar Filter Twin but in a much less civilised way! Makes use of two ZTron effects next to each other one providing a down sweep and the other an up sweep. Sounds great through headphones but has quite a kick through my amp and cab and may require a little 'taming'! 😀

I'll be adding the Low EQ (HPF) at the start of all my patches to cut out 'low end crud' now I have managed to download that onto my B1X-4 from the Zoom GuitarLab website. I've gone for Shelf mode, cut off at 40Hz (just below the open E) -12 cut. [See uploaded patch for the B1-4 on 1 Nov 2020]. I've also found that adding the Zoom Noise Reduction effect (ZNR) typically at the end of the chain is great with dealing with 'noisy' patches particularly some of the drive effects.

For some reason the GuitarLab software decided to play nicely and not 'blank' my B1X-4 this morning. No need to delete USB drivers etc. thank goodness! Managed to upload 13 of the new effects I wanted and made space by deleting a bunch of amp and cab sims I'm unlikely to use, leaving me at about 80% memory.

Loving the original: edgy and emotional. Can't believe this was turned down by her record company!

First one up-loaded to get the ball rolling - short 70 ms delay - bit of reverb added via the HD Hall Great for something like Donna Summer "I feel love".

Wow, that's effort! You would have thought they would have made it a bit easier than that! On the plus side I've had a fun couple of hours on ToneLib creating several bespoke patches. Particularly like the slapback delay

Sounds like a useful thread / compulsory reading as I've recently got hold of a Squier Bass VI.

Please don't ask him how many amps and cabs he has 😂 We all know at the end of the day, it's the number of pedals that counts.

John - very probably, I'm certainly confused 😀 I had assumed that the way that the active input cut the volume by -10dB compared to the passive input, on a bass amp, was by reducing the signal strength and doing so by having a higher impedance. But that's obviously very simplistic and incorrect.

Sadly it didn't come with a USB or a PSU! But your point doesn't quite fit the fact that ToneLib can send and receive data from the pedal via my USB cable, it's just Zoom's GuitarLab that can't.

I've found the following comments on the net. The active input is "padded", meaning that it has less gain to accommodate active basses with higher output. They also usually have different impedance, but it's mostly high enough so you can plug in either input. Passive inputs have higher impedance, since its impedance should be 10-times higher than the impedance of the incoming signal. This avoids loss of highs due to impedance mismatch. An active input generally has -10 db the volume of the passive one (meaning it's half as loud). If you plug an active bass into the passive input and play loud, you'll probably clip the preamp, causing distortion. This doesn't hurt the amp unless you do it constantly, but it usually sounds terrible. Unless you're too quiet, use the active jack. The second backs up your point, the third ties into what I was thinking, so I'm not 100% clearer on this point!

Bit of a frustrating evening - downloaded GuitarLab so I could access the Low EQ patch, but unlike ToneLib it just isn't picking up that my B1X-4 is connected up. Ugh!! Probably missed something very basic...

Well must admit, I'd have been a bit gobsmacked if it was anything other than a Class D amp.

Who cares about what it sounds like? If it's loud enough it's gonna be good for metal. At the end of the day, surely that's all that matters? (And football).

Ah the possibility of a free upgrade to Delanos. Now you're talking dB! 😂😁🤣

£50 to £100 is not a big amount in that context I agree. I had a figure of £300 to £500 in my head for new pups new EQ and fitting.

Yup straight DI no pre / post EQ. Can't recall whether the bass was being played actively or passively now. I'm not about to order a Berg, and therefore definitely not minded to contact them, because (i) I'm very happy with my existing basses and (ii) I don't want to pay custom shop prices to get the feature set on a Berg I'd like! Simples. But I'm also surprised that none of the Berg aficionados know what the cost of a decent VM5 or VT5 California Berg would be with Haussel pups and a decent 3 band EQ - as this might be of interest to others; but for now that can remain a mystery - I'm sure we will all live! 😀 Q for the OP: are the 'Average White Band' the best ever Scottish rock group?

Ok you're gonna need to walk me through that as it seems the wrong way around! Where an amp has separate 'active' input and 'passive' inputs, the active input is usually a higher impedence input. So, similarly, I would be expecting an active bass to go into a high impedance input on a mixer but a passive bass more likely to be ok not doing so?