Al Krow

I was really hoping the new Xvive2 would be good, because it's such a convenient plug and play set up with no separate pedal sized receiver unit. I found there was an element of glitching on all 4 channels which I couldn't shake just with home use, consequently I've not dared use it live. So I've stuck with my Smoothhound which has served me very well these past couple of years and the 8ms latency has so far not been an issue at all for me or ever been raised by bandmates.

@M@23 - see you have gone to the darker side (midnight blue --> black) from your avatar and joined 'Team Sandberg'! You kindly shared your thoughts on your favourite strings for your P35 when we met. I think you mentioned they were nickel rounds? Grateful if you could remind me of make and guage etc.

Thanks - just tried that. USB power by itself is still a little background noisy. But when I inserted the PSU (switched off) as well that seemed to 'earth it' and the noise disappeared! I think @operative451 mentioned using a Ground Lift pedal earlier in this thread (or the B3N thread) which I'm guessing is achieving the same result. But given that I have a couple of months supply of AA batteries, that'll keep me going for a while and I suspect I may just go rechargeable AAs thereafter.

First impressions...(through headphones) Glad to find that my spare PSU worked - it's just a standard 9V centre negative 500mA power requirement per the manual. That's quite a chunky current draw though. Plugging in the PSU acts as an off switch for the batteries. Neat! With the PSU engaged I did get a bit of noise on some of the effects patches ('patches'). It's pretty NOISELESS WITH BATTERIES. So it looks like I'm going to be ordering some rechargeable AA batteries (although I did manage to find a stash of about 20 AA batteries lurking from before I went all Ciocks / IsoBrick, so plenty to keep me going for a while yet!) Had a quick run through the pre-loaded 40 patches. Found a few (but only a few) that I liked - a couple of ones I was familiar with from my B3N e.g. [24] Fat Tube - drive, [44] SMR400 - amp and one that Zoom must have more recently released or I'd missed previously [34] Sub Boogie = octave down + chorus, which seemed better at tracking than the B3N octave patches I remember. There are currently 50 user patch slots = 40 preloaded patches and 10 empty slots. This is the same total available user patch slots as MS-60B, but worse than both the B1on, with 100, slots and the B3N with a 150. Someone please explain to me why the patch numbering goes from 10 to 59 - what happened to 0 to 9?! Given that there are at most half a dozen existing patches I'll be tempted to use and very few existing ones that make use of the expression pedal, the fun / usefulness is definitely going to be creating our own and overwriting the existing patches. In particular there are no delay, flange, chorus patches pre loaded. So the next step will be a deeper dive into the individual effects - no list of these in the supplied manual, but available from the Zoom website. I've attached a copy in case you're feeling lazy. There are a TON of individual effects to get your teeth into! (Which those with MS-60B and B3Ns in particular will be familiar with). Zoom's GuitarLab 4.0 is out and ToneLib apparently already supports the B1-4 / B1X-4. I'll be sticking with ToneLib for editing patches as I found that a very usable interface last time around and got myself up to speed on it. The ability to adjust volume and 3 band EQ 'on the fly' globally is going to be really useful. Don't recall having that on the B3N. Update...(through rig) Sounded just great! Effects were crisp / clear. The octaver tracking not quite so good as I thought when listening through headphones - started glitching at A on the low E string (which is actually pretty typical for octavers, so it's certainly usable) Patch [27] Wahdist - drive allowed me to put the wah pedal through its paces. That is going to be a LOT of fun! If you're thinking about getting this pedal for use as a standalone rather than on a board where space may be at a premium, then I'd seriously recommend spending the extra £16 and getting the expression pedal. The Zoom FP-02 expression pedal retails for £30 from Zoom UK, so you're effectively getting the expression pedal for half price. Quick verdict If you've paid £70 (or £85 with expression pedal) for this and are expecting it to stand toe to toe with a Helix Stomp, you're going to be sorely disappointed. But if you're looking for a compact multi-fx which will likely pretty quickly displace the B1on, MS-60B and B3 with their older DSP and chip sets, then this could well do the job. If you don't have a headphone amp and want one - this is worth the entry ticket just for that and, of course, it also doubles up as a tuner! Zoom B1(X)-4 effects.pdf

Nah - get a full family shot done!

You missed off your MS-60B (or did you never have one of those?) - for a full family shot!

Out of interest how did you get to £1,450 on the FRFR? (I thought a key selling point of FRFR was that it was quite price competitive).

Yes indeed you did! Ok, sounds like the B1on has met its nemesis! And for me the B1-4 does look much more like a Zoom multi-fx, with its trade mark red livery, than the B1on. Not that that should matter...

And maybe the new Source Audio 'C4' synth pedal could be worth checking out, too. Interested to hear a bit more about why you don't feel it cuts it at gigs?

Do you find your Sandberg, basic?

Mr happy gear nerd, you do make me smile with some of your comments. @stewblack, on the other hand, quite rightly recognised a very gracious response (from Mick) when he saw it.

Petite and ideal for a gig bag (and with an interface a LOT easier to use live than my MS-60B) were exactly the reasons for me getting one too (oh and that I don't have to wait for a birthday before I'm allowed). Should be a few of us moving ours on by the time it gets round to your birthday, so you've probably timed that to perfection 😂

@jrixn1 or @dave_bass5 can one of you dear gents put our illustrious mod le ped out of his misery? He's been waiting three weeks** to find out whether the B1-4 (i) sounds better and (ii) is less noisy than he's beloved B1on? If it is, there's gonna be one B1on that is not long for pedworld methinks 😀

Well it's your thread, so you have to say that don't you? 😁

Yup - given that it has the latest DSP chip set present in the B3N that is exactly what I would expect / hope for

Dear Mick @TheGreek - for sure it was a little dig. No apologies from me on that. I don't own TE gear, probably will never, but I don't take the opportunity to slag it off at every opportunity just 'cos I briefly tried it for a short while and it didn't float my boat. There's plenty of gear that I've returned 'cos I couldn't make it work for me, but I don't go slating them off at every opp. You seem to do that quite happily with the DG amp, of which I happen to be a contended owner who's used his at plenty of pub and function gigs. You owned that DG Amp for two weeks and couldn't make it work for you and returned it. But you've not listed all the other D class amps that didn't work for you and how long you had them for. And there are loads right? The point is there are a ton of bass players who can and do make D class work for them week in week out. I accept they're not for you and that's cool. You're of course entitled to express an opinion, everyone is! And I'm totally in favour of folk telling it like it is, warts and all. But we need to be ready for come back from owners of the said equipment when we do. That's entirely reasonable, right? I'm more than happy to get Cuzzie's (regular as clockwork) ripostes when I lay into Sandberg Delanos (even though he doesn't have them on any of his Bergs). I lived with my Berg as my goto bass for FOUR YEARS and have gigged it plenty. So I kinda feel I've got some experience to put behind my comments on its pups. If you had anything close to the same (even 6 months and some decent live use) on the DG M900 your negative comments would carry a lot more weight, certainly with me. But most importantly, when we hopefully get to meet on a future SE bash and no one can hear any difference between any of our gear, I'll more than gladly buy you a (or several!) beers, if you'll allow me Yours, Al, a very contented DG M900 owner.

Be warned the PSU does not come as standard! (Fortunately I'm managed to accumulate a couple of spares over the last couple of years )

Zoom B1X-4 (with MS-60B for scale) Following hard on the heels's of Dave's, it's more 'expressive' brother

I suspect you need to be in 'edit' mode, but will check...

I do love my Nord big singles in my Ibby SR premiums! I could see a hum cancelling Nord being quite interesting for the J pup, but not sure I would swap the P pups - seems to be such a 'core' part of the Yammy sound?

Nah - we BC'ers are well and truly a bunch of gear snobs (me included). Went into PMT Cambridge and was informed they don't stock Markbass because it's considered 'high end' and too expensive for most 'average Jo' bass players. Plenty of pro bass players use or have used Markbass amps and cabs and they sound just great, live. In fact a darned sight better than many of us (me included) with our 'superior' gear. My current rig is defo a step-up from the excellent Markbass combo I had and it bloody well should be: it costs twice as much in the case of one rig and three times in the case of the other rig. Yes they are both wonderful rigs. But would I be happy to play through a Markbass combo (again) with a half decent bass? Absolutely. Believe me, it would beat the pants off some of the crap amps and cabs I've experienced in rehearsal studios over the years. Rant over!

Come on, let's have a roll call of ALL the D class heads that didn't make the Greek 'cut'? (Will the last Trace Elliot head left standing please switch off the venue lights! 😂) Did I correctly read you as saying recently on another thread that NO ONE cares about bass tone? In which none of it matters...

Well there was definitely one in the last month in the FS, which someone on here didn't hesitate to snap up (and is very delighted he did!)

+1 ^^ This! It seems to me that you've got two opposing schools of thought here. We're probably all exactly right (for ourselves) and all wrong (for folks who take the opposite view) 😂 Bit like should your pedal velcro be hooks on board or on pedal, or should your compressor be at the start or the end of the chain? The key questions that underpin the nature of space and time as we know it...

I presume you're talking about new prices here? Seems like a good plan to me! What pups are you thinking of swapping in?