Zoom B3: Is the amp simulations realistic?

[isteen]

Just starting to get the hang of my Zoom B3.
There's a few patches I could find useful, but I'm wondering about the amp simulations - are they close the the real thing?
The sound of the simulation of the Fender Bassman, the Eden and the Markboost patch is just my kinda thing.
BUT - are they anything like the real deal, or just a sound with a cool name to it?

Hope you get my blabbering...

[Lozz196]

I had one of these and used the Markbass simulation all the time, as my actual amp is a Markbass LMII. The trick from what I`ve read over on talkbass is to turn the speaker sim completely off, and then it sounds very good. I A/Bd it with my actual amp, both with the same eq settings and whilst the amp was better to my ears, the B3 was some 85% there I`d say. Maybe not quite as full sounding but very good.

[isteen]

Thanks, if that's the case - I better start putting money aside for the Fender Bassman (that's the amp simulation I really like)

[Prime_BASS]

Yeah pretty decent amp sims, although as above I turned the cab sim off!

I sold mine on as the drive sounds was no where near what I wanted. The BB preamp ( my all time fave) sim is a bit pants.

[discreet]

The big advantage of the B3 is that you can mix and match the amp sims. I used a Markbass for my bottom end and an SVT for my mids and top. Nice! And impractical to do with real amps...

Edited August 30, 2014 by discreet

[isteen]

I think I'm gonna like the B3 a lot. Thanks for clearing up my questions :-)

[LukeFRC]

I'm running a ACME B2 cab which is very flat and full range - so I actually tend to have the cab sims turned on.
The church I play at has gone all in ears with no back line - the bass often sounded odd through the FOH - the Hellborg gave this amazing full warm clean tone - but in the mix the humps and bumps of a cab (plus the gentle top end roll off) was missing - using the B3 as DI into the PA is great.
At the moment I've been liking the Aguilar sim with it's cab, or the B15 for a bigger fatter bottom for less rocky songs. Today I was finding the hartke amp with the aguilar cab sounded pretty good too.

[discreet]

[quote name='isteen' timestamp='1409388338' post='2539184']
I think I'm gonna like the B3 a lot. Thanks for clearing up my questions :-)
[/quote]

This is a Talkbass thread about using the B3 as a preamp, but there is a lot of very useful information within.
[url="http://www.talkbass.com/threads/zoom-b3-as-preamp.936505/"]http://www.talkbass.com/threads/zoom-b3-as-preamp.936505/[/url]