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Zoom B1 Four


Woodinblack

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Having sold a few bits and pieces recently and still on bloomin furlough, I have decided to buy one of these.

£120 from Amazon??? Nah dont think so. Got one with a UK power supply from Thomman for £79. This will give me something to mess about with.

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Just now, Bafflegab said:

Has anyone managed to use airpods or other Bluetooth headphones with their B-1 four?  I thought about a Bluetooth receiver, but I’m assuming they only receive the signal rather than send one to headphones

Would latency not make this unworkable? 

 

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Owned a B3 for a few years, fun piece of kit.

Has anyone out there gone down the GuitarLab route of creating custom patches? Never quite bothered myself, but maybe lockdown is the time to have a go. Is it worth doing? How have you used it ?

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Just now, Drax said:

Owned a B3 for a few years, fun piece of kit.

Has anyone out there gone down the GuitarLab route of creating custom patches? Never quite bothered myself, but maybe lockdown is the time to have a go. Is it worth doing? How have you used it ?

There's a few on this thread: Zoom patch ideas,

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58 minutes ago, Bafflegab said:

Has anyone managed to use airpods or other Bluetooth headphones with their B-1 four?  I thought about a Bluetooth receiver, but I’m assuming they only receive the signal rather than send one to headphones

I would imagine the latency when using Bloothtooth headphones would them unusable

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1 hour ago, Bafflegab said:

Has anyone managed to use airpods or other Bluetooth headphones with their B-1 four?  I thought about a Bluetooth receiver, but I’m assuming they only receive the signal rather than send one to headphones

Ill give it a go this afternoon. I have a BT transmitter somewhere. 

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1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

Ill give it a go this afternoon. I have a BT transmitter somewhere. 

I tried it with a receiver/transmitter I got off ebay, with the idea of using it with in ears, no chance.

https://www.reviewgeek.com/38434/why-do-bluetooth-headphones-lag-while-watching-video-or-gaming/#:~:text=In the end%2C Bluetooth headphones,while using true wireless earbuds.

edit, still it only cost a few quid and it's good transmitting music from my phone to an amp

Edited by PaulWarning
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2 hours ago, Drax said:

Would latency not make this unworkable? 

 

 

1 hour ago, PaulWarning said:

I would imagine the latency when using Bloothtooth headphones would them unusable

 

29 minutes ago, ped said:

Aye, won’t work. 

 

1 minute ago, PaulWarning said:


ah well was worth a thought :) thanks chaps

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On 06/06/2020 at 11:48, Al Krow said:

The one tip I would share is that the drive sims tend to lose a fair bit of low end on the Zoom multis and as it's not possible to parallel route the effects to allow you to properly blend in some clean to your signal, I've solved that by using a Boss LS2 pedal and putting the Zoom into the Boss's parallel loop.

That's odd - pretty much all of the drive pedals on the older B1on had a blend control.  I wonder why they removed it on the new version? 🤔

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1 hour ago, MartinB said:

That's odd - pretty much all of the drive pedals on the older B1on had a blend control.  I wonder why they removed it on the new version? 🤔

It's a digital blend within the sim itself on all the Zoom pedal sims, not a parallel path clean blend (which is possible on the much more expensive Helix multis). Such a digital blend won't stop drive sims, particularly tasty rat tail, sucking out low end.

Edited by Al Krow
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3 hours ago, Al Krow said:

It's a digital blend within the sim itself on all the Zoom pedal sims, not a parallel path clean blend (which is possible on the much more expensive Helix multis). Such a digital blend won't stop drive sims, particularly tasty rat tail, sucking out low end.

As soon as the signal hits the input it’s converted to digital, just like in the Helix. Nether is passing a pure analogue signal through them, not even when using parallel paths. 

Have you (or anyone) tested a 100% clean blend compared with the sim turned off? It should be the same. in which case its acting just like the real thing isn’t it?

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3 hours ago, Al Krow said:

It's a digital blend within the sim itself on all the Zoom pedal sims, not a parallel path clean blend (which is possible on the much more expensive Helix multis). Such a digital blend won't stop drive sims, particularly tasty rat tail, sucking out low end.

Not sure what you mean - there is no logical reason why you cant blend around on a zoom pedal any more than a helix, it is just addition. Its just a choice not to.

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3 hours ago, Bafflegab said:

 

 

 


ah well was worth a thought :) thanks chaps

Yeah, way too much latency. Just tried it with my Helix and BT transmitter. Fine for music of course, but not with playing. Could be the type of BT system though. Mines pretty old. 

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1 minute ago, Woodinblack said:

Not sure what you mean - there is no logical reason why you cant blend around on a zoom pedal any more than a helix, it is just addition. Its just a choice not to.

Thats how I understand it. 

Parallel paths are great, but if a sim has a blend then its doing a similar job, assuming you are just using the second path to send the whole signal to. Being able to send only part of the feq range to a clean path is handy i guess, although pedals that have a blend usually  dont, and they seem to work fine for most off us. 

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I don't have a B1 Four to test, but the following patches on a B1on appear to behave the same:
- Bypass (no effects)
- Ba Squeak (Rat) with Bal set to 0% (i.e. fully dry)
- Ba Squeak (Rat) with Bal set to 100% (i.e. fully wet), but bypassed
So that suggests that it's functioning as a clean blend.

It does look like there's a slight reduction in output below ~50Hz and above ~3kHz, but that's present on all three patches - so it could be a characteristic of the Zoom as a whole. Maybe that's what Al is hearing? I don't know how noticeable it is without a separate clean signal parallel to the whole unit for comparison. If anyone fancies doing a blind test, I could do some sample clips. I'm on furlough, so I've got time for such nerdery! 🤓

Edited by MartinB
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@MartinB I think you've summarised it well, thanks. Even with say 70% dry there's a noticeable loss of low end, to my hearing anyway.

The LS2 does a much better job of blending in clean, and in that case it's actual / genuine/ bona fide clean! 

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27 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

@MartinB I think you've summarised it well, thanks. Even with say 70% dry there's a noticeable loss of low end, to my hearing anyway.

The LS2 does a much better job of blending in clean, and in that case it's actual / genuine/ bona fide clean! 

The only downside of bypassing a digital effect to blend in clean is that it is not doing exactly the same as a blend would do on an analogue pedal, in that the digital signal that is distorted will be delayed WRT to the analogue signal, so you are effectively phasing as well.

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5 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

The only downside of bypassing a digital effect to blend in clean is that it is not doing exactly the same as a blend would do on an analogue pedal, in that the digital signal that is distorted will be delayed WRT to the analogue signal, so you are effectively phasing as well.

Although not totally relevant to this thread, pedals like the BDDI (which is in the B1, as well as the Helix) have a Blend, but even with the effect right off the EQ still affects the clean tone. 

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13 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

The only downside of bypassing a digital effect to blend in clean is that it is not doing exactly the same as a blend would do on an analogue pedal, in that the digital signal that is distorted will be delayed WRT to the analogue signal, so you are effectively phasing as well.

Yup, dannybuoy also warned me about this producing a "comb filtering", which I think is the same as you're referring to. But I listened out for that and if it's there, I certainly couldn't detect it. 

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On the Zoom you can max out the lows with the EQ, but a rat drive is notoriously low end draining so you still lose a lot of low end even with the bass EQ maxed. It's otherwise a great drive tone though! 

I think some of the stand alone rat tail drive pedals have a clean blend to deal with this.

Edited by Al Krow
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