Zoom B1-4 & B3N - Effects patch ideas and tips

[Si600]

Does anyone use any of the compression effects on the B3n? I'm wondering if there's one to replace my Nova Dynamics on there.

[Al Krow]

My little gigging pedal board with Zoom B1-4 very much at its heart! Couple of additional pedals for filter and synth which, together with pitch shift, tend to be weaker areas for many multifx:

 

Tip: I've recently found that layering a little drive pedal before e.g. the Xotic BB patch I've made** on the B1-4 is giving me a drive tone that seems juicer (apologies for the lack of a technical term!) than pretty much all of the bespoke dirt pedals I've had over the years (and I've had a few, haha!).

 

** My Xotic BB patch combines the following B1-4 sims: Demeter Comp --> Xotic BB --> SWR SM 400 amp, and has boosted bass to compensate for the low-end loss on dirt sims.

 

Edited October 5, 2023 by Al Krow

[Soledad]

Very good thread and thanks to @Al Krow - I asked about this exact thing a few months ago, not knowing this thread existed.
Amusing that one of the features of the B1-four is easier user interface 😂

Following some advice I found laptop editing is near-essential to get what is in these things out - I mean there's loads of good effects there but the pre-loaded patches are *** not my cup of tea*** and editing on the pedal is a dark art.

Super-cheap used - a huge toy cupboard for no money... every home should have one.

[Chienmortbb]

1 hour ago, Soledad said:

Very good thread and thanks to @Al Krow - I asked about this exact thing a few months ago, not knowing this thread existed.
Amusing that one of the features of the B1-four is easier user interface 😂

Following some advice I found laptop editing is near-essential to get what is in these things out - I mean there's loads of good effects there but the pre-loaded patches are *** not my cup of tea*** and editing on the pedal is a dark art.

Super-cheap used - a huge toy cupboard for no money... every home should have one.

Toy?

 

[Soledad]

1 hour ago, Chienmortbb said:

Toy?

 

>toy cupboard< - as in a single store of a lot of fun things to play with. Just an expression!

[Chienmortbb]

16 hours ago, Soledad said:

>toy cupboard< - as in a single store of a lot of fun things to play with. Just an expression!

You are excused. Its just that my other half always says, "You have another toy from Thomann/Andertons/Gear4Music" (delete as applicable).

[isteen]

On 05/10/2023 at 12:18, Al Krow said:

My little gigging pedal board with Zoom B1-4 very much at its heart! Couple of additional pedals for filter and synth which, together with pitch shift, tend to be weaker areas for many multifx:

 

 

** My Xotic BB patch combines the following B1-4 sims: Demeter Comp --> Xotic BB --> SWR SM 400 amp, and has boosted bass to compensate for the low-end loss on dirt sims.

Can you share the settings used for this patch?

 

 

On 05/10/2023 at 12:18, Al Krow said:

 

 

[Al Krow]

3 minutes ago, isteen said:

Can you share the settings used for this patch?

 

With pleasure - should have a bit of time next week.

 

[isteen]

4 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

With pleasure - should have a bit of time next week.

 

Thank you kind Sir ;-)

[Al Krow]

On 07/10/2023 at 13:10, isteen said:

Thank you kind Sir 😉

 

I tried it out in anger on Sat night and it was getting a little lost in the mix so I've given it a little volume boost and the nudged the treble up a bit to give it more presence. Here's the updated Xotic BB patch:

 

The individual sims are in order:

• Black Opt - Comp 35 Lo 80 Hi 40 Vol 50
• Bass BB - Gain 85 Bass 5 Treble 7 Vol 50
• SMR 400 - Bass 7.5 Treble 0.0 Gain 50 Vol 70 Mid F 160 Hz Middle 0.0 ENHNC 50
• ZNR - Detect GTRIN Depth 100 Threshold 30 Decay 0
• Patch Vol 40

Let me know what you think! 

[isteen]

Looks great Al Krow, I don’t have my Zoom here at Home at the moment, but I will give your patch a spin when I get the chance. Thanks mate

[DaleASmith]

Hi. Quick question for those who use an external expression pedal. 
Looking at the official effects list on Zoom website it seems you can only control 5 patches with an external expression pedal. 

This seems really limited to me. Am I understanding this correctly or am I missing something? 
thank you

[PaulThePlug]

^ More a Patch can contain up to 5 Effects, with 1 that can have the Expression Pedal applied to 1 of it's Parameters.

 

I think the B1on has more patches, and more effect's parameters that the EP can be assigned 

[DaleASmith]

31 minutes ago, PaulThePlug said:

^ More a Patch can contain up to 5 Effects, with 1 that can have the Expression Pedal applied to 1 of it's Parameters.

 

I think the B1on has more patches, and more effect's parameters that the EP can be assigned 

apologies maybe I didn’t explain very well. 
How many effects have parameters that can be controlled with an external expression pedal? 
Looking at the manual, it’s only 5. They are listed separately at the end of the effects list. 
I was thinking you would be able to control drive / EQ / filter parameters as well as the usual Wah / volume effects. 

[Al Krow]

40 minutes ago, DaleASmith said:

apologies maybe I didn’t explain very well. 
How many effects have parameters that can be controlled with an external expression pedal? 
Looking at the manual, it’s only 5. They are listed separately at the end of the effects list. 
I was thinking you would be able to control drive / EQ / filter parameters as well as the usual Wah / volume effects. 

 

Out of interest, which parameters would you look to control on drive and EQ?

 

Just checked my three fuzz pedals and none of them have expression input options. One of my two filter pedals does (but not the other). 

[DaleASmith]

10 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

Out of interest, which parameters would you look to control on drive and EQ?

 

Just checked my three fuzz pedals and none of them have expression input options. One of my two filter pedals does (but not the other). 

for example a shelved EQ where you can control the frequency with the pedal. So you start with just hearing the sub bass and slowly bring the rest of the frequency range in. 
Or controlling the drive / gain on a distortion patch 

Edited March 20, 2024 by DaleASmith

[PaulThePlug]

1 hour ago, DaleASmith said:

How many effects have parameters that can be controlled with an external expression pedal? 
Looking at the manual, it’s only 5. They are listed separately at the end of the effects list. 

Have a look at the B1Xon FX list...

Almost all effects have at least one parameter that can be EP assigned.B1on_FX.pdf

[DaleASmith]

Thanks for that. Seems far more flexible than the later models. 

[PaulThePlug]

Yep... same processor brains sampling as far as i remember,

100 patches A-J, 0-9, and 'Steerable' with ToneLib but won't work with the Zoom Software...

The supposed gains of the Four user interface v's half the patches and elements of use.

[Al Krow]

3 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

 

I always found the B1-Four to be quite noisy, noisier than the HX FX in general, but not so noisy you would actually hear it when gigging. Never even thought of the noise reduction as I assumed that was for external noise.

 

@Woodinblack - just pulling you onto this thread, as your point maybe of wider interest. If you still have a B1-4 then worth adding the ZNR sim to your patches - it's definitely part of the signal chain within your created patches.

 

I've got it on a pretty heavy duty ZNR setting and it does make a really positive difference.

[Woodinblack]

ok, will give it a try - I still have my zooms while I am waiting for my Dwarf to come back

[Al Krow]

While you're at it maybe give the Q-Tron filter a try out on it. Ok so it doesn't match my new all time favourite (EBS IQ) dedicated filter pedal, but it's not bad! 

[Al Krow]

Finally got around to creating some bespoke preamp patches for each of my two gigging basses on my B1-4, instead of relying on a generic one size fits all set of preamp patches (clean, motown, presence), which suited one much more than the other.

 

In addition, one of the basses has higher output pups and has benefited from having the Zoom noisegate (ZNR) sim at both the start and end of a patch signal chain.

 

I guess using one of our band PA active speakers (RCF 912A), as my home rig, rather than having a separate practice rig has been a helpful nudge, as I'm getting to hear something a lot closer to my live bass tone but, even so, it's taken far too long for me to get around to making use of this obvious preset capability of a multifx!

 

Edited May 26, 2024 by Al Krow

[Al Krow]

Any of you using the B1-4 as a headphone amp?

I've been using mine with a decent pair of over ears and finding the headphone preamp pretty boxy/harsh. Global EQ to the rescue: bass boost +25/50 mid cut -15/50 treble roll off -10/50 and voila, much nicer!

YMMV!

[Al Krow]

Has anyone figured out what the three global EQ centre points are on the B1-4? The manual doesn't seem to offer any clues.