Which multi effects pedal do you use?

[MichaelDean]

I love my GX-100! 

[pslh]

Another Zoom MS60B here; it's limited and imperfect but I don't see anything remotely close to being as useful in such a small and convenient package.  I also have an older Zoom B2.1u which is still the best headphone amplifier in the house.

I used to have a Korg Pandora mini which was very handy for practice away from home until it died from the dreaded MEMORY ERR.

[Matt P]

i'm a separate pedals guy but i've owned a few zoom multi fx in the past, i found i was only using maybe 3 or 4 patches and they were usually copies of each other with one extra effect turned on or off on each, so my current setup has only a handful of pedals with two that get used for certain songs and the other 3 as always-on pedals to get my tone, i've added an A/B box and my wireless receiver to the board and ended up with all i actually need on one easy to transport and setup unit.

 

the last Zoom pedal i had was the MS-60B,  it was a great pedal but i found that i went for a couple of months without actually using it so it got sold (it was part of my pedalboard and there is just a gap now)

 

Matt

[krispn]

On 16/04/2023 at 12:50, Al Krow said:

Long time multifx and Zoom fanboi: a Zoom MS-60B was my first ever bass pedal almost exactly a decade ago. Its successor, the B1-4 has been a super-handy standalone pedalboard for gigs over the past 18 months; but a new addition dropped through the door last week which I'm looking forward to getting to grips with.

 

Look forward to reading your opinions. One has come up locally but I’m not in a position to pounce until some pedals shift. This one has dual signal pathways right?

[Japhet]

Using a Zoom B1Four into a programmable Sansamp Bass Driver. Zoom does Tuner, Compression, Octave and a defret sound. Bass Driver does clean, crunch and drive sounds. Nice little setup on a small Pedaltrain board. I actually like the Zoom B3 more but it's just a tad too big to go on the board.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Japhet

[PaulThePlug]

@Japhet do you not use, or like the Zoom's Sansamp Bass Driver?

[Al Krow]

57 minutes ago, krispn said:

Look forward to reading your opinions. One has come up locally but I’m not in a position to pounce until some pedals shift. This one has dual signal pathways right?

 

Actually triple parallel paths so you can eg stream LF/MF/HF separately - I'm sure folk will be able to make use of that tri-band capability; plus a ridiculous 24 effects blocks, which should mean setting up whatever your favourite clean tone is and being able to use it on every patch if you want to, and then layer your fx on top. 250 patches should also allow a patch per song for most of us (I appreciate several BC folk will have an even larger repertoire than that) and then order the first 30 or so into a 2 hour set which can be easily scrolled through. Obviously there's a fair bit of work involved, but being able to copy and paste will certainly help and once the work is done presets are an absolute god-send for songflow. Just gonna need to see if I can persuade our guitarist to abandon his pedal board dance routine and go multifx now!

 

25 minutes ago, Japhet said:

Using a Zoom B1Four into a programmable Sansamp Bass Driver. Zoom does Tuner, Compression, Octave and a defret sound. Bass Driver does clean, crunch and drive sounds. Nice little setup on a small Pedaltrain board. I actually like the Zoom B3 more but it's just a tad too big to go on the board.

 

I've loved my B1-4; it's provided a lot of what I've needed as a simple one stop shop mini-board. And for the money it's incredible value - less than the cost of many single dedicated effects pedals. 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Al Krow

[krispn]

59 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

Actually triple parallel paths so you can eg stream LF/MF/HF separately - I'm sure folk will be able to make use of that tri-band capability; plus a ridiculous 24 effects blocks, which should mean setting up whatever your favourite clean tone is and being able to use it on every patch if you want to, and then layer your fx on top. 250 patches should also allow a patch per song for most of us (I appreciate several BC folk will have an even larger repertoire than that) and then order the first 30 or so into a 2 hour set which can be easily scrolled through. Obviously there's a fair bit of work involved, but being able to copy and paste will certainly help and once the work is done presets are an absolute god-send for songflow. Just gonna need to see if I can persuade our guitarist to abandon his pedal board dance routine and go multifx now!

 

 

I've loved my B1-4; it's provided a lot of what I've needed as a simple one stop shop mini-board. And for the money it's incredible value - less than the cost of many single dedicated effects pedals. 

I’ll have to take another look. 

[BigRedX]

18 hours ago, Matt P said:

i'm a separate pedals guy but i've owned a few zoom multi fx in the past, i found i was only using maybe 3 or 4 patches and they were usually copies of each other with one extra effect turned on or off on each, so my current setup has only a handful of pedals with two that get used for certain songs and the other 3 as always-on pedals to get my tone, i've added an A/B box and my wireless receiver to the board and ended up with all i actually need on one easy to transport and setup unit.

 

For me current bands I have a separate patch (with up to 4 snapshots) for every song. The other instruments in both bands use lots of different sounds (synthesisers or two guitarists both with multiple-effects pedals) for the various songs and the bass sound needs to change (even if it's only a slight variation in volume/drive/EQ) to balance the overall mix. 

 

And trying to to do what I do with Hurtsfall where I am playing Bass VI and switching between "bass", "guitar" and "synthesiser" sounds would be completely impossible without programmable multi-effects.

 

However even when I was playing with The Terrortones and essentially used a single sound (with a variation for more drive during the guitar solos) I still used my standard multiple-effects set up because I knew that I'd always have the right sound as soon as  I powered up my rig.

[Greg Edwards69]

On 16/04/2023 at 17:24, tayste_2000 said:

Absolutely pains me to say a Zoom MS60b

 

I’m going to change to a 70cdr because I keep running out of dsp.

 

But after years of avoiding Zoom it’s an incredible box.

 

Really really annoys my snobbery

Do what I did and use two of them! I had two on my old pedal board for processing both signals from Attitude bass, and sold them both when got my Helix. I kinda wish I had kept one now

[Rich]

Yet another MS60B user here. I love the fact that it does pretty much everything my beloved old Bass Pod XT Live did, in about 10% of the floor space.

Edited April 18, 2023 by Rich

[Greg Edwards69]

I've had several over the years, Zoom BFX708, Boss GT6B, Zoom B9.1ut, Korg AX3B, Korg Pandora PX4D, a couple of Zoom MS60B's, Line 6 M5 and now only using my Helix LT (I also have Nux Mighty Plug if that counts.

 

I've gone back and forth between multifx units and stomp boxes over the years, or building hybrid setups with both, and nothing has come as close to perfection (for me) as the Helix. It has the models I wanted (including the Pearce pre-amp), the routing options I required that can be changed at the press of a button and the global eq which is worth the admission price alone IMHO.

[SumOne]

I'm fickle with multi-fx. I've owned the Zoom (B1-four, MS-60B, MS70 CDR), Line 6 (Effects, Stomp, Stomp XL, Pod Go),  and recently the Boss GT 1000 Core. I think Zoom are the best value, Line 6 the nicest interface, Boss the most powerful and best sounding. 

 

Just as I've sold all my pedals I've joined up to a new band that uses a PA so am considering my pedal options again though (I've been using an MPC Key 61 as a Bass multi-fx at home - that might not be practical live though). As I'll be playing through a PA I think Amp/Cab sims and IR loader would be good, 2x inputs (keyboard and Bass) and a way of splitting the output signal would be useful - one to mixer and one to a monitor. It looks like the Valeton GP 200 is a relatively cheap contender, downside being it only has one input....the Boss I've just sold would probably be ideal so @Al Krow bear that in mind it you don't get on with it!

 

 

Edited April 18, 2023 by SumOne

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, SumOne said:

I'm fickle with multi-fx. I've owned the Zoom (B1-four, MS-60B, MS70 CDR), Line 6 (Effects, Stomp, Stomp XL, Pod Go),  and recently the Boss GT 1000 Core. I think Zoom are the best value, Line 6 the nicest interface, Boss the most powerful and best sounding. 

 

Just as I've sold all my pedals I've joined up to a new band that uses a PA so am considering my pedal options again though (I've been using an MPC Key 61 as a Bass multi-fx at home - that might not be practical live though). As I'll be playing through a PA I think Amp/Cab sims and IR loader would be good, 2x inputs (keyboard and Bass) and a way of splitting the output signal would be useful - one to mixer and one to a monitor. It looks like the Valeton GP 200 is a relatively cheap contender, downside being it only has one input....the Boss I've just sold would probably be ideal so @Al Krow bear that in mind it you don't get on with it!

 

Oh believe me, I love the 18 month sale or return (at full price) policy you seem to operate! 😅

[Al Krow]

PS @SumOne interested that you found the Boss GT 1000 Core to be the "best sounding", particularly given you've had quite a broad range of the popular models. Could you articulate for us what you were hearing with that multifx, that makes you give it such high praise? 

[ped]

I've been using my Roland VB99 for over ten years now I think (used the V-bass before that). Super happy with it, it's just as good as a multi effects/preamp/interface using a 1/4" cable and a normal bass as it is accessing the full polyphonic range and features with a GK3B pickup. It's got the best compressor and sound quality I've ever tried, certainly - although I daren't try a newer generation unit because I'm happy to leave well enough alone and I really like the form factor over a floor pedal unit.

[SumOne]

21 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

PS @SumOne interested that you found the Boss GT 1000 Core to be the "best sounding", particularly given you've had quite a broad range of the popular models. Could you articulate for us what you were hearing with that multifx, that makes you give it such high praise? 

 

It's very unscientific as I didn't have the others to directly compare it with, but I'm often after quite a specific tone (a slightly saturated low-mid heavy slightly compressed Reggae/Dub sound) and I found the Boss got me a tone I was happy with and I stopped adjusting it, with other multi-fx I've always been constantly adjusting and trying different things like IRs and never quite being happy with them. (As individual pedals, an FEA Opti-Fet compressor + Creation Audio Grizzly Bass + Q-Strip got me there too).

 

For more distorted sounds I get the impression that the Zoom and Line 6 things are basically different EQ & gain versions of the same thing, the Boss ones felt a bit more individual to me - closer to having individual pedals. I find most multi-fx are pretty good at modulation and delays so there isn't much in it there, and none are much good at filters (which is odd seing as Source Audio do it so well digitally, so it is possible).

 

I suppose the ability to have multiple split paths with dynamic switching and huge amount of fx available for long chains set the Boss apart as a more powerful multi-fx, most of what I'm after was simpler than that though - just a good solid Reggae tone, but perhaps that does actually take some powerful processing to sound really good. 

[pn_day]

HX Stomp for me (with an additional external unit housing 2 foot switches).

It's not perfect, but does a pretty good job, is small, stable, and works well once you've spent the time tweaking and setting up.

For me the parallel paths and global EQ were the killer features. 

 

Then again, I think the same might be true of any of the newest multiFX units.

Phil

[franzbassist]

Boss MS3 here.  I love it.  Once you get your head around the interface it's easy to use.  I have a bank of song-specific settings (e.g. "hooky", "bohemian", "boulevard") and then a couple of banks of single effect settings (i.e. chorus, overdrive, octaver etc.).

 

 

[BigRedX]

It would be interesting to know what people who have selected "Other" are using.

 

All the multi-effects I've owned other than those by Line6 would come under that category - Roland GP8, Peavey BassFex, Linn Adrenalinn.

[SamIAm]

Like some other BCers, I've played around with a number of Multi F/X units (Being a techie nerd, I've not gone down the separate pedal route).  Various Zooms (MS60-B, B1On, B1-Four, B1X-Four, B3) all great bang for the buck! Helix Stomp, HX Effects, HX Stomp XL, Boss GT-1B.  Several of these could be battery powered (or I moved them on if not) but my HX Effects was destroyed in my fire.

 

I've finally landed on the little known MOD Audio Dwarf. Not just F/X but also Synth, Looper (By Looperlative), Sequencer, Recorder, IR (of course) and recently Neural Modelling by AIDA-X.

 

I know only of three other BCers who have these amazing units, flabbergasted as to why it is not more widely adopted. It does only have a few hundred plugins and two audio in/out sockets, but the internal routing is insanely flexible ... as you can see from this pedalboard layout (MOD pedalboard layout is created using its built in web server)) by Steve Lawson (Tho he uses the Dwarf predecessor the MOD Duo).

 

With the addition of an external MIDI footswitch+expression pedal and a laptop battery brick, I now have a mains-less, compact and mind-blowingly powerful system that sounds great and does much more than I will ever need!

 

In my new band, it is our "Drummer in a Box" as well as my bass audio chain.  And there is still the option to "share" the second audio in/out + processing with a bandmate!

 

S'manth x

 

 

Edited April 18, 2023 by Smanth

[MrDinsdale]

I was thinking probably Darkglass are the other big player in multifx, i bet there  are a lot of ADAM and Proton users etc. 

[BigRedX]

I keep seeing people raving about the Mod Duo and Mod Dwarf, but their web site seems light on actual information for the casual browser. I tried to look at the Quick Start Guide but it's just broken links.

 

My understanding is that it is "plug-in" based, does that mean any VST compatible plug-in or do they need to be written specifically for the Mod? How many do you get free when you buy the device? I saw plenty of paid for additions but little information as to what comes bundled.

 

Most importantly for me will be how good the MIDI integration is. Can I control any parameter of any "pedal" using MIDI CCs? Can I map any MIDI CC to any parameter? More importantly are there any "pedals" that respond to MIDI note on and off commands? One of the few things that the Helix can't currently do without a lot of lateral thinking is sequenced filters and gates. The ability to have something like this and then trigger them from MIDI notes would be ideal for some of the things I'd like to do.

 

Unfortunately the big turn off for me is the lack of suitably robust connections for anything other than the audio inputs and outputs. MIDI on 3.5mm jacks and PSU input with no locking mechanism? No thank you. IME these make it unsuitable for real-world gigs.

 

And where could I buy one from? Looking at their international distribution page, UK is highlighted on the map but no UK distributor listed... very poor.

Edited April 18, 2023 by BigRedX

[SamIAm]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

I keep seeing people raving about the Mod Duo and Mod Dwarf, but their web site seems light on actual information for the casual browser. I tried to look at the Quick Start Guide but it's just broken links.

The tech is amazing, the community is amazing ... marketing wise they could do a lot better! Check out https://wiki.mod.audio/wiki/Dwarf_User_Guide

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

My understanding is that it is "plug-in" based, does that mean any VST compatible plug-in or do they need to be written specifically for the Mod? How many do you get free when you buy the device? I saw plenty of paid for additions but little information as to what comes bundled.

It is plugin based,

 

MOD use LV2, which is a linux based technology (similar to VST) and can be used in the MOD, Ardour, Claudia and a number of other linux DAWs/Apps ... the plugins that are available are mostly free of charge and can be viewed here (iI is possible to add more from other sources and it does not show the beta plugins available) ... pedalboard configurations that users have shared can be seen here and you can even have a play with an online version of their editor to play with here   There is also a very active forum here

 

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

Most importantly for me will be how good the MIDI integration is. Can I control any parameter of any "pedal" using MIDI CCs? Can I map any MIDI CC to any parameter? More importantly are there any "pedals" that respond to MIDI note on and off commands? One of the few things that the Helix can't currently do without a lot of lateral thinking is sequenced filters and gates. The ability to have something like this and then trigger them from MIDI notes would be ideal for some of the things I'd like to do.

 

Yes.  As an example, on my setup, you can go into the configuration for the compressor.

Click on any of the "vertical slider icons" and assign MIDI to it

 

You then use your MIDI device to send the message and the Dwarf recognises the CC message and assigns it to control that parameter.  You can tweak all the settings for a pedalboard and save it as a named "snapshot" (More than the three of the HX) and easily select them at gig time using footswitches, it is possible (using one of the plugins) to send a MIDI message when you load a snapshot (which is sub second) to reconfigure an external MIDI device as desired.

 

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

Unfortunately the big turn off for me is the lack of suitably robust connections for anything other than the audio inputs and outputs. MIDI on 3.5mm jacks and PSU input with no locking mechanism? No thank you. IME these make it unsuitable for real-world gigs.

Fair point.  It is possible (but not easy!) to get MIDI over BLE working, if you add a Bluetooth dongle to the Dwarf.  I've a passive USB hub on my rig and I connect my external MIDI footswitch (which also supports my TRS expression pedal->MIDI) using MIDI over USB ... some cable ties ensure it is solid.  I've yet to come across any pedal that has a locking power supply (But I've only a handful of years playing with this tech).

 

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

And where could I buy one from? Looking at their international distribution page, UK is highlighted on the map but no UK distributor listed... very poor.

Thomann is probably the biggest name selling them and the usual suspects for pre-loved ... I saw one go here on BC recently and I acquired mine here also.

 

Apologies ... I realise I'm banging on about them ... biased of course and they are not perfect, but they are really amazing yet sadly (IMHO) not widely known.  And at their price point they offer some stunning capabilities!

S'manth x

Edited April 18, 2023 by Smanth

[TheGreek]

Zoom B2 (plus a spare) for me.

 

I also have a Johnson J Station but I think that I've used it once.