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Zoom B1 Bass Multi-Effects Pedal
With 13 different amp modeling and stomp box effects, 40 factory presets and 40 user presets, not to mention a tuner, the Zoom B1 is no average bass pedal.
Overall User Ratings (based on 17 ratings)
Submitted August 23, 2008 by a customer from iprimus.com.au
"Zoom B1. A great product. Just go and buy one."
I dont want lots of features and controls to confuse me. I just want a great sound without to much trouble. With the B1 just dial it in. I looked at the B2 but it had the same sounds with more parameter control. This is not necessary as the B1 provides plenty of variation if you want it.
Sound
I tried out the zoom B1 after being disappointed with some Korg machines that were noisey as hell. They were full of digital hashy fuzz.
The B1 is Quiet, no digital fuzz and no background noise. Brilliant.
The effects are excellent but overall I select either the Fender Bassman or the Tube Preamp sound. The drum sounds are great.
Features
You get a Tuner, a headphone amp, a Drum machine to practice to, a preamp, a chorus, a flanger, a echo unit and cool bassamp sounds for about US$50. It doesnt get any better than this.
Ease of Use
Read the manual and away you go. It only took me an hour or two to get familiar with the unit. It makes sense and I like the simplisity.
Quality
Even if it is a plastic case it seems pretty strong.
Value
Its a bargain. Great product for a great price. Dont even hesitate, go a buy one.
Manufacturer Support
Its only new so I have had to use the warranty
The Wow Factor
I will be able to use this with just a power amp and speakers. No need for a preamp as you can dial up a great sound.
Musical Background:
Hobbyist
Musical Style:
Rock
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Submitted March 10, 2009 by a customer from yahoo.com
"Throws "too good to be true" in the garbage"
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this will/is a vital part of my bass playing, and I doubt ill ever find anything else to replace it, its an amazing pedal, for an AMAZING price, and all in all, you must buy it.
Sound
well, this being my first pedal ever using, I don't know anything about the statistics or anything of the sound, I just hear "good noise, bad noise" and good god this is a amazing noise.
Features
this pedal would make (and has made) an awesome first pedal, it has pretty much everything a bassist could want, a built in drum machine really helps in my case, because our band at the moment is lacking a drummer =D but with the basic customization of your sound, theres always a new riff or solo poping in your head going "hey, I should play this with that patch"
Ease of Use
after reading the manual and messing around, it became like a part of me, Im still a little bit in the dark about what some words and symbols mean, and the "PLAY" button should be out enough to hit it with your foot, for those non-druming intros, but other then that, its easy.
Quality
at first, of course, I was skeptic about buying a plastic pedal, but all in all, but it's made of some really thick plastic, I doubt it will ever crack, snap, or break in any way unless your really trying to.
Value
i've looked at like, $300 pedals, and even more than that, and so far, this is the best pedal, for the best value i've seen by far
Manufacturer Support
havn't had to deal with the company yet, and I doubt ill have to
The Wow Factor
kinda like your first real relationship at first your kinda nervous about buying it, because "it's too good to be true" or "all the other ones have let me down" but once you have got it in your arms, and after your play and learn all of the patches, and beats, exc. you've realized that your in love.
Musical Background:
15 months behind a bass, 6 months in a band
Musical Style:
rock, heavy rock, metal, nu metal
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Submitted August 21, 2009 by a customer from hotmail.com
"So much for so little"
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It's not the ultimate bass station with tons of controls and footswitches to make life easy, but I don't think bass players need as many toys as guitarists anyways, they need tones to choose from. In this, it excells. It has all the toys a bass player could want, and makes home recording easy to get great amp tones they would never have been able to afford if it weren't for modelling. It's 50 bucks, and does so much. It's the only bass effector I need, and if mine died, I would buy another one just like it.
Sound
I really like a lot of the presets. It takes some time to program because the interface and display are not very intuitive. I had to set some of the levels different because some of the preset patches are much quieter than others, and I wanted to be able to switch without having to keep turning my volume on my amp up and down. Minor detail.
It only takes a couple minutes to edit a patch and just bring its master level up or down. The effects are fine, clear, good job there. The amp models are nice sounding but don't always sound like the amp they are supposed to emulate. Some do, other, while sounding good, don't sound like what it says it is. No big deal there, they still sound nice. I like that it has a lot of exotic, less used effects like the resonator, slow attack (I use that one a lot for ambient stuff), the synth, that wierd 'step' arpeggiator thing that zoom created, harmonizer... lots of wierd little effects to mess with if you like experimenting with ambience and wierd unnatural noises.
Features
It didn't come with an adaptor (grr I hate that!), and the drum machine, white cute, is hardly useful as an actual drum machine. I think of it more as a glorified metronome, or a jamming toy to mess around playing along with when you're bored
Ease of Use
Its easy to just cycle through the presets, but programming it is another story. Because of its limited display, and lack of many buttons, I have to keep my manual nearby when I try to program a new sound. I don't like that you have to just click up and down through patches, instead of selecting one first and then clicking to trigger it to change. It just changes the moment you hit one of the footswitches. I'm not sure, but I think there's a way to change the setting that lets you do that, I just haven't done it yet.
Quality
Well it's durable for plastic. The buttons and stuff are all designed to be knocked around a bit. You could drop it, but I wouldn't suggest dropping something ON it.
Value
Hey it has its flaws, but just for the sound quality, and number of posibilities it offers it's easily worth its price and then some, even if its not built like a tank, and a little awkward to program.
Manufacturer Support
I've dealt with Zoom before for other stuff, and they are cool.
The Wow Factor
I think small boxes that do lots of things are very desireable. I hate giant pedal boards.
Musical Background:
active musician, home recordist, proffessional studio and stage side jobs
Musical Style:
ambient, rock, alternative 'pop', singer-songwriter type solo work
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Submitted July 8, 2012 by Dennis B in Lady Lake, FL
"Love it - Great Sounds, Fantastic Value"
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I purchased the B1 after having used a G2.1u for quite some time. I loved the ease of use and sound quality of the G2.1u so I had no real doubt about the B1. I use it with both my bands and have been nothing but impressed with the sound quality from this small, unassuming pedal. I mostly use the Tube preamp and Hartke models and LOVE the tone this thing produces! The defret sounds great, too but adds just a bit too much delay for fast tracking.
Sound
Being in both a cover band and original world music style band this pedal can cover all the bases from AC/DC to Van Morrison to off the wall bass tones that make recording engineers ask "How'd you do that with a bass??!??" As some reviewers have said the amp models may not be 100% original, but seriously for the price and portability this pedal sounds incredible.
Features
I love the simplicity of 2 knobs with 2 buttons. Just select the type and level of an effect, tweak the depth/time if you want and you are set. The EQ on this little guys does an excellent job -- so much so I passed by Bass EQ pedal to the drummer to manage his Roland V drum tone.
Ease of Use
This little guy is painless to get a good sound from. You will want to have the manual available until you get used to the names for the models and effects, but once you have them down you are set. You can just setup your patches sequentially if you need a handful of tones for a single song - or you can change how the pedal changes patches to where you can pre-select a patch, then step activate your selection when you need to. Being a guitarist first, I am used to the press it and it happens now method so it just works out of the box for me.
Quality
I was very skeptical about buying a plastic pedal, but have been very impressed with how sturdy and solid the B1 feels.
Value
Just buy it. You can blow $50 just to cover shipping for some of the effects that come right out of this thing!
Manufacturer Support
I have not had to deal with customer support for any of my Zoom equipment, but I love that all of their manuals, even for older discontinued products, are available on their website.
The Wow Factor
Just plug this little guy in and you will get all the WOW you could ever ask for. I have even stopped using my bass amp and run direct to the board with this unit and have even more control over my tone that I did before.
Musical Background:
I play guitar, bass, saxophone, didgeridoo, tuba, hand drums of all sorts both professionally and for the sheer joy of it.
Musical Style:
Rock, metal, trance, campfire, acoustic, world, funk
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Submitted January 8, 2013 by a customer from gmail.com
"Great little thing for home recording!"
I bought this pedal to pump up my bass sound for my home recordings, and I'm very pleased with what I got! It's easy to use, cheap and has more effects than most bassist usually want. At first site, it might look weak due to its plastic composition, but its plastic is hard, so don't worry. A USB output would be welcome, in order to make things easier, but bass is very recordable via line-in input, so it's not such a worry. A 20 minutes learning curve will get you creating your own patches with no pain. Its tuner also works very well, even for the B string of a 5 or 6 strings bass.
You can check how fat it made my bass sound here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wny1fgoYvhg
Musical Background:
Dummer for 20 years, bassist for 8 months and guitarrist for 2 months only. I have played in several bands when younger.
Musical Style:
Metal and rock in general, but mostly metal.
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