Multi-FX Pedal with a Decent Octave-up?

sunbeast · #1 12-19-2007, 12:49 AM

I've been contemplating purchasing a bass multi-effects pedal. One must is a good octave-up effect. Others +'s would be a decent bass wah, octave-down, a decent (preferably long-ish) delay (looping would be nice too), reverb, and the ability to use the octave up and wah effects in conjunction with a built in overdrive effect...

Some possibilities (don't know for sure that these have what I'm looking for, but they are in a decent price range and seem to have decent reputations for the most part):

Zoom B2.1U
Line 6 Bass POD XT

Anybody have any suggestions or comments about these or other possibilities? I'd prefer to keep cost to around $200 or less (used is ok).

Thanks,
Karl

Oreomeister365 · #2 12-19-2007, 12:55 AM

This may be a tad expensive (maybe not used though) but I've had a boss ME-50B for 3 years now and imo the octave pitch shift setting is actualy particularly nice. At first I thought it maybe sounded a little funny but after hearing the blue bass whammy among other things it actually sound pretty good. I thought the harmony octave up sounded funny, but then I heard a real bass whammy and again, its funnyness is heard across the board it would seem..

Combined with a little dist (the Me-50B only has acouple good dists imo though) it sounds pretty awesome and some of the digitalness of the effect goes away. The metal setting is my dist of choice and almost always use it with whammy. It keeps a respectable amount of low end and get go anywhere from some grit to accentuate a tone to a full out lead.

Beyond that I think the flanger and delay and similar effects stand out. Delay can get really long, I mean, I've never had an individual delay pedal but I don't know how much better one can be than the other...beyond how long it can delay...

The auto wahs are a little funny to me, and they either sound too out of wack or like they don't sweep the note enough. I've probably messed with them less than any other of the effects though.

The chorus ain't bad. It's not as thick as a real pedal, but it gets the job done fairly well.

If you want I could easily post some nice sound clips (going direct to PC) of the various features, I just have no idea how one uploads sound clips to teh interwebs.

EBMan · #3 12-19-2007, 10:05 AM

I can't recall all the DigiTech BP200's features but it's actually a pretty good pedal. I think people are put off by its $150 price and by the general opinion many have of DigiTech. I owned several as well as the Boss GT-6B. I liked the Boss better but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the BP200 (if it has the octave up.) And some may laugh, but I liked the BP200's and the GT-6B's wah pedals better than the various Dunlop wahs that I have owned. I think both are a little lacking in the distortion/overdrive area. Both have acceptable chorus, delay and reverb. The BP200 doesn't have a loop feature. The GT-6B's loop feature is so short as to be essentially useless for most situations. Both require the AC adapter to run. The newer Boss units can also run off of batteries which can be very nice at times.

bigchiefbc · #4 12-19-2007, 11:39 AM

I owned the BP200, and it was my only pedal for a couple years. I would agree with the previous post that its distortion/overdrive settings are weak, but all of the modulation effects (phaser/flanger/delay/reverb) are quite good. The whammy feature is usable, but not as good as the dedicated whammy's. The wah is pretty good

squarewave · #5 12-19-2007, 11:51 AM

The Digitech Expression Factory does much of what you indicated, but not all. It has the added bonus of including expression-pedal control on all effects. It sounds good too.

Tomass · #6 12-19-2007, 07:32 PM

For the money the Zoom B2.1 is sweet. The octave up on that is very good, as are the Delays on it. Id recomend it.

dunce180 · #7 12-19-2007, 08:30 PM

The zoom also has a USB out on it so you can record stuff on your computer.

CraigG · #8 12-19-2007, 09:06 PM

+1 for the B2.1u. My experience has been that the octaves up track better than the octaves down, though it still won't keep up if you play too fast.

gr8brand1n0 · #9 12-19-2007, 11:21 PM

I'm gonna go ahead and second the ME-50B. Considering the fact that it's around 100 bucks cheaper than almost anything else with a good octave setting, it gives a pretty good result. Especially in conjunction with distortion/overdrive. The octave down is even better than the octave up, which can sound a little fake when clean. I used to use the octave-down whammy occasionally and the octave-down pedal quite often, with the basic distortion setting or metal distortion.